Wineshark Nice Hotel Experience - Shiretoko Daiichi Hotel (Utoro Onsen)

This hotel is located in Shiretoko, near the far eastern tip of Hokkaido. The Shiretoko is famous for its natural beauty, and is one of the remaining few places where there is not much development and the national park actually having a walkway where you would be able to see quite a number of wild animals. Now it is also a World Heritage.

The hotel is big, with three wings (East, West and Shizen). We have booked the Japanese Style Royal Suite on the Shizen Wing, which can accommodate a total of 7 people, more than 1,000 sq.ft in size. The entrance has a mini stone garden, and after changing your shoes you can see three big rooms.

Since there are only the two of us, the right living room  is set up as a Japanese-style living room, with the low table and chairs. The floor is covered with a nice rug. If you have more people this will also be converted to a bedroom at night.

In the middle is a western-style living room, where there are carpets and sofas, with the windows looking out at the sea. But there is also a cemetery which for some may be a bit scary, so we also didn't open the shutters often as well.

On the left is the other Japanese-style living room, and this one is set up as our bedroom. Overall the design is nice, not particularly luxurious or awe-inspiring like other ryokans we stayed, but comfortable and clean.

A bit surprising is the size of the bathroom. It was rather small particularly considering the room can accommodate 7 people. Only have one toilet, and bathroom may not be convenient for a family. The bathtub is having normal water and not hotspring, so you would need to go to the public (or private) bath to enjoy the onsen.

Being a big hotel the public bath needs to be huge, and this hotel has really got that. A big pool with big windows looking out to the sea and the town, we came quite early on the day so the place was pretty quiet and I had a good time going to the different pools to enjoy. There is also a sauna room and an outdoor pool too.

For dinner we had booked the Japanese restaurant instead of going to the big restaurant for buffet. The special kaiseki includes a aperitif, followed by appetizers of abalone, masu salmon, and flounder which are very fresh. I like the original flavors these seafood offered and the chef had truly highlighted those wonderful tastes on the dish.

Then we have the sashimi, including the rare and expensive wild salmon that is only available May to July, as well as the shark flounder, a type of flounder that are very big in size, around 70cm long. The texture and freshness of these sashimi again was phenomenal, and really reinforced the place being one of the best source of seafood in Japan.

Next is a type of fish that we are now more familiar kinki, which is cooked in sake sauce. The fish is a specialty in Hokkaido, this one being caught in Abashiri, where the best kinki are known to come from. The flesh is very tender, and the sake sauce is light but enhanced the sweetness and flavors to another level. The Japanese leek also added a freshness and delicate note to the fish. A great dish in my opinion.

The next course is a soba, and the texture alone allows you to say that it is freshly-made, with a good bite and the soba sauce perfectly seasoned. Adding the wasabi and leek then adding extra flavors and the carbohydrate certainly brought us a sense of satisfaction.

Then we have a braised pork, with tender bamboo shoot, vegetable and potato. The pork is juicy and soft, but I like the bamboo shoot more, as it has a fresh fragrance and so tender you won't feel any fiber in chewing.

Then comes the steamed egg with crab meat. The name is fuwa fuwa which means the egg is fluffy and it really delivered that. The egg is soft and airy, with the delicate crab meat taste seeping into it.

Close to the end of the course, we have the rice, served with salmon roes, pickles and miso soup. The rice is always an important part of the kaiseki and I also normally can tell how good the restaurant from the quality and attention of this dish. This one certainly scored a high mark. The rice has some salmon flakes, adding a bit of seaweed to further adding the flavors. The salmon roes are nice, marinated but not overly salty, and even the pickles are great complements.

For dessert they have made a swan-shaped puff, with a nice cheesecake and a sorbet to clean the palate. It is a great conclusion to the whole meal and honestly I am impressed by the quality of all the ingredients.

After the meal and some rest, we then went to the private family bath which we had booked earlier. It had a fee but the pool is very big also. The setting is a bit mediocre however but the staff has tried her best to communicate with us in English which we feel bad not able to understand. But overall it was a nice bath and relaxing.

With a good sleep we went to the big restaurant for the buffet breakfast. It had a wide choice of food and everything was decent, and I particularly like the pickles and some of the marinated seaweed, which are really tasty and in fact I tried to see whether I can buy some back home.

For the stay the cost is 63,530 yen and considering the special room we are having, the great meal with all the expensive and great ingredients we are having, it has a very good value for money. The service may not be comparable to a ryokan but everything is professionally managed. A good place to stay if you come to explore Shiretoko.

My overall rating is 6.8/10.