Gyūtan Tsukasa (牛タン店 司) Restaurant, Sendai, Japan

Wagyu, Kobe, and Matsusaka beef is usually on the minds of visitors to Japan. These well known brands of Japanese beef are on their must try list of foods to eat. While not a brand of beef, but rather a cut of beef, rarely does the word, gyūtan (牛タン) come to mind. While gyūtan is available throughout Japan at yakiniku restaurants, where meat is grilled over a Japanese style barbeque, Sendai is the original home of gyūtan and where the dish is the most well known and popular. In Sendai you can still eat at the restaurant, where in 1948, the dish was developed. [1] Sendai is also the home to many restaurants that only serve gyūtan. While this article is not about the original restaurant where the dish originated, Gyūtan Tsukasa (牛タン店 司) is a typical Sendai gyūtan restaurant serving this dish.

The dish, consisting of pieces of thinly sliced beef tongue cooked over a charcoal grill, is one of least known of Japan's signature foods that visitors must try. The standard serving consists of grilled tongue and pickled vegetables, but is more commonly ordered as part of a set menu (ていしょく, teishoku), which also includes oxtail soup and mugi gohan (麦御飯, steamed white rice with barley). Variations on the set meal include increasing the amount of grilled tongue by 1.5- to 2 times.

Please continue reading the article on my 2018 and 2019 visits to Gyūtan Tsukasa to read about my grilled tongue meals and to see more photographs.

Eat at the back counter where you can watch the beef tongue being grilled (2018)

As was stated earlier, there are many gyūtan restaurants in Sendai, and I found this restaurant by accident when I first visited Sendai in 2017. I had just checked into my hotel after taking the Shinkansen from Nagoya, after transferring in Tokyo, before arriving at Sendai Station mid-morning. After checking into my hotel near the station, I decided to walk around before heading off to eat an early lunch at another gyūtan restaurant. Gyūtan Tsukasa is actually right around the corner from the hotel, which I did not know at the time and what food the restaurant served. As I was walking by, the staff was setting up a row of chairs outside the restaurant. When you see a row of chairs outside of a restaurant in Japan, that means there are going to be people waiting to eat at the restaurant, and long queues indicated good food worth waiting for.

I continued to walk exploring the area for another 10-15 minutes and came back to the restaurant. In the time it took for me to walk around and come back, every seat in front of the restaurant was filled and there was a long queue stretching down the block with people standing waiting for the restaurant to open! So as I walked past the restaurant, I found out that it served grilled tongue and decided that I had to eat there, but not for lunch.

Grilled Tongue Set Meal (牛タン ていしょく, Gyūtan Teishoku) (2019)

While I did not return and eat at the restaurant in 2017, I did return to eat dinner in 2018 and 2019. There was no waiting for dinner and I walked right into the restaurant. In Japan, the meals served at lunch tend to be a lot less expensive than dinner. This is not the case for this restaurant since the menu is the same for lunch and dinner, but is a good strategy when eating in Japan especially if there is an expensive restaurant you want to try. With the price usually lower at lunch, you can experience eating at an expensive restaurant for less. The portions can be smaller, or there are fewer side dishes, or there are lunch specials that allow you to sample what would be an expensive dinner for a lot less money at lunch.

Since I was alone, I happily accepted a seat at the back counter which overlooks the kitchen where the beef tongue is grilled. The kitchen is literally just behind the counter and behind a counter-to-ceiling window where you can watch all the action as the tongue is grilled. Note that smoking is allowed at this restaurant, so the person seated at the counter next to you might be a smoker. If you are really hungry or really like grilled beef tongue, you can order the 1.5x or 2x beef tongue set meal and pay more accordingly for the larger portion.

Many people have never nor will entertain eating beef tongue, but if the meal were served to you without explanation (i.e. you are told that you are eating beef), any beef eater would enjoy eating the tender and soft grilled meat, and would not know the origins of the cut from the cow. Hopefully if you have the opportunity to travel to eat at this restaurant, you will try this dish. Grilled beef tongue is a Sendai specialty that should be on every visitor's list of foods to eat in Japan.

Changes to Train Trip Planning Advice

Usually I would recommend using the free Hyperdia website for Japan rail trip planning. However, as of 01 Apr 2022, Hyperdia ceased to offer timetable details. I have relied on this website to plan my train trips for all my visits to Japan. The website now only gives routes and approximate average travel times between stations. This is a huge change that now makes this tool useless for planning train trips in Japan. 

A Japan Guide website article states: 

• A reason for the service's discontinuation has not been provided, and we wonder whether the disappearance of overseas tourists from Japan and the considerable monthly cost of using the timetable data may have been factors behind the decision. [2]

You can read the full Japan Guide article here:

• https://www.japan-guide.com/news/0057.html

The article also gives some alternative tools to use for rail trip planning. I have personally used the free Navitime app (aka Japan Travel by Navitime) on my phone when traveling in Japan, whose real time performance I found to be superior to the (then functional) Hyperdia app. The article states that the Navitime website was having problems and was not working, but the website now seems to be functional for rail trip planning. The Navitime phone app has always worked in my experience. So I will be recommending the Navitime website and app now for rail trip planning. I will also have to change all the Japan articles to use Navitime for rail trip planning.

Gyūtan Tsukasa (牛タン店 司) Restaurant (2018)

Gyūtan Tsukasa (牛タン店 司) Restaurant

Name:

• Gyūtan Tsukasa

• 牛タン焼専門店 司 (Gyūtan Shō Senmon-ten Tsukasa)

Address:

• 1 Chome-2-37 Tsutsujigaoka, Miyagino Ward, Sendai, Miyagi 983-0852, Japan

• 〒983-0852 宮城県仙台市宮城野区榴岡１丁目２−37

Phone:

• +81 22-298-7388

Access:

• Japan Rail Pass (7-, 14-, 21-day):

• Valid for travel throughout Japan on Japan Rail (with some exceptions).

• Purchase outside of Japan. Must show passport and have a short-term (90 day) visitor's stamp to redeem at selected airports and rail stations. (This is changing)

• Once activated, must be used on consecutive days (i.e. cannot skip days).

• Website: https://japanrailpass.net/en/.

• Plan your rail trip using Navitime:

• Website:

• https://japantravel.navitime.com/en/area/jp/route/

• Get the app for real time scheduling on your mobile phone when traveling in Japan.

• Android:

• https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.navitime.inbound.walk&hl=en

• Apple:

• https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id686373726

• Sendai is easily reached via a 1.5 hour Hayabusa Shinkansen trip from Tokyo. An even better option is to stay in Sendai, which I did for my 2017, 2018, and 2019 trips.

• The cost of the rail trip is fully covered by the Japan Rail (JR) Pass, otherwise the total cost for the Shinkansen trip from Tokyo Station is:
• No unreserved seats.
• Reserved: ¥11,210
• Green Seat: ¥15,070
• Gran Class: ¥20,310 (not valid for use with JR Pass)

• Gyūtan Tsukasa is about a 2 min (150m) walk from the East Exit of Sendai Station.

• Information and prices are accurate as of the published date of this article and are subject to change.

Hours:

• Open everyday:

• 11:00-14:00
• 17:00-23:00

• Last order 30 min. before closing.

• Information is accurate as of the published date of this article and is subject to change.

Websites:

• Plan your rail trip using Navitime:

• Website:

• https://japantravel.navitime.com/en/area/jp/route/

• Get the app for real time scheduling on your mobile phone when traveling in Japan.

• Android:

• https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.navitime.inbound.walk&hl=en

• Apple:

• https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id686373726

• Japan Rail Pass (7-, 14-, 21-day):

• https://japanrailpass.net/en/

• Gyūtan Tsukasa (牛タン店 司) Restaurant:
• https://www.gyutan-tsukasa.co.jp/en/index.html
• Note that the menu prices posted on the website are out of date.

Map:

References

[1] Wikipedia. "Gyūtan". Last modified: 18 Aug 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gy%C5%ABtan.

[2] Japan Guide. "Hyperdia discontinues timetable search". Last accessed: 13 Jun 2022. https://www.japan-guide.com/news/0057.html.

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