On a regular afternoon, I drove towards Nakashibetsu like in Crazy Taxi, but it was already past 1:30 PM. I thought it might be too late for lunch in Nakashibetsu, so I decided to stop by a place along Route 243 in the Nibetsu district. This area is where the boundaries of various towns intersect, so I pondered whether it was Shigeo Tokachi Town, Shari Town, or maybe Betsukai Town or Nakashibetsu? It seems to be Shari Town. If you're coming from Nakashibetsu, the restaurant is located at a T-shaped intersection where the road splits towards Shari and Kushiro or towards Shigeo and Akanko, so if you've been in this area, you've probably seen it. I asked a few local residents about this restaurant, but no one had been there, and the information I got was about relatives having Self-Defense Force members or the building having caught fire in the past. There was no information about the food, and even the business hours and days off were unknown. It was 1:40 PM, and there was a group of four people speaking in Kansai dialect as the first customers. The restaurant has a deep and spacious interior, with plants and tall partitions making it hard to see the whole place. There are probably around 20 seats, including a raised section on the left side of the restaurant. On the right side, there is a long counter, but it seems to be used for coffee and store supplies, not for single diners. The cooking area is managed by a woman in her 40s, while a seemingly disabled woman resembling Jabba the Hutt sits near the counter and doesn't move much. The menu is on the top of the ticket machine, but in a place with such low turnover, I wonder why they have a ticket machine. The prices are quite high, with rice dishes costing over 1000 yen and a confusing variety of options. The "delicious pork bowl" or even the "small pork bowl" are also over 1000 yen, and it's hard to gauge the portion size. Feeling unsure, I decided to go for the pork cutlet bowl. It arrived in about 10 minutes, with a side dish of pickles, but I didn't need the soy sauce. The quality of the pork cutlet bowl was good in terms of meat quality and how the egg was cooked, but in terms of value for money, it was disappointing. After finishing my meal, I quickly left, declining the offer from Jabba to have coffee. The sign outside welcomes Self-Defense Force members, so it might be a comfortable dining place for them. It's a commendable thing for the country. Thank you for the meal.

On July 19, 2014, we stopped by a restaurant near Lake Kussharo to have lunch before boarding a boat. It is located along the national highway with a spacious parking lot. We purchased meal tickets and ordered the pork bowl even though we weren't sure what we wanted to eat. The food was neither good nor bad. Thank you for the meal. The address was written on the chopstick wrapper as Nibetsu, Shinhidaka Town, phone 01548-8-2371.