South Aomori · HachinoheNo.1065★★Open in map →

Hachinohe Senbei-jiru

— A soup-cracker hotpot, met at the Hasshoku market

foodOff the trail — and worth it

A soy and chicken broth with vegetables and mushrooms, into which flat wheat crackers made for the pot are snapped and simmered until they turn chewy. Hachinohe's market on the edge of town is the easiest single stop to meet it.

FromHachinohe Station
~12 minMarket shuttle from Hachinohe Station
Get off atHasshoku Center (Nanbu Bus, from Hachinohe Station east exit)
From there
Hachinohe Senbei-jiru

Directions ↗

The sweet spot

Senbei-jiru is not obscure. It won the national B-grade food contest and it appears on every Hachinohe list. The harder question for a visitor without a car is which of the many places in the city to choose. The market answers that in one bus ride: eating places inside carry the dish, and the same building is where the contest that made it famous was first staged.

Where it is

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What to look for — in walking order

Hasshoku Center, the market hallWakkubox / CC BY-SA 3.0

The market hallthe long street of fish, produce and prepared-food counters
Shichirin Muracharcoal grills where food bought in the hall is cooked on the spot
Aji Yokochoone of the two dining rows, refurbished in recent years
Kuriya Stadiumthe other dining building, open later than the market itself
Kuriya Landthe children's play floor upstairs in the same building

How to actually get there

Tohoku Shinkansen to Hachinohe Station; the market bus leaves from bay 4 at the east exit.
Hachinohe Station east exit → Hasshoku Center by the market shuttle, about twelve minutes.
Walk the market hall first, then take the corridor to the dining rows for the pot.
Check the return departures at the stop; the last bus back leaves in the late afternoon.

Market shuttle from Hachinohe Station: The Tohoku Shinkansen stops at Hachinohe Station, and the market runs its own bus from bay 4 at the east exit, about twelve minutes each way. Departures are spread across the day rather than frequent, roughly one an hour from mid-morning to late afternoon. A taxi covers the same distance if the timing does not suit.
Back to Hachinohe Station: The same bus returns from the stop beside the dining building, and its last departure comes before the buildings close, so it is the bus rather than the shutters that sets the end of a visit. Read the times off the pole when you arrive. A separate route runs to the city centre terminal if you are staying downtown.

Directions from my location (Google Maps) ↗

About the place

The cracker is the point. Nanbu senbei is a plain wheat disc baked in an iron mould, and a separate version is made for the pot, thicker and formulated to hold its shape in liquid rather than dissolve. Snapped into a soy broth drawn from chicken, with burdock, mushrooms, spring onion and konjac noodles, it softens into something closer to a wide noodle than a biscuit, and local wording puts the right moment at al dente. Hasshoku Center, the market on the edge of Hachinohe where the dish is easiest to reach, runs its counters along one street 170 metres long.

How to enjoy it

The market halls trade from nine in the morning to six in the evening, the later dining building runs to nine at night, and Wednesday is the regular closing day, with exceptions carried on the official calendar. The shuttle from the station keeps running on those closed days, which is worth knowing if your date is fixed. Come hungry rather than early; nothing here opens at dawn.

Background & history

The dish is traced to the late Edo period in the Hachinohe domain, to years when the rice crop failed and a wheat cracker kept better than grain. Its promotion is recent. A volunteer group formed in 2003 to push it, and in February 2006 it staged the first national B-grade food contest inside this market. In 2012 the same group took the Gold Grand Prix at the seventh edition of that contest, held in Kitakyushu.

Before you go

Cash: The market is a set of independent shops, so payment is settled counter by counter rather than at one till. Prices and fares are revised, so take the figures from the official pages on the day. The bus is paid on board and transport IC cards work on it; keep cash for the smaller stalls.
Good to know: Wednesday is the regular closing day and the calendar moves around the New Year, so confirm the date before building a day around it. The shuttle still runs on those closed days, with the first of January the exception. The halls are indoor end to end, so rain and wind do not change the plan.
Another way: From the city centre, a separate market bus runs from the Hachinohe Chuo-gai terminal, and a service from Hon-Hachinohe Station was added as well, which suits anyone staying downtown rather than out by the Shinkansen station. By car it is a short run from the Hachinohe interchanges on the expressway.
After you get off: The bus sets down on the east side of the dining building. The market hall is a few steps across the forecourt, and the entrance carries the market's name in large red characters.