Shovel Time: Butagumi
I didn’t go deep on any particular item of food in Japan. As a first time visitor, I was fine with varied and broad (and ignoring Japanese curry). So, if you’re only to eat one tonkatsu, you have to make it count. There are workhorse breaded pork chops all over the place, where the only choice you’ll probably have to make is rosu (loin) or hire (fillet). Rosu, obviously, because it’s more fatty.
On the higher end, Tonkatsu Maisen ranks with Butagumi (which yes, does attract a lot of tourist attention because it has an English menu) but I went with the latter because it’s located in a residential neighborhood (a bit of a walk from the nearest subway stop, especially if it’s pouring) in a two-story traditional house. It was cozy, and we were seated next to the crescent moon cut out that you see from the street.
Rosu on the left, hire on the right.
There are about 30 different breeds of pork–mostly domestic but also Iberico–to choose from. I doubt any one of them would be a clunker. While I marveled at how inexpensive food was in Tokyo, this was not an instance. Prices at dinner (there are lunch specials) for deluxe (set meal) started at around 1,900 yen and went up to 4,500 yen.
Lean ryuka-ton from Okinawa in the background, fatty akan pork from Hokkaido for me. You can use the thick, sweet-tart tonkatsu sauce, mustard (kind of a surprise) or just sea salt for extra oomph, though you probably don’t want to drown the pure pork flavor. Of course, the panko crust was greaseless because I came to realize that the Japanese are masters of frying. This chop was definitely rich, but not overwhelmingly so, the portion was just right, and the cabbage salad (self-dressed with miso vinaigrette) balances the fat.
Highlights from the weirdo soundtrack: The piña colada song (yes, I know it’s “Escape”), Rickie Lee Jones’ “Chuck E.’s in Love” (no, I didn’t realize it wasn’t Chucky’s until two minutes ago), and Gordon Lightfoot.
Butagumi * 2 Chome-24-9 Nishiazabu, Minato-ku, Tōkyō-to 106-0031, Japan
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