A note on the words: yakiniku is tabletop grilled meat. Horumon refers to offal, harami is skirt steak, and gyutan is beef tongue, while karubi in a dish name usually marks a fattier cut. Sankaku is a cut of beef, served thin here and seared for moments. Namul is a Korean seasoned vegetable side, dobin-mushi is a clear broth steamed inside a small earthenware teapot, takikomi gohan is rice cooked together with its ingredients, and hire-wassan is the name the shop gives one of its paid add-ons.
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Ushi ni Kanabou Azabujuuban on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
Hello, this is Hangover Meshi. We decided to go out for drinks, and while looking around, I came across what seemed to be a newly opened yakiniku spot in Azabu-juban. It is on the second floor of a building near the park in central Azabu-juban.
Stepping inside, the cozy interior is black-toned with all private rooms.
Even so, the plates set out are flashy and glittering, ha.
Chef’s choice course (grand opening special) — 15,000 yen
Kanabo course (grand opening special) — 8,800 yen
Standard course (grand opening special) — 6,800 yen
There are three courses, and being Japanese, I went with the middle one, the Kanabo course. Incidentally, if you add the sea urchin and caviar (+2,000 yen) and the house specialty, the hire-wassan (+2,500 yen) or whatever it is called, it seems it would end up almost identical to the Chef’s choice course.
And so, the course gets underway.
Kimchi, vinegared horumon (offal) with a chewy bite, and namul, I think?
What they call gyutan karubi is on the right, and the beef tongue is on the left.
Apparently you pair each one differently: the gyutan karubi goes with the scallion sauce with pink grapefruit on the right, while for the beef tongue, you heat the foie gras butter soy sauce on the left over the grill until it melts thoroughly, then dip and eat!
The gyutan karubi definitely has fat to it and might indeed feel a bit like karubi. The scallion sauce with pink grapefruit is refreshing and pairs nicely.
When you dip the tongue into the foie gras butter soy sauce and eat it, it is delicious, though rather than anything about the tongue itself, the sauce is exceptionally tasty.
Skewers! They look so good! Tomato, shishito peppers and bell pepper — once grilled, they look like this.
Mmm, delicious! The grilled tomato is sweet and tasty, and the fillet is spot-on.
Nicely marbled, this is skirt in great shape! When grilled, the fat sizzles out. A melting kind of richness. Delicious.
To my surprise, dobin-mushi, ha! A kind of palate cleanser after all the grilled dishes so far. Quite comforting.
Two pieces of this fine-looking sankaku per person! One grilled with ginger sauce drizzled over it, and one grilled with the house standard sauce — two styles! Because it is thin, you can eat it with just a quick sear on the surface, and the ginger-sauce version was remarkably good.
And here is the Omi beef hamburg steak.
Once grilled and topped with cheese sauce and demi-glace sauce, yes, looks delicious!
A coarsely ground hamburg steak, and since they say it can even be eaten raw, you just give it a quick sear before digging in.
Having eaten this far, I could not help being curious and ended up ordering it: the hire-wassan. Well, if you ask whether this is really worth 2,500 yen, you cannot help thinking “hmm,” but delicious it certainly is! There is a sense that the fillet could have been a bit more generous. The value is poor, but delicious it truly is.
This is the beef takikomi rice. They portion it out for you later, and it is a hefty amount — about two-plus bowls per person.
Might be the first time in a while I have eaten corn rice, ha.
Slightly melting ice cream.
All in all, I thought it was quite a substantial course. By the time I left, I was stuffed! At 8,800 yen, it might be quite a fair deal. That said, the hire-wassan definitely does not offer great value! You feel like they should either make the fillet bigger or lower the price. Looking at the lineup, I got the feeling that the Standard course might actually offer the best value and plenty of volume to satisfy.
Ushi ni Kanabou Azabujuuban (Yakiniku / Azabu-juban Station, Akabanebashi Station, Roppongi Station)
Tabelog dinner rating ★★★☆☆ 3.4
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
One more for the road?
