かくがく
On weekdays, sometimes young people who appear to be students line up, and I have been curious about this place for a while. They also serve lunch on Saturdays. I visited before 1 pm, with 5 or 6 customers already inside and 2 customers behind me. As soon as I entered the restaurant, smoke filled the air. There are no exhaust ducts at each table, so it's okay if the smell sticks to your clothes. The interior of the restaurant feels more like a hormone (offal) shop than a yakiniku (grilled meat) restaurant. The lunch menu includes some close to 1500 yen for A5 grade meat, but the 800 yen lunch set is the highlight. You can choose 2 types of meat from 10 different options. When I entered, they had sold out of beef tongue offcuts, so I opted for the marinated kalbi instead of the cheapest lunch set. Rice and water are self-service, and there are tongs and wet towels available. First, a salad, namul (seasoned vegetables), and pickles are served in a stacked box, followed shortly by the meat. The kalbi comes in thick slices, with 5 or 6 pieces on the plate. It's 150g and looks quite impressive. The surface quickly burns due to the high fat content, and the thickness makes it difficult to cook through, requiring some cooking skills. It's marinated in a sweet sauce and can be eaten without dipping it in sauce. The texture is firm, but for this price and quantity, it's more than satisfactory. Noteworthy is the soup. It doesn't have any ingredients, but it has a deep flavor, and you can have refills as much as you want. The soup is ordered separately. I tried mixing the soup with rice, like a Korean soup dish, and it was also good. Students get a 100 yen discount. If this restaurant had been near my school when I was a student, I would have definitely been a regular customer. (2019.12.14)