I spent long weekend #2 of Golden Week 2024 in Sendai! Yes, Hakodate and Sendai are the two places I stopped by with my family from the trip we took last year from Tokyo to Hokkaido, but I didn’t spend nearly enough time there as I would have liked. Plus, my boyfriend has been to neither, and since he’s coming with me, it makes for a better excuse to show him around and explore with him.
May 2nd: This year, the holidays fell from May 3rd to 6th, with the 6th being a technicality because Sunday is a holiday. We booked our flight for 11 on the 3rd, so we decided to stay the night on the 2nd. We stayed at the same hostel as the last time, Plat Hostel Keikyu Sapporo Sky. My boyfriend headed out for Sapporo earlier to do his usual routine, and I left right after work on the 4:45 bus.
I had been meaning to try out this tea izakaya for a while now, so right after getting off the bus, I headed straight for the shop. Nendo actually has a sister shop, Tsumiki, which offers many of the same items, but some of the options are slighty different. I chose to go to Nendo this time around because I wanted to try one of their specialty donabe rice pots.
First, since they specialize in tea and matcha, I wanted to get one of their lattes. Now, this is totally on me, but I got excited reading the menu, and thought they have a strawberry matcha latte (ichigo matcha latte). First the waiter gives me a matcha latte, to which I go, “Where’s the strawberry?”, and he brings out the strawberry tea latte, to which I go, “Where’s the matcha?” Turns out, the strawberry matcha latte doesn’t exist, and I mistakenly thought there was a “ma” between the “ichigo” and the “cha”. If I had to pick one, I would have just gone with the matcha, but they were super nice about it, and let me keep one free of charge, the reasoning being the rest of the food I ordered would take a while. Speaking of, I got the Duck matcha soba, and the Domestic Beef and Truffle Donabe Rice. The waiter explained it might take a bit because the soup needs to heat up, and the donabe would take 40 minutes as indicated on the menu. The donabe rice is actually each meant for two people, but I was hungry, and assured him I could finish everything. Before I get to anything else, I just want to say the donabe is listed at 1078 yen on the menu, which seems like a good deal (with a stipulation that the serving size is for 2 people). However, I noticed that they charged me twice, which I realized is probably because it’s for two people. Unless I read the menu wrong, it’s really misleading…
Anyway, the lattes are actually really good, and I’d highly recommend. They’re a bit sweet, and have a really nice balance between the milk and the latte flavor. Both are a bit light flavor-wise, but also super smooth and really, just really good lattes. The soba took quite a while, and contrary to what I was told, the donabe took closer to an hour…
The soba itself was ok. I was excited for the matcha soba, and though I know matcha flavor cooks out in these types of things, I didn’t even get anything at all, probably because the soup was so incredibly salty. Duck was nice and tender though. Perhaps the other soba dish would have been better? When my donabe finally came out, it looked incredibly beautiful! It came with a pot of tea so I could make ochazule to my liking. Though I’m not a wet rice person, both with and without the tea were very nice. It was indeed an oily dish, but I do enjoy a good crispy rice (tasted like Rice Kripies cereal!)
At the end I got a free matcha ice cream filled monaka!
I would have gone back to the hostel at this point, but for one thing, the key was with my boyfriend since he had checked in earlier. I headed to the bar he was at, and spent a bit of time there until they closed at 11:30. They have a cover charge of 1200 yen, and a one drink order every hour you’re there. I don’t drink alcohol, but I didn’t want to spend money on overpriced normal softdrinks, so I asked for a custom mocktail. The end result was a mixture of strawberry syrup, calpis, and grapefruit juice.
I’ve heard many things about this bar, but overall it was a pretty cool and cozy atmosphere, with American comics and posters and figures plastered about everywhere. The drink was not bad, though mostly tasted of grapefruit juice.
3rd: Our flight was at 11am, but in the case that people were also traveling over the long weekend, we wanted to get there early to have time for waiting in lines. A little before 9am, there weren’t too many people, yet. My boyfriend wanted his usual airport ramen at Ichigen (which would open at 9), but I felt like it would be a bit heavy first thing in the morning, and opted for an onigiri from Ginshari instead. It wasn’t super filling, and I didn’t want to just sit at Ichigen and order nothing, so I also got a gyoza from there.
The onigiri was super fresh, with soft rice grains that easily fell apart, and a bit of wet seaweed. As for the filling, there were quite a bit of actual whole scallops in there, covered in a sweet and savory sauce. Gyoza was fine, crispy bottom, but otherwise pretty standard Japanese gyoza.
We went to go shop at the souvenir shops because we had time, and I was searching for these Hokkaido town cards I saw before. I found them, along with some other things…
Our flight was pretty smooth, and I will promote this until the end of eternity, but absolutely get the Sky Time Juice on Japan Airlines. Otherwise, nothing to note about this baby plane flight. The seats were really nice.
After landing, we made our way to the hotel to drop off our luggage for the time being, and headed out to get lunch. We had a dinner reservation at 5, and if we ate too much at 2, we would be too full for later, so I opted to go try this tuna bowl specialty place. I had heard that Miyagi prefecture was known for tuna, so here’s to the start of a weekend of specialty foods. The menu is basically all different variations of tuna bowls, so I just got their #1 recomended Yamamoto Special Pickled Sauce Bowl, and my boyfriend their mayo one. The bowls are kind of basically poke bowls, but what’s even more funny is that they literally have poke bowls on the menu (that come with avocado).
It was really good, and pretty well worth it I think. There were a ton of chunks of fresh tuna, topped with sesame seeds, onions, and green onions, and furikake on top of warm white rice. Surprisingly, I didn’t mind all the onions, and the sauce was light but flavorful.
We spent the rest of the time just wandering around the local shops in the shopping street, as we made our way to the Sendai Animate (yes, we’re those people). On the way, we stopped by the main store of Abe Kamaboko to grab some fresh fishcake. Fishcake is a generally big thing in Japan, but in particular, fishcake on sticks is a big Sendai thing. To be honest, I was only there for the fresh fishcake, but little did I know that the line out the door was for a different fishcake, and that the fresh fishcake is actually a grill-your-own experience. Nonetheless, if you see a line in Japan, there’s probably something up. Turns out, hyoutanage is a Sendai street food, basically fishcake dipped in a batter and fried. They liken it to corndogs for Americans. They were selling a limited seasonal green one with some kind of grass mixed into the batter, but I just went for the normal one, with ketchup.
Honestly, aside from the small fishcake filling, calling it basically a corndog is pretty accurate. The batter tastes super similar to a corndog batter, though crispier upon bite, and adding the ketchup doesn’t help with the similiarity, ha! The fishcake is pretty obvious in the middle though. As for the grill experience, they advise about 5 minutes on one side until it turns brown, then 3-4 on the other side. It was hot (obviously), and super fluffy and chewy in the middle, with the outer skin separating from the inside. Taste-wise, it was a fishcake.
We spent the rest of our time in the Animate building, browsing all of the merchandise shops until our dinner reservation came around at 5.
Now, because we were in Sendai, I wanted to eat some Sendai beef (tongue is a separate thing for later!), and after narrowing down some bbq restaurants, I went with a reservation at Yakiniku Gyujin Ichibancho, that’s supposed to specialize in all Sendai aged beef. Because our reservation was a bit on the earlier side, I figured we could just do a bunch of a la carte ordering and not eat a whole lot. Actually, how can you not eat a whole lot of gorgeous meat?
The vibes were immuculate, and we got a private room where we had to take off our shoes, and a waiter knocked every time they came in. The serving plate was quite interesting too, with built in divets for the sauces. Unsure of what meats to get, I decided on getting a meat assortment, the premium one (the 2nd of 3 tiers), and since that one didn’t have any tongue, their recommended tongue assortment, a namul assortment (for the veggies!). and a Morioka cold noodle. I got a mango juice to drink, and my boyfriend a banana sour.
The mango juice was super good, almost a bit thick and creamy-like, and rich with mango puree flavor. The namul assortment was pretty standard, but I did like them all and really provided a refreshing taste to all the meat. We both enjoyed the cold noodles, with the bouncy chewy texture and light broth, accompanied by some apple and cucumber slices. What’s interesting to note is that their menu had both Korean cold noodles and Morioka-style; usually a Japanese barbeque places only has “cold noodles”, and it’s the usual Japanese rendition (which I think is Morioka style). I didn’t ask, nor did I have a reference photo, but something tells me the Korean one is probably the more traditional thin buckwheat one.
The problem with the tongue assortment was it was 3 pieces per cut when we had two people, but we made it work. I liked the variety between different cuts, with a thin one, a thick one, and one from the bottom of the tongue covered in a green onion sauce. The thin and thick were classics, both great in their own way, but I wasn’t a fan of the third, for the super chewy fatty reasons. Luckily the green onion sauce wasn’t too noticeable once cooked.
As for the main portion, the assortment came with a premium version of galbi short rib, loin, skirt steak, red meat (no idea what the actual name of this cut is), a yakiniku “shabu” cut, and some vegetables. The short rib and the loin tasted pretty similar (ie, fatty and super melt in your mouth), and were recommended to cook to medium. The skirt steak and red meat were recommended to well done, and the red meat had the most beefy flavor to it, while I think we agreed the skirt steak was probably the best balance between meat flavor and fat marbling. As for the shabu cut, they said we could cook to our liking, but it was so thin, that it instantly melted and cooked as soon as it touched the grill. Just a touch on both sides and it was ready, and it also just melts in your mouth into nothingness because of how thin and marbled it is. I am not regretting getting the meat assortment at all, but I chose the second tier over the first one because although the cuts were pretty much the same in the two, the premium one well, had premium versions of each of the cuts, and I thought that for a bit more per person the experience and quality would be better. That said, everything other than the skirt steak and the red meat were pretty much meat-flavored fat, that I momentarily wished I had gotten the tier down (I cannot imagine how the highest tier would be like). Don’t get me wrong, it tasted amazing and I loved the experience, but the fatty to meat balance was a bit overwhelming at times.
My boyfriend found an anime song bar, where it’s all-you-can-sing anime songs, and he’s been into visiting bars lately, so we headed over after dinner to go check it out. I got a couple things off the non-alcoholic mocktail menu. If you’re into anime and drinking, this is the place for you, with a ton of decor and cozy vibes. I was not a fan of the loud group next to us and the smoking in the place, and the seats hurt after a while, so while my boyfriend went back the next two nights, I didn’t. Perhaps it was also the fact he wanted to stay for 6 hours that did me in. He did order a snack plate which had pretty good assortment of chips on it. Oh, and their cover charge is 1200 if you don’t get the all-you-can-drink.
The drinks were not bad. The Pussycat mainly tasted like some kind of slightly sweet citrus concoction (being made up grapefruit, pineapple, orange, and grenadine), and the Grenadine Milk was well, a pink, slightly sweetened milk. I wish I didn’t need to get another, but I was kind of forced into getting another drink when they saw that my Pussycat was almost done. Bar life is not for me.
4th: Today was our first full day in Sendai! Our goals were mainly to finally get beef tongue, do some more shopping, and well, eat more Sendai things.
Now, there’s a ton of beef tongue around Sendai, but between my last trip and this one, I did my research, and knowing that realistically we would only eat one beef tongue this trip, I went with Gyutan Issen. It’s pretty highly rated, and hasn’t turned into a chain (not saying chains are bad, but I liked supporting the small businesses!). They apparently open at 11, so we headed over to hopefully beat any potential line. Actually when we got there, there didn’t seem to be any sort of line at all, so we kind of loitered outside the building (the restaurant is located in the basement down a set of narrow stairs), until 11 neared. I didn’t want to make a line on the stairs since some employees kept walking up and down them, so we just stood outside, inevidently forming the line ourselves. Someone came out to tell us we could wait inside, and then I felt dumb. There were already a ton of people inside the restaurant at seats just chilling and waiting there. Luckily we were seated at the counter, and they would take orders in order of being sat down. I was fine with a normal tongue teishoku advertised as a mix of tongue, but my boyfriend was curious about the Toro Tongue, which is supposed to be more tender than a normal one, so we got one of each to share. Turns out, we waited about an hour for our food. All while watching the chef grill all of the tongue right in front of us.
To be honest, I didn’t quite think there was a huge difference between the toro and the normal set at first. They both had a similar texture and flavor (Issen really likes to pepper their tongue), but as I kept eating, I did notice that the toro was consistently super tender, not too chewy, meaty and thick, whereas the normal set had some more tender pieces, and some toughter pieces, some thicker ones, and some more thin ones. The barley rice was pretty good, and their tail soup was quite the ideal tail soup with super tender chunks of meat.
After a very filling lunch, we went to go see the local Pokemon Manhole with Lapras on it celebrating the Star Festival (Sendai is known for Tanabata in July). Lapras is quite the local Pokemon, as the local bus is Lapras themed.
We ended up just doing more shopping, as we headed back to the Animate to finish off what we didn’t see yesterday, stopped by a general toy store and bought some Snorlax goods for my mom, and in my quest to find the Miyagi kirby keychain, found that Loft Sendai was doing a Kirby pop-up shop. The pop-up shop had a very similar setup and offerings as the one in Sapporo did a while ago, but the campaign art was flowery instead of snow Kirby.
We were thirsty, which made for a perfect opporunity to grab a Zunda Shake while we were near the station. For some reason Sendai is all about zunda, or mashed edamame bean paste, and a huge specialty is turning it into a shake. It actually works surprisingly well I learned last year, and we had to get it while we were there. Learning frm my mistakes, I got a regular instead of an excella because I didn’t need the extra whip cream, and I got the mochi too so I could taste it in its truest form.
The shake was as good as I remember it, being super creamy and thick, but having that slightly edamame beany flavor. The mochi came with three blobs covered in zunda paste, along with salted seaweed and cold green tea (as opposed to hot tea). The paste was super chunky, but also somewhat creamy with the zunda bean flavor, and paired very nicely with the super soft and sticky mochi. I know the salted seaweed is suppsoed to contrast the sweet mochi, but it really was too salty.
We heard about a Pokemon Store campaign at the store in New Chitose Airport, so we went to the local Pokemon Center in the Parco next door. Turns out, the campaign is a bit different than we thought, and there was such a wait to get in that they were doing ticketed entry times, that we just went to browse elsewhere.
I had read somewhere that another Sendai local-ish specialty is sankakuage, or fried tofu in the shape of a triangle. I had searched up some places in the area that offered it, and found an izakaya with a small, but promising menu. We ordered some chicken stock oden items, some skewers, sankakuage, raw oysters since we were in Miyagi, and I wanted to try the miso onigiri, and my boyfriend wanted to try the beef tongue mapo tofu yakisoba. They also gave us a free cup of warm dashi at the end!
Everything was pretty good! The oden items were nice and light, skewers were pretty classic, and I like that it came with some miso sauce to add to your liking. I think this was my first raw oyster actually, and I enjoyed the experience! It tasted very clean and not to briny. The sankakuage was also pretty good, but all in all, it is just freshly fried crisp tofu in the shape of a triangle (I heard it’s so it actually fries faster) with some seasonings on top. I had ordered the yakionigiri because I’ve never seen one on a menu that’s been coated with miso, and all in all, the fluffy rice on the inside contrasted really well with the crispy sweet and salty outside, but at times, the outside was a bit too salty. I quite liked the broth at the end, as it was almost refreshing, and very mushroomy.
After dinner, we parted ways so my boyfriend could go back to the bar and I could go get some evening boba. Read about my boba here!
And then I returned to the hotel to soak in the hotel public bath.
The night we stayed in Sapporo we were at Plat Hostel Keikyu Sapporo Sky again, but instead of a double room, we had a bunk room. It was ok, pretty much the same layout as the other one, except a bunk bed. Pretty clean.
That’s Part 1! Part 2 is here.
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