Seven years ago, I studied abroad at Kobe (神戸), which was my first time in Japan. I thought since I was nearby, I'd take the train (~1hr by train, ~$4 one way) and meet my host family. I told my host grandparents yakiniku was a big item missing on my list of foods so they decided to take me to 甲子園 牛萬(こうしえん ギュウマン or Kōshien Gyuman). The cool thing about this restaurant is the restaurant is on the second floor, while the first floor is the butcher which one can buy! As you can maybe tell, it's incredibly marbled and the shoyu marinade was just enough to season the meat but still let it shine. Amazing lunch.
Let's talk a bit about the grading system. There are two systems/metrics that are used to describe Japanese beef. The first part, which is a scale of A/B/C, describes yield grade. For lower grades, the fat is not well marbled and fat caps or larges section of pure fat surround the desired steaks or other meat. The percentage of meat that one is able to extract vs. the pure beef fat is what what the yield grade is. For A grade, the percentage is apparently 72% or higher. B grade is 69-71% and C grade is below 69%.
The second system describes the actual quality of the beef. The metrics include marbling, meat color, fat color, and texture. The scale ranges from 1 through 5 where 1 is poor and 5 is top tier. While the beef above I believe isn't A4/A5, it still is quite a high quality (according to the host grandparents anyway).
Maybe as a conversion for my American colleagues, a USDA prime rating is somewhere around an A2 or A3, a USDA prime+ is a A3 or A4, and a USDA prime ++ is A4 or A5.
I just want to shout out my host family for changing plans last minute when I mentioned I hadn't had yakiniku yet (at least during my trip to KEK). They're amazing and for some reason covered the bill and so here's a picture of them trying to figure out what to order! I also don't have any pictures of meat on the grill so.... oops
Comments