Manryo Minamimorimachi Branch

It is no exaggeration to say that everyone who loves yakiniku in Osaka is familiar with Manryo, a yakiniku restaurant with its main branch in Minamimorimachi. It is famous not only for its delicious food, but also for its unbelievably low prices. Perhaps reflecting its popularity, the restaurant has been awarded the Yakiniku WEST 100 Best Yakiniku Restaurants in Tabelog for six consecutive years since 2018. There are probably not that many yakiniku restaurants like this in the whole country.

I have of course been interested in this Manryo Minamimorimachi Branch for a long time, and have often tried to make reservations online, but especially on weekends, the restaurant gets booked up to two months in advance in no time. I had no choice but to make a reservation for a weekday afternoon at 4:30 p.m., when I had a day off from work, which was a very uncertain time. Well, when I actually went, I could understand why it was so popular…

It has a large number of seats, but it’s quite small, so be careful with the luggage you bring in! This is what Manryo Minamimorimachi Branch is like

Manryo Minamimorimachi Branch opens at 4:00 p.m., but by the time I visited the restaurant at 4:30 p.m., most of the seats were already occupied. I was surprised. It was a weekday, right? I thought to myself, “Don’t eat yakiniku, get to work”. I was shown to a window seat in the corner of the restaurant, and as I sat down and looked out the window, a line started forming outside a few minutes later… The way people were gathering was more like a famous ramen shop than a yakiniku restaurant.

According to the Tabelog information, there are 76 seats in the restaurant, which is quite a large number. The fact that such a restaurant is fully booked before 5 pm on a weekday evening… the popularity of the restaurant far exceeded my initial expectations. On the other hand, although there are many seats, the space itself is not large, so the space between the seats is quite tight. The aisles are only wide enough for one person to pass through, making it difficult to pass by people. It sounds good to say that the place is lively and crowded like a yakiniku restaurant, but it is better to be careful not to bring too much luggage. Basically, bringing children is not a problem, but I think you should refrain from bringing strollers.

I can see why it is so popular! Yakiniku + α all 5 dishes at Manryo Minamimorimachi Branch, but hey…

Now, let me introduce to you the Yakiniku menu + α, all 5 dishes that I ordered at the restaurant this time…

Manryo Minamimorimachi Branch Limited Edition – Black Wagyu Beef Bone-in Triangular Kalbi

The big one from the very beginning! This is the “Kuroge Wagyu Triangular Kalbi” (priced at 1,580 yen + tax), a menu item available only at the Manryo Minamimorimachi restaurant. First of all, the sashi is amazing, isn’t it? Three slices of this meat came out in all, and they were all well over 1 cm thick, and each side was about 7 to 8 cm long. Isn’t it too big?

The meat was crispy and tender, and the juices were flowing from the cross section. The bone part, on the other hand, has a rich, rich meaty flavor. Of course, I have no complaints about the taste, but since each slice is huge, the fat might be a little too much in the second half… No, no, it is really a luxurious problem, isn’t it?

Image (Yes, there are three kinds of seasonings for seasoning the meat: sweet yakiniku sauce, lemon juice, and ponzu (Japanese citrus juice). In addition, vinegar, chili miso, and grated garlic were placed at the back of the image)

Fresh Tongue Sashimi

The next order was raw tongue sashimi (priced at 900 yen plus tax). This was actually my first experience with raw tongue. I had planned to order it at Yakiniku Ebata in Kyoto and Hormone Shimada in Gunma, but they were always out of stock and I could not eat it. It’s not even on the limited menu at Manryo Minamimorimachi Branch, and they have it in stock.

Aside from that, the actual dish…it has the unique crispy texture of beef tongue, but it is basically soft and has a buttery, sticky fatty sensation. I think the fat is about the same as the fat in tuna, but it has a higher melting point than tuna fat (over 40℃, so it doesn’t melt at human body temperature), so it has a buttery texture on the tongue. When you eat it with grated wasabi, the buttery fat is neutralized and you can eat it easily.Needless to say, the meat is fresh.

Mixed Hormone

The third dish is mixed hormone (sauce or solt, priced at 1,200 yen plus tax). This plate contains two slices each of six different types: Hachinosu, Senmai, Tecchan, Sandominos, Kotetsu, and Komekami. The volume of this dish is amazing, and since there are two slices of each, it is usually enough for two people to share. Among them, among the major types of hormone, there is also a rare part called “komekami,” which I have never had before.

Eating hormone makes you want to drink beer, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, I have a cup of oolong tea in my left hand. I used to like meat-based dishes when I was a child, but as an adult, my preference has drastically shifted to hormone. Yes, my first experience with Komekami was very rich in flavor, but it was even more chewy and elastic…You might not be able to finish it when your jaw is weak.

Yukkejang Soup

I ordered a small bowl of yukkejang soup (500 yen + tax) to take a short break. The menu book says that the soup is “very spicy,” but it was not that spicy to my taste, but rather mildly spicy, perhaps due to the beaten egg. In addition to the shredded beef, there were also plenty of vegetables such as carrots and spinach… You have to take vegetables because you came here to eat yakiniku, right? By the way, this soup is quite large, even in the small size. Especially when you are having yakiniku alone, don’t regret ordering the regular size on a spur of the moment!

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Shabu-yaki 20-second top loin with dark reddish-brown egg

And now, my last order at Manryo Minamimorimachi Branch: Shabu-Yaki 20-second Top Loin with Dark Red and Red Eggs (price: 1,350 yen plus tax; white rice extra charge). Any old users of this site come to mind? The meat used has changed from sirloin to loin, but other than that, it is the same as YAZAWA-YAKI, a specialty of Yakiniku Yazawa Kyoto! And while Yazawayaki was a one-shot deal with only one piece of meat, Manryo’s shabu-yaki has three pieces of meat for one person (and you can add more meat in one-piece increments)! Even if I fail to cook the meat properly, I have two more chances… I was so happy that my eyes were already sweating…

Let’s start grilling the meat right away, shall we? The menu says “20 seconds,” but this time, 10 seconds on each side seemed a bit raw. When the time was right, I turned the meat over…

When the meat has reached a nice shade of brown, dab it into the akadama that was melted in advance! And then…

Put it on white rice cooked with rice from Hachidaime Gihey, a rice restaurant in Kyoto! If you say, “This tastes bad,” you will be punished by the gods.It tastes exactly as you would expect.If I were to list the differences between this dish and the Yazawa-yaki, I would say that the meat is thicker than the Yazawa-yaki sirloin (some say it took longer to cook because of this), and the egg is only the yolk, so the texture is more sticky.On the other hand, the charcoal grill on the shichirin does not deliver heat evenly to the entire grill, so with such a large area of meat, there is inevitably some unevenness in the cooking. For this menu item only, I think the roaster cooks the meat better than the charcoal shichirin.

On the other hand, the charcoal grill on the shichirin does not deliver heat evenly to the entire grill, so with such a large area of meat, there is inevitably some unevenness in the cooking.For this menu item only, I think the roaster cooks the meat better than the charcoal shichirin.

I paid the bill after thoroughly enjoying all five dishes like this. The total bill was about 6,500 yen, including 3 cups of oolong tea and no appetizers. Isn’t that too cheap? Oh yes, I forgot to mention. Manryo Minamimorimachi Branch offers four kinds of tea, including oolong tea, for free. I totally realized the reason why this restaurant is so popular.

However, there are a few things that I think are unfortunate. First of all, the floor staff seemed to be too busy and did not come easily even when I pressed the call button. This is not so much frustrating for us as it is a level of feeling sorry for the staff. I think that if they wanted to hire one or two more waitstaff, they wouldn’t complain at all even if they had to raise the price of one yakiniku dish by 100 yen. I think so. Another thing is that the yakiniku sauce was not as impactful as I would have liked. I was so impressed with the “Manryo sauce” when I had hamburgers at the previous Manryo Higobashi restaurant that I had high expectations for the yakiniku sauce at the Minamimorimachi restaurant, but… in the end, they hardly used it at all. Well, it is natural that hamburger sauce and yakiniku sauce are different. I also wished they had salt as a table-top condiment separate from the sauce. There must be quite a few people who eat yakiniku with salt instead of sauce…

Five affiliated restaurants in Osaka City… Access to Manryo Minamimorimachi restaurant is a 3-minute walk from the nearest station, Minamimorimachi Station on the OsakaMetro Tanimachi Line (Osaka Tenmangu Station on the JR Tozai Line).

In addition to the Minamimorimachi branch introduced here, there are five other branches of the charcoal-grill yakiniku specialty restaurant, Manryo, in Osaka City. These five branches offer the same great yakiniku experience, but the Manryo Higobashi branch is the only one in the series that is open for lunch, offering a hamburger steak made from 100% Japanese black beef at a price that is unbelievable these days. The more the prices continue to rise and the harder the times get, the more these restaurants become more important. Whenever you feel like eating yakiniku in Osaka, please remember the existence of this restaurant.

Here are the details of the restaurant…