Lunch at the birthplace of diced steak, “Bambolina”

Good evening.
Thank you very much for visiting this blog.
Today I’d like to introduce a restaurant in Kayaba-cho, “Bambolina”, which is said to be the first shop which served “diced steak”.

Contents

Before going to dentist

The day I visited “Bambolina” was the middle of June.
Most of my Kayaba-cho reports are about going somewhere before or after I went to hospitals. T
oday’s article is, of course, as usual.

I had an appointment at a dentist to fill my teeth.
I decided to eat something before the treatment because I would be unable to eat anything for a while after.

My appointment was at 12:30, so I arrived at Kayaba-cho Station at a little before 11:30 considering the time for lunch.
“11:30” is the time “Zemba” ends and lunch break starts for stock company people.
“Zemba” means the morning trade ends in stock market.
There are many stock companies in Kayaba-cho, so streets start to get busy at 11:30.

Talking about stock companies and lunch, I heard from my senior colleagues at the company I was working for before something like this;

In the stock company in some years ago, lunch boxes from a maker were prepared for the staffs every day to make the lunch break “efficient”.
Staffs had to work as soon as they finished to eat the prepared lunch.

Smokers wanted to use the time to smoke rather than eating lunch, so smokers only smoked and got back to their work without eating.
(Such things had stopped by the time I entered the company, but I think it was all true because everyone who was working since before said same things.)

On the other hand, now I can take some private time for my appointment of a dentist and lunch during worktime (of course I got a permission).
The situation changed in a good way.

“The birthplace of diced steak” near “the birthplace of bank”

Well, let’s leave a story about the dark age aside.
Talking about my lunch in Kayaba-cho, its streets started to become busy.

I wandered around looking for somewhere nice.
I was having difficulties deciding a place to enter every time I had lunch outside.
Suddenly, I noticed that I was near the birthplace of Japan’s bank.

This is “Mizuho Bank Kabuto-cho Branch”.
In this place, “The First National Bank” was established on August 1st, 1873, based on “Regulation of National Bank” which was enacted in the year before.
It was the very first bank in Japan.

After its establishment, other banks with numbers such as “The **th National Bank” in other places of Japan (such banks are called “Number Banks”, and the present “Daishi (The Fourth) Bank”, “Juroku (The 16th) Bank”, “Shichijushichi (The 77th) Bank” remain the history in their names).
“The First National Bank” changed their name later to “Dai-ichi (The First) Bank”, “Dai-ichi Kangyo Bank”, and then “Mizuho Bank”, and they still remain in this place.

To show this history,

There are many famous (among the securities industry) restaurants around this birthplace of Japan’s bank.
One of them is “Bambolina”, which is said to be the birthplace of diced steak (called “Saikoro Steak” in Japanese).

I hadn’t had beef for a while, and it was a perfect place to write about in the blog.
The intake calorie would be high, but it would disappear if I’d walked a lot later.
I convinced myself, and entered “Bambolina”.

The birthplace of diced steak, “Bambolina”

I entered the door, and there were stairs to the underground floor.

I entered the restaurant’s room through the stairs and another door at the right beneath.
The inside was a relaxed atmosphere with indirect lightnings.
I felt it like a typical restaurant in the Show period.

The time was about 11:38.
It looked that there were seats for about 40 people.
There were already about 10 customers there.

“Ba (means the trades at stock market)” finishes at 11:30, but the sales people of the stock companies usually need to stay at the office for extra 10 or 15 minutes after 11:30 to call their customers to inform their trades’ completion.
I wondered why there were already many people in the restaurant.
Well, actually, there are more IT companies in Kayaba-cho now, so they might have been sales people from IT companies.

As soon as I had a seat, a staff brought me a menu.

The clock was about 11:40.
I had no other choices than diced steak, so I ordered “Diced Steak (120g)” first.
But I changed it to “Diced Steak B-Set” because it also had a hamburg steak, and I wanted to try it, too.

Diced Steak of Bambolina

I finished ordering, and I started my Yahoo! News app because I expected that there would be some time to my steak’s arrival.

Then, the salad and soup were brought to me in a second.
It was so quick!

The time was 11:41!!
I was about to take photos of these dishes, and then going to start the salad.
While I was thinking such things,

The main dish, diced steak arrived!
Soooo quick!!!

The time I took this photo was 11:42.
It was unbelievably a quick job.

“Bambolina” is said to be the first restaurant which made diced restaurant in Japan as I mention in the title.
As I already mentioned, the workers at stock companies have to spend some of their lunch break for calling the customers.

In addition, they had daily quota of handling charges to earn.
If they couldn’t achieve it, they got abusive words from their bosses to give pressure.
Therefore, they worked in the lunch time to achieve the quota.

Actually, lunch time was easier for their customers to answer the phones, so many sales people chose to work in lunch time to get more contracts.
It was important for such workers to reduce the time to eat lunch.

To meet the people’s demand to reduce the time to eat, which also means, to reduce the time to cut the steak with a knife, Bambolina created “diced steak” which is already cut in pieces.
The regular member of this blog’s sources, Wikipedia said so.
I thought that pre-cutting the steak can reduce not only the time to eat, but also cooking time.
Their service and speed were enough to be called the origin of diced steak.

Let’s see the taste

I started the steak which arrived so quickly.

It was making a sound of the meat’s burning, and steam was coming out.
The photo looks blurred, but it’s the steam.
Let’s not say that it’s because of my poor technique…^^;

It didn’t have any sauce on it. Instead, if you want some sauce,

You use this on the table.
I wanted to try it both with sauce and without, so I added some sauce on a part of the plate.
I tried the steak without sauce first.

It was good!
It was medium rare (I thought).
It was soft, and the flavor of the meat came out every time I chewed, but the juice was not so much.
Not like the meat at Korean BBQ restaurants which has rich fats, their steak was a kind of meat which was enjoyable with the meat’s flavor itself.

I tried it with the sauce next.
The sauce was soy sauce-based, and it tasted of various ingredients which I could not tell what they were with my tongue.
It didn’t disturb the meat’s taste, but the sauce had clear and delicious flavor. I liked it.

The steak was very nice with white rice both with the sauce and without.
And it was a fantastic feeling to eat the meat with rice ( ￣▽￣)

I moved to the hamburg steak next.

This one was nice, too!
It was not like ones which I usually eat.
It was like what I had at a western food restaurant which I used to go before when I was living with my parents.

It had a little juice, and was rather hard.
Therefore, I thought that it was 100% beef, or big percentage of beef.

As well as the diced steak, it had rich taste of meat.
The demiglace sauce on top was sweet, and it tasted like something I had had a long time ago giving me a nostalgic feeling.

And the vegetables.

Steaks often have potato or carrot glace, or saute of green beans.
On the other hand, their steak had fried cabbage and bean sprouts.
Cabbage and sprouts have more dietary fiber, and it made me think that I was having vegetables than glace or saute.
I felt that the restaurant was caring about the nutrition balance.

While I was eating, I remembered the day when my ex-senior colleague took me to this restaurant before.
He asked the staff not to bring the rice because he was on carbohydrate-free diet.

After that, I somehow remembered many things which happened when I was at the previous work place.
And maybe because of that, my body got back to the days when I was working for a stock company.
The speed to eat increased even though I usually eat slowly (or it was because the meat and rice were very delicious).

I finished the meal at 11:52.
It took only less than 10 minutes even though I took 8 photos.
If I didn’t take photos or notes and hurry, it could be about 5 minutes.

The birthplace of diced steak also serves Nihonshu

I actually had visited this restaurant many times.
I had come not only in lunch time, but also in dinner time.

They have Nihonshu at night, and the brand is “Hakutsuru Daiginjo“.
Of course, it’s in the database of this website.

I tried to write a blog when I visited at night, but I was with my bosses at that time, and I hesitated to concentrate on taking photo before them.
I had diced steak and Hakutsuru then, but unfortunately, I forgot what the combination was like.
I’d like to try again if I have chance^^;

By the way, I have worked for 3 different companies so far.
All of the 3 were stock companies, and I was taken to this restaurant by my bosses each time.
All the bosses were their 50s.
I think that people who are in their 50s or so and have worked in Kayaba-cho might get to want to take their staffs to Bambolina.

The bosses said that the restaurant was already there when they entered the companies after graduating from university.
That means that this restaurant has been there for more than 30, nearly 40 years.

This restaurant is attractive and makes people want to bring colleagues for decades.
I believe that that’s not only because their food is good, but also because they try to be more useful for the customers considering their demands.
Their kind hospitality makes people happy, and it brings their colleagues.

When I was doing sales at a stock company, I was in charge of retail sales.
I called many people in a telephone directory every day to find new customers, but it was very hard to make contracts because it was just after BNP Paribas Shock.

I was “pressured” by my boss about the sales result every day.
He always told me not to beat the customers with logic, and told me to work purely hard to make the customers trust me.

The kind of people who buy securities already know the economic stories which new sales people who have just graduated from university talk.
It is almost no use to convince such customers by telling economic things.
Instead, the new, unexperienced sales people should use their enthusiasm to move people’s heart and emotion.
That’s the way to sell.

I couldn’t understand it when I was told that, but 10 years have passed and now I completely understand it.

It’s said that human power will be no more needed as the technologies such as AI or Financial Technology develop.
I believe that making communication between people’s heart in business is the only way to fight against those developing technologies in this generation.

In spite of this changing world, “Bambolina” keeps good foods and service, and being attractive for people who were young and enthusiastic 40 years ago, and still it’s same when they get old.
That’s should be why bosses always want to bring their staffs to this restaurant.

I’d like to visit there with a junior colleague if I get one in future.
I left the restaurant thinking such things.