Ichifuji

Sendagi's Ichifuji is a tiny joint, with room for only eight people around the counter, but this refined offal eatery was never meant to be the kind of place that competes with size and volume. Standard operating procedure is to order the chef's omakase set (¥6,000-¥8,000) and then pick additional dishes off the menu. The beef stomach sampler is a particularly tasty combo, featuring rumen, honeycomb tripe, yan (the connective tissue between a cow's second and third stomachs, apparently), omasum and abomasum (contents may change by the day), with each piece exquisitely seasoned and prepared. Although offal isn't really thought of as a seasonally changing form of food, the cuisine at Ichifuji is prepared with seasonal ingredients. To give a couple of examples, the chives are sautéed separately for their liver and chive skewers, making for a flavour that's seriously difficult to put into words, while the grilled tail is simply a solid mass of goodness – true masterpieces of offal, no doubt.