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Niseko Soup Curry Worth the Journey

Niseko is full of tourist traps. Finding good, affordable food is a challenge. This is the first in a series on Niseko restaurants that are actually worth your time. Let’s start with one I’ve been eating at for a decade: Tsubara Tsubara, Niseko Soup Curry.

Getting here is not simple. From Singapore, it’s a seven-hour flight to Tokyo. Then a 90-minute domestic flight to New Chitose. From there, you can take three trains over three and a half hours, or a private car for two and a half hours if you have the means. Finish with a 30-minute bus ride and a 30-minute walk. The restaurant is tucked away in Izumikyo, off the main Grand Hirafu stretch. It’s a journey.

The dish is hokkaido soup curry. If your only experience with Japanese curry is the thick, sweet gravy served with katsu in Singapore, this will correct you. Soup curry is a Hokkaido specialty, born in Sapporo. The base is a savory broth, much like a good ramen stock, but infused with a complex mix of spices that lean towards Nepalese or Indian profiles. It’s a curry you can drink.

The bowl arrives loaded. A fall-off-the-bone chicken drumstick anchors the dish. It’s surrounded by a collection of perfectly cooked vegetables. Maitake mushrooms, lotus root, and burdock are flash-fried, giving them a crisp edge that holds up in the soup. Then there are the softer components: a soft-boiled tamago, okra, carrots, and potato, all soaking up the broth.

You choose your spice level, from a mild 0 to a potent 10. You choose your soup base, original or a richer coconut version. You can add more toppings. The control is in your hands.

Is this even Japanese? Yes. It’s a dish that feels like East meets West. The technique is Japanese – the precise cooking of each vegetable, the clean broth – but the soul of the dish is a global conversation of spices. It is a crazy find, and it has remained consistent for ten years. This dish shut me up for a moment.

This specific taste is not available in Singapore. Not yet. I’ve heard that the Ki-setsu Group, the people behind Sushi Masa by Ki-setsu, are opening a Sapporo-style soup curry restaurant in Q4 of this year. We will have to wait and see if they can capture the same spirit. If you want a sense of the kind of standards they are already working with on the Japanese omakase side, start with this RubbishEatRubbishGrow’s guide.

For now, if you want the real thing, you have to make the trip. For food in Niseko, this is a non-negotiable stop. It’s worth the journey. Trust me.