Japan is a country that very well known for its food. Almost every food in Japan are very delicious. Not just at the fancy restaurant, even a simple fast food at the minimart also very tasty. The reason of its delicacy it's not just from the cooking process, but a good quality ingredients also has important role in it. In Japan, there's one ingredient that very popular for its delicacy. It's a beef.
Beef in Japan known as the best beef in the world. With the marble on the meat, it makes a very tender texture in every bite. For this reason, the beef price in Japan are very expensive. Kobe beef, Hida beef, Matsuzaka beef, are example of the popular beef that gonna break your wallet. However, there's a restaurant in Japan who served a good quality beef dishes with affordable price. It's Gyukatsu Motomura.
3 times been to Japan, I never missed any chance to eat here. Unless the first one because at that time I didn't know about this place. Gyukatsu Motomura is very popular among tourists. The popular branch is located at Shinjuku, Tokyo, where always make a long queue (up to 2 hours) even at night. First time I ate gyukatsu was in Tokyo, precisely at Shimbashi. I accidentally found this place while walking to our bnb. It was easy to found from Shimbashi station. In this branch, the place was really small. Maybe it's only fit for around 10 peoples at once. However, even though he place was really small, I didn't need to queueing, at all, just like what people always talking about.
Gyukatsu is a deep fried beef which has been covered with breadcrumbs. Even though it's already deep fried to create a crispy "skin", but the meat still raw. Therefore, we need to grill the meat again at the small hot stone which provided in every table. They'll give some seasoning "stuff" such as salt and soy sauce, so we can season the meat by ourselves. Personally, I like to sprinkle some salt over the raw beef, grill it, and at the end I'll dip the grilled meat at the soy sauce. A tender meat, with a little bit salty taste, it was the best dish I ever had.
In Gyukatsu Motomomura, the beef katsu served together with barley rice, miso soup, and cabbage as a set meal. A portion of a set meal costs ¥1400 with 130g meat, and you can have a double meat portion for ¥2200. That's a very affordable price for a good quality meat, compared with Kobe Beef which might be cost over ¥500 for a portion of meat. Anyway, the barley rice that they served, also one thing that makes this dish become a perfect meal. I really in love with Japanese rice.
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| Gyukatsu Motomura menu at Shimbashi, Tokyo (2018) |
If you follow my Instagram, you'd see that I just back from Japan for a spring holiday. But this time I just visit Kansai area, and I was thinking that I couldn't eat at Gyukatsu Motomura at this trip. I started to searching whether they have any branch at Osaka or Kyoto, and I found it. There's an outlet of Gyukatsu Motomura at Namba area, next to BIC Camera. I didn't know it's gonna be have a long queue or not, so I decided to go at 4PM where it's not a lunch / dinner time. When I was there, the staff told me that there's no table available at that time. So he took us to other outlet which located not far from there. While we were walking to the other outlet, he told me that Gyukatsu Motomura has 4 outlets in Osaka : 1 at Umeda Station, and the other 3 outlets located at Namba.
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| Location of spacious Gyukatsu Motomura at Namba, Osaka |
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| Very spacious dining space of Gyukatsu Motomura at Kintetsu Namba |
Once I saw the menu, I noticed the price was slightly cheaper than in Tokyo. For a single meat, it costs ¥1300, and for the double portion it costs ¥2100. Even though they said that it's 130g, but I noticed that the meat size was little bit smaller than in Tokyo. For the taste, it's still as delicious as I remember. The marbling was really intense, and the meat itself was very juicy and tender. So, if you're looking for an affordable good quality beef dishes in Japan, Gyukatsu Motomura is the right answer.
P.S. : If you're in Tokyo and don't want to queueing, but you also think Shimbashi is too far, you can visit their branch at Harajuku.
