The cut surface is pink, close to the colour of cherry blossom, which is why the meat has that name here. Lean cuts, marbled cuts, and the fat from under the mane all come to the table sliced thin and entirely raw. The names for the cuts are peculiar to this meat and mean nothing to a butcher working with beef.

The condiments are sliced onion, grated ginger, grated garlic and chopped spring onion, and the whole lot is dipped in sweet soy sauce. Soy sauce in this part of the country is sweet in a way that surprises people from elsewhere, and against raw meat it works better than the sharper kind would.

There is a story about how it began. Kato Kiyomasa, the first lord of Kumamoto, is said to have run out of provisions during the invasion of Korea, eaten his cavalry horses out of necessity, found the result excellent, and gone on eating horse after he came home.

The dish people actually eat has a shorter history than that. Aso, up in the highlands, bred army horses, and in the food shortages after the war people there began eating the meat in quantity. By the late 1950s restaurants were serving it. The general makes the better anecdote; the hungry decade is the reason it is on the menu.