Tennen hon-maguro senmon-ten Tsukasa (天然本マグロ専門店 司)
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
🐟 Maguro-don / 📍 Furishiba
📓 Visits: 1
On Sundays the restaurant opens at 11am. I arrived at 9:08 and was 5th in the queue. By the time we were let in at 10:55 there were around 35 people behind me. Yes, I queued up for nearly two hours to eat here. Why is it so popular? Well you can't have failed to have seen the picture below but that's only half the story. The other half of the story is that the store is owned by Ishiji, the most selective tuna supplier at Toyosu and supplier to Kiyota, Hatsunezushi and Tenzushi.
I'll explain the annotated menu below.
First you choose from one of the six donburi. 'Saikyo' means 'best' and 'zeitaku' means luxury, FWIW. For large size you ask for 'oomori' for an extra JPY 1,000. If you just want a large portion of tuna but a regular portion of rice then ask for 'atama oomori'. You can then add extra 'toppings' from the menu below. I put 'toppings' in quotes as often these will actually be served as side dishes. In case you're not familiar, 'aburi' means blowtorched and 'zuke' means pickled. Tekka is straight up akamai, i.e. not zuke.
My choice was the saikyo don, atama oomori with a side of negitoro. Food arrived after about 5 minutes.
The tuna was outstanding. I could hardly tell the difference between the chutoro and otoro - all of it was just like otoro. Although the akami was not zuke it was high enough in quality that it didn't need to be. There was no sinew in any piece of tuna. Negitoro is something I always consider when I see it on a menu but too often it's a small, expensive, sad, oxidised portion of pink fish paste. Here it was the best I've ever had. When even the negitoro makes you sigh you know you've found a quality restaurant. The vinegared rice was good and even the negima soup was delicious. As a reward for being one of the earliest diners you get one of the 12-or-so limited portions of castella ebi tamago-yaki on the side.
It was a lot of food, not too much but I wouldn't want any more. So much protein here I didn't need a proper dinner. 4,000 yen + 500 for the negitoro is not cheap for maguro-don but I ordered the most expensive bowl, super-sized it and added an extra. If you read the menu you'll see they have bowls for 1,500 yen.
The best maguro-don deal ever was the pop-up at Niku 9 Yoyogi Park and since then I've mainly avoided going for kaisen-don. The only other place I know of in Tokyo where you may be able to get this kind of quality without having to go to such lengths (though you'll probably still have to queue, especially on a holiday) is Saegen in Tsukiji. This is run by Yamayuki who supplies nearly all the top sushi restaurants in Tokyo and has won the first annual Toyosu tuna auction for the last four years. I haven't been and I don't intend to go because the top bowl there is JPY 4,000 and while you get more toro than you did at Niku 9 Yoyogi Park you don't get nearly as much tuna as you do at Tsukasa. Other options are the very respectable Maguro to Shari and Shinsengumi Maguroya, where you get a lot for your money but the tuna is somewhat lacking in quality.
By the time I left the top bowl was already "sold out". This is the main reason to get there early. It's the only bowl that comes with otoro and I think they set a very low limit the number of bowls they sell per day, though if you don't get there in time you may still be able order a side portion of otoro.
The restaurant seats seven at a counter and four at two tables. By 9:24 there were 11 people in the queue so anyone queuing after that would have had to wait until after 11:20 to get in when the first customers left. That said, there seemed to be an etiquette that you could not save places for people and a couple of times I saw people join other people waiting and the entire group moving to the back of the queue or letting the person behind them in front. I would just get there for no later than 9:10 if you want the top bowl. If it's busier when you go and you miss your chance because you were trying to save ten or twenty minutes you're going to cry.
The staff are nice. The boss (Sayuri-san) is actually the wife of the owner of Ishiji (Takayuki Shinoda).
Two hours might seem like a long time to queue but if the weather is good, you bring a foldable seat and an iPad (other brands of tablet are available) and don't look at the clock it soon passes. It's a 2-hour round-trip for me so 4.5 hours for one bowl of food, but it's worth it. This was the best maguro-don I've ever had and I will definitely go back.
📌 https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1313/A131303/13292385/
❓ My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5.0
📱 Booking: Maguro-don is served on Sundays only and as noted you have to queue. Double-check on Twitter they are actually open on the day before setting off.
📍 Location:
3-9-7 Furishiba. 10 mins south-west from Kiba Station Exit 4b.
Map data ©2024 Google
📅 Visit March 2024
Saikyo don 3,000
Atama oomori +1,000
Negitoro +500
💴 Damage: 4,500
⏱️ Time taken: 2h20m (1h45m queuing, 35m eating)
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