Tokyo Eats - Akasaka Tsutsui

One thing I love about Japan is that you have amazing food at every price point - from the art and mastery of high end sushiya to the smokey buzz of street side yakitori. One of the my favourite types of dishes and the one I probably eat the most often is donburi.

Donburi is a simple bowl of rice with meat, fish or vegetables simmered with sauce on top of rice. There are many forms of donburi in Japan such as Kaisen-don (mixed sashimi on rice), katsu-don (deep fried pork cutlet simmered with egg on rice), una-don (grilled eel on rice), but today's post is on a place that specialises in beef steak don - Akasaka Tsutsui.

Akasaka Tsutsui is a restaurant hidden away in quiet part of Akasaka, a short distance away from Roppongi. It is a yoshoku restaurant, meaning it serves Western-influenced Japanese dishes, a style of cooking which originated from the Meiji Restoration period. The restaurant itself has been in operation for over 65 years, serving its speciality beef steak bowl.

The restaurant has beautiful dining room with rice paper walls, overlooking an artificial waterfall and garden. It was raining the day we visited and it was so relaxing to sit by the window, looking outside and listening to the sound of the waterfall and rain.

The restaurant has a variety of yoshoku dishes on the menu, such as hashed beef on rice, omu-rice, beef curry, katsu-sando; but knowing that the restaurant specialised in beef bowls, that was our main priority.

We ended up ordering:

• Deluxe beef steak bowl
• Black Berkshire pork teriyaki bowl
• Seafood fried rice

The beef steak bowl was every bit as good as it was hyped up to be - Juicy, succulent pieces of steak, perfectly cooked and thinly sliced. Soft rice drenched in sauce. A small lump of butter that melted on top of the beef - this dish is simple yet so good. I can understand exactly how this place has survived 65 years on the strength of this dish.

The other dishes we tried were also very good, but a bit more pedestrian. The pork teriyaki bowl had a similar sauce to the beef. The pork was tender with a nice char, but it couldn't match the tender, luxurious taste and feel of the beef.

The seafood fried rice was very moist and was packed with seafood. If I had this in Sydney, I would have been extremely happy. Yet, once again, after having the beef bowl, I just wished I ordered another one of those instead.

Deluxe beef steak bowl

Black Berkshire pork teriyaki bowl

Seafood fried rice

If you visit Tokyo, you should visit Akasaka Tsutsui and have the beef steak bowl. Its tastes amazing and the prices are very reasonable. I wish I ate two bowls when I visited and I'll have to make up for it the next time I have a few days in Tokyo!

If you can think of anywhere in Sydney that does a decent beef steak bowl (or any sort of beef steak bowl), please let me know because I'm dying to have another one. Sakana-ya in Crows Nest used to do beef steak bowl a number of years ago but they took it off the menu, so the search continues.