Ox tongue sets at Gyutan-tan 

Restaurants featuring various premium beef options and cuts are aplenty, but few focus purely on ox tongue or gyutan.

The 82-seat Gyutan-Tan restaurant, which opened on Oct 27, does just that – and at reasonable prices using tongue from Australian Angus cows.

Lunch sets – priced from $18 to $30 – give the best value.

My pick is the Sumiyaki Gyutan Combo Set ($25), which comes with thin and thick cuts of charcoal-grilled gyutan simply seasoned with salt and pepper. Both cuts are delicious, but the thicker one is more tender.

The set comes with mugimeshi (a mix of rice and barley), two kinds of Japanese pickles, salad, tororo (grated Japanese mountain yam) and a choice of oxtail or miso soup.

Although the oxtail soup looks deceptively plain, it has a lovely beefy flavour.

Pick a sauce (which comes with each order of a gyutan dish) to complement the ox tongue – original housemade soya sauce, ponzu oroshi, sweet and spicy Korean, lemon pepper and negi shio.

The meat is tasty on its own, but you can go with either the lemon pepper or negi shio for added layers of flavour.

The dinner menu offers a wider variety of a la carte dishes. Highlights include the Premium Gyutan Shabu-Shabu ($28); Gyutan Demi-glace Stew Set ($24), with chunks of gyutan braised for four hours; and Cold-roasted Gyutan Carpaccio ($15), with thinly sliced gyutan topped with arugula, pickled white radish, parmesan and a sweet balsamic glaze.

Desserts are not overlooked here.

Try the Matcha Afo-Guard ($10.50), with bittersweet matcha poured over vanilla ice cream, white chocolate, warabimochi and kuromitsu (black sugar syrup); or the Tiramisu Parfait ($11.50), a rum-infused dessert with whipped mascarpone and coffee...