Our fifth day in Tokyo was the first day of our trip on which no sushi was eaten (there was to be only one more such). We’d eaten ramen for lunch at Koukaibou in Monzen Nakacho and after lunch we’d gone back to Asakusa to visit the kitchen stores in Kappabashi St.. There I purchased a couple of kitchen knives at Kama Asa; and we also purchased some excellent nori from Numatanori. We then visited the Sumida Hokusai Museum (small but well worth a stop) and walked home from there to rest under air conditioning. The evening’s plan was to head out to Shibuya, wander a bit and eat some dinner. It was a fun evening—though the Shibuya Scramble may be the stupidest tourist attraction in the world—anchored by a very good dinner.

What did we eat? The boys wanted to try some wagyu and so we decided to head to a yakiniku restaurant. I consulted Tabelog once again and selected the Shibuya location of Yakiniku Horumon Arai-ya (they have a few more locations in Tokyo). I wasn’t sure if we were going to be able to get a table as it was a Friday evening and we did not have a reservation. Sure enough when we arrived the dining room was full. Taking pity on us, however, they asked if we could guarantee being done by 8 pm and on receiving our assent led us up to a more formal dining room on the first floor (second floor in American parlance). None of the tables here were occupied yet. While it didn’t have the energy of the downstairs dining room, it was a lot more comfortable with seating in a large plush booths with a grill sunk into the table.

You may know that yakiniku (which literally means “grilled meat”) is a relatively new Japanese genre, the current style having started up in the post-WW2 period (the eating of beef itself didn’t receive social sanction till towards the end of the 19th century). It derives from Korean barbecue. Unsurprisingly, many of the accoutrements to a yakiniku meal are Korean. On the menu here were kimchi and condiments that you’d expect to get at a Korean barbecue meal (though, unhappily, the table doesn’t get laden with an assortment of banchan). You can also get things like bibimbap and Korean seaweed soup to go with your meats; not to menton makgeolli to drink. I got a Yamazaki Whisky Soda to fight the humidity while the family stuck with iced water. And then we got down to meaty business.

Yakiniku Horumon is known both for their regulation cuts of beef and pork and for offal (horumon means offal) and we wanted to get some in both categories. But we weren’t sure about amounts/portion sizes. Thankfully, our server had sufficient English (it goes without saying, far more than our Japanese) to help us figure things out. He recommended their thickly-sliced tongue highly and said he would put together the appropriate amount of meat for four in a wagyu sampler. When we asked about offal he suggested we get half portions of the small and large intestines to go with the rest. Most of their meats come with the option to get them salted or sauced. We got the small intestine with sauce and the rest with salt.

Once you place your order all the sides come out (we also ordered some steamed rice) and the grill is lit. You’re then on your own with the grilling. The missus took charge here. We started with the thickly-sliced tongue, which came in four pieces. She used the provided scissors to cut it further into thin strips and we grabbed them off the grill as they arrived at our various preferred degrees of doneness. This is one of their signature cuts, apparently, and it was just excellent—the unanimous favourite of everything we ate. The intestines were very nice as well. The wagyu sampler arrived next, featuring bits of sirloin, filet and chateaubriand—I want to say he gave us 100 gms of each. The missus did a great job of grilling these as well. We could have stopped here and been just sated but opted to get some more. We decided to try their thinly sliced miso beef tongue as well and what is billed on the menu as hanging tender aka hangar steak. I don’t think this last was wagyu but it was very nicely marbled and was very tasty indeed, as was the tongue.

For a look at the restaurant and everything we ate, launch the slideshow below. Scroll down to see how much the meal cost and to see what’s coming next from Tokyo.

Price? For all of the meat, sides and the whisky-soda we paid a total of just under 30,000 yen or just above $200. This was one of our more expensive meals on the trip (as I said before, we didn’t eat anywhere truly expensive) but as with our sushi meal, the remarkable thing is how much more affordable this was at $50/head for very high quality beef (including wagyu) than any comparable place in the US would be. As for the wagyu, the boys were happy to have tried it but we all agreed that we actually preferred the thick-cut tongue and the hanging tender, neither of which were billed as wagyu on the menu (though I suppose they may have been as well).

Okay, what’s next from Tokyo? Another ramen lunch, another sushi dinner and then a lunch in a very different genre than anything else we’d eaten till that point. Those will go up starting tomorrow.