A note on the words: a hamburg steak is a seasoned patty of ground meat eaten with a knife and fork rather than in a bun, a fixture of Japanese family restaurants — the roadside chains where families eat, roughly what a diner is in the United States. Oroshi means grated daikon radish, piled on top so the fat is cut clean, and shiso is a mint-family herb with a sharp green flavor. Bikkuri is the Japanese word for surprise.
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Bikkuri Donkey Shimotoda on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
Right, Hangover Meshi here. This time to a Bikkuri Donkey in the city of Toda, along Route 17, which I happened to be passing! A big roadside Bikkuri Donkey attached to a Jolly Pasta — a large branch. There is a Bamiyan right across the way too, so it is a happy zone packed with places to eat. How many years has it been since I was last at a Bikkuri Donkey? They are good, you know. Time to enjoy one again after all this while!
Apparently they open at 8 a.m. I wonder whether every Bikkuri Donkey outside the big cities is like that, ha.
Hamburg steak in the morning feels a bit heavy, but it does get you going! I came at lunchtime this time and only just got in, and by the time I left there was quite a line, so it is clearly very popular.
Now then, I went to look at the menu — and that huge fold-out menu is gone!
What there is instead is a tablet. Well, of course. Every family restaurant chain has gone over to tablets now. The fold-out menu was enormous, but I liked being able to take in the whole thing at a glance, ha.
I decided to just pick whatever I felt like eating.
First, let us have a salad!
With the Dish Salad it is this mayonnaise dressing that makes it. Really good.
It had been a long time since I last had one, and yes, it is good. Plain, but it goes straight to the heart! The richness of that special mayo is lovely. Delicious.
The beer, now — it is enormous!!!
I am fairly sure I ordered a medium draft, but at some places this would be the large.
And the beer has something of a German character to it. The flavor is fuller than a Japanese beer. It must be built to go with the fries and the hamburg steak. Which makes me think using this place for an evening drink might not be a bad idea at all.
Bikkuri Donkey’s oroshi-shiso burg, eaten for the first time in ages!
What I used to eat back in the day was always the Burg Dish plate with everything served together, so this may in fact be the first time I have ordered it on its own!
One bite and, yes, it is good. This hamburg steak really is distinctive, is it not. A juicy patty, with plenty of grated daikon and shiso tangled through it, and a finish that is astonishingly clean! Well now, that is good. It goes with beer, too!
Bikkuri Donkey after all this time! As a child it was the Burg Dish, with the dish salad and rice and the hamburg steak all together; the years have gone by and I have grown up, ha, and now I skip the rice and take fries and a beer instead, ha.
It has been so long that I cannot really remember whether it was quite like this back then, but the sense of simply, it is good! has not changed since. It really was tasty. Satisfied!
Bikkuri Donkey Shimotoda (Family restaurant / Toda-koen Station)
Tabelog lunch rating ★★★☆☆ 3.4
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
One more for the road?
