Ichiryu Akasaka

Today we went to a specialty restaurant for sekki-don. They offer a simmered sekki-don soup made with beef bones, tongue, and offal, and come with a generous serving of kimchi, pickled radish, dried fish, sweet beans, nori, dried tofu, rice, and tea. We were completely stuffed. The restaurant is very Akasaka-style, shabby and old. There's a high tatami mat you can climb onto and sit on. The staff, who I don't know where they're from, switch back and forth between plastic Japanese, Korean, and Chinese. The set meal was 1,600 yen and came with ten side dishes, which my friend and I shared. Their kimchi was incredibly delicious, so good we worried we wouldn't have enough. While we were eating, a single man arrived at the next table, and the staff quickly served him ten more dishes. I suddenly didn't want this friend anymore. I wanted to eat ten dishes by myself. I suggest renaming the "Snow Thick Soup" to "Snow Light Soup" because it's so bland and not suitable for those with a stronger palate. You need to add salt and pepper after serving, but it was quite enjoyable. It contained seven, eight, or nine slices of beef cheek. When it first arrived, I wondered how could there be so little. One bite and I thought, "This is such precious beef cheek, how can you really give me so much?" The beef cheek was so fragrant! It was springy and tender, and each sip was filled with a rich, fatty aroma. Served with kimchi and white rice, it was absolutely amazing! I regretted not ordering a full plate of steamed beef cheek. The soup contained vermicelli noodles, which were a bit thick and chewy, but I was quite full after eating it. I also ordered a plate of kimchi pancakes. They were thick and large, fried to a crisp, and had small potato, vegetable pieces, and fish cakes. In short, it had everything except the kimchi flavor. The pancakes themselves were not salted, so they needed to be dipped in sauce or eaten with kimchi.