matsusakagyu yakiniku M

and tonight is the night. before we started our holiday, husband asked me what i wanted to do. i told him that i only wanted to go to osaka castle. the rest was food trip. and i've made a long list of the food that i wanted to try. husband told me, we only have one stomach each, so better picked a good one. but it was impossible to pick a good one. everyone kept recommending different things. and even tripadvisor ratings were different as well. so far we got lucky.. most of the food that we tried were delicious, with the exception of the first kobe beef. it was overpriced. so, husband asked for another meat feast. i told him about matsusakagyu when we arrived at the hotel. told him that everyone kept saying to make appointment. he thought we could swing it just like kobe, but when he read more, he totally agreed that we should make appointment. apparently there were 3 branches in osaka, two of them were very close to us, the other one in namba was slightly farther, but not too much. he tried to book for our second night in osaka, but they were fully booked, all 3 branches. but he got lucky and score a spot in namba branch for your third night. so here we are, ready for our dinner.

welcome to matsusakagyu yakiniku M

it was important to be punctual in japan. they might give your seat away if you're not showing up on time. so we arrived there luckily in time. you had to carefully looking for it since apparently, their building wasn't that eye-catching. in fact, apparently, i've walked in front of their dotonbori branches without knowing that it was the place. if i hadn't look up and saw the name "matsusaka yakiniku M", i might miss it. same goes with the second branch. i walked near it and it was not eye catching, with black paint.. it was not helping to find it at all. so better arrive early so you could find the place on time.

the ala carte menu

course menu

when we arrived, there were double doors greeting us before we got to meet the host. but apparently they didn't get the information that we put in the appointment. when we made the appointment, we had to answer several questions like where we came from and what's the purpose of our visit, but the host didn't seem to know it all. she asked where we came from and to her surprise, when she knew that we came from indonesia, she immediately changed greeting us in indonesia. turned out that night there were 3 people from indonesia working there that night. they were students that work part time there.. somehow the company hired everyone since jwestbros also came across an indonesian student in other branch.

salad

kimchi set

short rib appetizer

i didn't know exactly how many floors were there, but we got place in the second floor. all the walls were painted black and the light was very low, so it wasn't clear to look around. but i remember the other grill restaurant in shibuya was also very dark and even they cover the eating place with curtain, probably to ensure privacy. same goes here. the wall was painted black and our seating were covered with curtain. they used sofa chair that facing each other with the table with installed grilled pan in between. then shortly after we were seated, the waiter gave us an apron and wet tissue so we could clean up. and he explained all the menu and gave some recommendation. he gave us time to make our choice and then we could ring him to come back and took our order.

beef sushi

garlic rice

beef ramen

there were 3 course menu, standard (all lean meat), marbled (all marbled meat, garlic rice and one sushi and desert of the day), and premium (all premium meat, 2 types of sushi, choices of main course - garlic rice or ramen or other two that i couldn't remember,  and your chosen desert). but there were some ala carte menu as well. if you didn't order any drink, they would give you free water. husband chose the premium one so finger crossed that it would be good. fyi, jwestbros suggested to order the marbled one and then one menu from ala carte that wasn't in the marbled menu yet.

the waiter offered to take picture of us

at first they would serve us appetizer, which was salad and a kimchi set. the salad was okay, but still i prefer the one from our hometown better. the kimchi set had 3 small bowls, two of them were kimchi, and the middle one was beef. i ate the beef with salad and it turned out delicious. then they gave 4 pieces of short beef appetizer, the waiter suggested to cook it just for a minuted both side, and he gave us several condiments as well. salt, soy sauce and one more but i forgot what it was. you could season the meat after grilling it to your taste. the meat was tender, but not super melting in your mouth type. then came the sushi. there was two of them, the lean one and the marbled one. the marbled one was more delicious than the lean one. the lean one was similar to the one i had at yazawa.

main course meat selection

then came our main course. husband got garlic rice and i got beef ramen. garlic rice was delicious, more like fried rice for us. basically it was rice mixed with fried garlic and bacon bits, so it was not halal. totally delicious. but if you had eaten chinese bacon fried rice, it would taste similar. the beef ramen was warm and delicious as well. the soup was made of beef broth and very light and heartwarming. the ramen was thin and soft. it was delicious, but since the broth was quite light, it slightly similar to instant noodle ramen. totally will warm your stomach, perfect for cool nights.

dessert

the meat came from different part of the cow, which i totally forgot by now. but the choices were sirloin steak, bottom flap, maboroshi and kyukyoku. they also available to choose in ala carte menu, so if i could make suggestion, pick maboroshi. it was the most tender, melting in your mouth type. totally delicious! they gave us four pieces for each type, so we got two each. if i got to put them in order from my most to my least favorite, it would be maboroshi, kyukyoku, sirloin steak and bottom flap. they were all tender and delicious, but some was a bit chewy and dry compared to the other. anyway.. the meat was totally better than the one at kobe! definitely skip kobe next time and just go to this place! and for desert, we picked chocolate ice cream. i was totally excited that they had chocolate ice cream. i thought there would only be matcha option. the ice cream was different though. it was tougher than usual ice cream. not as creamy, and not too sweet. but it was still delicious.

and that was our last night in osaka. it was a totally satisfying dinner to end our holiday. i totally recommend you to try this one, and make sure to make reservation. you could make reservation from their website, so no worry about not being able to speak japanese. will definitely come back if we could.