A note on the words: yakiniku is Japanese-style grilled meat, cooked slice by slice over a burner set into the table. The shop name is written with two characters but read Oboshimeshi. A bonenkai, translated here as year-end party, is the December drinking dinner Japanese companies and old colleagues hold to see the year out. Wagyu is Japanese beef and kuroge is the black-haired breed; the cuts named here are Japanese butchery terms rather than English ones — sagari is the hanging tender, harami the outside skirt, and kata-sankaku the triangular cut from the shoulder. A katsu sando is a sandwich of breaded, fried meat on soft white bread. Shochu is a Japanese distilled spirit, here made from barley and served with soda. Yukejang is a Korean-style beef and vegetable soup. Sukiyaki style, for a single slice, means dipping it in raw egg yolk.
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Yakiniku Oboshimeshi on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
Time flies — December is already over. This is Hangover Meshi. This time it was the year-end party, getting together with old colleagues for a meal. Let us go all out for once, we said, so I booked “Oboshimeshi,” a yakiniku place in Akasaka I had been eyeing for ages (that is read “Oboshimeshi,” apparently). It is a seriously high-end place, so it is not cheap — but as of December 2024 it is rated 3.94, which is remarkably high. I am sure it is worth it! I booked through TableCheck, and the deposit was steep, ha.
It is right next to Yagenbori. At a glance it is hard to tell it is even a restaurant — a hideaway sort of place.
Open the door and, unlike the plain exterior, the interior is stylish with a real sense of luxury.
[24,000-yen Course] includes the beef fillet katsu sando — 24,000 yen
[30,000-yen Course] includes the beef fillet katsu sando and the chateaubriand rice bowl — 30,000 yen
[18,000-yen Course] includes the beef fillet katsu sando — 18,000 yen
We Japanese do love the middle option! So, the 24,000-yen course it was. I have a feeling the 30,000-yen course has so many dishes that we might not have finished it. Also, checking now, it looks like prices go up from 2025: 18,000 to 19,000, 24,000 to 27,000, and 30,000 to 35,000 yen! Which means we were lucky to eat it when we did.
I get the feeling everything except the counter is a private room here.
They showed us into a really spacious room, which was excellent. There were three of us, so we had it very much to ourselves.
There was a sheet of paper with the day’s menu on it, and the cover had a QR code. Scan it and it takes you to the cattle individual identification lookup service (in Japanese), ha ha. And sure enough, there are numbers written next to the items on the menu — tongue, No. xxxxxxxxxx, that sort of thing. It is there so you can look up every single one if you like. This bodes well.
The first item on the menu is the beef tongue stew. They warmed the pot once, then portioned it out for us!
It looks so good!
One bite and it is a rich stew, and yet so mellow! Delicious.
The tongue has gone meltingly tender, the kind of texture that dissolves in your mouth. The seasoning is on the strong side, which makes it just right to drink over as well!
And then all the meat we were going to eat that day was carried out in a row, and my spirits hit MAXIMUM!!!
This must be the house specialty! The kuroge wagyu fillet katsu sando.
This is it — that thick fillet and the whole-grain mustard. And the pillowy bread!
There is no way this is not delicious, from any angle. Look at it. One bite.
The fillet is so tender, so gooood! The flavor of the beef comes through clearly and it parts cleanly under the teeth. The little pops of whole-grain mustard are fun too, and the bread has been lightly toasted on both sides, so the outside has a slight crispness and the inside stays moist and pillowy.
Yes — this is as good as it gets!!!
Perfect with barley shochu and soda.
Springy in texture, yet so tender and delicious. Tongue. They grill everything for you, which is both easy and wonderful.
It melts away!
My understanding is that this is roughly the best part of the harami, and it is packed with savory depth — delicious on another level!
The lovely aroma of fresh truffle! A refreshing salad with persimmon and apple in it too.
The rice stands up in distinct grains and looks wonderful! The grains themselves are large.
Alongside it came a yukejang soup and some things to eat with the rice.
The rice is very sweet! It is quite sticky and springy, and good enough to eat on its own with nothing added. I do not usually eat much rice, but rice this good makes me happy whenever I have it!! The yukejang soup is clear and feels very refined. There is hardly any heat to it; it really is a soup to accompany rice, and it felt like it was there to hold the rice up.
Fillet! Fillet grilled through is good too! This sauce is foamy, almost like a mousse.
Outstanding! Harami. It feels like it has more presence than the sagari earlier did.
Meltingly tender kata-sankaku. Rich egg yolk and a sweet sauce, sukiyaki style. Delicious!
Sour cream! It is not aggressively sour-creamy;
more like a cream with a light touch of acidity to it. This was really good too!
So, this time it was a hideaway yakiniku place in Akasaka! Everything was as good as the rating suggests, and as a yakiniku experience it was a very fine one! It certainly is expensive, but it felt worth more than the price. And closing out the year with a meal this good struck me as a genuinely happy thing to do! I would love to visit again if I get the chance.
Yakiniku Oboshimeshi (Yakiniku / Akasaka-mitsuke Station, Akasaka Station, Nagatacho Station)
Tabelog dinner rating ★★★★☆ 4.5
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
One more for the road?
