Gyuniku Sushi Kintan

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⚠️ Gyuniku Sushi Kintan relaunched in January 2022 as an omakase-only style restaurant priced at JPY 9,800 at lunch and JPY 18,900 at dinner.

Gyuniku Sushi Kintan (牛肉寿司 きんたん)

⭐⭐⭐

🐂 Yakiniku / 📍 Ginza

📓 Visits: 1

Gyuniku Sushi Kintan opened in January 2020 and is part of the Kintan chain of upper-mid-market yakiniku restaurants.  If you hadn't already guessed, Gyuniku Sushi Kintan specializes in beef 'sushi'.

In general, the best yakiniku restaurants don't accept lone diners and don't open for lunch.  The Kintan chain does and while it's nowhere near the level of the top places, it's not necessarily the cheapest or the best value it's not bad if you want a quality yakiniku lunch or you're a solo diner and the branches are in convenient locations.  I've been to three of the Kintan branches now and the service has been excellent on all occasions.  As you might expect, you'll be lucky if any of the staff speak any English and you won't find an English menu.  For a yakiniku experience that ticks all the boxes Kintan doesn't, see my more recent review of Yakiniku Ushigoro.

Gyuniku Sushi Kintan is one of the few in the chain that accept bookings for one via Tabelog which is attractive now because they are taking part in the Go To Eat Campaign.  Unfortunately Tabelog bookings for solo diners are restricted to lunch at 11:30 but if you call after you make the reservation you can change the time (I changed mine from 11:30 to 1:30 but I'm not sure trying to change a lunch to dinner reservation would work :). The Akasaka branch also takes Tabelog bookings for one for lunch and the Shirokane, Azabujuban and Daikanyama Honten branches accept bookings for both lunch and dinner for one.  None of the other branches specialize in beef sushi.

There are 12 different courses listed on Tabelog plus a lunch and a-la-carte dinner menu.  Because they are shown as available from two persons, when you book online you won't be able to select a course at time of booking but when I went to the restaurant I could choose any lunch course I liked.  This month (November 2020) is an especially good time to go as there are a number of coupons on Tabelog (that expire at the end of the month) giving you JPY 1,000-2,000 off your bill or extra food.

I opted for the 2,680 JPY 'Beef sushi special set' lunch (tax and service included) and used the coupon for 3 free extra pieces of beef sushi.  The course consisted of:

  1. Salad
  2. Beef tongue tartar
  3. Chawanmushi
  4. 3 pieces of beef tongue
  5. 9 pieces of beef sushi (using coupon)
  6. Vegetable soup
  7. Matcha pudding
  8. Tea or coffee

This is a little different from the course listed on Tabelog (appetizer and dessert included rather than a drink) but no complaints there.  You can have free refills of salad and soup and you can ask for some rice to eat with your tongue.  I've included a picture of the main event below.  Every piece was a different cut of beef, as the chef explained.

All spaces are private rooms but there are no table grills: all the meat is brought to you pre-cooked.  If I had one complaint it would be that it would be good if they could have brought the tongue on a hot plate.  It wasn't served cold but would have quickly become cold if left to linger.  As the rooms are enclosed you make your own atmosphere (apart from the usual muzak I tuned out from by tuning into my phone) and given the current situation, this is probably not somewhere you want to be with anyone you're not intimate with.

Everything I ate was good quality and with extra refills of salad I left full.  This is a great way to try beef sushi.

📌 https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1301/A130103/13242181/

❓ My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ 3.6

📱 Booking: 🟩 Easy.  Same day bookings taken via Tabelog.

📍 Location: 

3F FUNDES Building, 8-2-16 Ginza.  3F multi-tenant building, Ginza Korido Dori—down the side of the train tracks that run between Yurakucho and Shimbashi stations, across the road.  6 minutes from Ginza station Exit C1 or 5 minutes from Shimbashi station Ginza Exit.

Map data ©2021 Google

📅 Visit November 2020

💴 Damage: 2,680

⏱️ Time taken: 50m (I was eating slowly)

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