I had a day off work, so I decided to visit Akihabara. I was still on the lookout for a new TV, so I figured I might as well head to the epicenter of Japan’s otaku culture to check out some of Tokyo’s biggest electronics shops. I used to frequent the place, too, so it seemed like a good chance to revisit and catch up on recent changes.

I arrived around lunchtime and was feeling a little hungry, so I decided to grab a bite first. I remembered an amazing gyukatsu—deep-fried beef cutlet—place we visited in 2018. Seven years later, this year felt like the perfect time to revisit and see how it’s holding up.

The place is called Gyukatsu Ichi Ni San (牛かつ 壱弐参). I recall it having a cozy interior with a long line outside, but the moment we took our first bite of the gyukatsu back then, we knew the wait was worth it. That was only the second time we’d ever had gyukatsu—the first one wasn’t great—so finding a truly good spot made us especially happy. We promised we’d return, and it felt good to finally keep that promise seven years later.

This time, though, the experience was a bit different. One of Ichi Ni San’s charms used to be its cozy, local atmosphere, but now the vast majority of customers seem to be tourists, many dragging luggage along. That definitely wasn’t the case seven years ago, when most of the crowd was local.

Even the servings and prices feel geared toward tourists now. The usual single cutlet is labeled “small” and costs around 2,000 yen. The “medium” is 1.5 times the size of the small, and so on. Ordering a Coke will set you back 600 yen—definitely a tourist price—so I skipped that.

The taste was still amazing, but I realized the taste and the experience wasn’t that different from other gyukatsu spots, including the more widespread Gyukatsu Motomura (牛カツもと村) chain. They’re both good. If I’m craving gyukatsu, I might as well hit up one of those shops in Tokyo’s other popular areas.

But since I like small shops like these not owned by big corporations, I might keep up the tradition of visiting Gyukatsu Ichi Ni San every few years, just to see how it is evolving.