LocalEatsJapan

Hungry Hungry was somewhere that I had seen before my trip to Sendai that I wanted to go to, except that the only thing was that it was quite far from the city centre so I didn’t think I would be able to get out. 

But after travelling to the neighbouring prefecture of Akita and climbing up a very snowy mountain to the famous Yamadera temple and nearly catching frostbite in the complete opposite of winter attire, when I came down and was starving, I figured that since Hungry Hungry was on route to my train home that I would stop by and make my way over to it. 

This then left me getting off at the train station and walking another 20 minutes along the side of the road with a nearly dead phone and wet clothes after a car had splashed a bunch of water onto me, so safe to say I really wasn’t in the best mood. 

But despite the hiccups along the way, I made it to my destination and at this point any food would have been great, but Hungry Hungry’s menu I was especially happy to see, because it was kind of the definition of Japanese comfort food. 

It was a big building, almost resembling a barn house, and the inside of it was very cozy, not to mention spacious. I am unsure of how many people they could fit into here, but there were both a lot of tables as well as individual seats around this big wooden round table in the middle of the restaurant. 

I came in on a weekday past lunch time so there were hardly any people in here besides me, but I got the feeling that this is a place that gets really busy on the weekends, so do keep this in mind. 

What they market themselves as is “a shop that serves spaghetti and hamburger steaks” which is a little bit of an odd mix of foods, but it was for this exact reason I wanted to try it. 

There is only one type of pasta on the menu, and it is the famous Japan-origin “Napolitan”. Now, pasta traditionalists might not like to hear this, but Napolitan is made using ketchup as the sauce, and instead of being poured once the pasta is done cooking, they are almost cooked together as if stir-frying something like yakisoba. 

It is a bit odd, I know, but this is one of those dishes that you can’t knock until you try – I haven’t met a person that likes normal pasta who says they don’t like it. 

So I ordered this as the base, with the toppings as a hamburger steak, and a fried chicken katsu.

The hamburger was 150g and the chicken katsu 100, this combined with the upgraded big size of the noodles as well (300g), the meal was about ½ a kilo – not that rare for Japan to be honest though.

Normally, I wouldn’t be looking to eat this volume of food, but like I said, I was starving, and it was quite the trek to get out here, so I was going to get my fill. 

First, the noodles. Think your basic pasta noodles mixed with a few vegetables like mushrooms and ketchup – except the ketchup is cooked so it has a more pronounced tomato sauce flavor than your normal sweet ketchup if that makes sense… Regardless, they were good! 

The hamburger was very tender, and the meat quality was great. It was also topped with a demi-glace sauce which had a really good flavour to it as well. This same sauce was also poured onto the chicken katsu which was perfectly cooked and had a really good crust on it.

Generally, I would be eating either of these things with a bowl of rice, let alone both of them together over pasta, but it was a cool experience nonetheless.

The flavours honestly went well together and each individual piece of the dish was of a high quality.

While it is quite far from Sendai Station, If I am ever in the area again I would like to go back.

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