Roadside Station Sueyoshi

Giant Japanese black beef welcomes you?
Don't miss the meat and buffet!

Located in Sueyoshi Town, Soo City, on the border with Miyakonojo City, Kagoshima Prefecture, this roadside station installed a huge monument of black wagyu beef in October 2018. It is 3.95 meters high, 6.75 meters long, and 2 meters wide. It has become a landmark at the station along with the calf that was installed later. Next to the monument, there is a "SOO! Mooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo happy bell. The Shikisai Market, a product hall, offers seasonal vegetables, processed goods, flower seedlings, specialty yuzu products, and handmade box lunches. The meat corner sells Kurobuta pork and beef by weight. The buffet lunch featuring a variety of local vegetables is definitely not to be missed.

Map of Roadside Station Sueyoshi

Roadside Station Sueyoshi Gourmet Information

Yuzu, a local specialty

Kochi Prefecture is by far the largest producer of yuzu, followed by Shikoku in second and third place, Miyazaki Prefecture in fourth, Oita Prefecture in fifth, and Kagoshima Prefecture in sixth. （Even in Kagoshima Prefecture, which is doing well, Soo City is the main producer of yuzu, boasting the largest cultivated area and production volume in the prefecture. For this reason, Soo City is focusing not only on yuzu as a fruit and vegetable, but also on various processed products such as juice, confectionery, jam, dressing, and yakiniku sauce. Roadside stations also sell these processed products not only during the yuzu season. You can easily buy them as souvenirs of your trip.

Local product: Kuroge Wagyu Beef

Kagoshima Prefecture's black Wagyu cattle won "Japan's Best" overall at the 2017 National Wagyu Proficiency Show. Soo City, in particular, is one of the leading black Wagyu beef production areas in the prefecture. This is also the reason for the installation of a giant black Wagyu monument at the station. Nanchiku, which distributes meat and processed products of Wagyu and Kurobuta beef to the roadside station, describes Kagoshima Wagyu beef as having a "mild richness" and "umami" that can only be achieved by finely and beautifully marbled beef. In fact, people who have purchased the product at this station are highly satisfied with it on word-of-mouth websites. In fact, the beef is also sold at Michi no Eki Takarabe (Roadside Station). The confidence in the meat's deliciousness is also reflected in the meat vending machine located outside the station! This is also reflected in the meat vending machine located outside the station. This makes me happy because I can buy processed meat even after business hours.

For a meal, try Restaurant Shiki Matsuri.

A popular buffet, with a long line of customers waiting in line even before the restaurant opens. The buffet offers about 40 dishes, including desserts, and a wide variety of Japanese, Western, and Chinese dishes, but the Japanese menu, which uses fresh vegetables, is particularly impressive. Although at first glance it may appear to be simple country cooking, the dishes such as nimeshime, which is carefully prepared one by one and soaked in broth to the core, chawanmushi, which has a pleasantly soft texture, and chirashizushi, which is gorgeously arranged, all show the work of a veteran housewife. Adults 1,300 yen, elementary school students 700 yen. The price is 3,000 yen if you add a wagyu teppan to the buffet meal.

The best place to buy honey.

Based in Kagoshima, Shinya Apiaries collects honey by traveling to Niigata and Hokkaido, so to speak. The direct sales store at the station offers high quality honey at a price that can only be obtained directly from the producer. There is a wide variety of honey, with about 10 varieties, including lotus root, tangerine, acacia, clover, lavender, apple, and others. There are also cooking methods and uses for each characteristic, so it is a good idea to ask for explanations as you make your selection. There is also a full lineup of sweets using honey. Honey baked goods and soft-serve ice cream with yuzu (a specialty of Sueyoshi Town) and honey are just a few examples of the many treats that make great souvenirs.

Around Roadside Station Sueyoshi

horseback archery

If you want to have fun in the area

Every year on November 23, horseback archery is dedicated on the approach to Sumiyoshi Shrine. Yabusame (horseback archery) is said to have started as a ritualized martial art in 1096 during the Kamakura period (1185-1333), and has been held at this shrine since the Edo period. Currently, in addition to this Sumiyoshi Shrine in Soo City, the only other shrines in Kagoshima where yabusame is held are the Shijukusho Shrine in Kimotsuki Town and the Dainanchimuchi-jinja Shrine in Hioki City. Junior high and high school student archers, dressed in Kamakura-era Makigari costumes, ride horses from the torii (gate) to the shrine along a 300-meter approach, and shoot three targets from horseback. This is repeated three times. It is said that if a house is thatched with arrows, the family's fortune will flourish, and the more arrows hit the target, the more fertile the following year's harvest will be. It is designated as an intangible cultural asset by Kagoshima Prefecture.
©K.P.V.B.