A note on the words: yakiniku is Japanese grilled meat, cooked piece by piece over a grill set into your table. Kalbi is short rib and tan is beef tongue, two of the standard cuts. Namul is a Korean-style seasoned vegetable side, and kimchi is the fermented, chili-spiced one. Wasabi-zuke is a pungent paste of grated wasabi and its stems pickled in sake lees. Negi is Japanese long onion. Reimen means chilled noodles in broth, the usual way to close a grilled-meat meal. A tamatebako is the mysterious box from the folk tale of Urashima Taro, and koban are the oval gold coins of the Edo period; several dishes here are named after that sort of thing.
Gyugyu Nishi-Azabu Main Branch on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
Hello, this is Hangover Meshi. The place I dropped in on this time is a flashy, high-end yakiniku restaurant that is Nishi-Azabu through and through, Roppongi through and through: Gyugyu Nishi-Azabu Main Branch. All I really had was the impression of it as a yakiniku place that photographs well for YouTubers and Instagram and so on, but I had never been even once, so I decided to go. There are private rooms too, and depending on the occasion it might be a surprisingly usable place! So I made a reservation and headed over. It is right in front of Roppongi Hills, behind Chugoku Hanten (in Japanese), below Gorigori Burger (in Japanese). ^^
Already at this point it feels seriously stylish!
Veal Course 7500 yen
All-Meat Course 9000 yen
Gyugyu Course 9900 yen
Ultimate Meat Course 16000 yen
All-you-can-drink can be added to any of them for 2500 yen!
Well, the “Gyugyu Course” that carries the restaurant’s own name is the safe bet, is it not. So, the Gyugyu Course it was.
And of course I had them add the all-you-can-drink.
The course starts off with a bottled beer in hand.
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Beef soup, and right away a gold-plated cup. Flashy. And the idea is to melt something like beef fat into it and drink it —
and what is sitting on this spoon is wild too. ^^
Nice. It is as if you are being pulled into the Gyugyu world from the very start.
At first glance, ordinary.
The namul on the left is made with a vegetable called yacon, apparently — crunchy texture, and good.
Raw meat sashimi. Both kinds melt in your mouth and are delicious!
Something seriously long has arrived! I thought —
and this is the tongue. Normally it is cut in rounds, but this is sliced lengthwise, so you can taste it from the base of the tongue all the way to the tip. Well, yes, that is how it would work, but picture it for a second and it starts to hurt, ha.
The taste is superb. I tried it with negi on top, and it was seriously good.
This is another one that made me go, huh? the moment it appeared. ^^
The meat is inside this red pot. The rest is decoration. ^^ The LEDs are so blindingly bright it is glorious, ha ha.
By the way, it is just seriously good, proper meat.
What is sitting in this wasabi-shaped vessel is meat marinated in wasabi-zuke. ^^
Come to think of it, they grill everything for you, so you can just sit and watch, which is nice too!
I feel like it has been a while since I saw a menu item with nothing whatsoever unusual about it. ^^
Sushi sitting on a staircase lit up in blinding rainbow LEDs.
They call it Cinderella Sushi, but with the colors shifting and glaring like that, this is gaming sushi at this point, surely.
Divided up, it is perfectly normal, delicious-looking meat sushi.
A huge box has arrived! I thought — and out of it came a golden turtle and koban wrapped in dry ice, ha.
And beside them, a small piece of meat perched there. About eighty percent of this is staging, ha.
Well, they do not let you get bored. It is fun.
Grilled, it is normal. ^^
And here comes the last one, ha.
Fireworks, ha. The dragon is holding a ball like a Dragon Ball with “Gyugyu” written on it, ha. Funny, ha.
And it is holding the kalbi. This is the best, ha.
And this one, too, is just plain delicious, ha.
You can choose from rice, reimen, or ramen, I think?
I asked for the reimen. Chewy, slightly thick noodles.
The clean broth gains even more freshness when you add vinegar, and it feels as if it resets all the fat from the grilled meat.
This is straightforwardly delicious.
Mango ice cream and a mini cake.
It is a seriously flashy, fun place! The staging accounts for seventy or eighty percent of the course, no question. But that all of it turns out to be very good meat once grilled is what makes it interesting. In a private room you can take your time, and after you have enjoyed the presentation the staff grill the meat nicely for you, so it is a very comfortable space. I had assumed it was all gimmick, but I came away with the impression of a pretty solid restaurant, so I recommend this place! It would be fun to bring someone who has not been to Tokyo in a while. ^^
Gyugyu Nishi-Azabu Main Branch (Yakiniku / Roppongi Station, Nogizaka Station, Azabu-juban 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?
