Wednesday, February 25, 2015

38Mitsubachi Kitchen #2 ミツバチキッチン 022-302-6938

Website:  http://hitosara.com/0006048571/

Address:  仙台市青葉区二日町2-1.   Located about a three-minute walk from Kotodai-koen Subway Station, behind City Hall.
Map:  Scroll down below.

Open Tuesdays thru Sundays from 10 am to 6:30 pm.  Closed Mondays.

**If you’d like to read about my previous posts related to this restaurant, please click HERE for the original post, and HERE and HERE for a couple of updates.
Last Friday night I inadvertently became lost downtown, but luckily ran into a sight that was news to me: A second location of the popular pancake restaurant, Pancake & Café 38Mitsubachi
The next afternoon my wife insisted on trying this new restaurant to see if it lived up to its inaugural store’s standards.
This second shop is just a tiny bit bigger than it’s flagship operation, but not by much, as it seems to seat a maximum of only 27 guests.  We were told that this restaurant opened in June of last year, probably due to the fact that it’s quite difficult to obtain a seat at the first Mitsubachi during a weekend.



My wife ordered the 1100 yen Berry Berry pancake (sic), which consists of five 11 cm in diameter pancakes, topped with a generous amount of fresh cream, yogurt, three types of berries (strawberries, frozen raspberries, frozen blueberries), berry sauce, almonds, and comes with coconut syrup if you so desire.  

ベリーベリーパンケーキ

Initially, my wife did not use either the coconut syrup or the maple syrup, and she was surprised how non-sweet the cream and the pancakes were.  She next tried a bit of the maple syrup and was quite happy with the outcome.  Towards the end, she poured the coconut syrup and remarked how coconutty the syrup was, but this was not to her liking.
There were four different offerings on the lunch menu, including an interesting Mexican pancake (which I have never heard of, and I’m Mexican).  The others were a hamburger type with fried egg in which the hamburger buns are pancakes, a chicken salad with pancakes (this was sold out), and a hamburger patty drenched in a stewed tomato sauce along with a mini-salad and panna cotta.
I chose the latter hamburger patty/pancake with the drink set for 1280 yen.  I ate the mini-salad, which had a very nice tangy dressing, first, as I did not want the salad dressing and the maple syrup mixing … I’m picky that way.  The three hotcakes were incredibly soft, fluffy, and grilled to perfection.  The homemade hamburger patty was very tasty, and indeed the tomato sauce was rich and tomato-y.   

完熟トマト煮込みハンバーグ

The panna cotta was topped ever so slightly with a raspberry sauce that complimented this dessert wonderfully.  In fact, when I had eaten all the raspberry dressing, I didn’t much care for the rest of the panna cotta, as it reminded me of yogurt, which I don’t care for.  Perhaps others would enjoy the sauceless panna cotta.
We were completely stuffed and satisfied as we wobbled out the door.   We will definitely be back again and again to delight in these pancakes.  My wife already has her eye on the chocolate-banana topped pancakes.
This new locale is basically situated on the street behind the original, just a couple of minutes walk away.  So if you go to either restaurant and find that it’s full, perhaps you could just walk around the block and see if you have better luck and the other restaurant.
One thing I’d like to add … I know Japan is known for their customer service, so we who live here are use to being treated well, politely, and in a timely manner.  But on this day the waitresses seemed to be just a little bit more enthusiastic, prompt, and friendlier than at a regular Japanese restaurant, which really made for a nice atmosphere when visiting a restaurant for the first time.  I enjoyed this and I hope this keeps up.
If you have a hankering for hotcakes, head on over!


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