Kobe beef set lunch at the Wakkoqu

6 June 2016

When travelling between Hiroshima and Kyoto, we will pass by the city of Kobe. Amongst other things, Kobe is known for producing one of the best tasting beef in the world, called the Kobe beef. This is the brand name given to beef that came from Tajima black cattle that were specially bred and raised in Kobe.

We were still having withdrawal symptoms after tasting the fabulous Hida Beef while in Takayama a week ago. It was therefore an easy decision in our travelling group that we should make a stopover at Shin-Kobe Station for some Kobe beef while travelling by Shinkansen from Hiroshima to Kyoto.

Wakkoqu is a Kobe-beef teppanyaki restaurant situated on the 3rd floor of, but not part of, the ANA Crowne Plaza Hotel. Both the hotel and the restaurant are located just across the street from the Shin-Kobe JR Train Station which made it a convenient choice for our lunch break.

Tip: It was highly recommended to make advance reservation for Wakkoqu. Tel: +81 (078) 262 2838 or online. Lunch is from 12 noon to 3pm. After this time, ala carte menu is orderable.

Wakkoqu is quite posh inside. We were seated at the counter in front of the teppanyaki chef.  There were other groups at the table, served by 2 chefs who worked as a team. We arrived in time to order their special lunch sets. We ordered the Wakkoqu Course for each person. Each set included 150g of sirloin (Tajima & Sanda Beef from Kobe), 6 kinds of grilled vegetable, soup, salad, rice ＆ Japanese pickles, dessert and coffee. Cost ¥5,880. We added an order of garlic fried rice into the meal, for a few hundred yen more.

 

The lunch set included a creamy potato soup which was served first.

Then the raw beef and vegetables were brought to the table.

The beef in the “value for money” lunch sets may not be of the A5 grade Kobe beef but the meat still looked amazing with the fabulous marbling and freshness. 

 

While we tucked into the fresh salad tossed with the delicious Japanese sesame based sauce, the chef started to cut up the beef into several pieces of various cuts and separating the fats from the meat.

The correct way and best way to enjoy high quality wagyu is yakiniku or teppanyaki, where the beef is freshly cooked and hot. The flavour and fats from the marbling in the medium rare meat oozes out as you bit into it. The skilled teppanyaki chef served up a few pieces of beef at a time, making sure that we enjoyed each piece before he cooked up the next few pieces.

Each time, he suggested different dips for the different cuts of the meat but I think it tasted best with just a dash of sea salt and pepper.

In between the servings of the beef, the chef grilled the fats to get the oil from the fats and used the oil from the fat to cook the vegetables.

The fats were soon reduced to crispy bits and these were then used as ingredients for the garlic fried rice. Nothing is wasted.  The fragrant from the rice was so fantastic that I believed the other guests at our table regretted not ordering this option.