📍Okayama, Japan
Fine dining with Okayama's Chiya beef | Personal hot pot sukiyaki 🐂🍲

This sukiyaki restaurant is located near Okayama Korakuen. Its feature is the famous Okayama Wagyu - Chiya beef, which shares the same roots as Matsusaka beef and Kobe beef, being black-haired Wagyu.

The establishment is cozy, resembling a Japanese home. It is highly recommended to make a reservation in advance! Even if you have only two people, you can be arranged to sit in a tatami room if you have a reservation.

The staff are handsome and beautiful 😆, and the service is attentive and well thought out. Dishes are served one by one in the private room, making for a rather busy eating experience 😹. The whole meal took over two hours.

In the middle, the manager will even send in whole cuts of meat for you to take photos 📷, and there's a special send-off outside the restaurant, making it a very refined and unique experience.

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Order items
🐂 Chiya beef and black-haired Wagyu set (¥8,800):
Choose sukiyaki
The set includes three appetizers, a vegetable platter, a meat platter, raw egg, dessert, and rice cake.

For sukiyaki, you cook it yourself, with a pure soy sauce base heated directly, unlike the Kansai style which uses sugar to heat up.

All three appetizers are made with beef, and they are quite flavorful and appetizing 🤤.

The vegetable platter was a bit lacking; the bottom layer mainly consisted of older and tougher bean sprouts filling.

The meat platter is quite large, with the meat cut into thick pieces.

• Chiya beef offers two cuts; the quality is top-notch, with beautiful marbling evenly distributed. The melt-in-the-mouth texture is very enjoyable and doesn't feel overwhelming even if you eat a lot.
• The black-haired Wagyu sirloin seems to be selected from Kagoshima. While it doesn't stand out as much as the Chiya beef, it is still delicious, allowing you to savor the flavor of the beef as it goes down.

The rice cake was also excellent! It has a thick, chewy texture that's slightly sticky.

The dessert comes with hot tea and local Okayama muscat grape cheese.
The cheese is amazing! The balance between the milk and grape flavors is just right. I usually don't like cheese very much, but after tasting a bite, I finished it all!

🐖 Okayama black pork set (¥4,900):
Choose hot pot and zosui (with green onions and egg you can cook yourself).
The hot pot has a clear broth and is served with sesame sauce and vinegar dip.

The Okayama black pork has a sweet and tasty pork flavor.
However, unfortunately, the meat isn’t as thick, and it’s cut very thinly, leaving me unsatisfied. I might be used to the thickness of Taiwanese pork 🤪 and even think Taiwanese pork tastes better!

The zosui, however, was a perfect ending 🫶🏻.

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Would I visit again: Maybe 🤔.
For me, it feels like a one-time visit! Having experienced it is enough, plus the dinner prices are relatively high, and you're also required to order drinks (this time I ordered plum wine soda and cola, neither had much fizz).

Next time, I might want to try something cheaper that includes drinks and dessert but has less meat—perhaps a lunch option.

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Notes:
🔸 Slippers are required inside the private room.
🔸 Payment is done at the table.