When you come to Okinawa, eat pork. Forget beef (unless you know that the restaurant has good beef.) Located in the city of Nago at the end of Okinawa highway is Manmi, the best place for Okinawa pork.
Manmi is the pork specialist.
The restaurant is like an old traditional house. Very homy atomosphere.
Each table can have little charcoal grill on it with powerful ventilation duct. It’s Yaki-Niku, a Japanese grill-your-own-meat style of BBQ.
Meat Assorts for 4 people.
As far as I can remember, loin, rib, fillet, throat, heart, neck, and breast. Such varieties. So beautiful.
My favorite is breast. It’s sitting in the front in the picture. As you can see, it’s not the pectoral muscle as in chicken breast. It is the breast. A very fatty part, but it’s tender and elastic. It tastes mild and juicy. You don’t find this part very often.
First, grill in the center on all sides, move to the edge in low heat, slow and long grill.
This is loin, everyone’s favorite. The fat carries some sweetness to it. It’s so good when you grill it to brown.
It releases a lot of grease which catches flame. Gently move around to avoid burning.
Throat in the front in the picture. This needs to be grilled slow and long. It’s crunchy and juicy.
Intestine Assorts for 4 people.
Meat assorts and intestine assorts combo for JPY3500 for 2 people.
If you have Western cultural background, you may find it hard to eat intestines. i really wish you could just try some pieces here.
At Manmi, they prepare all their meats and intestines themselves. It’s a hard work but they do this job so well that the intestines look really beautiful. They do not smell bad or anything edgy at all if you worry about that.
For example, the restaurant owner told me a story before. I forgot which part, but I think it was a part of small intestines. If you just grill the organ, it’s gummy and somewhat smelly and it’s not good at all. But it consists of 4 layers, he explained, and if you slice off 2 layers, the other 2 layers are tasty, juicy, and not disturbing at all. They really know what they are doing.
As far as I can remember, they are liver, stomach, small intestine, diaphragm, gullet, rectum, uterine… Well, you can forget about what they are and just appreciate each pieces.
Enjoy tender, juicy and tasty varieties of meats and intestines.
If it’s available, don’t forget to order the premium tongue. This non-fatty meat has the distinguish pleasant texture and it’s very very tasty.
For seasoning, salt (a slice of lemon comes with the meat dish), konbu salt, special soy sauce.
This steamed rice with green onion and lard is illegally delicious too.
MANMI
