If the restaurant advertises that it specialises in aged beef tongue, would you venture into it? I would, and I had one of the best lunches in Tokyo so far.

Kintan specialises in Gyutan – Japanese cow tongue. Carefully selected tongues of Kuroage cows are dry-aged for 30 days to enhance and condense the flavours and a precise 200g cut for each serve. They only use A4/A5 wagyu beef, and therefore you can be assured the best experience for wagyu.

Dinner can be expensive, but they do have really reasonable lunch courses going for $50 and less.

Lunch Course – Beef Sushi 8 Pieces Superb Course

Watercress Salad and Vegetable Meat Broth

The first items to be served (not in particular order since it’s lunch) were lettuce and watercress salad レタスとクレソンのサラダ and vegetable meat broth 肉野菜スープ.

While the salad was just a simple tossed salad with a Japanese wafu dressing, the soup was amazing! The beefy broth was sweetened by the radish and carrot and cabbage. It can only be so good because of the beef stock used to boil it all together.

Seasonal Appetisers

Next up, the seasonal appetiser 季節の前菜 of sake marinated sea whelk, boiled sweet potato, beef aspic, braised beef slice, yuba with baby yam and chestnuts. Of all these, I really did not like the sea whelk, the wine was bitter. But the aspic was surprising good but the taste can be overpowering and unfamiliar.

Wagyu Yukke

和牛ユッケ wagyu yukke is basically a beef tartare done in Japanese style with a raw egg yolk, spicy Korean gojujaeng  and sliced wagyu beef chuck. I do not recommend that you do this at home. You need to sliced of quite a bit of beef before you get to the part that you can do a tartare or yukke with. Also, you need really high quality and properly handled beef.

The yukke was very good and the right temperature, both spice and temperature wise. Many got it wrong by putting to much of it, they nailed it with a right amount of Korean pepper. Mixed it up good, and you get a really flavourful and cold appetiser there.

Beef Sushi

牛寿司8貫 beef nigiri sushi 8 pieces – all made from different part of the treasured Kuroge Japanese beef.

• 飛騨舌の握り Hida tongue nigiri sushi **favourite
• 牛ハツの塩握り Salted beef heart nigiri
• 特上ざぶとんの握り Special nigiri
• フィレのロッシーニ寿司 Aburi Rossini Sushi
• 赤身握り Red meat nigiri
• みすじの炎り握り Mizuji aburi nigiri
• 黒舌の煮つけ握り Boiled black tongue nigiri
• 雲丹とキャビア握り Sea urchin and caviar nigiri

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Kuroge Sirloin Truffle Sukiyaki

Yes, you get the decadent サーロインのトリュフすき焼き Kuroage sirloin sukiyaki with truffle as part of the $40 course for lunch.

One big generous slice of sirloin was slightly blanched and served with black truffle shavings and a raw egg yolk, just like all good sukiyaki. Give the beef and egg a good mix and enjoy the first part of this course. The fatty beef with the truffle were a combination made in heaven. The egg yolk and sukiyaki sauce bind the whole thing together.

Then for part two, pour the egg yolk with the beef fats into the shari ball. Enjoy!

Stewed Beef Maki

And for the final course (no dessert for lunch), you get four pieces of 牛しぐれ煮巻き stewed beef maki. Beautiful ending to the lunch, time to walk it off the system.

The only issue I have with Kintan was the ventilation. The grilling and boiling do get into the clothings so if you are there for lunch, you may have to use some smell remover before your next meeting. Other than that, you get a really reasonably priced lunch with lots of return in the value department.

Kintan Akasaka 赤坂割烹　金舌
〒107-0052 東京都港区赤坂3-11-7 ソシアル赤坂ビル1F
Tel : 03-3568-2129

https://www.kin-tan.jp/akasaka/

Date Visited : Sep 2019