Wagyumafia’s luxury Japanese beef lives up to the hype (yes, even the US$125-supplement sandwich)
- With tasting menu at Hong Kong branch of famous Tokyo restaurant costing HK$1,800 per person, it’s not cheap – but the food is worth it
- The chateaubriand sando was supremely tender and the rib-eye steak fantastic
As the evening progressed at Wagyumafia, my friend and I wondered if the chefs had to audition for their jobs not by cooking, but by using the pose made famous by the restaurant’s founder, Hisato Hamada – arm outstretched, holding the meat or whatever dish they were presenting, chin down and eyes smouldering at the camera.
The chefs certainly were all an affable lot; friendly and talkative, they chatted knowledgeably and at length about the dishes they were serving.
We had to book online (and pay upfront) a month before eating there. Seats could have been reserved sooner if we had been “Wagyumafia members” (which costs HK$1,000), and our meal would have been HK$2,600 per person (not including any supplements). Instead, we booked the ordinary Wagyumafia tasting menu (HK$1,800 plus service charge per person), plus one “world famous chateaubriand sandwich” with a supplement of HK$1,000 (US$127).
Was it worth the wait – and the price? We were sceptical – a pretty pose does not necessarily make a good meal.
And they were at risk of overselling the Ozaki beef – which, we were told was named after its farmer in Miyazaki prefecture who produces only 60 cattle a month, of which 30 stay in Japan, with the others available for the rest of the world. We were also told that the fat has a melting point that is lower than the human body temperature, so the beautifully marbled meat feels less fatty as we eat it – and that, even though we were being fed about 300 grams per person, we wouldn’t feel too bloated at the end of the meal.