A note on the words: yakitori is chicken grilled on skewers over charcoal, and yakiton is the same thing done with pork; shops in Shimbashi usually do both. Every skewer is ordered either with salt or with tare, the sweet soy glaze. Sankaku is this shop’s name for the chicken cartilage skewer, and tataki here is the pork cartilage one. Binchotan, the charcoal referred to in the Japanese title, is a hard white oak charcoal that burns hot with almost no smoke. Shimbashi is the salaryman drinking district just south of Ginza. Prices are as of this writing (August 2026).
Table of Contents hide
Mimasa on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
Well then, this is Hangover Meshi. I found myself free from fairly early in the evening, so out to Shimbashi for a drink. My target this time was Mimasa, a yakitori and yakiton shop in Shimbashi. It has a good reputation, and the place has plenty of years on it, which is exactly right. I imagine it fills up at dinner time, but I went in just after it opened at five, so there was plenty of room^^
Ordering a la carte from a long list of skewers!
First, a cold beer to wet the throat!
Marvelous! Delicious!
The first order was the liver. It says number one in popularity, after all! Straight in.
One bite and it is soft and delicious! Cooked just right, springy inside, with a sweetness to it.
The tare is rich and the toasty fragrance is very good. It goes perfectly with the mustard, and the beer goes down and down.
Tongue. I had it grilled with salt.
Or rather — you name the cut and the staff tell you whether they recommend salt or tare, which is a great help.
Springy tongue with real bite. The cooking is superb! The savor floods the mouth.
A squeeze of lemon partway through tightens the flavor and makes it better still.
Something I have quietly become addicted to lately is stuffed green peppers.
It was never a dish I paid attention to, but it is good! Grilled peppers are soft and delicious on their own, and the fresh edge they add to the firmly packed ground meat makes them very good indeed. They go well with the sweet tare, and the toasty fragrance is irresistible. I recommend the stuffed peppers!
If we are talking favorite yakitori cuts, it is the cartilage! Sankaku, apparently, is what they call it here.
With salt, of course. That crunching cartilage texture is irresistible. Normally I would recommend pepper on it as well, but the chicken between the two pieces of cartilage is extremely juicy and good! Salt and lemon alone are plenty.
Pork cartilage. This one has more resistance than the chicken cartilage, a coarser sort of crunch.
But here too the pork caught between the pieces is remarkably good. The savor of the pork is irresistible! That coarse crunch, and juicy pork bursting through it. There is a fair amount of fat, but the mustard brings it back into balance. Delicious.
So — I had a few quick skewers, and as more customers came in and it filled up I left just as quickly. With a place like this, the basic form is to come in lightly, eat lightly and go. Two or three beers and a few skewers. Every skewer was delicious, and having your first beer of the evening somewhere like this is real happiness! Highly recommended!
Mimasa (yakitori / Shimbashi Station, Shiodome Station, Uchisaiwaicho Station)
Tabelog dinner rating ★★★☆☆ 3.7
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
One more for the road?
