A note on the words: gachi-chuka is the Japanese term for Chinese food cooked for Chinese diners rather than adapted to Japanese taste, which is what this place does. Suancai is napa cabbage fermented in salt, and suancai bairou is that cabbage braised with pork belly; shuizhu yu is white fish simmered in an oil scented with chili and huajiao, the Sichuan pepper whose heat is numbing rather than hot, a combination called mala. Paitan is a white broth boiled from chicken bones, gansi is dried tofu cut into threads, and dim sum covers the small steamed and fried plates. Yushima sits between Ueno and Akihabara. Prices are as of this writing (August 2026).
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Book a table at Ajibo Tetsunabeso on AutoReserve (English)
Hello, this is Hangover Meshi. This time, Ajibo Tetsunabeso in Yushima! A holy site of the real Chinese thing that I have wanted to visit for ages! Roshuho, after all, belongs to the same Ajibo family! The trouble is that you cannot book without four people, and rounding up four who want proper Chinese food and can handle the heat, then matching everyone’s diaries, is quite a business, so I had never made it. Four of us happened to line up, so we booked and went!
A pleasant atmosphere lol I had assumed, rudely, that it would be a more battered sort of place, but it is clean^^
[The combination course: choose two from all the hotpots] 5,500 yen
[The one-hotpot course] 3,850 yen
There are a great many hotpots, and there is a two-hotpot course and a one-hotpot course.
There were four of us, so of course we went for the two. You have to choose your hotpots in advance.
- Paigu dun biandou / home-style braise of pork spare ribs and green beans
- Shuizhu yu / white fish braised with chili
- Suancai bairou / pork belly braised with fermented napa cabbage
- Hong men yangrou / lamb and daikon braised in soy
- Qing dun yangrou / lamb and vegetables braised in salted broth
- Suancai yu / white fish braised with fermented mustard greens
- Ben ji dun mogu / stewing hen braised with oak mushrooms
- Demoli dun yu
There are this many to choose from lol
We agonized over it, but decided one of them ought to be something spicy, so: number two, shuizhu yu.
A braise in which chili and Sichuan pepper are fried to scent the oil, garlic and ginger are added to it, and the ingredients are fried in that oil; a stock drawn from chicken paitan with white fish trimmings is poured over, deep-fried white fish is added and the whole is simmered, and at the end house-made chili oil, heated until it is fiercely hot, is poured over the top. The fish is white fish such as abura-me (ainame, fat greenling) and soi (rockfish), delivered twice a week by Hitoshi Tsuruta, who fishes out of Fukaura on the Sea of Japan side of Aomori, where the water carries the nutrients of the World Heritage forest of Shirakami-Sanchi. Celery, cucumber, bean sprouts and mushrooms such as shimeji and wood ear go in as well. It is certainly hot and numbing, but we also keep wines that suit the dish.
For the other one we wanted something gentle, so we chose on sourness: number three, suancai bairou.
The star of this braise is, above all, the napa cabbage. Ajibo pickles it in-house in about one percent salt, and uses it once fermentation has given it savor and acidity; simmered together with pork belly, this pickle turns into a thick, gentle, reassuring flavor. Simmer it for about ten minutes, and once the glass noodles have drunk up the broth it is ready. The flavor has something in common with choucroute simmered with pork, so it goes superbly with an Alsace Riesling. Do try it.
The course begins straight away!
From the very start, snacks — side dishes? — come out in enormous numbers.
Something like a salad of finely shredded potato.
Tofu and scallion dressed together.
Gansi, shredded dried tofu, I think. The seasoning is on the light side, but it is good!! It goes with a drink.
Wood ear mushroom with cilantro! The seasoning is light so the wood ear comes through clearly! And the wood ear is remarkably thick.
I had assumed only the two hotpots would come out, so this torrent of snacks left me speechless lol
And every one of them is substantial. There is more to come!
Smashed cucumber, too.
Not char siu, but meat pressed into a terrine. This one is quietly delicious.
What on earth was this one lol Something with the texture of jellied aspic lol
And mouth-watering chicken as well! The dish is packed absolutely full lol
And after all this, two hotpots are still coming lol
The first hotpot is the suancai bairou!
Tasting the broth — good! A mellow, fermented sourness with savor behind it. The salt is not strong at all; it is light.
A very gentle flavor! The pork is tender and good, and above all the napa cabbage is excellent. There are glass noodles in it too, so it is quite substantial. Good.
And then something like bread? The wrapper of a dumpling?^^ There is a lot of it lol I wonder whether we can finish.
This is the shuizhu yu! A fish with an extraordinary set of teeth, laid out flat lol What is this, I wonder. It does not look like ainame or soi to me. A fish you cannot identify does, in a way, add to the sense that this is the real thing! Those teeth are distinctive — what could it be lol
The broth is mala! The scent of chili and Sichuan pepper is very good. Some fish or other has been fried and then simmered slowly in it, and the aroma of that is excellent, while the flesh itself stays delicate — a fine fish dish! There is something a little different from any hotpot I have had before, a curious note, whether from the spices or something else. Perhaps this is what makes it the real Chinese thing.
And still more comes. Dim sum lol
So — I cannot eat another thing! Completely full! The hotpots are the genuine article, the kind you rarely get to eat in Japan. Experiencing that alone would have been satisfying, but the number of dishes and the sheer quantity are enormous! You really may need about four people to finish it! It was extremely good, though, so I shall go back for a different hotpot. Or rather, I want to conquer the lot. All of them! Only one other party came in before we left, so on a weekday it may be surprisingly easy to book. Recommended for anyone who loves Chinese food!
Ajibo Tetsunabeso (Chinese / Yushima Station, Ueno-hirokoji Station, Ueno-okachimachi Station)
Tabelog dinner rating ★★★☆☆ 3.6
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
One more for the road?
