A beniharuka shake rolls into Sukiya as sweet potato season gets underway.
Japan never met a seasonal sweets flavor it couldn’t find space in its heart for, and with sweet potato season here, it’s an especially sweet time of year. The flavor of sweet potatoes is so loved in Japan that there’s even a whole sub-category of sweet potato dessert drinks that arrives every autumn, such as Starbucks Japan’s sweet potato Frappuccino.
But cafes and coffeehouses don’t have a monopoly on drinkable sweet potato treats, and one of the best we’ve had so far this year is at none other than one of Japan’s biggest beef bowl chains.
Along with Yoshinoya and Matsuya, Sukiya is one of Japan’s big three gyudon (beef bowl) restaurants, and their take on the dish has a subtle hint of refreshing citrus to the broth the meat is simmered in.
But Sukiya is ready to satisfy not just carnivorous cravings, as they’ve also got a selection of desserts that they collectively call the “Suki Cafe” line, which includes their Suki Shakes, and as of September 8 they’re serving up sweet potato shakes!
If you’re ordering in Japanese, the flavor is called yakiimo, which translates literally as “roasted potato” but is always used to refer specifically to roasted sweet potatoes. Suki Shakes are generally a vanilla base with another flavor mixed in for an enticing marbled appearance, and in this case the special guest is a sweet potato sauce made with beniharuka grown in Ibaraki Prefecture. Beniharuka are Japan’s sweetest variety of sweet potato, so we had high expectations as we took a sip.
The first thing to register on our taste buds was the milky sweetness of the vanilla portion, which is so creamy that it reminded us of soft-serve ice cream. After that came the sweet potato sauce, which not only tasted delicious but had a stickiness to it, evoking thoughts of the caramelized sugar that seeps out of sweet potatoes during roasting. It was a fantastic combination, and with the crushed pieces of imo kenpi (crisp candied sweet potato chips) sprinkled across the top, you also get some stimulating crunchiness.
Our taste tester Yayoi Saginomiya was so impressed that she’s ready to call this a dark horse contender for the best sweet potato drink you can find this season. In addition to being a far, far more delicious dessert than most people would expect of a beef bowl restaurant, it’s a very affordable one too, costing just 210 yen (US$1.30) for a small size, 260 for a medium, and 350 for a large, so stomach capacity, not budget concerns, is going to be the only limiting factor as to how many of these we can drink during the limited time they’ll be on sale.
Gyudon photo: Sukiya
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