The restaurant was conveniently located along gyutan dori (a row of beef tongue restaurants) in Sendai Station. The convenient location and reasonable prices were factors that drew us to this place. We stopped by here for a late dinner after a full day of activities and sightseeing.

The restaurant was pretty small with somewhere around 10 or so counter seats. The counter wrapped around the grill in an L shape. All the seats had a great view of the kitchen and charcoal grill. It was nice to be able to see the gyutan being cooked right in front of us.

Gyutan Yakisuke Menu

The menu had many options to choose from. They had set meals at affordable prices and a build your own option as well. The build your own option was great if you were looking to save a little money and take out things you either didn’t want or need.

We ended up going with a four piece set meal and a special Yakisuke set. The set meal came with four pieces of gyutan. One unique thing about this restaurant was that the gyutan came in two different flavors. They were salt and Sendai miso. We got the mix option which came with two slices of each flavor. It also came with a bowl of barley rice, a bowl of oxtail soup, and some pickled vegetables. The only difference between the set meal and the Yakisuke set was the addition of a small bowl of either the beef tongue stew or the beef tongue curry. We decided to try the beef tongue curry.

Gyutan Yakisuke Food Review

For me the gyutan (beef tongue) was a bit of a disappointment. The meat was a little chewy and hard to bite cleanly. I could have just been unlucky, but three of the four pieces I ate were like this. I was starting to think that I’ve been spoiled with my previous gyutan experiences. In the past, the gyutan meat was so tender that it could be cleanly bit with no extra effort. The meat was seasoned well though and we enjoyed both the salt and Sendai miso flavors.

The curry was surprisingly quite spicy. I’ll be the first to acknowledge that my spice tolerance is close to zero. However, the curry was quite spicy, to the point where it was almost unenjoyable. The meat in the curry was very tender and easily broke apart.

The oxtail soup was good. It had a light salty flavor, that kept us wanting more. The meat inside the soup was equally as tender as the meat in the curry.

The pickled vegetables might have been the MVP of the meal for me. Their slight sour taste really helped counter the spiciness from the curry and made the rest of the meal tolerable.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I’d say the meal was good, not great. The gyutan was chewy and the curry was a bit spicy. The positives were that the pricing was reasonable and its location was very convenient. If your looking for a positive gyutan experience, I’d say look elsewhere.

Here is a link to their Instagram.

More to Come…