Kaiten or conveyor belt sushi is the cheapest and most fun way to eat sushi. The plates are usually 100 yen each and it is great fun to order some sushi and watch it come to you on a conveyor belt. I have been going to conveyor belt sushi for years and it has always been a deliciously good time.
At the end of January, my wife sent me a message asking me if I could come to Mito and meet her for dinner after work. I asked "what are we having?" She responded "kaiten yakiniku." After I stopped laughing for minute, I asked "seriously, what are we having?" She sent me a link to the restaurant's website. We were in deed having kaiten yakiniku.
Yakiniku Itto
Yakiniku Itto is not an Ibaraki original. I believe it started in Saitama. Itto has come to Ibaraki and for now there is only one Itto and it's in Mito. (Hey that ryhmes)
Itto is in the Kawawadacho area of Mito. I highly recommend coming by car since the station is extremely far away.
Inside
When you walk into Itto, everything looks brand new. The Mito branch of Itto opened in December so fairly recently.
The night my wife and I visited, we were also joined by two of her coworkers. We were seated at a both for four, the waiter explained the rules, and then we were left to our own devices. The waiter does not come back to your table unless you order the BBQ grill in the middle of the table to be changed.
Two Seater
If you come with a friend or a date, there is a small two seater both area that gives you a lot of privacy.
The Menu
Like kaiten sushi, you make your orders on a touch pad. Itto's menu is pretty big. You have the beef page, pork page, hormone page, chicken page, salad page, rice page, vegetables page, soup page, desserts page and a drinks page. I didn't really see an English option so I am not sure if there is one. Everything you order comes to you through the conveyor belt, and what an awesome conveyor belt it is.
Lightning Speed
Look at our meat arrive! It only took seven seconds and we were at the far off table away from the kitchen. There were two conveyor belts next to our table. The top one was exclusively for our meat. The bottom conveyor belt was for everything else. It amazed me to see a glass of beer whiz by at top speed and not spill. My wife order some soup and not a drop was spilt when it arrived. Truly a kaiten engineering marvel. Let's talk about what we ordered.
Karubi (Beef Ribs)
If you go to any yakiniku place, this is the go to meat to roast. This karubi is slathered in a Japanese BBQ sauce which was a little sweet and quite tasty. Our group roasted our karubi and enjoyed some tasty good beef. It isn't the best karubi I have ever had, but it was extremely cheap. One plate was around 200 yen!
Nakaochi Karubi
This is the karubi between the bones of the cow. It wasn't too bad but it did have quite a lot of fat on the meat. The fat does give it a nice flavor when you roast it, but you will get some chewiness that will ruin the meat mode you are in. This plate was around 300 yen.
Beef Tongue
I love beef tongue. It is easy to cook and it is quite delicious. Especially, if you add some salt and pepper on it. How was Itto's beef tongue? Not too bad. Not great, but not too bad. It was way thinner than what I am used to having. This plate of beef tongue was around 300 yen.
Hohonikku
This was my wife's favorite. I wasn't sure what hohonikku was so she explained that it was the cheek of the cow. The meat was thin so it cooked pretty quickly. I really enjoyed hohonikku. It was thin but it had a lot of flavor and it went perfectly with salt. Hohonikku is a kind of special so it is a bit more expensive than the other meats we ordered. One plate was about 700 yen.
Harami
This was my favorite of the night. If I am not mistaken, I believe harami is skirt steak in English. This beef was amazing. After I spent a few minutes roasting my piece of harami, I gave it a try and found it to be extremely tender and delicious. My wife and I ended up ordering another plate of it and happily enjoyed Itto's tasty harami. The harami plate was around 300 yen. I highly recommend trying this delicious piece of meat.
Diamond Cut Roast
Ok, I know this picture looks bad. The lighting kind of sucked but this roast was pretty good. It is a bigger piece of meat than the rest of what we ordered so we needed the meat scissors to cut it up into four pieces. Biting into this cut of meat was a very pleasant experience. It was very soft and had a strong meaty flavor to it. This plate was around 400 yen.
Super Full
I mostly talked about all the beef we ordered but we did order other things as well. We order kimchi which was OK. The pork wasn't all too great in my opinion. The desserts were not too bad (my wife fell in love with the sweet potato ice cream), and the soup my wife ordered had really tender and delicious chunks of meat in it. I think it was beef tongue soup. Our group ate a lot between the four of us and we all had a really good time. Another great thing was how surprised we were when we got the final bill. Each person had to pay around 2,000 yen. That is insanely cheap.
Our group had a really fun time at Yakiniku Itto. I think this place is really good for families and groups. Is the meat top quality? No, not at all. I wasn't impressed with the pork and some of the meat was OK. But I did enjoy a lot of what we ordered and the harami was fantastic. Plus, it is so much fun to see your meat come to your table and not be bothered by any staff.
So if you are on a budget and want to go somewhere fun for lunch or dinner, why not give Yakiniku Itto a chance. Who knows, you might see me there, enjoying more harami while my wife orders more sweet potato ice cream.
Enjoy!
For more information on Yakiniku Itto, check out their website:
Friendly reminder. Tomorrow is the greatest burger event in Ibaraki, Burger Baka. Time to get our burger on! Hope to see you there.
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