KodoGuru S6 Ep4: Drama Notes

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Ep 4: "Special Salted Beef Tongue and Kainomi of Higashi-Yamato City, Tokyo"

Episode Synopsis. Inogashira Goro (Matsushige Yutaka) who came to Kokubunji for work, stopped by a drapery and blinds shop in Higashi-Yamato City, Tokyo, to see how an old friend, shopowner Murayama Mariko (Tezuka Satomi) is doing. She has recently injured her leg, and has been using crutches in order to walk. After his visit, Goro contemplates on what might happen if he and Mariko ended up together... However, such useless thinking suddenly made him hungry, and so he goes off somewhere to eat. He sees a yakiniku shop called "Suien", and entered without hesitation. The shop's "Kanban Musume" (popular employee), Miyu (Shiraishi Sei) attends to him. Goro looks at the menu posters at the shop, and decides which ones to choose to make up his yakiniku feast: salted tongue, kainomi, pork jaw, zabuton, offals...

Drama Notes:

Featured Eatery:

Yakiniku, SUIEN

[翠苑]

Address: Tokyo, Higashi-Yamatoshi, Nangai 2-1-7

Tel. No: 042-565-5296

How To Get There:

12 min. walk from Higashi-Yamatoshi Station,
via Seibu-Hajima Line (map)

More info/pix:

tabelog, main-dish

KodoGuru Season 6 Yakiniku Glossary. Here are the dishes shown in this episode, in case you eat at a yakiniku place in Japan, and want to channel your inner Goro:

Tan-Shio [タン塩] Salted Beef Tongue. The deluxe kind is Jo Tan-Shio [上タンシオ].
Hireh [ﾋﾚ]. Tenderloin.
Kainomi [カイノミ]. In this episode, it was described as meat "close to the tenderloin part". So it must be the bottom sirloin flap.
Zabuton [ザブトン]. Chuck flap, but the Japanese cut is slightly different from the West.
Lettuce Wrap. Yakiniku (pork or beef) wrapped in lettuce is a Korean style of eating. In this episode, sani lettuce [ｻﾆｰﾚﾀｽ] or red leaf lettuce, and sanchu [ｻﾝﾁｭ] Korean lettuce were used. You can include condiments like ao togarashi [青唐辛子] or green chili, garlic, onions, sesame oil, miso, perilla leaves, kimchi, and gochujang.
Kankoku nori [韓国のり]. Korean nori to snack on or add flavor to your food.
Chanja [チャンジャ]. Salted Pacific cod entrails in spicy sauce.
Reimen [冷麺]. Korean cold noodles or "Naengmyeon". In this episode, it was said to be an ideal "shime" [締め] or meal ender.
(info: 24trip, worldchefsbible, junglecity, weblio) (pix: rakuten, madam-recipe, tvtokyo)

Kanban Musume [看板娘]. There is no English equivalent for this term. I don't like to use "poster girl" or "signboard girl". I talked about this in a Shinya Shokudou S2 drama notes, the Nikugori episode already.

Don Gabacho

What was actually said.

"Kamunda Jou" [噛むんだジョー]. It means, "Chew it, Jaw". This was the text written to describe the "Ago", or "Pork Jaw". It's a pun for "Tatsunda, Joe!" [立つんだジョー], or "Stand up, Joe!", the line from the boxing manga, "Ashita no Joe". ジョー sounds both like "Joe" and "Jaw" in Japanese.
(info: turu2)

"Yamada-kun, gimme a cushion already". This one was the text written describing the Zabuton meat. Zabuton means "cushion". "Yamada" is the guy who distributes or awards the cushions to the comedians who came up with good jokes in the long-running show "Shoten" (which I already explained one or two times somewhere here in my blog).

Don Gabacho [ドン・ガバチョ]. Goro mentioned this when he made a pun about "don don" (more and more), and that zabuton is the "Don Gabacho of meats". It was a puppet character (pic above) in the NHK kids show from the 1960s, "Hyokkori Hyotan Jima" [ひょっこりひょうたん島] or "Unexpectedly Gourd Island".
(info: ja.wiki) (pic: dream-ch)

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