Sorry all for the long break from my last post, been terribly busy clearing year end work and packing for my ski trip to Zermatt, Switzerland! Am sure many of you know how that feels. I told myself in the spirit of caring and sharing, I had to let you all in on this little hole in the wall steakhouse that I was recommended by my friend Mr Zhang from Mikawa Zezankyo in Tokyo. Makoto Steak in Tokyo is located in the area of Nihonbashi, in a tiny alley and the restaurant has no signboard, but don’t worry, I took a picture of the outside to guide you. It wasn’t that hard finding it, as it seemed the only rather more ornate door that stood out amidst what seemed to be like a back alley that we were standing in.
Remember! This is how the front entrance looks like.
Upon coming in, we noticed it was quite a tiny restaurant, with mainly counter seating for about 10 persons, and a nice friendly looking elderly chef who is the boss and his 2 assistant chefs helming the kitchen. Once we were seated and ordered our drinks, he gestured and mentioned to us ‘omakase’, as Mr Zhang had called him to inform him we were coming and told him to do a nice omakase for us. It feels good to have chef friends in Tokyo indeed! Chef told us his restaurant has been around for a long long time, and even the few Japanese guests seating next to us were curious how we knew about this place given its very discreet location.
We started off with their cole slaw, and as I ate it up pretty fast, and while eating all these vegetables, I was looking at Chef moulding and massaging his steak, I just couldn’t wait to eat those juicy beef! He asked us if we were okay with ‘raw beef’, and we said sure man, we love anything that’s beef 🙂
The next dish that came was the raw beef. This has got to be the best raw sliced beef I have ever eaten. Not that I have eaten much raw beef done in this way as so far my experience with raw beef seems to only have been mainly beef tartare. But I was thinking I doubt anywhere else would have done raw beef slices this good. The beef was so creamy, and smooth, that it almost just melted in my mouth like ice cream. Simply divine, I can still remember the taste now as I am writing about this dish. Yummy!
Next, served was a simple dish of shrimps with breadcrumbs and fried.
He then served us a clam gratin, which was smooth, creamy and I just lapped it up quickly in no time.
Then came the ox tongue. All I can say is WOW, WOW, WOW! I have eaten beef or ox tongue typically in korean BBQ and Japanese yakiniku which is already fantastic, but this was a whole different level on its own. I am not sure how the tongue was cooked – slow cooked, braised, or tenderised, but it was so tender that the moment I gently poked my chopsticks in it, the meat broke quickly and when I placed it in my mouth, yes it was another ‘melt in my mouth’ moment, I hardly even had to bite through it. We were all really impressed with the way this was cooked. And dipped with a touch of wasabi and light soya just completed the taste altogether.
Finally came the long awaited main course – the steak. Specially for us, Mr Zhang had requested the chef to split and portion 2 different types of steak for us to share, so that we each get a bit of the fattier one and not so fatty, given that although we do love our marbled beef, I do think the fatty ones can be a bit much sometimes. As we saw him slicing the beef, we tried to ask him where the beef was from, and from what we gathered, he doesn’t like to confine himself to the famous Kobe Beef or from a certain prefecture. Rather he prefers to look at the produce when he purchases and picks the best for that day. Anyhow, in Japan, how wrong can you go with any of the local beef?
Here below are the 2 types of beef steak. I think the portion was just perfect, the fatty one was just enough for each of us so that we didn’t feel too oily after eating them.
A typical Japanese beef steak I find is not complete without garlic fried rice, and naturally the next course was that!
For dessert, chef made for us a honey butter toast, and a must order to go with this is the Irish Coffee, a perfect ending to the delicious steak course we had.
And don’t forget to have a glass of the shochu (the bottles on the left of shelf with the yellow label) in Makoto, it’s such a easy drink to have. I loved it so much, I had to buy a bottle in Isetan before we departed back for Singapore.
Our meal at Makoto cost us around 25,000 yen per person (including drinks)
Makoto 1-4-5 Nihonbashi Honcho, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, Tel: 03-3241-7502. Reservations are required
