298 Sann0miya Branch

One day, while getting off the train at Kobe’s Sannomiya Station and walking toward Ikuta Shrine, I passed by a restaurant with a sign that read “All-you-can-eat Yakiniku for 1,000 yen per person (tax not included)”. That is the 298 (NIKUYA) Sannomiya Branch I will introduce here. I was surprised to know that there is an all-you-can-eat yakiniku restaurant in Kobe for 1,000 yen. Unfortunately, I had some business to attend to and was unable to enter the restaurant that day, but I wrote the name of the restaurant on my checklist as a place I would definitely visit someday.

Some time later, in the spring of 2024, I had to go to Sannomiya for the first time in three months, and I thought, “I haven’t eaten yakiniku recently, so let’s try it!” So I decided to visit the restaurant during lunch time on a weekend. After all, all-you-can-eat yakiniku at a reasonable price is very attractive, isn’t it?

Mobile ordering, but I wonder if the signal is too weak to order… 298 Sannomiya Branch is such a restaurant

298 Sannomiya Branch is located on the north side of Kobe Sannomiya Station on the Hankyu Kobe Line, along what is commonly known as “Sankita Street”. The restaurant is located in the basement, and you can reach the entrance of the restaurant with a narrow frontage by going down the stairs.

The restaurant has a long structure in the back, and although it does not look spacious, it has a total of 70 seats, which is quite a large capacity. Of these, there are a little more than 10 counter seats, so it can accommodate solo yakiniku diners without any problem.

Ordering is basically a mobile ordering system, where you use your smartphone to read this QR code and access a dedicated ordering page. However, the mobile ordering system did not work at all due to the weak signal in the restaurant. Well, the waiter did his best to take my order, so I didn’t feel like I had to wait too long. However, it just so happened that the restaurant was not crowded at that time, so during peak lunch and dinner hours, there might be a problem of “time passing without being able to place an order”.

How was the all-you-can-eat 1,800 yen course at 298 Sannomiya Branch?

298 Sannomiya Branch offers three types of all-you-can-eat yakiniku courses as shown below…

This time I ordered the all-you-can-eat 1,800 yen course (tax not included). It is a 100-minute all-you-can-eat buffet with 14 items, including 4 of the restaurant’s famous yakiniku dishes, plus a food buffet, for no extra charge! This is a very generous course.

Let me introduce what I ordered that day in order…

Thickly sliced jarred ribs

The first shot is one of the restaurant’s four specialties, the thickly sliced jarred ribs. A very long kalbi is placed in a jar. When placed on a net…

As you can see, the length of the meat easily exceeds the diameter of the grill net! I was happy that the meat was difficult to grill from the very beginning.

The meat was elastic and tender, and when I bit into it, the juices from the ribs combined with miso sauce were so thick that I thought, “Is it really OK to serve this meat for 2,000 yen for all-you-can-eat?” I thought to myself. This is indeed the specialty of the restaurant. I think I can expect the rest of the menu to be just as good.

Garibata (Garlic Butter) King Kalbi

The second dish I ordered was the “Garibata King Kalbi,” which is also one of the restaurant’s four specialties. As the name ” King” implies, it was not a regular rib, but a piece of meat that looked like a steak.

It was so thick that I thought only a professional could cook it properly. I recommend that you use the scissors provided to cut the meat into pieces of your desired size before grilling it. The meat is so thick that you would think that it would not pass through the heat properly! However, there were still some stringy parts, so you need to be a little careful when eating it.

Sukiyaki Kalbi

Let’s go through the four major specialties at once, starting with the third item, the sukiyaki kalbi, a large piece of kalbi meat with a raw egg. The visual of this dish reminds us of the famous “Yazawa-yaki Sirloin” at the upscale yakiniku restaurant Yakiniku Yazawa Kyoto.

The surface is lightly seared and doused in beaten egg! It is not as luxurious as the Yazawa-yaki, but the sweet sauce blended with the beaten egg gives it a mild flavor that is irresistible. The leftover beaten egg can be used for tamago kake gohan (TKG) later. The meat is also thicker than expected, making this a very economical menu item.

298 skirt steak (Pork)

The 298 skirt steak (Pork) is the last of the four specialties on the menu. What comes out is four slices of sausage-like pork. Compared to the other three specialties on the menu, it is honestly not as impressive as it looks.

However, the key taste is completely different from the appearance. The meat is quite muscular and chewy, and the juices are flowing out of the meat in torrents. It is rare to find pork that is this juicy…I just wish it were a little more hearty. Well, it’s all-you-can-eat, so you can just order repeatedly.

Others

In addition to these four main menu items at 298 Sannomiya Branch, I also ordered beef tongue, delicious spicy chicken thigh, white hormone, sausage and meatballs, and loin. Well, I would say that the quality of these dishes is not as good as the four main menus. Well, the fall-off is only a matter of comparison with the 4 main menus, not an absolute evaluation of the meat quality….

The beef tongue, in particular, came out cut like shredded meat, and I thought to myself, “Is this really beef tongue?” The meat was so thinly sliced that I couldn’t feel the unique texture of the beef tongue, and the meat kept falling out of the roaster… Perhaps the waiter really made a mistake.

So, if you want to feel like you’re getting the max bang for your buck at 298 Sannomiya Branch, it seemed like the most effective way to do so would be to go for the 1800 yen course and loop through the four main menus. Well, even if you choose the cheapest ¥1,000 course, the meat itself is not bad, so don’t worry about that…

There are affiliated branches in Umeda, Shinsaibashi, and Namba, Osaka… Access to the 298 Sannomiya Branch is a 5-minute walk from the nearest station, Kobe Sannomiya Station on the Hankyu Kobe Line.

In addition to the Sannomiya Branch introduced here, 298 like this also has branches in Umeda, Shinsaibashi, and Namba, Osaka. When I checked online, I found that all the restaurants offer slightly different courses, so it would be better to find the one that best suits your taste for the highest level of satisfaction. Among them, 298 in Namba is named PREMIUM and offers all-you-can-eat special Japanese beef. If I’m in the mood for yakiniku in Namba, I might give this restaurant a try…

Now, here are the details of the restaurant…