Tiger Yakiniku

Rating: Very good
Meal:  Lunch for 2
Price:  3080 yen
Payment: Credit cards accepted
Dishes:  Two yakiniku lunch sets (one regular, the other the "Lady's" set)
English Menu: Yes (but not lunch specials)
Smoking:Yes

So Tiger Yakiniku was recommended to us as one of the better examples of yakiniku after we explained our issues with the cuisine to someone else.  It's extremely close to Yokosuka Chuo station, down a little alley way full of several izakayas.  You might notice the sign saying something about "meat love" or something.  I think that's them, up on the 4th floor.  There's an elevator.

We tried to go there on Saturday night, but it was full up and we ended up finding somewhere else to eat.  I'm kind of glad now, as for lunch on Sunday it was practically empty.  They remember us from the previous night and apologized again for not having room.  They also gave us a little extra high quality meat for free, which was very nice.

They have an English menu, but it's the regular full menu.  The lunch specials menu is in Japanese, so you might need to do a little work.  Also, the specials are only available on certain days, which are indicated by the day of the week kanji in the upper right corner of each item's picture.  So it's a bit tricky...  We wanted to try meat, so my wife got the "lady's" set and I got a regular yakiniku set.  There was another one that was a bit more expensive, but we were both happy with our options when all was said and done.  Interestingly, the sets available at lunch appear to be very similar to the dinner sets, just lacking the "all you can drink for X minutes" option.  They are also significantly less expensive, making lunch time the best time to go.  Oh, one more thing...since Yakiniku is essentially a sub-cuisine of Korean food, they also had several standard Korean dishes on the lunch menu that were quite cheap, like bibimpap and such.

One thing that is very nice about Tiger Yakiniku is that they use charcoal in pots instead of gas grills, which results in much better flavor.  Also, the cuts of meat we were given were definitely top notch.  Of course you can order a la carte, if you know what you're doing, which we don't, being yakiniku phobes.  There were also lots of vegetables, nice and thickly cut, which we like.  Each set also came with egg soup, a bowl of rice, some sauces, a little bowl of typical Korean pickly things, and my wife's set came with some large lettuce leaves to wrap things in.  One thing conspicuously missing was any kimchi, but you can always order some if you want I guess.

Overall we were quite pleased, though it is a very slow and laborious process to cook your own meat and eat it.  The grills were a bit smaller than we were used to and the aluminum topper was easily moved if your meat stuck, but the charcoal flavor made up for that.  Both of us agreed that this was the best Yakiniku we've had so far.   However, we are still just not Yakiniku fans, so I didn't feel I could give it more than a Very Good.