Yakiniku (Tsuruhashi-style)
Photo: Jonathan Lin · CC BY-SA 2.0

History

Tsuruhashi grew up around Osaka's Korean diaspora after the 1923 Kanto earthquake displaced workers and again after 1945. The black-market food stalls under the JR rail line became a permanent Korean-Japanese quarter; yakiniku as a sit-down genre was formalised here in the 1950s. The Tsuruhashi tradition keeps the meat lightly marinated and the offal varieties wider than the Tokyo branches that followed.

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Common allergens: Soy, Sesame

Make it at home

Yield 4Hands-on 30 minTotal 1 hr 30 minDifficulty Easy

Ingredients

  • 600g beef short rib, sliced 4mm against the grain
  • 300g beef skirt steak (harami), sliced 5mm
  • 200g beef tongue, sliced very thin
  • 200g large intestine (shiro horumon), cleaned and blanched
  • For the marinade: 80ml soy sauce
  • 40ml mirin
  • 2 tablespoons sake
  • 2 tablespoons brown sugar
  • 2 cloves garlic grated
  • 1 thumb ginger grated
  • 1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
  • 1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds
  • For the dipping sauce: 80ml soy sauce, 2 tablespoons grated daikon, juice of half a lemon, 1 sliced spring onion
  • 1 head Romaine or red leaf lettuce, leaves separated, to wrap
  • Cooked white rice, kimchi and beer, to serve

Method

  1. Mix the marinade in a wide dish. Add the short rib and skirt and turn to coat. Rest 30 minutes at room temperature.
  2. Heat a charcoal grill or a heavy ridged pan until smoking hot. Set the dipping sauce, lettuce, rice and kimchi at the table.
  3. Start with the tongue, 30 seconds a side over the hottest part of the grill, while the marinated cuts come up to room temperature.
  4. Lift the short rib and skirt out of the marinade, letting excess drip off. Grill in small batches, 60 to 90 seconds a side, until char-spotted but still pink in the middle.
  5. Grill the horumon last, 4 to 6 minutes turning often, until the fat is rendering and the surface is crisp.
  6. Eat as it comes off the grill, dipping each piece in the soy-daikon-lemon sauce and folding into a lettuce leaf with rice and kimchi.

Tip from the editors. Keep the marinade light; if the soy and sugar are too heavy the meat burns before it sears. The Tsuruhashi rooms barely marinate the higher-grade cuts at all.

Where to eat yakiniku (tsuruhashi-style)

Yakiniku (Tsuruhashi-style) in Osaka

Tsuruhashi Fugetsu Namba ★ 4.1

¥¥ OkonomiyakiDotonbori And Namba

The Namba CITY branch of Osaka's Tsuruhashi Fugetsu chain, cooking pork belly and squid okonomiyaki on a teppan counter just south of Dotonbori.

OrderClassic buta-tama, Kimchi okonomiyaki, Yakisoba

Directions

Tsuruhashi Korean Back Alleys ★ 4.0

¥ Korean BBQTennoji And Abeno

The lanes behind the Tsuruhashi market arcade hold family yakiniku restaurants serving offal over charcoal at ¥150 to ¥300 per skewer from the 1960s.

Why locals goThe main Tsuruhashi market is visited; the back alleys behind it are not on any tourist map.

Directions

Tsuruhashi Koreatown Market ★ 4.4

¥ MarketTennoji And Abeno

Japan's largest Korean market surrounds Tsuruhashi station in alleys selling kimchi from stone crocks, Korean BBQ cut to order, japchae, makgeolli wine.

Directions

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