Japanese grilling style yakiniku offers ‘zen community experience’

PITTSBURGH — Gathering with family or friends for a backyard cookout is always a good time. But for the person tasked with manning the grill? Maybe not so much.

It’s often hot, tends to be smoky and the hosts almost never get to socialize with guests because they’re too busy cooking for everyone.

“And there’s always some guy with dad shorts running around, and char on the food,” jokes self-taught chef Sorcha Murnane, who identifies as non-binary, trans masculine.

Murnane’s career was largely focused on fast-casual dining in New York and Atlanta. That was until moving to Pittsburgh in 2023 after hearing a friend “raving” about it.

The mood’s a little more relaxed and interactive at Cobra, where the Ireland native, who uses they/them pronouns, took the reins as executive chef a little over a year ago.

Modeled after Asian-style barbecue restaurants in New York and L.A., the Pittsburgh restaurant, which co-owners Derek Burnell and Miranda Piso opened just before the start of the pandemic in 2020, offers a sleek, modern approach to one of Japan’s most popular hands-on culinary experiences: yakiniku.

Drawn from the Korean barbecue tradition of bulgogi, yakiniku was brought to Japan by Korean immigrants in the 1920s. It translates to “grilled meat” and refers both to the country’s style of barbecue and the tabletop grill on which the bite-sized pieces of marinated or seasoned meat and vegetables are cooked.

It became incredibly popular after World War II, when meat was hard to find and Japanese cooks had to get creative to stretch limited ingredients into filling, affordable meals.

It differs from what Americans know as hibachi, where a chef performs the cooking and the cuts of meat are typically larger. And East vs. West couldn’t be more different, Murnane notes.

With American-style barbecue, “you have a person sweating over cooked burgers and dogs,” the chef notes. Yakiniku offers a “zen community experience,” wherein diners cook the meat and vegetables one savory piece at a time, at the table on a portable grill.

Not only is it cool because everyone does their own thing, at their own pace, “it’s a much more gentle form of barbecue,” says Murnane. “You can sit and talk while you cook, interacting with all your senses,” including your ears, which will catch the sound of the meat sizzling. “It’s more intentional.”

That extends to the chefs who prepare the thinly sliced meat for their customers’ omakase dinners. Traditional Japanese butchery techniques are delicate, with a single, very sharp knife used to separate the meat from the bone, so as to preserve as much of the meat as possible.

“You’re paying homage to specific cuts,” says Murnane, who possessed only modest butchery skills when they arrived at Cobra, but today can break down the larger cuts in about 20 to 25 minutes. “You’re paying attention to the meat at every juncture.”

Taking giant, 40-pound ovals of beef and turning them into squares perfectly portioned for a single bite, says the chef, “is a very intricate process that takes practice.”

Also, a word about heat.

At around 320 degrees, yakiniku grills are not nearly as hot as American grills, which max out at about 550 degrees. But because the grates are so close to the ceramic plates and produce a nice, even heat, they cook very fast.

So fast, it takes less than a minute per side using chopsticks to sear the meat and allow the marinade to caramelize, creating a beautiful char. (Because they’re thicker, lamb chops take a bit longer.)

All the beef on the Cobra menu is either American Wagyu (produced by crossbreeding full-blooded Japanese Wagyu cattle with Angus) or the much-more-expensive A5 Japanese Wagyu, renowned for its intricate (and buttery) marbling.

Omakase (translating to, “I’ll leave it up to you”) choices include zabuton, a primal cut from the chuck known in the U.S. as Denver steak; karubi, or boneless short rib; chuck eye; or for an upcharge, petit filet or Japanese A5 Wagyu.

As with Korean barbecue, yakiniku requires a super-tasty marinade to add complex flavors and make the meat tender. Murnane whirls together two Korean classics each day in the kitchen’s commercial blender: galbi (a savory mix of brown sugar, pears, garlic, sesame, tamari, onion and orange) and a spicy bulgogi.

At Cobra, guests gather around 10 smokeless electric Shinpo yakiniku grills for the ultimate social culinary experience. But with a sense of adventure and help from a really good butcher, it’s also possible to recreate the experience at home using one of the portable tabletop charcoal grills that are widely available online on Amazon.

Strip District Meats on Penn Avenue is one such resource for meat. Manager Justin Hughes says with a day or so lead time, butchers there can slice boneless short ribs, tri tip or Delmonico steak to a suitable thinness for yakiniku. Shaved rib-eye used for Philly cheesesteaks — which the store always has on hand pre-packaged — and skirt steak, known as harami in Japan, are also good options, and easy to find in larger grocery stores and Asian markets such as Sambok Korean Groceries on Penn Ave. in the Strip.

You also could use super-thin slices of chicken or pork, lamb chops or seafood such as shrimp. And of course you need a wide variety of veggies to pair with the protein — think spring onions, mushrooms, thinly sliced eggplant, asparagus and bell peppers.

For a tasty vegetarian offering, Murnane likes to braise Black Pearl King mushrooms from Bounty Beneath in Worthington, Armstrong County, in a mixture of soy sauce and butter and then roast them in the oven at 375 degrees for about 10 minutes to get them ready for grilling. (They’re fantastic.)

The chef’s recipe for galbi marinade is easier still — all you need is a blender and a plastic container to pour the sauce into. Just remember that if you add chili flakes to turn the galbi into bulgogi, it will turn a rich red color that darkens the longer it sits.

As for the cooking: Once your little grill is hot, add a little spray oil to keep the meat from sticking, and lay just a few pieces out at a time. Cook for around 40 seconds on each side, then “eat it as soon as possible after it comes off the grill,” says Murnane, savoring each bite, piece to piece to piece.

“You learn as you go,” says the 43-year-old chef, “as you figure out how you like it.”

Galbi Marinade

PG tested

This Korean-style, savory-sweet marinade pairs perfectly with meat for Japanese-style barbecue. For a gluten-free marinade, use tamari instead of soy sauce.

2 cups brown sugar

3 small skin-on Asian pears, roughly chopped

1/2 cup whole garlic cloves

1/2 cup sesame oil

1 cup tamari or soy sauce

2 cups water

1/2 cup mirin

2 small Spanish onions, roughly chopped

2 tablespoons coarse black pepper flakes

Zest and juice of 2 oranges

Blend everything together with an immersion blender or in a large jug blender. It’s OK if you have to work in batches.

If you want to make bulgogi marinade as well as galbi, split the blended marinade in half and add 1 1/2 cups of coarse Korean chili flakes, then blend again. The bulgogi should sit for 24 hours before use to allow the chili flakes to soften.

— Executive chef Sorcha Murnane, Cobra