From one to ten?
Maybe ten!
Ten!
In one word - one English word - how would you describe it?
Justice delicious!
That’s two words!
Justice delicious!
That doesn’t even make any sense! Justice delicious!
Justice delicious!
Japan is home to arguably the finest cuisine in the world.
If not for the fresh, high quality ingredients,
and super disciplined chefs, then certainly for the meticulous artistic presentation.
For some reason though, despite making videos about Japan for four years now,
I’ve barely made any videos about Japanese food - which is ridiculous.
It’s like going all the way to Mars and not bothering to take a selfie.
(Space tourism will look like this).
But that’s all about to change - a few months ago, I entered a competition called Tohoku 36
a competition where the winner would be funded to travel around the northern region of Tohoku for one month,
and film and document all of the region’s best food.
I thought it was a really good chance to show you guys Japanese food,
so I entered the competition and a few weeks later I found out that I’d won it.
I don’t really know how, although let’s face it,
it was probably my radiant smile.
So I’m putting my diet on hold - again
and I’m about to begin my journey.
So I’ve got my big purple suitcase.
I’ve got my radiant smile.
What are we waiting for - let’s go!
See you later.
The first thing I need to do is get a car as travelling by train for a month will be a little bit inconvenient and a little bit too expensive.
So I’ve turned to Japan’s cheapest second hand car rental service to get the job done.
Because these are second hand cars that are like 5 years,
prices are a lot cheaper than you'd normally pay.
So for 12 hours for this it’s 2,500 yen, usually it’s 9,000 so it’s a lot cheaper.
Please be careful.
I’m always careful!
Away we go then!
The first prefecture on my grand trip around Tohoku is Miyagi prefecture; the place I call home.
We’re kicking things off in Sendai, so it makes sense to start things with the local dish of Sendai
- Beef Tongue.
So it’s arrived and we’ve got a small pile of cow tongue here.
It looks very oily and this is quite the heap.
We've got this, we’ve got the rice, we’ve got some wasabi which goes really well with the cow tongue.
And we’ve got some ox tail soup.
But before I try it with anything I like to try it on its own.
Very oily, very chewy,
but very good.
Gyutan has typically less fat than most cuts of beef, giving it a remarkably lean and chewy texture.
It comes accompanied with oxtail soup.
And in this restaurant it also comes with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump socks up on the wall.
So this is the local food of Sendai but when I asked my Japanese friends in Sendai how often they eat it,
they eat it about once a month.
So it’s not a common everyday kinda food.
It’s still something you have every month, maybe every three weeks or so.
And I eat it about once a month
- guilty pleasure.
After enjoying my pile of beef tongue under the watchful eye of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump,
I headed over the coastal town of Ishinomaki
- a port town, that recently become popular as the gateway to cat island,
the infamous island drenched with cats about a 40 minute boat ride from the coast.
The town of Ishinomaki is full of life size comic characters,
to commemorate local artist Shotaro Ishinomori,
who holds the guinness world record for most comics published by one author.
His dream has been to create a town where people were exposed to manga comic book characters in their every daily lives
- and his dream lives on with 20 full scale cartoon characters dotted around town.
I’ve come to Ishinomaki to try Ishinomaki’s local variant
on one of Japan’s simplest but most filling dishes - Yakisoba.
So the Yakisoba in Ishinomaki is famous for being a dark brown colour
- usually it’s more of a yellowy colour.
And when you pick it up all the noodles are stuck together but here, they’re not at all.
It’s quite weird - it’s my first to have it
It’s a little bit weird for to pick up the noodles and see all the noodles are separate from each other.
And the secret is to steam them twice apparently.
Yakisoba literally translates as fried noodles.
The fried noodles typically come mixed with bite sized pork, cabbage and salt and pepper with a side of shredded pickled ginger, called Beni Shoga.
with a side of shredded pickled ginger, called Beni Shoga.
Ishinomaki Yakisoba uses brown noodles and the noodles are twice steamed, so the usually sticky texture of the Yakisoba is absent.
The secret to making Yakisoba taste even better is Yakisoba sauce
- it’s kind of a sweet sauce.
Because Yakisoba is a little bit salty and there’s not much flavour beyond that.
But with Yakisoba sauce, it’s a whole new ball game.
It’s very sweet now.
It’s the sort of dish that goes down well with alcohol - not that I’d know –
and it can also be conveniently grabbed in a sandwich for people on the go,
looking to stuff their faces with fried noodles in a sandwich.
God that was awkwardly phrased.
In the evening I caught up with my good friend Ryotaro
in one of Sendai’s best bistros to try yet another Miyagi regional specialty.
So when you’re in Miyagi, you need to try Oysters.
Oysters? Why oysters?
Miyagi has been producing the best Oysters in the whole of Japan.
Really?
So this restaurant is the place you need to come when you’re in Miyagi.
Why this place?
So their signature dish is Oyster vagge.
The Oysters - the grilled Oysters - come in five flavours.
This is cheese.
This is chilli powder.
This is cocktail sauce with bacon.
This is garlic butter.
And this is Escargot butter.
Very juicy isn’t it?
Very very juicy.
This really is straight out of the sea.
That is very nice.
In the south of Miyagi lie the mountains of Zao, home to the attractions such as Fox Village,
a giant fox enclosure hidden away in a forest.
Just a few miles down the road from Fox village, there’s even a cheese factory selling all manner of cheese related products.
From hard cheeses to cream cheeses, there's even an experimental arrange of make-up and soap containing cheese whey.
This is soap made out of cheese whey. Cheese whey is in it.
I love to rub cheese all over my face.
I’m stopping off at a small chain of restaurants specialising in using fresh, locally sources eggs from Zao,
The chain is called Mori no Mebuki Tamagoya, which literally translates as the sprouting forest egg cafe
and it’s home to probably the best Japanese omelette I’ve ever had.
The dish is called Omuraisu, on account of it being half omelette, half rice,
with the soft fluffy omelette draped perfectly over the pile of rice,
and bathed in a demi glazed sauce and beef stew.
In just one scoop you can taste the fluffy texture of the egg, the rice soaked in the rich meaty demiglaze sauce, and the succulent chunks of beef.
It’s really is to die for.
-And then to come back to life and to eat it again.
I don’t know what they did to those eggs, but that was beyond fluffy.
One thing’s for sure.
That was eggcelent.
Eggcelent.
Anyone that knows ramen, knows the best ramen can usually found at small independently owned and operated ramen shops.
However Sendaiko is regional ramen restaurant, exclusive to Miyagi that has some of the most delicious, richest tasting soup, that I’ve found in my time in Japan.
The soup is so good.
It’s very thick and it tastes a lot like gravy.
When it comes to ramen the most important thing is the soup. I like a nice thick soup.
This is called Kotteri.
There are two kinds of ramen soup, there’s assuri and kotteri.
Assari is transparent, it’s usually quite thin. But I prefer Kotteri, I like a thick soup as it has lots of flavour.
Only thing is after this I’ll feel quite tired.
After I finish this I’ll probably just collapse in the street.
My only advice is don’t drink it all, unless you want to completely destroy your health in one fowl swoop.
So those are 6 local foods worth trying, the next time you’re in Miyagi.
But which one would you like to try?
And do you like to rub cheese all over your face?
Let us know in the comments section below.
In the next part of our trip we’ll be visiting Iwate prefecture
where I’ll be catching up with Natsuki at an incredible steak restaurant.
Justice delicious.
Trust me. Trust you.
You could be a great food reviewer.
Trust us!
Trying my own hand at cooking. God forbid.
I’m really really tired. I’ve only had 5 hours sleep
and I’m cooking the last supper
-what seems like the last supper given the scale of it.
Bloody hell. There must be a better way than this.
This is like an infomercial for a cooking device that stops you from getting burnt to pieces by oil.
And befriending a real life American person.
I do think Americans are more polite than British people sometimes.
Yeah.
And friendlier.
Definitely friendlier. A lot of British people aren’t very friendly though are they.
No we’re horrible. Absolutely horrible.
Many thanks for watching guys, I’ll see you next time.