Tonkatsu koko made yaru ka

Tonkatsu koko made yaru ka (とんかつ ここまでやるか)

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🐷 Tonkatsu / 📍 Gaienmae

📓 Visits: 1

The third restaurant from Malca's Tsukasa Kitano (the second was Mochio) and the newest quality tonkatsu restaurant in Tokyo opened last week on Friday 8th March.

The restaurant is located in the former premises of Tempura Motoyoshi.  Motoyoshi-san relocated to Ebisu in 2022.  The Gaienmae restaurant was run by Motoyoshi-san's sous chef, Hiroki Matoba.  But, along with Tempura Motoyoshi Imo in Ebisu, the restaurant closed at the end of 2023.  Matoba-san is set to open a tempura restaurant in Kanazawa in 2024.

There was no English menu.  At lunch there are typically two choices of rosu katsu teishoku and one or two choices of hire.  On my visit there were two kinds of rosu priced at JPY 2,800 and JPY 4,500 and one kind of hire priced at JPY 4,800.  I'm not really a rosu person but 4,800 is more than I want to spend on a first visit to a tonkatsu restaurant so I chose the cheapest rosu at JPY 2,800 which, looking at a series of menus, seems to be the minimum price for a meal here.  At dinner there are no sets available so you have to pay for the katsu of your choice.  This might be 200 yen cheaper than the lunch set but cabbage is charged at 300 yen (unlimited refills) and rice and miso soup at 400 yen (unlimited refills again).  It seems like they are also going to offer a reservation-only omakase course in the evenings for JPY 11,000 comprising a variety of fried items but details on that are a bit sketchy for now.  Hire was also available as a single item (tanpin) at lunch without the cabbage, rice and miso soup but (because it's Japan :) they wouldn't do a half order of one piece.  There was no ebi fry on the lunch menu but menchi katsu was available.

The cabbage is served first so you've got something to munch on while you wait, which in my case was around 18 minutes for the tonkatsu to be served.

I prefer a pork with a deeper flavour and the fat (though delicious) was quite salty but the meat was very moist and didn't need any additional seasoning.  The panko was the thin type, very moreish and not oily.  The katsu is first fried at low temperature in a back kitchen and then fried for one minute at high temperature behind the counter to crisp up the panko.  Because most of the frying is done in the back there's very little smell of oil in the restaurant.

Lots of tonkatsu restaurants have great pork but many fail when it comes to the cabbage, rice and miso soup, and some will even charge you for refills.  Here, everything was perfect.  The rice and akadashi were excellent.  The cabbage was the sweetest I've ever had.  I demolished a whole bowl with no dressing, and then most of a second, larger, bowl mostly with no dressing.  Instead of an actual dressing they serve tosa-zu and recommend you add a little salt: this was eye-wideningly good.  The tonkatsu sauce and goma was the best I can remember eating: umami, acidity, sweetness, it had everything.  Along with wasabi and shoyu they serve a thick, mildly-spicy condiment made with paprika and cumin that went surprisingly well.

I'm mainly a skeptic when it comes to expensive tonkatsu.  Looking at the top five tonkatsu restaurants in Tokyo, Narikura I think is too expensive, has poor hospitality and heavy batter.  Katsu Prepork wasn't perfect.  Sharikimon Chanwabu is very good but is very expensive now, especially since the curry sauce is no longer included in the set.  Keita I'm yet to visit.  Tonta is my favourite: the best panko, excellent pork, nice staff, best value.  The trouble is you'll definitely have to queue for 30-40 minutes, maybe longer.

I arrived just before the restaurant opened at 11am and entered alone.  Then suddenly a group of eight tourists lead by a Japanese guide arrived leaving just two counter seats to be soon occupied by locals.  I was surprised there was no queue at 11 but I'm sure that, in time, this restaurant is going to get a lot more busy.

I'll definitely go back.  2,800 yen is not unreasonable for a tonkatsu meal of this quality and with long lunch opening hours and a central location it's convenient.  I want to try the hire (when they have a more reasonably-priced pork) and I really want to eat the rib rosu, though it seems like that's only on the dinner menu for now.

You might have to wait for Eric to return to Japan again for a more authoritative take on Tonkatsu koko made yaru ka but I loved it.  What did an Italian chef bring to a tonkatsu restaurant?  Well nothing Italian.  But what Kitano-san did bring (it's not him frying here) was a level of refinement I haven't experienced in a tonkatsu restaurant in a long time.  Katsuzen is the only tonkatsu restaurant to have ever been awarded a Michelin Star, which it held through the 2011-2018 Tokyo Guides (the restaurant closed in January 2020).  Malca was disappointingly not awarded a Star in the 2024 Guide but was included as a "selected" restaurant.  It's now more difficult (some would argue rightly so) to get a Star in Tokyo and with all the ramen restaurants being demoted from 1-Star to Bib Gourmand who knows what Michelin will do for 2025 but I think koko made yaru ka has the potential to get a star and I'd be delighted if it did.

📌 https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1306/A130603/13294363/

❓ My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.2

📱 Booking: No bookings for lunch or dinner unless you reserve the dinner-only omakase course.

📍 Location: B1F, 3-2-4 Minami-Aoyama.

5 minutes from Gaienmae station, Exit 1b.  B1F multi-tenant building.  Behind Ski Shop Jiro on Gaien Nishi Dori.
Map data ©2021 Google

📶 Free WiFi? ✅ Yes (slightly poor phone reception)

📅 Visit March 2023

Niigata Koshinokogane toku-jo rosu katsu teishoku

💴 Damage: 2,800
⏱️ Time taken: 40m