Magosaburou

1/F Fortune Crest, 138-144 Sai Yeung Choi Street South, Mong Kok
Tel: 2426 9000
Open: noon-3pm, 5pm-midnight
Cuisine: yakiniku (Japanese barbecue)

Price: about HK$250 without drinks or the service charge.

Ambience: a large drawing of a cow showing the various cuts of meat gives you an idea of what to expect from the menu. The interior is simple and stark, with tall wood dividers between booths.

Pros: the price was reasonable for the quality of the food. Service was attentive, friendly and knowledgeable, and the grill is changed frequently.

Cons: the menu can be hard to read, especially when the tiny print in white is against a coloured background. There aren't many non-meat dishes. The only dishes that we didn't like were the assorted kimchi (cabbage, daikon and cucumber, HK$68), which had a dull flavour, and the too-fatty beef intestines in clay pot (HK$78). My pieces of thick-sliced ox tongue (HK$78) were tough, but my two guests said theirs were tender.

Recommended dishes: we enjoyed tasting the differences between the various cuts of beef. The premium Japanese wagyu rib-eye (HK$98) was wonderfully tender, but even better was the premium Japanese karubi (HK$98), which was succulent, with a deeper flavour. The 'dragon Australian outskirt beef in clay pot' (HK$88) had the richest, beefiest flavour of all we tried, and the meat had been scored to make it more tender. Thinly sliced ox tongue (HK$68) came with a bowl of minced spring onions: you quickly grill the meat, add a spoonful of the onions and wrap it up for a savoury mouthful. Spit-fire black pork belly (HK$78) had a good layer of fat and came in a mildly spicy marinade. Cold dishes of preserved spicy and salty raw fish intestines (HK$68) and wagyu sashimi with egg (HK$78) were good contrasts with the richness of the grilled meat.

What else? Magosaburou is a chain that originated in Kumamoto prefecture, from where much of its beef is sourced.