Rikyu

In Indonesia we have tons of restaurant that serve gyutan don. Typically they just serve a gyutan cooked with soy sauce and sells pretty well.
As for my Japan trip, like most tourist I tried to experience a lot of local food and also compare them with the ones that they sell back home (Japanese food is quite popular in Indonesia).
So we arrived at Osaka station and the first thing I do is Unilocal it out. Rikyu caught my eyes with their gyutan speciality. Arrived at 11 am which is not the rush time for lunch. Place is a bit small. Probably 10 – 15 people capacity. Perfect. They have space for us.
Menu provides information pictures that we need. All is gyutan based. I chose the sliced tongue while my girlfriend opted for tender tongue. Food arrived. It is so delicious that I picked this food as THE highlight of my Japan trip with Tsukiji market sushi. They even serve gyutan appertizer. I definetly recommend this place as a MUST visit for gyutan lover.

I had dinner here thinking it is a original place serving original creative cuisine. It was a complete surprise that it is a good sized chain restaurant that has over 15 locations across Japan.
The food was good in that it is just grilled beef tongue. The thick cut is juicy so get that. The thinly sliced set over rice was rubbery and not as good. The stewed version they recommended when I requested «soft» was like beef jerky and extremely dry that I could not eat it, do not order that!
The service was very perfunctory not too enthusiastic to be there type of service. The waitress is a young 21 year old girl who is afraid of crickets:-) How do I know that? Because 5 minutes after telling her there is a cricket crawling across my table and she laughs thinking I am just another not too intelligent foreigner telling not too intelligent story. I hear a loud scream coming from her because of, you guessed it, she sawed the cricket and jumped right beside me for protection from this dangerous beast!
I weaved and ducked my way through the throngs of Osakans to get on Midosuji line to get back to my haven in the bosom of St. Regis in Hommachi (pronounced home much ee).

Come here for lunch to take advantage of the 1600+ yen lunch sets. There were 3 different cow tongue combo sets to choose from. I sacrificed some cow tongue pieces for a mini stew. Boy was it worth it.
First off, these meat were only slightly salted. There was no tare sauce. But don’t get me wrong, it tasted great without sauce. The thickness of the cow tongue was unlike any other places I have been to. In fact, it was probably about 3 times the thickness of any other cow tongue restaurant I have been too. The quality of the meat was superb. It was slightly chewy, but soft enough to almost melt in your mouth. Just kidding about the melting. Anyway, it was nice and tender.
The stew I ordered was also delicious. They had different types of stews, but I just asked for the most popular one.
Furthermore, this place is only about a two minute walk from the station so it was super convenient. Be prepared to wait in line.