10 Best Local Dishes from Sendai

If you visit the famously romance-enhancing Jogi Nyorai Saiho-ji Temple in Aoba Ward, Sendai City, make sure you try the equally famous triangular aburaage (deep-fried tofu). The freshly made aburaage sold at Jogi Tofu Shop on the street running in front of Saiho-ji Temple is a classic example of the traditional method of using soybeans and natural nigari salt solution.

Take a bite of fresh twice-fried aburaage and you’ll get a crispy edge followed by a juicy flavour explosion. Aburaage tastes best when served with garlic shichimi (blend of 7 spices) and soy sauce poured on top hot from the fryer, but you can also take it away as a souvenir and it’ll still be pretty tasty.

Gyutan (beef tongue) is definitely top of the list when it comes to gourmet foods in Sendai. The history of grilled beef tongue dates back to the hard times just after World War II, when the owner of a yakitori (grilled chicken skewers) restaurant in Ichibancho, Sendai City, developed a beef tongue dish seasoned with salt and pepper.

Today, more than 100 restaurants in the city of Sendai specialize in serving grilled beef tongue in a wide variety of styles, including versions with miso and tare (Japanese sauce) flavours. A good entry point is to try a popular beef tongue set menu including rice cooked with barley, asazuke (lightly pickled vegetables), and oxtail soup.

Shiroishi umen (warm noodles) is a dish of 9-centimetre-long hand-rolled noodles traditionally eaten in Shiroishi, Miyagi Prefecture. The dish is said to date back to about 400 years ago, in the Edo period, when a dutiful son living in the castle town of Shiroishi developed non-oil-dried noodles that were easy on the stomach for his sickly father.

Shorter than somen (Japanese fine white noodles), umen takes less time to boil and is easier for children and the elderly to eat. While somen is often eaten cold in the summer, Shiroishi umen can be enjoyed hot or cold all year round.

The people of Sendai love sea squirts, also known as sea pineapples, which are delicacies found off the Sanriku coastline. Sea squirts in Miyagi Prefecture are caught from May to August every year, but they’re at their best in July and August.

Long eaten in the Tohoku region and Hokkaido, sea squirts go well with sake when served fresh as sashimi or in vinegared dishes, but highly recommended in Sendai, the home of sea squirts, are flavour-rich steamed sea squirts, sea squirt tempura, and sea squirts on rice.

Seri (Japanese parsley) is often eaten as one of the "7 herbs of spring", and seri nabe is a local hot pot dish that makes this herb the star of the show. Seri freshly harvested in the morning is combined, roots, leaves, stalks and all, with duck and chicken.

This dish is so popular with the locals that at izakaya pubs in Sendai, seri nabe featuring ne-seri (seri roots) harvested from September to March is pretty much a constant on the menu. Having said that, seri nabe is most typically associated with the winter. Seri has been cultivated since the Edo period, and it’s best enjoyed in Miyagi Prefecture, which is the largest producing area in Japan.

Harako-meshi is a local dish in which a rice bowl mixed with ingredients cooked with salmon broth is topped with a generous helping of salmon and salmon roe. The salmon used in this dish are natural autumn salmon caught from autumn to winter. Tradition has it that Date Masamune, the lord of the Sendai Domain, ate the harako-meshi presented to him when inspecting the river construction at Watari Arahama, and apparently he couldn't get enough of it.

You can find this dish at izakaya pubs and Japanese restaurants throughout Sendai, and it’s also popular as an ekiben (a boxed lunch sold on trains or at stations).

Sasa-kamaboko (bamboo-leaf-shaped fish paste) is one of Sendai's most famous delicacies. It’s said that sasa-kamaboko originated in the early Meiji era, when huge catches of flounder were landed off the coast of Sanriku, with people mincing the fish meat, moulding it into the shape of a bamboo leaf, and then roasting it to preserve it. When grilled, it takes on a really distinctive fishy flavour.

If you want to buy it as a souvenir, head to the area around JR Sendai Station where you’ll find many popular kamaboko shops. Grab some at the end of your trip and you'll be able to take it home fresh.

If you want to try the seafood caught off the coast of Sanriku, Miyagi Prefecture (one of the world's 3 largest fishing grounds) at its freshest, try sashimi. In Sendai, you can enjoy ocean-fresh fish and seafood as sashimi or kaisen-don (rice bowl topped with sashimi) at Shiogama Seafood Wholesale Market in Shiogama City, which boasts the largest catch of raw tuna in Japan, and at Matsushima Fish Market in Matsushima Town.

One of the top choices is the sashimi of Kinka mackerel, which gets fattier and more delicious from autumn to winter. Kinka mackerel is one of Japan's famous branded fish varieties that can only be caught in the waters around Kinkasan Island off the Oshika Peninsula.

Pacific cod caught off the coast of Miyagi Prefecture is in season from January to February, its delicate flavour making it a popular ingredient for nabe (hot pot) dishes, but its shirako (soft roe), also known as kiku, is an even more precious ingredient.

If you want to try dishes using shirako that go well with Japanese sake, head to an izakaya pub or a sushi restaurant where you can taste local sake. Shirako with ponzu (soy sauce mixed with citrus juice) is a classic dish, as is tsufu nabe (a hot pot dish named after gout, of all things), which combines various rich ingredients such as shirako tempura, shirako, monkfish liver, and oysters.

Zunda-an, made by adding sugar to smashed boiled edamame (soy beans), is a simple local dish that’s been popular in Sendai for a long time but has only recently become nationally famous. Zunda mochi (rice cake covered in sweetened mashed green soybeans) is one of Sendai’s most popular delicacies, right up there with sasa-kamaboko (a bamboo-leaf-shaped fish cake) and gyutan (beef tongue).

It’s generally believed that the word zunda is a corrupted form of zuda, which refers to "bean-mashing". With its rich edamame flavour, zunda-an is used not only for Japanese sweets, but also for European classics such as Mont Blanc.