Sendai Asaichi Market

Best Price for Veggies!

If you're living near Sendai and haven't heard of this place yet, your friends have done you a disservice. Here from morning till 6PM fruit, vegetable and fish sellers peddle their products, usually at a significant discount comparing to your local supermarket. The earlier you go, the more there is to see and the better the deals are. These pictures are from around 4PM on a Saturday. It wasn't bad, but a little challenging with a stroller. Even showing up so late, we bought a whole bowl of tiny avocados for 216 yen, when my local grocery story would have sold each of them for 87 yen a pop. We also found akebi, also known as chocolate vine or akebia in English, a vine fruit from Tohoku only available for 2 weeks out of the year and usually grown in places like Yamagata. In my excitement, I even bough a pomegranate, the first I had seen of the season, for 400 yen. Keeping a look out and knowing your local food prices can help you determine how good a deal really is. Getting there isn't hard either. From the west side of the station, go toward Parco 2, just beyond Loft. If you take the second floor walkway to Parco 2 and exit, taking the walkway between Parco 2 and eBeans for a block will bring you right to the market. The market runs for about a block and I do recommend checking the prices as you walk down the whole block before making too many purchases. When you need to buy produce for the week, I can't think of a cheaper option in Sendai than the Asaichi Market.