A note on the words: yakiniku is grilled meat you cook yourself on a burner set into the table. Cuts are ordered by name — tan (tongue), harami (skirt), karubi (short rib), mino and senmai (two different stomachs) — and each comes either salted or with tare, a sweet soy-based sauce. The staff tell you how to grill each one.
Yakiniku Kokochi, Ichiba branch on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
Right, it is Hangover Meshi. This time, a grilled-meat shop in Koenji I have wanted to visit for the longest time: Yakiniku Kokochi. It has an excellent reputation, doesn’t it. It is a fair way out, so I had never had the chance — but this time a friend who knows the area offered to take me. There is a main branch as well, but the Ichiba branch has more of a Koenji feel, so they rang and got us a table. Delighted. Very much looking forward to it.
Being called the Ichiba branch, it is apparently inside somewhere called Daiichi Ichiba — and you do start to wonder whether you have the right place.
Inside, there are a scattering of places to eat along the passageway, and one of them is Kokochi.
There is a long menu, but the plan was to start with what my friend recommends, having been before, and then order whatever else took our fancy a la carte.
A fine-looking grill set into the table.
Lemon sour first.
Now then, what meat is there? Looking forward to this.
Is this beef tallow? Fat for greasing the grill.
The things one orders as a matter of course.
The kimchi has yam in it as well as Chinese leaf, and the crunch of the yam is excellent.
Seared meat chopped up yukhoe-style as a drinking snack.
One bite and it is extremely good. The sweetish sauce is excellent. Wrapped in Korean seaweed and in it goes. Delicious.
This one is remarkable.
And this is senmai sashi — raw omasum, one of the cow’s stomachs. No off-smell at all. That crunch is hard to beat. People who like this really like it.
And I do, of course.
The first of the meat.
Tan-shio, salted tongue. I had wanted the black tongue, but they did not have it today.
Even the ordinary tan-shio is meat like this. Thick-cut tongue, a beautiful colour just to look at, and it looks very good indeed.
Soft tongue, packed with flavour. Very good meat indeed. This bodes well.
Extremely soft harami, packed with flavour. Very good.
Tsurami, from the day’s recommendations board.
I wondered what tsurami was — it is written with the character for face, and it turns out to be cheek.
A springy texture and a strong savoury depth. Wrapped with spring onion and grilled. Superb.
One I had my eye on: the premium liver.
Look at those standing edges. The recommendation is to sear it briefly, so be careful not to overcook.
Delicious. Fresh liver with a sweetness to it. You will not easily eat this elsewhere.
Good with garlic, but perfectly good without.
Normally it comes as two slices, but there were three of us, so they made it three.
This wagyu harami was another one I had been looking forward to.
They explain how to grill it properly: crisp the surface at the hot edge of the grill.
And eating it straight off the grill — this is superb. Excellent.
Different from the earlier harami: very soft, and you can taste how good the fat is. Unlike the tare version, you get the flavour of the meat itself directly. This is very good indeed.
Next, the tare version.
Three slices of this as well.
For the tare version, you cook it in the cooler centre of the grill — about fifty per cent on the first side and thirty on the second — then dip it back into the sauce and grill it again. So we did. The smell of the sauce caramelising is wonderful.
Grill, then back into the sauce, then the final pass.
And eating it — this is enormously good as well.
Extremely soft, with the fragrance of the sauce and a clear, definite seasoning that is hard to beat. This is what grilled meat should be.
Refined yakiniku has its place, but this is the shitamachi version: meat where good is simply, obviously good.
And this is the karubi. Is there anywhere else where the ordinary karubi is meat this good?
Loaded with fat and delicious. The meat flavour is strong, so it asserts itself even without much sauce. I like karubi cooked well, to the point where the fat just chars a little. The fragrance that adds is very good. Karubi that makes you want rice.
And we cannot finish without this: the premium mino.
The knifework on it is quite distinctive. Grilled, it has a firm crunch, and yet it bites through cleanly. Mino that releases more flavour the more you chew. Superb.
Koenji Yakiniku Kokochi, Ichiba branch — menu
Meat and offal
The shop explains how to grill each item as it arrives. The wagyu harami is ordered in units of two slices.
A single thick-cut slice. Black tongue depends on what comes in.
Cheek. From the day’s recommendations at my visit. A springy texture.
Fresh enough that the edges stand up. Searing it briefly is the recommendation.
Crisp the surface at the hot edge of the grill.
In the cooler centre, fifty per cent on the first side and thirty on the second, then back into the sauce before grilling again.
Distinctive knifework. Crunchy, and it bites through cleanly.
A la carte and snacks
Seared meat chopped up with a sweetish sauce. Wrapped in Korean seaweed.
With yam as well as Chinese leaf.
About the shop
From Koenji Station or Shin-Koenji Station. A corner of a market with places to eat along the passageway.
Wed–Fri. Saturdays 13:00–23:00, Sundays 13:00–21:00.
A popular shop. We had a table held by phone at my visit too.
Private hire for 20–50 can be discussed.
Cards, e-money and QR-code payment are not accepted.
The three of us ate and drank properly through the above, and it came to about 12,000–13,000 yen each.
Opening hours, closing days, seat count and payment are from the Tabelog listing. Please check the latest before setting off.
* Prices of what we ordered at my visit in March 2025. Some differ from the menu published on Tabelog (updated May 2023), and prices may have been revised. Please check the latest at the shop.
Good — too good.
To think there was a grilled-meat shop this good in Koenji. I feel I have wasted years by not coming.
And for all that eating and drinking it came to about 12,000–13,000 yen each between three of us, which I think is very cheap indeed. In Roppongi this would come to something extraordinary. This good, and this cheap. I have eaten a lot of grilled meat, and measured by sheer “this is good” astonishment, this may be the best of them.
Koenji Yakiniku Kokochi, Ichiba branch (yakiniku / Koenji Station, Shin-Koenji 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?
