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The best kebab in Tokyo? We find out if Moses in Shibuya lives up to the hype

SoraNews24 May 7, 2024
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Moses was the first person to sell kebabs in Japan, and you can buy them in Shibuya until three in the morning.

Our reporter Seiji Nakazawa recently made the move from Tokyo’s Okachimachi to Shibuya, and he’s been exploring everything the city has to offer ever since.

▼ Seiji is now a bonafide city boy who wears his love for Shibuya on his sleeve…and his T-shirt.

Okachimachi is a mecca for kebab shops, and Seiji is no stranger to them, so when he came across a kebab store in Shibuya’s Center Gai district with the words “Best Kebab in Tokyo” on the signboard, he had to stop and try it out.

▼ Moses’ Kebab goes by the name “Moses-san no Kebab” in Japanese, which adds the Japanese honorific “san” suffix to the name.

This kebab store has appeared on The World Unknown to Matsuko, a famous TBS television talk show, where it was revealed that Moses, the man who runs it, was the first person to sell kebabs in Japan.

It’s a famous chain that Tokyo kebab lovers will be familiar with, and it also has stores in Okachimachi and Akihabara. This was Seiji’s first time visiting the Shibuya store, though, and when he cast his eye over the menu, the Big Kebab was the first thing to catch his attention.

▼ The Big Kebab can be ordered with chicken for 1,000 yen (US$6.54), beef for 1,200 yen, or a mix of the two for 1,100 yen.

It was hard to get an idea of how big the Big Kebab was, just from the photos on the menu, but given that the regular-sized kebabs are priced at 600 yen for chicken, 700 yen for beef, and 650 yen for the mix, he figured they must be considerably larger.

Looking around, he couldn’t see anyone eating a large-looking kebab, so he did what he had to do, and put in an order for the beef Big Kebab. There were various options when ordering from the touch-panel screen, so Seiji supersized his meal by adding a “Large Portion” of meat for an additional 150 yen, bringing his total to 1,350 yen.

When he received his kebab, he found that it really was big — so big he could barely hold the thing in one hand — but what was even more surprising was the circular shape of it. Doner kebabs are usually made with a flatbread that’s folded over or sliced in two, giving it a semicircle shape, but this was like a full, round flatbread stuffed with ingredients.

With about twice the surface area of a regular doner kebab, this was a beast to bite into, but when Seiji gripped his teeth around it, he was rewarded with a mouthful of meat that was soft and full of flavour.

He continued to eat the kebab by nibbling on the bread while using the chopsticks provided by the store to shovel the meaty filling into his mouth. After making his way through the top layer of meat, he delved further to find a layer of cabbage, followed by another layer of meat, giving him different textures and flavour.

What people look for in a kebab generally differs from person to person, but for Seiji the key element is meatiness, and this kebab delivered that in spades.

Every mouthful was meaty and delicious, which, in Seiji’s opinion is the hallmark of a great kebab. The only thing that confused him was the cut in the centre of the kebab, which made him wonder if he should have split it in two before eating it.

Looking back, he reckons the split may have been so the kebab can be equally divided in the case of being eaten by two people, or kept together for ease of eating when there’s just one person devouring it. Either way, it was a big kebab with a big claim for being the best that Seiji wasn’t going to argue with, so next time you’ve got a craving for kebabs in the big city, he highly recommends Moses-san. And don’t forget this hack for eating kebabs that’ll save you from looking like a hot mess in the process!

Restaurant information
Moses-san no Kebab Shibuya Center Gai Store / モーゼスさんのケバブ渋谷センター街店
Address: Tokyo-to, Shibuya-ku, Udagawa-cho 29-4
東京都渋谷区宇田川町29-4
Open: 12 p.m.-3:00 a.m.

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[ Read in Japanese ]