Food Fridays #13
I mentioned in a post a while back that I wanted to take my wife to a BBQ place in Naka Meguro. I've walked by it several times and @knozaki2105 did a post about it several months ago. Well last night that happened and we had a great time!
Getting There
Good Barbeque is located under the elevated train tracks in Naka Meguro next to the Meguro river. It's just south of Shibuya, 2 train stops on the Tokyu Toyoko line. As I've written before, the area has undergone a lot of transformation over the years. There are a plethora of new and old eateries to choose from like a standing oyster bar, a Spanish restaurant with comfortable sofa seating, or Afuri, fine ramen. It's a trendy place to go if you are in nearby Shibuya.
We arrived at about 7pm on a Friday night. It was moderately busy with 2 large parties and so we were seated at the counter. I actually liked this because we had a great view of the kitchen and grill. My wife didn't seem to mind either so we were ready to order!
There are several ways to eat and drink at Good Barbeque.
- 1. You can go the all you can eat route for $43, but you have to be in a larger group and it probably requires a reservation.
- You can choose a 3, 4 or 5 meat course which includes a your choice of side dishes
- Individual item route
- All you can drink for $20 or individually. If you order all you can drink then everyone in your party must too. No sharing.
Of course we started off with 2 draft beers. There are several kinds of beer available including craft beers, but we wanted something light and just went with Sapporo draft. They also have cocktails for the more sophisticated.
For appetizers we ordered the fried mozzarella cheese balls and the spicy kale salad. It's hard to find good kale in Japan so my wife was excited to try the salad.
For our main courses my wife chose the 3 meat course of pork belly, beef brisket and Angus roast beef and garlic rice & cornbread for the sides. I opted for a special roast beef and angus beef burger. There was a reason I chose the burger. Good Barbeque is having a burger fest with some incredible looking burgers. I was torn between the "Cream Cheese Croquette Burger" and the"The Roast Beef & Angus Beef Burger". The latter won out as my inner caveman demanded meat!
Tell me you wouldn't have ordered one of those awesome burgers!
The appetizers came pretty quickly, within about 5 minutes and they arrived with a spicy cabbage mix in a mason jar that is included with your table charge. The cabbage mix had cucumbers and a spicy sesame oil type dressing. It was like an unfermented kimchi and tasted really good.
Then came the spicy kale salad. It was kale on top of lettuce, a few macadamia nuts all drizzled with cheese and spicy thousand island dressing. What I didn't like about this was the spice was too hot. It left a slight burning sensation in your mouth which you had to get rid of to enjoy anything else. If you like really spicy food then this would be up your alley.
Right after the salad the cheese balls came out. These were quite interesting. They were very light and not dense like normal cheese, but mozzarella none the less. They were garnished with scallions and salt with the option of a sweet thai dipping sauce. They were pretty good and I would consider ordering them again.
The main course arrived about 15 minutes after ordering. We were definitely ready. The presentation was great. The three meats separated at the bottom with 2 dipping sauces, garlic rice and cornbread above them. We debated for a minute which meat to try first. We picked the pork because we wanted to save the best for last!
The pork while it tasted good, was a bit too fatty, like 75% fat. So we moved on to the brisket.
The brisket, again while tasting good was a bit dry. As I understand it a good beef brisket is difficult to make, but my good friend's wife back in California makes an amazing brisket of which I judge most briskets by. The way to compensate for the dryness was to dip it into a Japanese barbeque sauce. The combination made it taste like magic. The sauce wasn't a thick A1 kind of sauce, it was like a soy sauce based worcestershire sauce and it was amazing!
Next up was the Angus roast beef. This was the best of the three meets. It tasted like it should and with the Japanese dipping sauce it tasted even better.
A minute after the meat course arrived out came my burger.
After the first bite I knew I had made the right decision ordering it. It was topped with a mustard sauce that was hard to pin down, but it was so delicious! It could have been a home made dijon, but not as spicy. It blended perfectly with the beef. With each bite you could taste either the roast beef or the Angus ground beef. I urged my wife to try it and she agreed it was really damn good.
We took our time going back and forth sampling each item, enjoying our time out and relieved we had been able to get a Nintendo Switch for the kids for Christmas.
We finished the night off with the cornbread and another round of beers. The cornbread tasted just like the kind mama use to make. My only complaint here was I like my cornbread server with some honey. If they would have drizzled some honey it would have been perfect.
Afterwards I took my wife around some other places I've visited in Naka Meguro, but I'll save that for Travel Tuesdays.
In closing the food was good, the staff were great and playful at one time hand signaling me from across the room if I wanted another beer. I would definitely recommend people giving this place a try, if only for the burgers!
Their website is here: http://good-barbeque.com
I tagged this with culturevulture because it blends two cultures, American and Japanese to produce a great outcome.
Thanks for reading!
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