Rikyu Gyutan Chargrilled Beef Tongue (2010-08-31)
Sendai, a city in the northeastern coast of Japan, is known for its beef tongue (gyutan) restaurants. A particularly renowned chargrilled tongue restaurant amongst the thousands there is Rikyu. I'm very happy to learn that we Tokyo residents no longer need to travel all the way to Sendai to eat their famous beef tongue, they opened their very first branch in Ikebukuro (
) a few months ago,
woohoo!Located on the 7th floor of Esola, KL and I arrived at 1055 am (5
minutes before Rikyu opens) and there's already a line of about 20
people by the 5th-floor escalator. Although the mall opens for
business at 1030, the restaurant floors (6th-8th) start at 11.
A mall security guard, in his crisp clean uniform, stood at the top
of the line to keep order. At 1058 am, the escalator to the
6th floor began moving, but we were not allowed to proceed. The
guard, demonstarting classic Japanese precision and fastidiousness, was
glued to his watch to countdown to the second. Right at 11 am
sharp, he bowed, bid welcome to us, and motioned us to proceed.
If you're as rigid and insane in following routines as Sheldon in The
Big Bang Theory is, wouldn't you love to live in this country? KL
does.
But I digress. Well, back to the beef
tongue. We both ordered their set meals which included
chargrilled tongue, rice, ox tail soup and a side dish. The
staff was extra attentive and courteous, they would explain to the
diners about the dishes when brought to the table and recommend the
type of condiments to use.
The beef tongue was grilled-to-order and arrived juicy and
hot. The aromatic taste of chargrill was unmistakable and the
tongue was so juicy! We had eaten plenty of sliced tongue (thin
and thick-cut) in Korean BBQ restaurants (and they were expensive) but
never did we know that tongue could be this juicy.
I rarely hear KL comment on a meal he just ate a few hours ago that
"I can eat it again right about now." This is some great beef
tongue.
Rikyu Gyutan http://www.rikyu-gyutan.co.jp/
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