TKG Debate: What’s the best way to eat Japan’s beloved raw egg comfort dish?

Even Japanese locals can’t agree on how to make this simple meal.

Every Wednesday at 7:30 p.m., our Japanese-language reporters go live on YouTube, and during last week’s stream, an unexpected debate broke out over how to eat one of Japan’s best-loved simple meals, TKG. Short for tamago kake gohan, which literally translates as “egg over rice”, this dish is as easy to make as it sounds – simply add raw egg to a bowl of rice and you’re ready to eat.

As it turns out, though, there’s some debate as to how exactly the egg should be added to the rice, because as our reporters prepared their own TKGs during the livestream, what was meant to be a comparison test between cheap and expensive eggs quickly became a debate about how to properly make TKG.

Things were going fine until they cracked their eggs, because that’s when they realised they each favoured slightly different methods for adding it to their rice bowls.

For Mr Sato, he always thought that tamago kake gohan involved simply cracking the egg straight onto the rice without mixing it separately beforehand. Then, he adds soy sauce and mixes it all into the rice before eating it.

This immediately elicited surprise from everyone, including viewers watching the livestream, who couldn’t believe he didn’t mix his eggs separately. Thankfully, Go Hatori’s method brought us back to slightly more conventional practices, as he cracks his egg into a separate bowl, adds a splash of soy sauce and thoroughly beats the egg. After it’s all mixed, he makes a hole in the centre of the rice and pours the egg mixture into it.

Seiji Nakazawa, on the other hand, adds soy sauce to his rice and mixes that all together, then he cracks the egg into a separate bowl, gives it a good mix, and pours it onto his rice. Then he mixes it all together again to ensure everything is thoroughly combined.

Seiji says he’s been eating TKG like this since he was a child, as he dislikes the slightly slimy texture of the egg white so he mixes everything thoroughly to make it completely uniform. Go, on the other hand, enjoys that “slimy” texture, and argues that after pouring the egg over the rice, he likes to enjoy the uneven, varied texture it creates. As for Mr Sato, he likes breaking the yolk directly on top of the rice, preferring to enjoy an even more extreme mixed mouthfeel.

▼ You can watch their reactions at this cued-up point in the livestream.

Our reporters never expected such a heated debate to arise over something so ordinary, but after thinking about it, they realised it’s rare for people within the same workplace to sit down and eat tamago kake gohan together. It’s also pretty rare for people to watch three colleagues eat tamago kake gohan together, and it was interesting to note that viewers also had their own preferences, siding with different methods and expressing their own firmly held opinions on how it should be eaten.

▼ Which method do you prefer?

Like many homemade comfort meals, there are no hard-and-fast rules when it comes to making TKG, so if you’ve ever wanted to try making it yourself but don’t know where to start, you now have three different methods to try. And if you want to ensure you get the best results, you might want to pick up some rare eggs from Tokyo’s Phantom Egg Shop, which is run by an egg professional called Mr TKG.

Photos ©SoraNews24
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