"Gatatan" is a local delicacy from Ashibetsu City, Hokkaido, that was featured in a Google app commercial and quickly gained attention. What kind of dish is it? We will introduce you to some restaurants in Ashibetsu where you can enjoy delicious Gatatan!

In the commercial, when the characters for "Hanto-tang" were searched on a smartphone at a Chinese restaurant, it was displayed as "Gatatan" and the dish was introduced. This triggered the name Gatatan to spread throughout the country.

"Gatatan" is written in Chinese as "甘多湯" (hump soup), which means "soup with a lot of ingredients" in Chinese. The basic style is a salty Chinese soup containing dumplings, various vegetables, seafood and other ingredients, thickened, and finally topped with beaten eggs.

Photo courtesy of Ashibetsu City Board of Education, Hoshi no Furu Sato Centennial Memorial Hall

The origins of gatatan can be traced back to when Murai Bungonosuke, who moved to Ashibetsu from Manchuria after the Second World War, started serving it at his Chinese restaurant, Koraku, after adapting a dumpling called gada, made from wheat flour or potato starch mixed with water.

Photo courtesy of Ashibetsu City Board of Education, Hoshi no Furu Sato Centennial Memorial Hall

Although it is a soup, Gatatan is packed with ingredients. It also contains dumplings, so it is filling, and the lightly salted soup is thick and warms up a cold body. For this reason, it was loved by coal miners who did heavy labor. It was originally served at "Koraku", but because it was so delicious, it spread throughout Ashibetsu city as a home-cooked dish.

After that, as the coal mines declined, gatatan also went out of fashion. However, in the Heisei era, volunteers came together to protect the local flavor and revived it! Nowadays, many variations of gatatan have been created, such as gatatan ramen, gatatan fried rice, and gatatan yakisoba. Each restaurant has its own specialty gatatan, and the fact that you can enjoy a variety of variations may be one of its charms.

From here, we will introduce some recommended restaurants where you can enjoy Gatatan in Ashibetsu City!

1. Shinhoraiken: Specializing in dumplings

The orthodox "Gatatan Soup" is made with dumplings made from a blend of several types of flour and plenty of ingredients. It's low in salt, but you can still taste the deliciousness of the ingredients. It's great on its own, or with rice!

2. "Hokahanten," a long-established restaurant that knows the origins of Gatatan

The specialty here is "Gatatan Ramen"! The noodles are filled with chewy gada, and the delicious gatatan soup mixes with the noodles for an exquisite collaboration. You can enjoy the deep flavor.

3. Roadside Station Star Plaza Ashibetsu Restaurant La Fleur: Where you can try a variety of gatatan

At La Fleur, where the ceiling is like a planetarium, you can eat Gatatan Ramen, as well as a wide variety of other menu items such as Gatatan Yakisoba and Gatatan Fried Rice! You can enjoy a different Gatatan depending on your mood that day.

4. Experience a new kind of gatatan at "Kuidokoro Kakikukeko"

If you're looking for a new take on gatatan, we recommend "Kakikukeko," which serves "stone-grilled gatatan"! The gatatan is served piping hot and contains rice, which goes perfectly with the soup. The key point is that it contains tteokbokki, a Korean dish, instead of gada. We recommend finishing off the meal by mixing the scorched rice with the soup for a crispy yet creamy texture.

"Gatatan", a specialty of Ashida that was once loved by coal miners, will warm your body and mind and make you feel happy. There are as many variations of Gatatan as there are restaurants, so try comparing the different varieties at different restaurants and find your favorite one.