Sasamoto ささもと @ Shinjuku

In the alleys of Omoide Yokocho is a very unique izakaya that sets t apart from the rest of the yakitori-ya. Sasamoto serves only kushiyaki of pork and beef only, no chicken.

思い出横丁 Omoide Yokocho

Omoide Yokocho roughly translates as Memory Lane or, in other words, a place that you know from way back and feel somewhat nostalgic about. Tiny restaurants and open barbecue food stalls spill their smoke, noise and greasy steam over alleys hardly wide enough to stretch out your arms.

The buildings are old and mostly run down, the food stalls very traditional, the visiting crowd multilingual. At dinner time, when it gets most crowded here, tired Tokyo office workers relax with a beer and a few sticks of yakitori chicken at the food stalls, sitting next to excited tourists chattering loudly in Chinese, Cantonese, English or Korean.

Sasamoto ささもと

Walking around looking for a place to eat, I was immediately attracted by the lively crowd in Sasamoto ささもと which specialises in motsu. The word motsu (もつ) in Japanese refers to the edible internal organs (offals) of cows and pigs. Japanese people like to eat motsu for the variety of textures each organ provides.

I was seated at the counter right at the corner of the entrance. It’s a special seat for me as I can observe all the action going on in the tiny shop and tight kitchen area. It was not a comfortable seat, but I was not expected to sit that for a long time, as all these shops in Omoide need to have quick customer turnover.

Sasamoto serves beef and pork motsu in two forms – motsunikomi もつ煮込み offals stew and motsuyaki るもつ焼きgrilled offals skewers. Motsuyaki can be flavoured in three ways – salt, miso glazed and tare glazed. You can see the age of the tare stains on the stove as the chef dipped and dripped the tare over the stove.

You can order from what’s available from the menu written on the wall, or in my case looking at the platter next to the stew pot. While I can call out these items in Japanese, I cannot read the hiragana on the wall. Luckily they also offer omakase for foreigners to have a taste of the best selling items – 5 random skewers, two stewed items and a vegetable.

First off the otoshi, the cover charge that every izakaya will charge you for the seat. And straight off the bat, I was served two types of offals, the beef lung フワ (fuwa, which literally means “fluffy”) and pork big intestine シロ (shiro). Personally I loved the beef lung, I used order this as a double-boiled soup in Hong Kong.

Motsunikomi もつ煮込み

As the name implies, motsunikomi もつ煮込み is a stew of offals, in this case, cooked in miso dashi. The chef frequently checked the saltiness of stew as everything they sell is cooked in the stock like loklok, even for those that will be grilled later. As the stew bubbled along, it made me wonder how often (if they did at all) do they prepare a new pot of stew?

I only ordered two items from the stew – an encore of the beef lung フワ (fuwa) and cabbage キャベツ. Remember to order the cabbage early as it takes time to simmer in the cauldron of stew to get all the delicious flavours.

Motsuyaki るもつ焼き

Grilled beef and pork skewers 牛豚串焼き are all they serve. And they reminded me when I sat down that there’s no chicken.

First up, beef tongue 舌/タン (tan) topped with scallions in miso glaze. The tongue was grilled perfectly, still pink in the middle.

Then it came in pairs – beef spleen チレ (chire), and beef heart ハツ (hatsu).

Them came the next two, liver 肝臓/レバー (liba) and rectum 直腸/テッポウ (teppo). While it may sound disgusting, the rectum is actually quite chewy and full of fatty flavours if cleaned properly.

Pork cartilage 豚 ナンコツ (buta nankotsu)

Beef tripe センマイ (senmai) is the third stomach of the cow. It has a crunchy texture and paired very well with the miso glaze, special scallion-infused soy sauce and chopped scallion.

Saving the best for last, beef diaphragm 牛横隔膜/ハラミ (harami) and shiitake mushroom. The diaphragm was the best seller in the shop, and it was not difficult to discover why – the

The highlight of this negima ねぎま skewer was the leek ネギ (negi) and not the pork.

Enoki pork belly roll えのき肉巻き was cooked in the stew so the enoki was immersed with the beautiful taste of the stew. The grilling brought out the Maillard reaction on the protein.

Snap peas with pork belly roll スナップエンドウ肉巻き was a surprising good eat. Snap peas are in season during the winter months, and they were very sweet and crunchy despite subjected to a double torture. The burnt pork fats rounded up the taste profile.

And when you are finished with the skewers, you can for some closing soup 締めのスープ (shimeno supu). The rich and somewhat salty miso-based soup tasted good, but you cannot have too much of the good thing. The stew has been cooking for a long time, and it must have accumulated a lot of purine which can increase the risk of gout.

Needless to say, everything was delicious, but it was especially memorable on this day that I have a new ritual for Tokyo.

Don’t worry if you don’t speak a word of Japanese, there’s an omakase option where they can serve you 5 random grilled skewers. Everything is ¥230 (about SGD 2), and a shochu pour ¥460. So you can eat as much as you want as they count what you ate at the end of the meal. Reminded me of loklok but don’t try to throw the sticks under the table. Minimum one order of a drink is required. No reservations, and first come first serve.

Sasamoto ささもと 新宿店
1-2-7, Nishishinjuku, Shinjuku 160-0023 Tokyo Prefecture
Tel : +81 3-3344-3153

Visited Nov 2023