It’s not all okonomiyaki and oysters when in Hiroshima! Sometimes (well quite often actually!) you’ve got to take a break from food starting with the letter ‘o’ and try other things. This meat shop and restaurant in the city centre has a range of Japanese dishes including pork chops, sukiyaki, shabu shabu, and hamburg steaks but I was there for something else.

Any dish that can be bought with one coin (500 yen is the biggest denomination of coin in Japan) is a great deal in my book, but this one is even less than 400 yen and is actually cheaper than a regular sized bowl of gyudon (beef bowl) at the likes of Yoshinoya, Matsuya or Tsukiya.

Niku no Masui is located in the Hachobori district just ten minutes or so on foot east of the A-Bomb Dome. I entered shortly after the lunchtime rush so many of the tables had not been cleared of the finished dishes from previous customers. After about five minutes waiting (maybe a bit more!) I was finally shown to a seat.

The menu is all in Japanese but down at the bottom it says サービス (service) which is the Japanese-English for something that is usually free, or in this case offered at a much reduced price! Something like that anyway! I ordered the tonkastu pork cutlet and rice dish straight away before the waitress could even bring me the complimentary water.

Within just a few minutes of ordering, a waitress placed the two plates down in front of me which took me by surprise as I was expecting much more of a wait.

The breaded and fried pounded pork cutlet was of a fairly vast size and I later discovered that it was placed on some mashed potato as well as the more visible salad serving. The rice was sadly just lukewarm and not as hot as I like it. Luckily, the demi glace on the pork cutlet made up for it with its delightfully mellow taste, and you certainly can’t complain for such a great budget price!

• Niku No Masu is located at 14-13 Hatchobori, Naka-ku, Hiroshima-ken. It is open from 11:00 till 20:45 every day apart from Wednesdays when it’s closed.

The pork cutlet proved to be quite a filling dish but I thought I should take such an opportunity to eat another meal-of-sorts in such a novel way at the nearby pizza vending machine. This was a 10 minute walk south of the aforementioned meat restaurant. This is not the same location as the one I went to three years ago. That one was located in the Nishi district but vanished quite soon after my visit in January 2019.

I’m not sure when the new one appeared in this present, and more convenient location but I was happy to see it…..until I saw the sign on it saying it was out of action for a few months!!

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