Some Recent Items

If you haven’t already heard, the Tohoku Oktoberfest 2013 is in full swing at Nishikichou-koen just north of Kotodai-koen, and will run until Sunday, June 16th.  This festival is open everyday from 4 pm to 9 pm, but opens at 11 am on the weekends.

Here is their website:
http://www.oktober-fest.jp/2013tohoku/index.html

There are usually two Oktoberfests held in Sendai, the smaller, less popular one in June, and the bigger, genkier one in September.  My wife and I decided to stroll on over today to check out the scene and we were quite surprised at how big this year’s June festival is, and how lively it has become.  All the tents were packed with Deutsch-loving Japanese people.

Sure it’s a lot of overpriced food and drinks, but it’s great to see people having a good time!  Of course, we heard the standard “Roll Out the Barrel” from the German polka band, but it was funny to hear them play the theme to the Benny Hill Show.  What was funnier was watching a woman in heels run through the tent while they were playing this tune.  Seemed fitting to see someone scuttling across with this background music.

From the Konig Ludwig food/beer stand we tried the German potatoes (500 yen) and the 3 types of sausages platter.  The German potatoes were not bad, but nothing special.  The sausages were pretty good, but definitely not worth the 1400 yen price.

ジャーマンポテト

グリル3 種盛り合わせ。Tasty, but 1400 円？ 

Instead of satisfying our cravings for German fare, these tidbits merely enticed us more, so we headed down to one of our favorites, Brunenheim, which was down the street.

At Brunenheim we had some real German potatoes (710 yen), tasty garlic toast (530 yen), and a platter of potatoes with four different grilled sausages that tasted much better than the links at the Oktoberfest, and at a lesser price (1080 yen).

ガーリックトースト

グリルソーセージ

A poster outside of Brunenheim.  Cracks me up every time.

And if you head down to either the Oktoberfest or Brunenheim on Sunday, June 9th, be sure to stop at Kotodai-koen for the Jazz Promenade in Sendai.  I heard a few fantastic jazz groups today playing some familiar tunes.  It reminded me how great it is to live in Sendai where you can go downtown and be entertained by talented people for free.  I love Sendai!

Also, if you haven’t seen the TV commercials, Baskin-Robbins 31 Ice Cream is running a Happy 4 You! campaign that allows you to purchase four mini-scoops of ice cream for only 400 yen.  These mini-scoops have 40% more volume than the double small scoops.  I believe this campaign will run until June 28th.

My Happy 4: Rocky Road, Chocolate, Cookies n' Cream, Chocolate Chip

And this Thursday, June 13th, marks the return of the Happy-Happy Melon Pan Truck in front of Daiei.  Please click the name to read about my previous posts about their delicious melon pan.  The truck will be parked at Daiei till Monday, June 17^th.

UPDATE:  I forgot to mention that next Saturday, June 15th, from 10 am till 3:30 pm at Kotodai-koen is the 食肉まつり.  I don't know what this is exactly, but a meat festival doesn't sound bad to me.