Tasty, Sizzling Beef in Fukuoka

Discovering this particular restaurant was just one of those lucky accidents — it happened to be around the corner from my Airbnb in Fukuoka, and every time I walked by, it looked busy and smelled delicious.

I’m not even sure what the place is called — I didn’t see an English name in the restaurant or on Google.

As soon as you walk in the door, you’re hit by the smell of sizzling beef, cabbage, and garlic.  Though I think there are a few other dishes on the menu, they basically only serve one thing here: yakiniku, a sizzling hot plate piled high with garlicky fried cabbage and cubes of tender beef.  You can also get a side of rice and miso soup, which you should absolutely do.

The thing that makes this dish really special are the bowls of dark red chili paste they have at each table.  This stuff is spicy and super savoury, like the best chili oil you’ve ever had — but condensed down into a thick paste.

It melts into the beef and cabbage, amping up the flavour by about a million.

I was actually eating this wrong at first. I was basically trying to mix it all in, but then a waitress showed me how it’s supposed to be done.  There are these small, Jenga-esque blocks at each table, and you’re supposed to take one and put it under one side of the plate, propping it up at about a ten degree angle.

You then push the meat and cabbage to the side, revealing a delicious pool of melted chili paste and beef juices.  At this point you can start mixing small amounts of the beef and cabbage into this sauce, which is where the magic happens.

Eventually, as you mix more and more of it in, the cabbage starts getting darker and more flavourful.  Combined with the bits of beef and cabbage that have gotten dark and crispy from the screaming hot plate, it’s basically pure joy.

I’d never even heard of this dish until I tried this place, and now I’m not sure how I ever lived without it.

Location: 2-chōme-8-12 Kotobukimachi, Hakata-ku, Fukuoka, 812-0884

How to find it: There’s no English, but look for the red sign with white text.  It’s right around the corner from Minami-Fukuoka Station.