Motsuyaki Shinjuku-sanchome Fujiya Hanare, a spot for motsunabe in Shinjuku, Tokyo.
On a day when we planned to go out in Shinjuku, she asked if I wanted to have an offal hot pot. What? They had that in Japan, too? Were we going to Koreatown? We were not. I have always loved this dish, but I had not known that Japan had its own version. Her suggestion was a motsunabe with assorted offal, and it was exactly my kind of meal.
Fujiya Hanare is an izakaya built around the varied textures and flavors of offal. Distinctive cuts such as tongue, heart, liver, and large intestine can be compared one skewer at a time. Its appeal seems to lie less in elaborate cooking than in bringing out the particular bite of each cut.
The liver skewers and negireba, topped with seasoned scallions, are especially intriguing. The scallions offer an aromatic change of pace alongside the richness of the liver. It would also be interesting to start with tongue and heart to compare textures, then move on to liver and intestine for deeper flavors. For a first visit, an assortment of five skewers looks like a useful introduction to the restaurant’s grilling and seasoning.
Beyond skewers, salt-seasoned offal stew and Hakata-style beef offal hot pot anchor the meal. The hot pot comes with a choice of soy sauce or miso broth and suits a shared meal. Low-temperature-cooked liver, tongue, and other dishes also offer a chance to compare textures with grilled or simmered preparations.
For anyone who enjoys offal, there is plenty of fun in choosing different cuts. What ultimately matters, however, is how carefully they are cleaned, how each is cooked, and how salt and sauces are balanced, rather than descriptions of freshness alone. This is not a direct tasting assessment of those individual dishes, so I cannot judge their execution with certainty, but it is a place where I would like to order several cuts and compare them slowly over drinks.
Price impression: Moderate.
