Here’s Part 2 of my Sendai trip! We had one full day and one travel day back home left, and we really just took it easy. Really, the theme of this trip.
5th: My boyfriend was originally interested in going to the Miyagi Zao Fox Village, but after giving him the details and finding out that it’d not only take 1.5 hours but also theere’s a tight timing window, we decided not to go and not do a whole lot of serious sightseeing this trip.
Unfortunately the one morning that I remembered that Sendai Morning Market is not a seafood market (I had also wanted to visit one, but after seeing they all take 40-50 minutes and I have some local ones in Hokkaido I decided not to waste my time), Google says that they aren’t open on Sundays. Poo, losing out on more local street food.
Instead, we waited for 11 to roll around and grab lunch. The Miyagi and Tohoku coast are supposed to be known for oysters, and though we wouldn’t be heading out directly to the coast, I found a very cute shop specializing in oysters. I ordered a kakidon set, my boyfriend got the combination fry set, and we asked the lady for a recommendation on an additional raw oyster (there were four to choose from!). She ended up recommending the Hirota oyster. Luckily, my set came with a raw Yamada one, along with some cucumbers, an egg cake, sweet shrimp, soup, dipping sauces, and the kakidon, which had cooked oysters simmered in a sweet and savory sauce.
My god were the oysters big. I’ve never seen oysters this large in my lfe. They were very plump, and I’ll be honest, I couldn’t really taste a difference between the two. They were both a bit sea briny, but also juicy and super soft. The don was good, with the oysters by themselves being pretty rich with sauce, but with rice paired well.
Since the oyster restaurant was close to the boba shop I went the day before, we decided to get boba as our post-lunch dessert as we made our way back to city center. Unfortunately, Kouchousan was closed for whatever reason, so I guess their hours on Google must be wrong. They also don’t have an updated website or anything anywhere, so I couldn’t go back to try more of their drinks…Instead, we decided to get boba at the station.
On our way there, after stopping by a Super BookOff, I had discovered a local Taiyaki shop on Google Maps that seemed to have recently done a sakura Vtuber collaboration, and had sakura treats, including a sakura filled taiyaki (taiyaki seems to be a local Sendai thing). As of a week ago, the sakura collab was still around, but when we got there, there was no sakura taiyaki to be found…Out of our dissappointment that there was no sakura, we left, for a different taiyaki shop. Apparently, Taikichi is famous in the area, and what was particularly unique was that they offer zunda filled taiyaki! Very Sendai. They were also offering black sesame filled taiyaki, which apparently is only offered on the 5th, 15th, anf 25th of every month. I’m not a black sesame girlie though. We also picked up a strawberry whip cold taiyaki to try.
The zunda one was very nice! Still warm from being freshly made, with a slightly crispy exterior to a fluffy and chewy interior. There was plenty of zunda paste, kind of chunky, and also some mochi balls inside. We at the strawberry one later, and to our surprise, the taiyaki part was very chewy, almost like a mochi texture. The inside was as expected, a bit of strawberry jam with fluffy whipped cream.
We passed by Ringo, an apple pie specialty store in the station, and I couldn’t not get one. They had a couple of interesting flavors, including a limted time blueberry one, but I just went with the classic.
Although not right-out-of-the-oven fresh, I was surprised by how flaky it was when I got it. Buttery, crispy, with actually a decent amount of apple pie filling.
We really wanted our boba at this point, so we went on a search for Bull Pulu at the station, the boba I got in Sendai last year. It was not in the B1 location it was last year despite Google telling me it was still somewhere in the station, so after a bit of other Googling and looking at the map, we finally found it on the second floor. Good thing it still existed though. Read about my boba here!
After that, we did some casual souvenir shopping in the station, and then went back to the hotel to chill for a bit and start packing because we would be leaving the next day.
We didn’t really have dinner plans, and I had done all of my food bucket list items already. When dinnertime rolled around, we headed to Iroha Yokocho, an alley that’s filled with izakayas andwe chose one that looked appealing (neither of us were super hungry at the time). We ended up going for Moja, a yakitori place located on one of the entrance edges. They do have a 440 seat charge, and a one drink per person, so my boyfriend got a coke highball, and I got an oolong tea (330 yen). They do give you a complimentary thing of raw cabbage with sauce though.
All the skewers were pretty good, but I did order the cherry tomato wrapped in pork belly out of curiousity. That one worked very well, with a slight burst of tomato juice and the tender pork. Rest of the skewers were pretty standard (tasted good!), tamagoyaki was soft and juicy, and I especially enjoyed the atsuagge, with a crispy exterior skin and ultra soft, jiggly tofu inside.
My boyfriend headed back to the bar, and I took a casual stroll back to the hotel. I debated stopping by a dessert place or grab some ice cream, but I held back, and just took a soak when I got back.
6th: We woke up early in the morning because I wanted time to get ready to prepre to leave and also in case anyone else was crowding the airport, since it was the actual end of Golden Week. Our flight was at noon, and we ended up leaving around 8:30, and arriving at the airport around 10. First, I went downstairs to the arrivals floor and got some boba from an unexpected place, Pronto. Read about my boba here!
After wandering all the souvenir shops and browsing the restaurant menus, I figured out a couple things: I wasn’t in the mood to eat a full meal at a sit-down restaurant by myself (my boyfriend wasn’t hungry), and there are no Kirby Miyagi keychains even at Sendai airport. If it’s not even at the airport, where the heck in Miyagi does it exist? Sendai airport is not big at all (probably a bit smaller than New Chitose and a bit bigger than Hakodate), and easily walkable and explorable within 20-30 minutes. With nothing else pre-security, we headed for our gate about an hour early.
Along with some smal souvenirs, I bought a beef tongue nikuman and an onigiri as some small eats. They’re really milking those beef tongue products…The bun was pretty good, fluffy and super warm bread covering a filling of some kind of crunchy vegetable and small cubes of meat. I thik the problem with beef tongue in this form it tends to be sort of tough, as the cubes just stayed as they were. Very chunky filling. The onigiri was similar, with tiny chunky chewy beef tongue cubes inside a rice ball with seaweed cut out to look like Sendai’s mascot.
Our flight was a bit past noon and for about an hour or so. A Sky Time juice later, we were back in Hokkaido. By the time we were back in Sapporo proper, it was around 2, and I was feeling like something healthy, light, and soupy. These criteria were pretty much spot on to an ochazuke spot near the Akarenga Terrace bus stop. I got the yuba and pickles one with small rice because I didn’t need to eat a whole lot, but it wasn’t until later that I realized that no matter the rice size the price would be the same for small, regular, or large. I should have just gotten a large then… Each ochazuke comes with a pot of dashi, 2 sides, and pickles.
Overall everything was pretty good, and also had a very nutritious-ish and nourishing feel to it. I am not a huge wet rice person, but I did find their broth to be very nice and soothing.
We then chilled for about an hour until the bus at 4 to go home! I know this wasn’t a super comprehensive what to do in Sendai trip, but if you’re a foodie, you might find these places helpful!
This time we stayed at Hotel Mayflower Sendai. It’s about 20 minutes walking from the station (to be honest, I thought it was 10, but oh well). It’s a bit of a run down one, definitely not upkept and modern, but it does have all the basics. All of the staff are super nice, there’s a free drink machine in the lobby, and most interestingly, they have a public bath! It’s not a huge one by any means, with only 3 shower stalls and a bath tub the size of my actual bathroom, but I was pretty surprised to see one. I’d say it’s worth the money if you’re on a budget!
This was Part 2. Part 1 is here!
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