Sunday, November 13, 2011

Sandaime-Bunji - Grilled Beef Tongue

The best beef tongue I've ever had was in Sendai, at a restaurant called Rikyu at the Sendai JR Station.


Even now, I can remember how springy yet juicy and succulent those slices of grilled beef tongue were. And how they went perfectly with the tororo and mugimeshi (rice mixed with barley) rice. And the clear oxtail soup was flavourful and went perfectly with the thin slices of leek. Yum yum!


So I was really happy to know there is a place in Singapore that serves grilled beef tongue Sendai-style.

Sandai-Bunji is opened by Abezen Shoten Co Ltd, a major Kamaboko (Fish Cake) manufacturer from the Miyagi Prefecture of Japan (of which Sendai is the capital of).

So it isn't surprising that the restaurant specialises in oden. However, oden AND beef tongue is a pretty odd combination.

We ordered a gyu-dan (beef tongue) set (about $26) and a lunch set of the day (on the day we were there - it was a stir-fried beef set at just $9). We also added a 3 piece oden set.

The best dish of the day was stir-fried beef. It was perfectly seasoned and tasted really good. At $9 instead of its usual $23, this was a steal.



The gyu-dan wasn't close to what we had in Sendai. But it wasn't bad. It was pretty well flavoured, I just thought it was a little too thin and slightly overcooked.


The oden had a clean clear broth which I immediately liked. However, I didn't fancy the 3 oden pieces we had.


Overall however, I would visit this piece again, for the familiar taste of Sendai.


Sandai Bunji
Millenia Walk (facing the Hotel Conrad Centennial)
9 Raffles Boulevard #01-14
6333-1516

4 comments:

Lrong Lim said...

Looks like you enjoyed the beef tongue... don't think I have tasted this stuff before...

Open Kitchen Concept said...

Oh.. You should give this place called Rikyu a try! I don't like beef tongue until I ate there!

The Malaysia Project said...

My husband R would love it, I'm not sure if I'd like,,, but I'd give it a try!

Best!

Open Kitchen Concept said...

Oh, do give it a try! I balk at the idea of beef tongue but now I really quite like it! :)