kobe beef - Mouriya

Royal Moriya Restaurant

What's the most you would pay for a good meal? $50? $100? As you can probably guess by the fact I keep a blog dedicated to food, I don't know where I would draw the line for a meal. I still have difficulties understanding how one of my friends was seriously contemplating either buying a new used car or a new handbag for the same price, but I have no qualms in putting down a fair chunk of money for a quality steak. In fact, I'd even plan and budget for a weekend trip solely for the purpose of eating one in Kobe.

So, that's what I did last year. I was still kicking myself for having visited the city known for its wagyu beef before but not trying it because of the fairly steep price. Live in Japan for a couple years and not have ever tried Kobe beef? In my defence, while on my first trip to Kobe I hadn't researched the best places to try the beef, so didn't want to have my one and only expensive wagyu experience to be subpar. So this time, I found Mouriya, a Japanese teppanyaki restaurant has won multiple awards for its quality steaks, and had a few more branches of its restaurant open in the area. I know some people are against chain restaurants, but it couldn't have opened two new restaurants based on a bad reputation, right?

I settled for the lunch set (¥9000), which was about 130g of wagyu came with salad, vegetables, soup and coffee. I must say, my heart slumped a little when I realised the giant, marbled steak they had placed in front of us was meant to serve all three of us, and not just me.

Not wanting our beef to go cold as it rested on our plates, our teppanyaki chef skillfully sliced the beef and served us all one bite sized piece of steak at a time, placing it on our plates, which were then eaten with our choice of salt, pepper, fried garlic, ponzu, or wasabi & soy sauce.

Wow. That's the best word I can think of to describe the beef. the marbling of the fat really added to the juiciness and flavour as the beef melted in your mouth and the taste slowly spread throughout your mouth. I couldn't help but involuntarily make 'mmm'ing noises with each and every bite.

The amazing part was the way in which the chef prepared and cooked each cut of our steak slightly differently. Each bite sized piece had varying degrees of marbling, and so he cooked each one accordingly to make them all taste unbelievable. Not even the thick strip of fat was wasted; instead, it was cooked it down longer to render some of the oil out, and browning the surface. It had a crisp,clean beef flavour to it, and surprisingly, didn't taste fatty at all.

Definitely good money well spent, and now I'm not kicking myself for not trying Kobe beef anymore. Although, I am now kicking myself for not going there again.

Mouriya
Daiichi Kishi Building, 2nd Floor, 9-9 1-chome Kitanagasa Doori, Chuo-ku, Kobe City
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