Ginza Negura: Good-Value Sukiyaki and Shabu-Shabu

If you’re looking for a place to try premium Japanese wagyu, Ginza Negura is a name to remember. You can choose between shabu-shabu and sukiyaki, and enjoy the beef as part of a gourmet full-course meal that includes fresh veggies, side dishes, and dessert. It’s a great way to experience Japanese hospitality in a modern setting, easily accessible from central Tokyo.

Here’s what to know about Ginza Negura — including the menu options, overall dining experience, and how to make a reservation.

Price range

You can go for a course meal at Ginza Negura — which is recommended for foodies looking to splurge — or keep it simple and order a la carte.

Evening course meals

Ginza Negura is well known for the memorable gastronomic experience it offers with its dinner courses. Priced between ¥6,000 and ¥16,000, depending on how extensive you want the menu to be, these are centred around top-grade Japanese beef — served either as shabu-shabu or sukiyaki — which is richly complemented by a selection of sides.

Lunch a la carte

If you’re keen on the a la carte route, you’ll need to visit at lunchtime, and get in the queue. You can’t make a reservation for lunch; you simply get a numbered ticket upon arrival and wait your turn. Lunch is limited to just 50 people per day.

If you are lucky enough to get a seat, you’re in for a treat: choose from an array of beef bowls and lunchboxes, including marinated beef sashimi, sukiyaki, and stew. Expect to pay between ¥1,000 and ¥2,000, depending on what you order. There are also shabu-shabu and sukiyaki courses for around ¥5,000.

How to make a reservation at Ginza Negura

You can try to make a reservation over the phone, in Japanese, or otherwise book through Headout or Tabelog. Headout offers special course meals, which are great value — and super easy to reserve.

Food

We tried the all-star Standard Course available through Headout, and were impressed with the variety — and volume — of food. We went with the sukiyaki option.

The meal started off with thin strips of fatty Kuroge wagyu with sea urchin, as well as crunchy Japanese green pepper, which offered balance to the melt-in-your-mouth texture of the meat. This was followed by three little seasonal bowls containing vinegared seaweed with vegetables, bamboo shoots, and wagyu with green onion. The meat, once again, simply melted away. This is not the tough old-shoe-style steak that one uncle always throws on the BBQ.

Next up was grilled snow crab with miso, served in the shell; while certainly delicious, this was admittedly a bit of a challenging texture for us. Once that plate had been cleared, it was time for the pièce de résistance — the sukiyaki. First, a blue egg appeared on the table, with a note explaining that it came from an Araucana chicken, is rather rare, and is supposed to be packed with nutrients. It matched our blue Abashiri beer, which was pretty cool. We were relieved to find that the egg was not blue inside, however.

The waitron cast a blob of beef fat into the cooking pan on the table, turned the heat up high, and poured in the sukiyaki sauce. He did the first piece of meat for us, then left us to simmer the remaining five and the veggies by ourselves. A word of advice — choose either lemon or egg, but not both, for the final flavor. Trust us on this. Also, go easy on the sukiyaki sauce — that stuff is salty!

Once you’ve finished your main meal, the waitron will reappear and ask you whether you’d like rice or udon noodles to round things off. We opted for the noodles — a special type from Ise, known for their remarkably soft texture (as the waitron said, “zen zen koshi ga nai”, which means they have no back to them). If you like, these can be cooked in the same pot as the meat, making them pop with umami.

After slurping down the last of the noodles, we were well and truly stuffed, but there was one more course waiting for us — dessert.

We made room for the ice cream and coffee, pocketed the complementary chopsticks that came with the set course, and rolled out of the restaurant — fuller than we’d ever been before.

Drinks

Ginza Negura has an extensive drink menu, listing everything from ginger ale to highballs, wine, and more. We tried a non-alcoholic plum soda, as well as the blue beer from Hokkaidō.

You can expect to pay ¥400 to ¥1,000 for a drink. Note that drinks are not included in the course meal, unless specified. Water is provided.

Ambience

Ginza Negura is sleek and modern, with Western-style seating, dark hues, and attentive service. If you reserve one of the private rooms, you might get a view over Ginza — as the eatery is on the tenth floor of the building, you can see quite a lot.

Our review of Ginza Negura

We are not big beef eaters, but we give this restaurant five stars for quality and value for money. It was delicious, it was filling, and it was fun — especially since we got a lovely pair of chopsticks to take home as a souvenir.

The service was excellent, and while we were left to do our own thing, the waitron mysteriously knew exactly when to bring out the next course. He also — bless him — appeared with a steaming hot towel to bring us out of the food coma at the end of the meal.

Ginza Negura is good for:

Visitors wanting to try Japanese wagyu beef, and eat like Vikings. It’s also good for people wanting to go somewhere a little fancy for a special occasion — it’s a fairly upscale restaurant, with nice private dining rooms.

by Carey Finn