A note on the words: curry bread (kare pan) is a Japanese bakery staple — a soft roll wrapped around thick curry, coated in coarse breadcrumbs and deep-fried, so it eats like a savory doughnut. Melon pan is a sweet bun under a crisp cookie-dough crust, scored into a grid; the name comes from the look, not from any melon inside. Zunda is a Tohoku specialty of young green soybeans (edamame) mashed with sugar into a sweet pale-green paste, and zunda mochi is that paste served with pounded rice cake. Gyutan is beef tongue, a Sendai signature. Curry in Japan is usually mild and slightly sweet rather than hot.
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Pensee, Matsushima on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
Hey, this is Hangover Meshi. So, I was drifting around Matsushima eating as I went when I spotted an interesting shop! Something about “winner of the highest gold award,” lol. I can’t deny that “highest gold award” has a faintly suspicious ring to it, but look closer and it’s the Curry Bread Grand Prix 2021, Variety Division! The Variety Division — that has a nice flavor to it as well, lol lol. And then: Japan’s number one oyster curry bread. Is there any other oyster curry bread out there? lol Isn’t this the only one? An advertisement that pulls you in from all sorts of angles! There was no way I could walk past without eating it! And so I decided to buy one.
It’s a bakery that makes its bread by hand in the shop, so I imagine the ordinary bread is good too.
The zunda-mochi melon pan I can see next to it — another slightly suspicious-sounding bread — has me curious as well lol lol
Gyutan curry bread: 350 yen
Oyster curry bread: 380 yen
Zunda-mochi whipped cream melon pan: 300 yen
Zunda-mochi melon pan: 250 yen
The basics here are curry bread and melon pan.
The curry ones come in gyutan and oyster, and the melon pan has zunda mochi inside. So this is a shop selling local breads that lean about as far into Miyagi and Sendai as it is possible to lean. There’s also something like a rest area inside, so you can buy and eat in there!
So I bought one!
I made use of the rest area inside to eat it.
The “Oyster × Curry” on the packaging is rather cute lol There’s something riding along in a boat made from an oyster shell!
Open it up and this is what you get. A round, chubby curry bread. The outside is crisp and looks delicious!
Tear it in half by hand and sure enough, there are chunky oysters in there lol lol
One on each side, two oysters in all. One bite and……!
Yep, oyster lol
The curry has almost no heat to it. It’s a mild curry that children could eat as well. Maybe a little of the oyster’s flavor comes through.
The crunch on the outside and the mild curry inside make a pretty good combination. Perfect as a snack.
The oysters are plump ones. I actually tend to prefer oysters that have been cooked, so I may well like these oysters.
Together with the crunch of the outside there’s something faintly like a fried oyster about it, though the curry is the stronger flavor.
So — I bought it half for the novelty and ate it, but it turned out to be a genuinely tasty piece of bread. The crunch on the outside goes well with the curry inside, and oysters are famous around here, so I think it’s the kind of bread you somehow want to eat one of when you come to Matsushima! It’s right in front of the sightseeing boat pier too, so if you find yourself with time to kill, do buy one and try it!
Pensee, Matsushima (Bread / Matsushimakaigan Station)
Tabelog lunch rating ★★★☆☆ 3.3
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
One more for the road?
