Kobe/Osaka/Kyoto Beef Recommendations
 

Hi Folks,

I've been planning for our honeymoon and there's been a lot of great recommendations on here for restaurants in Tokyo but less so for the Kansai area. One thing I can't seem to get a good recommendation for is a reasonably priced (~$50 USD per person) yakiniku place. Lots of talk about high end places but as we will be splurging on sushi in Tokyo, I was hoping to keep costs somewhat reasonable. We will be staying at the Courtyard Shin-Osaka so wouldn't mind going to Kobe or Kyoto for dinner but something accessible within 30 mins or so would be great. Any other dinner recommendations would be greatly appreciated as well as we would be staying 6 nights in the area.

Thanks!

I assume that you'll be spending time in Kyoto during your 6 days in the area, and you should certainly try Kyoto cuisine when you're there.

As for yakiniku in that price range, you can find it in Kyoto, or in downtown Osaka (e.g. Umeda or Namba), or in the Shin-Osaka station area, or in Kobe. Yakiniku, and other restaurants in that price range are plentiful all over the place. I wouldn't suggest making a trip especially for an inexpensive yakiniku dinner. Just find a place wherever you happen to be. There's definitely no need to make reservations. I would say that there's no need to plan it at all.

Here's a list of yakiniku restaurants around Shin-Osaka station:
https://gurunavi.com/en/reg/pf_osaka...kiniku/rs/srh/

Note that while you can get from Shin-Osaka to Kobe and Kyoto quite quickly by Shinkansen, the areas that you'll arrive in are not the most vibrant in terms of nightlife. The area around Shin-Kobe, in particular, is quiet. You'll need to take another train to get downtown. Kyoto station has a pretty wide selection of restaurants in and around the station building, but it's more "mall" than "downtown" in atmosphere.

A little clarification is needed here.

Are you looking for plain old yakiniku restaurants, the kind that you can hardly avoid finding in any busy part of Japanese cities, or specifically ones that serve wagyuu, which Westerners refer to as "Kobe beef"?

I can't help you either way, but if you're looking for wagyuu, that may give other posters ideas.

Does it have to be yakiniku?

Many of the "recommended" places in Kansai for Kobe beef (or other wagyus like ohmi, matsusaka, etc) do it teppanyaki instead.

would love the recommendations for those please!

is it worth going all the way to kobe just to eat kobe beef? should be the same in osaka?

No. Kobe is worth a visit, but not just to eat beef.

Kobe beef isn't actually raised in the city center, so you'll get much the same taste at a fancy restaurant in Osaka, Kyoto, Tokyo etc.. It's also not the only high quality beef in Japan. You can find other threads on this forum about Matsuzaka beef and others.

Someone recommended to me that instead of going for dinner to a Kobe beef restaurant, that we go at lunch because it's cheaper. I followed that advice and was greatly disappointed. The beef was not Kobe; it was not nearly as good as what we had had for dinner. You get what you pay for.

I followed FT recommendations to go to Steak Ron several years ago. I just looked and it has been recently reviewed on Trip Advisor. It was fantastic. I dropped $400 on lunch for two there (wine, extra vegetables). (The prices for lunch and dinner are the same; it's the same meal.) Steak Ron is in Osaka. You can google for directions. (Now, I love beef and there is a huge difference in beef and yes, cost does matter.)

Oops, sorry I meant teppanyaki instead. My wife also likes beef hotpot so if you have any recommendations on that end, that would be great!