Handmade Hamburger Steak Restaurant Tokura Katsura Head Shop

All meat lovers would agree that the secret to grilling delicious meat is to lock in the juices when grilling. However, it is extremely difficult to get the juices to overflow out of a hamburger made with ground meat. There are many hamburgers that are fluffy, but it is rare to find a hamburger with juices flowing out of it.

In fact, there is a hamburger steak restaurant in Kyoto that is famous for serving juices like a flood. There are currently a total of three restaurants in Kyoto. If you call yourself a hamburger lover, you should definitely experience one in person…

Handmade Hamburger Steak Restaurant Tokura Katsura Head Shop｜Kyoto’s hamburger steak specialty restaurant, famous throughout Japan for its overflowing juices.

The restaurant is “Tokura,” a handmade hamburger steak restaurant located in Katsura, southwest Kyoto City. First of all, the proof is in the pudding. Here is a video I took of Tokura’s hamburgers to show you how much juice overflows from the meat…

What do you think? As soon as the chopsticks were inserted, a large amount of juices suddenly overflowed as if a dam had burst, spreading over the entire plate. Although the juices lessen with time, they continue to flow from the cross section of the meat even after about one minute has passed since the chopsticks were inserted.

Here is the ground meat tenderloin before cooking, which is supposed to hide the secret of this overwhelming gravy…

Seemingly ordinary ground beef in a large Tupperware container. As far as I can see from the counter, there is no pretense of the waiter stuffing anything inside. They simply measure the meat, shape it with their hands, and place the meat on a hot iron plate. Of course, the iron plate is just an ordinary iron plate without any workmanship, and there is no new action until the meat is done cooking. There must be a recipe like a golden ratio in the proportion of ground meat.

Tokura offers 10 different hamburger sauces: some are available on the cheap lunch menu

The hamburger menu that can be enjoyed at Tokura consists of the following 12 types of hamburgers with 10 different sauces…

• Original hamburger steak
• Cheese hamburger steak (with original sauce)
• Hamburger steak and fried shrimp (using original sauce)
• Mentaiko Mayonnaise Hamburger Steak
• Japanese style grated hamburger steak
• Clam Chowder Hamburger Steak
• Hamburger Steak with Shoga Ankake
• Hot Pepper Hamburger Steak
• Carbonara Hamburger Steak
• Teriyaki Mushroom Hamburger Steak
• Negi Miso Hamburger Steak
• Hamburger Steak with Vegetables in Tomato Sauce

Each can be adjusted to two different amounts of meat, and can also be taken home. The three types with original sauce are available as inexpensive set menus at lunch time. And if you want to go a little richer, you can choose the “Tokura Recommendation Course,” which includes soup, salad, and dessert, for an additional 1,000 yen.

Original hamburger steak: A blend of a large amount of juices and a strong sour sauce should be served with rice!

What I ordered this time was the original hamburger steak (300 g / 900 yen) shown in the video above. I started with the standard menu to take my time to savor the flavor of the meat.

After releasing a large amount of juices, the meat tastes rather bland. It is fluffy and tender, and the char on the surface of the meat gives it an exquisite grilled flavor that spreads a savory aroma in the mouth.

In contrast, the original sauce on the meat is a highly acidic sauce made of red wine and tomato ketchup. The taste of the sauce may leave a stronger impression because the meat is so light.

But when this sauce is blended with a large amount of gravy…yes. It dilutes to just the right acidity and gives the hamburger steak a moist feeling, while sublimating into a versatile sauce that can be used as a hamburger sauce or served over rice.

My only regret is that there are no spoons available. It is quite difficult to use chopsticks to sprinkle the superb sauce, which is a good blend of the original sauce and gravy, over the rice. Tokura-san…next time you go, could you please serve spoons together like Kuishinbo Yamanaka?

A special lunch menu is also available! To get to the handmade hamburger Ateak Restaurant Tokura Katsura Head Shop, take the Kyoto City Bus from the nearest station, JR Katsuragawa Station!

At this handmade hamburger steak restaurant and Sakura, they also offer a special lunch menu…

As of December 2023, Tokura’s lunch menu looks like this. All lunch menus come with rice, miso soup, salad, and pickles. Of course, competition for such a bargain lunch is high, but it is comfortable because there is an indoor waiting room next to Tokura’s store where you can shelter from the wind and rain and wait to enter the store. Please sit in a chair, look at your phone, and wait patiently to be called…

Here are the restaurant details…

Get off at Katsuragawa Station on the JR Kyoto Line, take the Kyoto City Bus (No. 70) bound for Hadatenjingawa Station, get off at the Ushigase bus stop, and walk 4 minutes. It is a bit far from the station, but not too far to walk, so you can walk to the restaurant from the station to get hungry.

By the way, Handmade Hamburger Restaurant Tokura currently operates three branches in Kyoto City. If you happen to be in the neighborhood, you can have the exact same hamburgers at the other two branches, so be sure to visit them…

P.S. If you are looking for a delicious hamburger in Kyoto, please stop by this article…