Galloping Stupid Gourmet

There’s nothing dumb about what we were about to eat tonight, but the homonym for horse is the same for stupid.

That’s right! We ate horse, and different parts of the horse prepared in a specialty shop call Bakauma (translated by Google as stupid horse) in Nishi-Shinjuku.

The place served something that one would not often get in Singapore. And even when my favourite Japanese restaurants did bring in some, it was usually the main cuts and not the rare cuts. So I was excited to come try here.

桜ユッケ Sakura Yukhoe

Yukhoe is the Korean term for beef tartare. It has also been borrowed by the Japanese to mean seasoned sashimi of sorts. Sakura yukhoe piri kara dare 桜ユッケ（ビリ辛ダレ）in this case was the poetic description of the horse meat tartare seasoned with spicy sesame oil and raw egg.

We had to mix it all up before eating the delicious tartare. Horse meat is a very lean meat, with only 1/5 of the fats content of regular beef. So it was quite surprising that it tasted so good in a tartare.

串盛り合わせ Assorted skewers

The assortment of grilled skewers were for different parts of the home and included 馬モモ串 horse breast meat skewer, 馬タン串 horse tongue skewer, 馬ハツ串 horse heart skewer, 馬レバー串 horse liver skewer and 馬ハうミ串 horse haumi skewer, the last being some mysterious cuts of the horse that I could understand the explanation. My favourite were the heart and tongue.

明太高菜豆腐 Mentai takana tofu

And next came our palate cleanser, some cold tofu with chopped takana 高菜 or Japanese giant red mustard pickles and mentaiko 明太子. You take the soy sauce on the table and drizzle some on the tofu for a nice little bite.

馬刺し五品盛り Five types of horse sashimi

From top left clock wise – tan タン tongue, hatsu ハツ (心臓) heart, kalbi カルビ ribs, and tategami たてがみ chopped horse mane. And in the middle 赤身 red meat sashimi. The assorted horse sashimi was accompanied with grated ginger and garlic with a sesame oil dip.

The mane is a rare part that can only be taken about 5 kg from one horse. It’s rarely eaten outside of Kumamoto. The reason for its popularity is its unique texture. Even though it’s fat, it’s light and easy to eat. Wrapped it with some nori and you can’t stop eating.

馬肉しゃぶしゃぶ Horse meat shabu-shabu

Shabu-shabu of horse meat, which is said to be a beauty food, is healthy and very popular with women. Horse meat has 3 times the iron of chicken, and is beneficial fora anaemic women. Also, it has 3 times the Vitamin A of pork and twice as much glycogen as beef. No wonder the tiny restaurant was packed with OLs from nearby offices.

The shabu-shabu was quick and simple, just a stainless steel pot on a potable stove with serving of enoki, strips of carrot, leeks, tofu and mizuna, with a plate of horse meat. But it took forever to come as the restaurant was packed to the rim that evening. Picture was for two persons.

You will never stop at one plate of horse meat when the additional plate was only ¥890 (price during this visit). But horse meat is a very lean protein, so it was not something that should be just dipped and serve. We had to leave them to simmer a bit more.

We came without reservation and the owner/chef arranged for us to the second floor to share the “private room” with another table. The environment was nothing to shout about. In fact, it was one of the most cramp and run-down place I went to this trip to Tokyo. But it was the cuisine I came for, not the space. Warning, if you are bigger size than me, it would be almost impossible to navigate to the second floor.

Baniku Ryori Bakauma 馬肉料理 馬鹿うま
〒160-0023  東京都新宿区西新宿4-12-15
Tel : +81 03-5354-7277

Visited Nov 2023