Yakiniku: The delicious grilled dish

Yakiniku is a dish you eat while grilling meat on an iron plate or a gridiron placed over a fire. Vegetables and seafood may also be grilled at the same time, but all these grilled things are collectively called “yakiniku.” Beef is mainly used for “yakiniku,” and a wide variety of parts are eaten, including short ribs, sirloin and tongue, as well as organ meats like tripe. At yakiniku restaurants they provide not only animal flesh such as pork, chicken and lamb but also Vienna sausage, fishes, shellfishes and vegetables. They offer abundant side dishes such as Korean-style rice and noodles, too. By the way, grilled lamb dishes (Mongolian mutton barbecue) are called “Genghis Khan” in Japan.

There are various kinds of sauces such as ones based on soy sauce, salt, miso and citrus fruits (lemon, sudachi citrus, etc.). There are two types of sauces: sauces for immersing and seasoning meat beforehand; and ones for dipping meat after grilling.

It is said that yakiniku (grilled meat) culture first blossomed after World War II. There is a commonly accepted theory on the birth of Yakiniku. It states that the origin of yakiniku is “horumon-yaki” (grilled beef or pork offal) which is considered to have been introduced by Koreans in Japan.

In the days of severe food shortage after the war, Koreans in Japan who were good at using meat, obtained the beef and pork innards that Japanese people discarded, and opened stalls in the black market. Here, after being grilled over an open fire, they were served and grew popular. Theory has it that later, at these Horumon-yaki stalls, loin and short ribs came to be used, and that they eventually developed into present-day yakiniku restaurants.

But there is another theory that challenges this idea head-on. Several documents show that, before the Meiji era and mainly in mountainous regions, Japanese ate meat from birds, wild boars, etc. after grilling it over an open fire. So, even in pre-war days, there were stews with innards and grilled innards on skewers, using beef or pork offal. It is also written that, in the 1930s, the style of “grilling and eating meat on the spot,” such as grilled short ribs and sukiyaki-style bulgogi (a Korean dish of grilled beef), which were popular in Seoul in those days, was already being introduced in Osaka by Korean immigrants.

How to eat

Heat the gridiron (or iron plate) fully. If you put meat on before it is hot enough, the meat may stick to it and break off when you pick up the meat. Put tongue on the gridiron first. It is usually eaten with salt without adding any sauce, so it does not burn easily. Put other kinds of meat on the gridiron. When the meat juice has begun to ooze, turn it over. When it has been cooked properly, eat it, wrapping it in such leaf vegetables as sangchu (Korean lettuce) if you like.

Tokyo Restaurant Guide