Mouriya Honten - Kobe Beef Steak Teppanyaki that Melts like Butter! — *Mouriya Honten in Kobe, Japan is famous for having the best Kobe beef steak around.*

If you’re a meat lover like me, then a nice piece of juicy and melt in your mouth Kobe Beef Steak should be on your radar whenever you are in Japan. Mouriya Honten Kobe Steak is a famous restaurant in Kobe, Japan who specializes in all sorts of Kobe steak cuts, cooked in Teppanyaki style.

If you’ve never had Kobe beef before then I won’t blame you, it’s expensive, and it’s also difficult to find outside of Kobe, Japan due to the country’s restrictions on Kobe beef exports. Only a handful of restaurants in the world serve officially certified Kobe beef. Unfortunately many of these restaurants, often use the term loosely as a marketing ploy or are just straight up lying about it.

Kobe beef is beef from a specially bred cattle in the Hyogo prefecture of Japan, and while Kobe beef is a type of Wagyu, Wagyu is not necessarily Kobe beef. There is often some confusion between the terms, but just know that Wagyu literally translates to “Japanese Beef”, so just remember that Kobe beef is a type of Wagyu.

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The Legendary Mouriya Kobe Beef

mouriya kobe beef restaurant — *The building may look unassuming but during peak hours, this place is packed!*

Kobe is a port city filled with potentially hundreds of restaurants serving all qualities and grades of Kobe beef, but since this was me and my family’s first time in Kobe, we wanted to go all out and try the absolute best Kobe beef steak there is.

Through a little bit of research, we came across the Mouriya Honten Kobe Beef Steak Restaurant. Now I didn’t know this until I researched the location afterwards but Mouriya actually had multiple branches but it just so happens that the one we went to, Mouriya Honten, is the main branch!

Mouriya was established sometime in the 1880s and focuses on serving Kobe beef steaks as well as regular steaks in a Teppanyaki format.

If you don’t know what Teppanyaki is, Teppanyaki is a Japanese cooking style that uses a long flat metal griddle, it can be confused with Hibachi sometimes but Hibachi uses a grill instead of a flat griddle.

If you are looking for a more casual Kobe beef dining experience then Kisshokichi Honten is another great restaraunt in Kobe, they even have Kobe beef nigiri sushi!

200g A5 Kobe Beef Rib Eye Steak

We came to Mouriya Honten during Lunch service and as a family of three, all of us could not resist the temptations of the A5 Kobe Beef Rib Eye Steak. With me inheriting my carnivorous eating habits from my father, we both ordered the slight larger 200g portion, while my mom went with the 150g portion.

And guys are you seeing the pictures right now? Do you see that marbling and intramuscular fat? The entire piece of Kobe beef rib eye steak is almost white, with this amount of fat you know the steak is going to be real juicy and melt in your mouth tender.

An Assortment of Veggies

plate of vegetables asparagus bean sprouts shiitake mushrooms — *Be sure to eat your veggies, you’re going to need them, trust me.*

Our set came with vegetables and I would argue that these are the hidden VIPs of the whole meal, believe me you need some veggies to help balance all that fat and grease of the A5 Kobe beef steak.

The plate of vegetables come with:

Giant Plump Shiitake Mushrooms
Bean Sprouts
Asparagus
Eggplant

Potato Soup Appetizer

The first thing that was served to us was the potato soup, this little bowl can warm your heart and soul with its smooth and rich flavor. The little drops of olive oil and the sprinkle of black pepper adds another dimension of flavor and richness to the soup.

I made the mistake of ordering the rice instead of the bread, it’s a shame I didn’t have anything to dip into this soup and soak up all of that delicious liquid gold.

Fresh Prawns

prawns grilling — *Push the prawns down flat to get a great crust.*

The next item to arrive were the fresh prawns, they come in pairs, but in our case we ordered 3, one for each person.

The chef skewered the prawns and then pushed them flat down onto the Teppanyaki griddle. The sizzling sound the prawns made is like music to the ears.

grilled prawns — *Does that look a bit undercooked to you? I hope that’s intentional…*

Now, I don’t know if this was intentional or if it was actually a mistake. The prawns were not cooked all the way through, not sure if this was to intentionally preserve the soft bouncy chew and refreshing flavor of the prawn, or if the chef messed up the cooking.

The price of the whole meal makes me want to believe that it was done intentionally… But it’s not the end of the world because you can eat raw prawns fine.

Anyway, the prawns were dusted in a little bit of pepper, and the juice of a lemon wedge is squeezed on top.

The prawns were sweet, bouncy, and sour. Delicious as an appetizer.

fried prawn heads — *They almost look like spiders no? But rest assured these taste way better.*

But what really wowed me was the prawn’s head!

The chef flattened the head to ensure that it was fried all the way through in the oil, the result is really crunchy and crispy prawn head cracker full of the most intense prawn flavor you’ll ever taste.

The chefs at Mouriya Honten are a creative bunch because this was the first time I’ve seen something like this done to a prawn head.

Scallops

Our third round of appetizers, the fresh and plump scallops!

When the chef brought out these scallops they were huge, like the size of poker chip.

cooked giant scallops with parsley butter — *These scallops are glistening from all that butter.*

The cooking method is the same of course, grilled on the Teppanyaki griddle. But instead of oil the chef used butter giving the scallops an extra rich flavor.

And not just regular butter, there was also a parsley butter again giving the scallops a whole new dimension of herbaceous flavor.

Squeeze on some lemon and these scallops make for some of the tastiest appetizers anywhere.

The scallops are soft and bouncy, perfectly cooked, while the butters add some delicate richness which is balanced by the slight citrus-y aromas from the lemon.

Finally! The A5 Kobe Beef Rib Eye.

a5 kobe beef rib eye cooking — *As soon as the chef puts this slab of meat on the grill, the beefy aromas filled the room.*

Finally we came to the highlight of the whole Mouriya Honten Teppanyaki experience, the A5 Kobe Beef Rib Eye Steak!

The chef took some time to cut off some scraps and extra fat, don’t worry as those won’t be going to waste.

Kobe beef, or in general any beef with high fat content, has a lower melting temperature meaning that it can’t be cooked for too long or else it will burn.

sizzling kobe beef scraps — *Who would’ve thought that little scraps of Kobe beef would produce so much oil to power a car?*

The extra scraps are thrown together in a pile to create a Kobe beef pool of oil that is used to cook the other dishes and vegetables.

I waited (im)patiently as the chef slowly cooks our servings of A5 Kobe beef rib eye, my mouth was salivating in excitement, finally my first time trying real Kobe beef!

a serving of a5 kobe beef rib eye steak — *This almost looks lie a juicy piece of fruit rather than a steak.*

The Kobe beef steak was cut into smaller portions and served on a separate plate in groups of 4 bite sized pieces.

I thanked the chef, and went straight in for a piece, the moment the Kobe beef rib eye steak hit my tongue I could feel it melting into my taste buds. No joke the thing almost disintegrated like butter!

You get an explosion of beefy juices with every bite you take, and my the 3rd bite your mouth will be filled with pool of Kobe beef juice.

I will say that the beef flavor started to diminish and all you can taste is the fat and oil.

plate of kobe beef rib eye a5 steak with vegetables — *Trust me, vegetables are your best friend here.*

To be honest, the Kobe beef started getting too greasy after the 3rd piece and that is why we were given a few condiments to eat our Kobe beef steak with.

There were:

Crunchy garlic chips
Salt
Freshly crushed black pepper
Wasabi

The chef told me his favorite was the wasabi, now I’ll hate to go against his recommendations but my personal favorite was the garlic chips and the black pepper, sorry chef.

All in all we were served 4 portions of A5 Kobe beef rib eye steak each. More than enough in my opinion as by the 3rd serving I was already starting to feel sick from eating too much beef fat.

Vegetables

grilled eggplant and shiitake mushrooms — *Those Shiitake mushrooms are so perfect in shape they almost look like McDonald’s hamburger buns.*

This is where the vegetables really come in to help, and let me just warn you, you WILL need these vegetables, in fact, you will probably be begging for more vegetables.

There are two specific sauces that goes with these vegetables, There’s a sweet sauce and a sour sauce.

grilled eggplant and asparagus — *Guys, do not skimp on the eggplant, it’s heavenly.*

My favorite among the veggie items has got to be the eggplant, I just love eggplant in general but Mouriya Honten does it really well by frying it in the aforementioned Kobe beef fat pool that was cooking away in the corner of the griddle.

The eggplant was divine. The other vegetables were good too, I liked the Shiitake mushrooms as well.

The beansprouts were tossed in with Kobe beef scraps and unfortunately I’d have to say that it’s too much, the beansprouts were too greasy and oily, it just wasn’t a good way to prepare that vegetable.

Garlic Fried Rice

rice and beef scraps — *What is better than a mound of Japanese rice? Japanese rice with fried garlic and Kobe beef.*

The last course of our meal was the garlic fried rice, the chef took the remainder of the Kobe beef scraps (which by now have become charred and crunchy), and combined them with Japanese rice, fried garlic, seasonings, and even more oil.

kobe beef garlic fried rice — *Incorporate all those flavors please chef.*

It was mesmerizing to see the chef toss the fried rice around as the ingredients and flavors incorporate.

My dad ordered the extra fried rice addition and I had a taste, it was alright, again I feel like it was too oily.

In fact, nearing the end of this meal I felt like everything was way too oily and greasy.

Conclusion

Pros

A variety of Kobe beef steak cuts to choose from.
The Kobe beef steak was absolutely divine, the most tender piece of meat I have ever put in my mouth.
Excellent service, friendly chef plus helpful and attentive staff.

Cons

You will feel very nauseating near the end of the meal from too much oil and fat.
Expensive, and not worth the money, you can get amazing tasting Wagyu beef for just a fraction of the cost.

Overall I’d recommend you try Mouriya Honten but only for those who are dead set on trying Kobe beef. In addition to the great taste, Mouriya Honten has a wide selection of cuts to choose from, all of this is paired with an excellent staff service as well as a unique and luxury-esque dining experience.

However my main complaint is the pricing, for me I simply cannot say that Mouriya Honten’s Kobe beef steaks are “worth it” as you can often find Wagyu steak skewers at a street food market that has 90% of the flavor for only 10% of the cost. From a pure price to value standpoint, for me it is not worth it at all.

But if you are looking to try Kobe beef for the first time, then Mouriya Honten won’t disappoint.

Mouriya Honten | 8 / 10

Phone: +81 78 391 4603

Location: Japan, 〒650-0011 Hyogo, Kobe, Chuo Ward, Shimoyamatedori, 2 Chome−1−17 モーリヤビル

Opening Hours: 11:00AM - 10:00PM | Mon - Sun

Pricing: 5000 JPY - 22000 JPY | $$$$$

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Useful Resources for Traveling in Japan

Tourism Information - All the information you need when traveling in Japan
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