00:00:03 John Daub: Hello everybody, welcome to Shiogama. How you doing? This is a town right on the coast of Miyagi Prefecture, about 30 minutes away from Sendai. You can smell the sea air here, and I've come here to eat. In particular, a dish that this place is not quite as famous for. Shiogama is known for having the most sushi restaurants per capita—more sushi restaurants here than anywhere else in Japan for the amount of people.

00:00:33 John Daub: There are a ton of places. Just looking around, you can see some sushi places. But I've come here for something different. This is one of the restaurants commissioned by the Coast Guard to make Coast Guard curry rice. Shiogama Kitchen Hana—we have access in here to sit down and have a bowl full of Shiogama's Coast Guard curry rice.

00:01:04 John Daub: Check it out. I salute you, sir—that's a Coast Guard mascot. So let's go inside and have some Coast Guard curry. Very cool. They advertise it out here with seafood and beef and something else that I'm going to find out about.

00:01:23 John Daub: You can see on the wall here, they have the accreditation from the Shiogama Coast Guard to serve the Coast Guard curry right there. This is Shiogama Kitchen Hana. They opened up recently—it's not an old shop, but the owner is really nice and gave us access to have this table right here to try it. Check it out—I have it right in front of me. This is the seafood curry rice. I've kind of pre-ordered it because I can't wait. I am starving. You can see all those bits of seafood in there.

00:02:10 John Daub: Curry rice in Japan is very famous. You can go way around the country trying different kinds of curry rice—you have CoCo Ichibanya curry, which is very famous. Japanese curry is incredible. It's different than Indian curry—it's not like anything that you've ever had before. They do it their own way. Curry rice might be one of the most popular foods because everybody can eat it. In Japan they don't make it too spicy.

00:02:42 John Daub: I'm kind of curious because I've come to the seaside of Miyagi Prefecture not to eat sushi but curry. I'm excited about it—I haven't eaten much all day. We were just at Sendai Castle and had a really interesting tour around Sendai's castle ruins. I had some zunda shake (edamame milkshake) with a gyutan (beef tongue) pork bun—gyutan bun. Very good. So let's give this a try. I'll hold it up here so you can take a look at it too. Big chunk of seafood—I don't even know what a lot of this stuff is. There's only one way to find out. Itadakimasu.

00:03:25 John Daub: Tastes like maguro (tuna). That's it—arigato. It was maguro karaage (fried tuna chunks). Japan has the best tuna—it's been deep-fried and put into the curry for calories, I'm sure, because those Coast Guards work really hard. Let's get a little bit of rice in there. Oh man—slight fishy taste to it. Perfect. You can tell it's seafood because it's got a seafood taste, but the consistency of the meat is different than beef or chicken. Look at this big piece of hotate (scallop). Wow—it's been sitting in the curry boiling for hours. Wonderful.

00:04:40 John Daub: We've come just a little bit, and you can see the chips—I'll show you that shot after this bite. Oh man, I'm starving. The trip to Sendai took me about 40 minutes—the traffic was awful. Sendai traffic is not good. Luckily, this is really close to the train station. There's a link in the description if you're considering coming to Shiogama—have curry rice for lunch or dinner and try the sushi for the other meal.

00:05:20 John Daub: Asura on Rocks writes, looks awesome—it tastes awesome too. They have more than one kind—they have this one, which is the fruit keema curry. Super interesting. They also have the beef curry. Here's the packaging for it—really cute box. On the back, you can see the Coast Guard ship. And I got some questions too—we'll see if we can get some answers from Tomoko. This is the seafood curry box in the blue—these are on sale at the entrance, so you could take this home and eat the food that the Coast Guard eats.

00:06:13 John Daub: I learned something when I was in Tokyo at Tsukiji Market, the old fish market. The fishermen there told me they don't eat fish for lunch—they don't want to eat fish at all, in fact. They prefer gyudon (beef bowl). The first Yoshinoya gyudon restaurant in Japan was in Tsukiji. Fishermen don't want to eat fish after fishing all day—they want gyudon. I'm thinking the Coast Guard probably doesn't want sushi, even though there are really good sushi restaurants around here. They want curry rice. When you're trying to serve 100 or 200 people, nothing is better than curry rice—you can make a huge cauldron of it with rice, calories, taste, salt, vegetables, and really good seafood like this one. It also comes with a salad and soup.

00:07:35 John Daub: Sugoi (amazing). Kore wa beef desu ka (is this beef)? That's right—there's three of these coming out because we do it right here at Only in Japan GO. We have to show you all of them. The Coast Guard must be really into this beef curry. Whoa—look at those big pieces of beef. Is this Miyagi wagyu? Miyagi beef, sakata, Sendai beef—you have to ask. It's not Sendai beef, but the beef here in Sendai is quite good—they do have wagyu. Oh my gosh—look at that. I'm going to try one bite of this right now.

00:08:43 John Daub: WRX Turbo in the house—long time no see. Oh my gosh, I feel like I'm sailing on a ship right now. I'm just going to try one bite of this and give it to my friend behind me. Oh yeah—that beef has been sitting in that curry for hours, just taking in that flavor. Oh gosh, I do like that very much. I think the seafood though, because we're so close to the sea, has symbolic meaning. When you're close to the seaside, you want some fresh seafood. The Coast Guard has shared the recipe with Tomoko, the owner of Shiogama Kitchen Hana. She's one of the people in the city that can make this—not everybody can, and the recipe is kind of a secret.

00:10:22 Tomoko: Tomoko-san, can I ask you something? Is this recipe a secret?

00:10:29 Tomoko: It's a secret.

00:10:30 John Daub: It's a secret? How long does it take?

00:10:36 Tomoko: It takes about 10 minutes.

00:10:39 John Daub: Oh, it doesn't take that long? I see—thank you. Write it in the comments and I'll ask it before the livestream ends. Thank you—it's a secret. I love that. Food tastes better if it's a deep secret, right? So let me get a couple of bites here. Next up, we're going to try the fruit keema curry.

00:11:11 John Daub: Wow—I'm going to give you my recommendation. Which one is good? The beef curry just seems slightly saltier. This is the fruit keema curry—you can see that this certainly is a different consistency. Here's the beef curry—it's got all mushrooms in there with pieces of beef. Still steaming. And here is the fruit keema curry. I don't know what fruits they use—I'm going to give this a taste to find out. I'm quite curious because I love keema curry (minced meat curry), but that fruit's got to have some unique flavoring. I thought this was chutney, but they have these pickles that are really good as a garnish. Sometimes you'll see them on the table at restaurants—I sometimes eat half of my curry rice taking advantage of that. Alright, let's give this a whirl—this is the fruit keema curry.

00:13:05 John Daub: This is really good too—they're all good. This one, I think the fruitiness of it—if you were eating seafood and beef every day on a Coast Guard boat, you'd want something completely different on the fifth day. I would go for this one. So this ranks third on the list—it comes down to the seafood and the beef. Here's my final ranking: seafood, beef, fruit keema. It's very close, and not bad curry at all—but up here, very high ranking. The seafood, you just have to try it—there's something amazing about this. This right here is a maguro karaage, deep-fried battered piece of maguro tuna. It's like a secret weapon—so tender, so soft. That bread around it just soaks up the curry. Delightful bite.

00:14:34 John Daub: The music writes in, I want that piece—I think you can have that. Tomoko-san—did you put the karaage in the seafood curry? This maguro—maguro karaage doesn't go in here? Only this? Oh really? Alright, you might not get a piece of karaage in the pack, but maguro is in here, right? So you're going to have to come to the restaurant to get the good stuff. In this pack you have squid and hotate (scallops). I'm taking that home to Kanae Daub to try—thank you. You have to come to Shiogama Kitchen Hana to try it with the karaage. I like that as part of the recipe—it's so good, like a maguro fish cake. Wow—a city famous for sushi has other food. Shiogama Kitchen Hana has no sushi on the menu, right? There are a lot of sushi restaurants—so Tomoko can't make sushi, she makes everything else.

00:16:23 John Daub: On the menu, there's okonomiyaki (savory pancake). And dondonyaki is also good. Dondonyaki—like donburi (rice bowl). You roll okonomiyaki thinly and put it in sauce and mayonnaise. I'll try it—dondonyaki, okonomiyaki. I want to try it—is it good? So it's basically grilled and wrapped up like a wrap sandwich. I gotta try this—we gotta try this. I'm also gonna have a lot of curry to finish—I can't eat all of it, I'll eat it later. But I can eat a lot, and today I didn't eat much. Miyagi Prefecture is one of the six prefectures of the Tohoku region—do you know what those six are?

00:17:32 John Daub: If you're starting off from Tokyo going up to Hokkaido, in between you'll have the Tohoku region: Fukushima, Miyagi, Iwate, Aomori, Akita going down the Sea of Japan side, Yamagata. In this episode, I've been featuring Miyagi Prefecture, one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. This is also a place hit hard during the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami. I volunteered in some towns about a month after, digging mud out of houses. I partnered with Aussie Beef to bring 500-gram beef steaks to one town for a barbecue—we did some really good things. This is the 10th anniversary, and these towns are doing a lot better. I know Shiogama was impacted by the tsunami—the waters went all the way to Sendai Airport. I'm a big supporter of Tohoku, having lived in Iwaki, Fukushima. My friends and neighbors are rebounding. If you're making a repeater trip to Japan, consider Tohoku.

00:19:11 John Daub: Over the next couple months, I'm going to travel up here more and make an episode from all six Tohoku prefectures. Today, Sendai and Miyagi. Next time, Yamagata, then Aomori and Iwate. The final episode will be in Kamaishi, focusing on how that city has rebounded over the last 10 years—it was also an event site for the Rugby World Cup. But today, really glad to have some amazing curry—too much curry to eat. How am I going to eat all this? It's called fortitude and strength.

00:20:17 John Daub: Question: which curry do you think is the most appetizing? If you came here, would you prefer beef, seafood, or fruit keema? None are vegetarian—they're pretty much meat-deep. For me, curry rice is one of my top five dishes in Japan—I could never get sick of it. Darth Raven writes beef, Moonshido beef—everybody's writing beef. Peso, beef curry for sure. Jerry wrote seafood—what? It's like 80% beef, 20% seafood, 1% keema. Interesting. The pictures on the wall show the Coast Guard actively doing this—I believe the Shiogama Chamber of Commerce is working on it too. The city is diversifying the cuisine—you might come for sushi but discover something else. This is the seafood curry with big pieces of scallop and squid. This is fruit keema with a different ship, and beef curry with the Coast Guard riding high. They should have fired a cannon with smoke—that would be cool.

00:22:44 John Daub: They have some gifts you can buy—like these three curry boxes styled like books. Pretty cool. They also have kare senbei (curry crackers)—might get some for Kanae to take home. Shiogama—the name means salt (shio) furnace (gama). This town was famous for making salt from seawater—you can see they're selling salt here. Pretty cool—so leave Shiogama with some soy sauce or salt, because the salt is famous. I wish I could have a beer, but I'm driving. We're gonna have dondonyaki coming in a second too. Oh my gosh, I can't eat all this—but I must.

00:24:25 John Daub: This is dondonyaki—it's an okonomiyaki pancake. Inside is bacon cheese! Oh my gosh, I think half the viewers just fell in love—bacon cheese in okonomiyaki. Holy moly—are you kidding me? Maybe this is more popular than curry. No, I came for curry—but get curry rice with a side of dondonyaki. When you write bacon and cheese, you have a winner. Eddie writes heel yeah—people are salivating. Mayonnaise on top—this looks like it could come from Osaka. Is it famous from Miyagi? It's not famous, it's popular at festivals like Tanabata in Yamagata—that's why I don't know it.

00:26:02 John Daub: I'm gonna try this dondonyaki here. This is insane—I didn't expect to eat this with three bowls of curry. Thankfully no ekiben (station bento) on the shinkansen. Oh my gosh—this is like a big takoyaki. Look at the steam. This could be a Japanese burrito—look at that piece of bacon, the cheese. Dangerous—you gotta be kidding me. Itadakimasu again. I'm in heaven—cheese, tangy okonomiyaki sauce, mayonnaise, bacon. I think I just found one of my favorite festival foods—this is so good. There's some yasai (vegetables) in here, right? Can this be healthy? Maybe. Don don yaki cheese and bacon—order it. Just come here for this and get curry too. I think I've ruined the livestream—Coast Guard, I apologize. If you're Coast Guard off duty, you'd have this too.

00:28:45 John Daub: Look at the cheese—did you see that? Don don yaki kaiho curry—my allegiance is to bacon. That was so good. Do you have any last questions for Tomoko? Write in where you're watching from—Singapore, Hamburg Germany, Israel, Poland, South Korea. Awesome. How much is this dish? 430 yen—that's craziness, like $4. To the Coast Guard members, I salute you—thank you for providing your curry rice recipe to Shiogama Kitchen Hana and the world. Thank you everyone—curry rice is pretty darn good.

00:30:49 John Daub: If you liked the food, consider stopping—the link is in the description. Come to Shiogama, take a look at the seaside—it's really beautiful. We came at night—this is the view of Shiogama at night, not the best because the sun is down, but it's a pretty city. Come by train because traffic is bad 4 to 6 p.m. Tomorrow I'm uploading videos from Kokeshi Village in Miyagi near Shiroishi-Zao Station—we drove up there. And to Akiu Falls—Sendai City goes all the way to the mountains. I'll take you there in an edited video with drone shots from the Mavic 3—really beautiful 4K images. See you tomorrow, everybody. I've got to get back on the shinkansen after eating all this. If you have questions, leave them in the comments. Next time—I've got to get back to eating. How am I going to finish before the shinkansen? No room for ekiben—but most are sold out after 5 p.m. anyway. Check the Discord if you want to discuss more. God, that beef curry is calling me now.