The Omi Beef Association (近江肉牛協会) went all out to serve a complimentary Omi beef barbecue lunch for some lucky foreigners in Tokyo on March 7, 2026.
I was lucky to be one of the invitees to this Omi-gyu BBQ Matsuri dubbed “Omi Beef Experience in Tsukiji” (近江牛BBQ祭りin 築地).
Omi beef or Omi-gyu (近江牛) is a premium, Japanese marbled beef produced in Shiga Prefecture. It’s perhaps Shiga’s most famous product. Did you know that the famous Kobe beef originally came from Shiga? Read below.
The BBQ lunch was to promote Omi beef among us foreigners in Tokyo. Their mission was certainly accomplished with each of us devouring ¥50,000 worth of Omi beef for lunch, then raving about it on social media. (That’s how much upscale restaurants in Tokyo would charge for the amount of beef we consumed, we were told. Likely cheaper if we bought the same amount of raw Omi beef at a meat shop in Shiga.)
Tsukiji Outer Market
The place was Tsukiji Outer Market, at the BBQ Terrace on the roof of Uogashi fish market (築地 魚河岸 浜焼きBBQテラス). It was a sunny and slightly windy day, but picture perfect for an outdoor barbecue.
Tsukiji Outer Market used to be attached to the famous Tsukiji fish market which moved to Toyosu. Even without the fish market, the Tsukiji Outer Market has remained popular as ever with the lunchtime crowd seeking sushi and other seafood.
If you walk all the way to the rear of the Outer Market, you’ll see Uogashi, an indoor facility with seafood vendors. Less crowded here. Go upstairs for the BBQ Terrace.
As we arrived at the BBQ Terrace, a huge stash of Omi beef was on full display for us to see with mouths watering. There must’ve been at least 40 to 50 of us taking part, hosted by maybe 15 to 20 staff wearing hot-pink happi coats.
What to know about Omi beef:
- Omi beef is one of Japan’s Big Three Wagyu (日本三大和牛) beef. The other two are Kobe beef (Hyogo Prefecture) and Matsuzaka beef (Mie Prefecture).
- “Omi” (近江) or Ohmi is the former name of Shiga Prefecture when it was a feudal domain during the samurai period up until the late 19th century. It is still commonly used in place names and product names to indicate a Shiga connection.
- Omi beef is produced with Japanese Black cattle (黒毛和牛), a native Japanese cattle breed.
- Most of the beef cattle for Omi beef is raised in the cities of Omi-Hachiman and Higashi-Omi. Cattle in lakeside Omi-Hachiman have water from Lake Biwa, while cattle in Higashi-Omi drink mineral-rich water from the Suzuka Mountains. Shiga has about 80 Omi beef cattle farms who raise the cattle in accordance with strict standards.
- Only about 6,000 Omi-gyu cattle is shipped annually for beef.
- Omi beef is Japan’s oldest wagyu with a history of 400+ years dating back to the 17th century when the Hikone Domain offered dried beef to the shogun and daimyo lords as medicinal food. The history is much longer than Kobe beef (130+ years) and Matsuzaka beef (100+ years). More about the history below.
- In 1951, the Omi Beef Association was established as Japan’s first wagyu association to promote its beef.
Lunch is served…
The main dish was sirloin steak which was cooked for us. We each got half a steak. Quite thick.
After having sirloin steaks, we each got a large, thin slice of shabu-shabu meat which we grilled ourselves with corn.
We all got full stomachs. Such delicious food and pleasant company. Nice meeting everyone for the first time. My table was quite diverse with people from Singapore, Poland, France, Russia, and USA (me). People in groups of nine dined together at a table under a canopy.
We also had three alcoholic drinks from Shiga. Two different beers and a bottle of sake from Shiga. The beer was Kinkan Wit with a tanuki raccoon dog on the can. This was a Belgian-style beer blending Japanese kumquat (kinkan) and local wheat. Other beer was Lake Lager beer brewed with Omi rice. The can has a Giant Lake Biwa catfish.
Both beers are brewed by Two Rabbits Brewing Company in Omi-Hachiman in eastern Shiga. The interesting company name comes from the old proverb, “He who chases two rabbits catches neither.” It’s their reminder to focus on one thing to make progress. Not only that, the company is headed by an Australian. Website: https://www.tworabbitsbrewing.com
The sake was Daijiro Yamahai Junmai pasteurized sake brewed by Hatashuzo (畑酒造) in Higashi-Omi, Shiga. Brewed with all local ingredients.
These drinks were selected for us because they go well with Omi beef. I just had a sip of each, and noticed the different flavors.
A BIG THANK YOU to the Omi Beef Association for holding such a generous BBQ for us in Tokyo. Also thanks to all the companies or sponsors providing the drinks and anything else we enjoyed or used. ご馳走様でした！
Restaurants in Japan serving Omi beef is listed on this page: https://oumiushi.com/en/enjoy-2
History of Omi beef
During the Edo Period (1603–1868), it was prohibited to slaughter livestock. Buddhism was also against killing animals. However, the Hikone Domain’s Ii Clan was allowed to slaughter aging farm work cattle to provide the leather to the shogunate for samurai taiko drums. Farm work cows would typically be replaced with younger cattle after six or seven years. There was a slaughterhouse in Takamiya-juku Nakasendo Road post town near Hikone in the 18th century.
In 1687, a Hikone samurai retainer named Hanaki Den’emon (花木 伝右衛門) followed a recipe in the book, Compendium of Materia Medica written by Chinese herbalist Li Shizhen to make dried or raw beef marinated in miso paste or pickled vegetables. The book stated that beef was “excellent, sweet, and non-toxic; it soothes the body, nourishes the spleen and stomach, and strengthens the waist and legs.”
It was offered to the Tokugawa shoguns and a few daimyo lords as medicinal beef named henpongan (反本丸). By 1866, many daimyo lords liked the beef from Hikone as a health food. One daimyo who loved the miso-marinated beef was Tokugawa Nariaki (1800–1860) in Mito (Ibaraki Prefecture). He was the father of Yoshinobu, the last Tokugawa shogun. The beef was delivered to him every year. Henpongan became nationally known.
The product was branded as “Hikone beef” (彦根牛) instead of “Omi beef” since it was produced by the Hikone Domain. Records indicate that the Hikone Domain slaughtered 1,000 to 3,000 cattle annually during the late Edo period, and there were shops along the Tokaido Road selling “Hikone Beef.” Since it was produced in Shiga (Omi), this history is being included in the history of modern Omi beef.
The Hikone Domain did not raise cattle specifically for human consumption. Cattle was still primarily for farm work during the Edo Period.
It wasn’t until the Meiji Period (1868–1912) when the prohibition of meat consumption was lifted in Japan upon the influence of Western contact. Settlers from the West had meat as the main dish. This spurred cattle farmers and Omi merchants to sell “Omi beef” as a brand.
After the Treaty of Amity and Commerce between the U.S. and Japan was signed in 1862, many foreigners started living in Yokohama. Knowing that foreigners loved beef, Omi merchant Nishii Shozo (西居 庄蔵) from Ryuo (Naemura), Gamo District in Shiga started bringing live cattle from Shiga to Yokohama in 1869. The arduous journey on the Tokaido Road took 17 or 18 days. He did business directly with the foreigners.
In 1882, he started transporting the cattle by boat from Kobe Port to Yokohama. The enabled him to ship many more beef cattle. However, in those days, his beef could not be branded as “Omi beef.” It had to take the name of the departure port, so it was called “Kobe beef” in Tokyo.
Thus, Kobe beef actually started off as Omi beef and the brand name became famous among foreigners. Shozo’s Omi beef company still exists as Restaurant Matsukiya (松喜屋) in Otsu.
Another Omi merchant, Takenaka Kyuji (1840–1913 竹中 久次) also from Ryuo, Gamo District, walked a few cattle from Shiga to Kobe’s foreign settlement where he sold the beef upon hearing that foreigners in Kobe liked beef.
He soon learned that Tokyo had many foreigners and Japanese who favored beef. So he walked several cattle from Shiga to Tokyo. However, he was attacked by street bandits at the steep Hakone Pass. Fortunately, yakuza boss Shimizu Jirocho who happened to be passing by, rescued Kyuji and they became friends since both of them were former rice merchants. Jirocho used his influence to stop the bandits from bothering Kyuji again.
Kyuji’s Omi beef sold well in Tokyo. In those days, most beef that was sold came from old, unwanted cattle. But Kyuji’s beef came from fresh cattle. He helped to spread the word about Goshu beef (江州牛).
In 1879, Kyuji moved to Tokyo. In the 1880s, he started a beef wholesale and retail business and successful sukiyaki restaurant in Asakusa-bashi. He went on to open 100 sukiyaki restaurants in Tokyo, further spreading public awareness and favor of Omi beef even among the Japanese.
Many other Omi merchants began dealing in livestock. In 1887, Tokyo slaughtered 20,000 cattle. Over 6,000 of them were from Shiga, thanks to Omi merchants like Shozo and Kyuji who established a sales and distribution system for beef.
In 1890 when the Tokaido train line connected Omi-Hachiman, Shiga with Tokyo Station, Omi cattle could finally be shipped directly from Shiga. A much higher volume of beef could thereby be shipped under the brand name of “Omi-gyu” instead of “Kobe beef.”
In 1906, Omi beef from Gamo District won first place at the National Livestock Exposition held in Ueno Park in Tokyo. Omi beef was on track to become more well known in Tokyo.
However, during World War II in the 1940s, beef was not allowed to be shipped outside Shiga, resulting in a decline in beef production.
To increase Shiga’s post-war beef production, the Omi Beef Association was established in 1951. It consisted of livestock merchants in Shiga and wholesalers in Tokyo. They were the first beef association in Japan and aimed to establish Omi beef as a brand of beef.
In 1954, the Omi Beef Association trucked 13 heads of cattle from Shiga to Tokyo’s Nihonbashi district for a PR event at Shirokiya Department Store where a public auction of the cows was held. It garnered much public attention. Shirokiya also had Shiga roots.
In the 1960s, farming techniques and machinery improved, enabling cattle farmers to improve their raising of cattle. The quality of beef improved and the amount of meat from each cow also increased. Farmers concentrated on increasing the marbled fat in the beef. They were still raising Holstein cows.
In 1991, beef imports were liberalized to allow cheap U.S. beef to enter Japan. The price of beef in Japanese supermarkets finally became much more affordable.
Shiga cattle farmers then decided to pivot toward premium beef. They moved away from Holstein cows to cross breeds, then finally to Japanese Black cattle. Marbled beef became the objective and norm for premium beef. Competition also heated up between the Big Three Wagyu producers.
It wasn’t until 2005 when the “Omi-gyu” (Omi beef) brand was officially defined according to the breed and origin. “Omi-gyu” (Omi beef) finally became a registered trademark in 2007.
To ensure consumer confidence, Omi beef is certified as such and can only be sold by certified outlets. Today, everyone in Shiga’s beef industry aim to make Omi beef Japan’s No. 1 beef brand out of the 300 wagyu beef brands in Japan. It also seeks to expand exports to overseas markets. Omi beef is already well recognized by chefs in and outside Japan. Good luck to all concerned!
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