A note on the words: motsuyaki means offal grilled on skewers over charcoal — liver, cartilage, intestine and the rest — and it is standard drinking food in Tokyo. Tsukune is minced meat shaped onto a skewer and grilled. Nankotsu is cartilage, prized for its crunch, and komekami here means a cut from around the head. Shiro is a cut of pork intestine. Senmai is a cut of beef tripe, eaten raw here and chilled. A highball is spirits and soda over ice. Shochu is a Japanese distilled spirit, made here from barley and cut with soda. Nukazuke are vegetables fermented in a bed of rice bran, tangy and cold.
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Torishige on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
Hey there, Hangover Meshi here. This time, to Torishige, the famous motsuyaki place in Shinjuku! The rating is seriously high, and I wondered whether you could even get a reservation — but when I called, I got one surprisingly easily! So off I went. The exterior is very chic, to the point where it feels a little hard to walk in, but inside it is quite a jumble. Busy and buzzing with customers! I did have a reservation, but they seemed pretty full, so there was a bit of a wait before I was seated.
I thought it was a chicken offal place, but it turned out that pork offal is the main event ^^
Chef’s Omakase Course, 8,500 yen
Select Course, 6,500 yen
Select Skewer Course, 5,000 yen
Five Premium Cuts Course, 2,700 yen
There are various courses, but I figured skewers as the focus would be the thing, so I chose the Select Skewer Course.
What comes out seems to vary quite a bit, so it is better to check up front!
(I was expecting premium tongue to turn up, it did not, and when I went to add it on it had already sold out! A shame!)
First, a highball to wet the throat!
Liver so lightly done you cannot even tell whether it has been over the flame.
Taste it and: seriously good! Full of savor. Huh, so this is what it is like. Delicious!
At this point I switched to barley shochu with soda!
So good.
Apparently it is made with pork cartilage and the like, with no binder at all — a dish they are particular about. It has a crunchy texture with the savor of the meat concentrated in it, and a distinctive flavor you will not find elsewhere. Good stuff. Apparently it has been a standard on the menu since the place opened, and you can see why it has been loved for so many years — this really is the tsukune of a famous house!
Meat of all kinds works here, then, I suppose. The beef sirloin is delicious too.
Eaten with the salt scattered beside it, the sweetness of the meat spreads out!
Komekami, apparently, is a skewer using a rare cut from around the cheek of the pig. Only a tiny amount comes from each animal — a precious thing!
What defines it, above all, is the texture. It has a crunchy, firm bite to it, and yet the more you chew, the more concentrated meat savor spreads through your mouth! Good. This is a dish for drinking with.
The stuffed green pepper is a legend of the motsuyaki world!
Why? Because this, apparently, is where it originated. Being the original of the stuffed pepper is quite something, ha. To think I would run into it here.
The meat packed tightly inside the thick-walled pepper is a beautiful match: the savor of the meat against the faint bitterness of the pepper.
And this sauce whets the appetite all over again.
The chilled raw beef assortment! I ordered this separately from the course!
Senmai, and what is the other one, I wonder. No off-taste at all, and it goes well with the mustard served alongside.
The pickle assortment, which I also ordered a la carte. A dish you are glad to have beside your drink!
Mmm, that crunchy texture is irresistible! Perfect company for a drink.
The course finished and I thought, wait — what about the premium tongue? Apparently it had already sold out. A shame!
So instead I ordered premium shiro. Refined shiro with not a trace of off-taste. The texture is good, but it is not so much that you cannot bite through it.
That exquisite bite is a pleasure. The sauce is good too, and this really is a fine piece of work!
So, I went with the skewer course this time, and it was a shock that premium tongue was not in it!
That said, every piece of offal that came out was delicious and I was satisfied. Well, there is a question of whether it is really a 4, but taking value and so on into account, perhaps it is. My feeling is that when ordering here, you are probably better off picking what you want individually rather than taking a course. Also, even with a reservation it is very crowded and you wait, so go expecting that! If you want to be certain of a comfortable time, booking a slot right when they open might be the better move. The place is quite noisy, so it may not suit the kind of meal where you want to talk at length!
Torishige (Motsuyaki / Shinjuku Station, Minami-shinjuku Station, Yoyogi Station)
Tabelog dinner rating ★★★☆☆ 3.5
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
One more for the road?
