Ongane – 89 points

After the disappointment of yesterday’s Star, RB said that he wanted a proper meal, one that left him satisfied.  With this in mind and a reluctance to take any risks, we went to an old favourite, the bibimba place.

 

How this place came to be known as the bibimba place is rather unclear, given that none of us have ever ordered bibimba there, but is probably due to us having never bothered to learn the name of the place.  When thinking about what I was going to say about the greatest Korean restaurant in Akasaka, I asked RB if he knew the name of the place.  Given that we have both been coming here at least a couple of times a month for more than four years, this should be a given, but low and behold neither of us did. 

 

This is rather embarrassing given that every time we come in the lovely lady running the place brings us a bowl full of the greatest cucumber pickles and doesn’t even bother asking what we would like, but just asks if we would like a small or large size, but then perhaps when a restaurant knows you that well, you don’t need names.  And I bet that even though the lady behind the counter may know our faces, our orders and our deep appreciation for her cucumber pickles – she probably doesn’t know our names either.

 

The food:  Whilst there are a number of dishes on the menu that look rather tasty, I have only ever had one dish at this place – the ishiyaki karubi don.  This is a great meal, one of Akasaka’s finest, a bowl of rice, with meat, chilli paste and a raw egg on top.  Not just any bowl however, a stone bowl that has been heated to white-hot temperatures.  The contents are then mixed up and smeared all over the sides to form crispy rice bits, a sort of Asian pork crackling if you like.  32 points.

 

The price:  950 yen for a normal size, 1,050 yen for a large size, but either or, I always leave the place feeling satisfied. 8 points.

 

The volume:  More than enough, the only loss of points is that we never seem to get as many of the cucumber pickles as we would like, but that is a minor gripe given that we would probably eat the place out of any profit if we were able to get out fill of them. 12 points.

 

The extras:  A bowl of slightly peppery flavoured soup, which whilst not offensive doesn’t do a huge amount for me, a jug of roast corn (I think) tea, some standard daikon kimchi and the best cucumber pickles I have ever come across.  The cucumbers are pickled in a mixture of chilli, sesame oil and various other secret ingredients (or at least ingredients that I have not been able to identify) and are superb – flavoursome, perfect texture of slightly pickled yet still crisp to the bite with a bit of chilli warmth but not an overbearing hear.  13 points.

 

Bonus: Almost full points, for remembering us, remembering our order and always bringing us extra cucumber pickles, the only reason that full points were not scored was due to the fact that the cucumber pickles come off the menu in winter (too expensive apparently). 18 points.

 

The details: 1Floor, MT Bldg, 3-6-13 Akasaka, Minato-ku

Phone 03 5570 9442

 

Kintaro – 68 points

Is it culinary imperialism to appreciate plastic plates?  There are certain places where you can get away with plastic plates.  A beer garden in a obvious one; a pool side is another – in fact when with Little Trouble, a place that served drinks in glass next to a pool would lose points for the resulting danger of broken glass.  Now if that is not a sign of getting old and mature, I am not sure what it. 

 

One other place where plastic plates always seems to make a place feel that little bit more authentic is a cheep Asian restaurant.  Kintaro uses plastic plates, and I liked them.  I am a sucker for simple things like that, but aren’t most wanna-be wide-eye foodies?  Somehow the cable channel in some unrecognisable language playing in the background along with plastic plates for the food and metal rice bowls for the rice makes it seem so much more Korean, which in turn leads me to believe the food will be that much closer to the real deal.  I feel as if I am entering a restaurant in the back streets of Seoul, just because of a couple of plates and some tatty posters for the local fire water, written in a language I don’t read. 

 

Funny thing though, is if anyone asked me where I had eaten the best yakiniku, my answer would be Japan, without a doubt.  Whilst I have had some great yakiniku meals in Korea, the highlight of which was a fantastic beach side place on the outskirts of Seogwipo on Cheju Island where this drop-dead beauty served up this rib with enough meat on it to feed half the island and then proceeded to take to it with a pair of scissors in way that still causes me to have wet nightmares, generally the best yakiniku I have had has been in Tokyo. 

 

The food:  Although there were various types of branded beef on the menu, we went with the mixed plate of skirt steak (harami) and ribs (karubi), which came with ten or so generous chunks of meat.  For a cheap lunch menu the meat was surprisingly tasty; both cuts had decent amount of fat on them, making them tender but not overdone as is often the case.  28 points.

 

The price:  980 yen for a good filling meat lunch.  Can’t complain. 8 points.

 

The volume:  Good amount of meat, which could be increased to a Bearded One size for an extra 400 yen.  There was a stand in the restaurant where you could help yourself to extra rice and miso soup.  All in all, I left feeling rather well fed, but not as stuffed as the poor cows probably were. 12 points.

 

The extras:  Big bowls of kimchee and kakuteki on the table, along with a bunch of smaller dishes containing pickled bean sprouts, pa jeon, some egg dish (which I wasn’t able to identify but nevertheless very tasty) along with a big bowl of shredded cabbage, which Lapp promptly mixed with kimchee, poured dressing all over and claimed to have created a Korean salad.  10 points.

 

Bonus:  The plastic plates, signs with signatures written in hangul on them, bottles of soju and makkoli lining the walls, having to go past a dodgy looking shop selling dresses for the angles of the night and down some stairs at the back of a building gave it a very authentic feeling.  10 points.

 

The details: B1 Fl, 2-13-16 Akasaka, Minato-ku

Phone 03 5562 3727

Web site: http://r.gnavi.co.jp/p421100/