The Foodie’s Guide To Build The Perfect Nokke-Don In Aomori

If you are a true foodie traveling to Japan, you know the best food experiences are rarely found on TikTok. Leave those long lines for the masses. There are so many unique food experiences that you can find by just venturing out to less-traveled places, like Sapporo, Hakodate or Aomori.

Take the kaisen-don or chirashi-don, both variations of a simple concept – fresh seafood on rice. The quality of the fish and seafood is extremely high in Japan, no matter where you go, so for those visiting Tokyo, I can tell you that waiting 2+ hours in line for the “famous” Tsujihan is unnecessary and overhyped. Is it good? Sure, but you’ll find many comparable and even better places without having to queue.

Which brings us back to Aomori, the Gyosai Center or Furukawa Fish Market, and its Nokkedon. For seafood lovers, this experience is like a fun mini food adventure, where you buy a set of tickets and walk around to different stalls and choose toppings to build your own custom seafood bowl.

What Exactly Is A Nokke-Don?

The word “don” means bowl in Japanese, so you’ll find it at the end of words like katsu, gyu, oyako, and kaisen to make katsu-don (crispy fried pork cutlet rice bowl), gyu-don (grilled sliced beef rice bowl), oyako-don (steamed chicken and soft-cooked eggs rice bowl), and of course the kaisen-don (fresh seafood rice bowl).

Nokke-don translates to “bowl with toppings” and that’s literal translation for what you have come to the Aomori Gyosai Center to do – build your own bowl with different toppings.

How Does The Nokke-Don Concept Work?

When you enter the market, head to the ticket counter and pay ¥2000 yen for a set of 12 tickets. Additional tickets can be bought for ¥170. You’ll head to the nearby rice stall and exchange your first ticket for a tray and a bowl filled with rice.

From there, it’s up to you how you want to “spend” your tickets. There are three rows filled with upwards of 60 stalls. Each vendor will showcase different seafood items on offer with prices. Most items will cost 1 ticket, but some premium things like uni (sea urchin), toro (tuna belly) or hotate (scallops) will cost 2 or 3 tickets.

When you find what you like, the vendor will carefully place it into your bowl, and take the proper number of tickets. At the end, you’ll use all 12 tickets, and have your own custom seafood bowl.

I’ll tell you this, building your own Nokke-don is so much more fun than staring at a kaisen-don picture menu and trying to figure out the difference between each bowl.

Come hungry, because you’ll have to eat everything there. For health reasons, you can’t take the food off the premises. I finished everything, so it wasn’t a problem.

In fact, since I was staying at the ReLabo Spa&Stay hotel just a 5 minute walk away, I came again the next morning to do it all again.

How I Built The Perfect Nokke-Don

So here’s my bowl. There’s even more seafood that’s hidden underneath and in the end, I ran out of space and had to keep some items out of the bowl. The bowl had everything: several types of tuna, salmon, salmon roe, shrimps, scallops, sea urchin, tamago egg, and more. All of this for just ¥2000, which was about $13.

It was so fresh and delicious, but I will tell you that most bowls won’t be this plentiful without buying extra tickets. So manage your expectations, but here’s how I did it.

1. Control Yourself

First off, exercise some patience and do a walk-through of the entire market to see what’s on offer. The market is not that big, so it shouldn’t take more than 5-10 minutes to do this. You’ll also find stalls selling seafood that you can take away.

2. Build Your Base

Keep a mental note of your must-have items. For me, I was looking for uni and shrimp. And obviously, I was going to have tuna and salmon as a base. The hard part of choosing between the many selections of both. I always find tamago in my chirashi bowl, so that had to go in there too. The rest I left to whatever caught my eye during the rounds.

3. Be Friendly

The vendors are “competing” for your business, but it’s not like walking through the bazaar in Marrakech. Everyone is so polite and friendly. I found myself complimenting every beautiful spread of seafood. I also asked whenever I wanted to take a photo. When I found something I liked, my enthusiasm was obvious and sometimes, they would give me an extra piece. Don’t expect this though.

4. Look For Deals

Sometimes, one piece of tuna could cost a ticket and sometimes, I can get a little “tray” of salmon and salmon roe for 1 ticket as well. Sometimes, you can get two pieces instead of one because they are not as “pretty.” In other words, you can find deals. For example, I love negitoro, or minced tuna and I spotted some trays with fattier cuts that were scraped from closer to the belly. I chose this instead of one piece of toro for 3 tickets.

5. Go Later In The Day

The best time to go for the freshest fish is in the morning. The market opens at 7 and closes around 4 pm, but some stalls will have finished before that time. I was returning from an amazing overnight stay at the Sukayu Onsen, so I arrived around 2 pm.

A couple of vendors were ready to close for the day and I’m guessing wanted to do so quickly. While I was looking, they offered some higher priced items for just one ticket.

One man started putting on a couple extra pieces. I appreciated the gesture, so after going through the stalls, I returned to spend the last of my tickets. He made a display of putting even more extra pieces to finish off my bowl. I wasn’t going to stop him.

Once you finish building your bowl, grab a complimentary cup of water or tea at the self-service machines in the market, and find any seat at one of the tables. It’s not fancy, but it will be a fun and unforgettable food experience.

This is number #1 on my curated list of things you have to do in Aomori. Like the famous Toyosu Tuna Auction in Tokyo, it’s one of those foodie bucket list experience that you should not miss.

Looking for more travel inspirations? Scroll through some of the 450+ experiences on my bucket list. Maybe you’ll find your next adventure on there.

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Updated on November 16, 2024