Crazy Tonkatsu Meals

Pork chops have become the new coffee, in terms of price points, I mean. I remember being very surprised at 150-peso coffee cups as I am at 500-peso pork chop meals now. It's scary to think this becoming the norm. Anyway, I digress.

I've always loved tonkatsu. When I was younger, I normally end up ordering a tonkatsu or a katsudon whenever we go to a Japanese restaurant. This is the reason why I finally gave Ginza Bairin a try even if it was crazy expensive. My friend also raves about this place and would often suggest this place for lunch.

Priced at an average of S$17 (600 pesos) per meal at a fastfood setting, while good, the meals didn't blow me away.







Tonkatsu by Ma Maison has also been getting a lot of positive reviews so I decided to eat out for my birthday there. Its the one time that I feel its okay to splurge.



I gave them a call to have a table for us reserved but I was told quite curtly that they don't accept reservations. There are two sitting areas at the Mandarin Gallery branch and one was closed off while the main area was full. There was only a one couple in line and then us but we waited for more than half an hour.





The restaurant finally decided to open the 2nd sitting area and I have to say this, we were very polite the whole time, never giving anyone from the restaurant a hard time. But what the guy from the restaurant did was a big turn off. Upon opening the 2nd sitting area, he told us that he'd sit us there only if we'd eat fast. He was really out of line, also, there was no event happening that day as all the diners after us were asked to sit there as well. I wanted to create a scene right there but seeing that we're already pressed for time since we already have tickets to a movie which was about to start in less than hour, I decided to let his comment pass.



The hire tonkatsu was thick and good. The finely sliced unlimited cabbage was fresh and the sauce was perfect for it. Priced at S$30 (1000 pesos), it comes with soup, radish, your choice of rice and tea but with the kind of service they have, it's not worth it.







In Manila, thanks to Chuvaness' blog, I heard about Yabu when it opened. Rhommel shares my liking for Tonkatsu so he requested that we have lunch there when I last visited.

I made the mistake of ordering the rosu katsu, it's not the restaurant's fault, but I find that particular part to be a bit funky tasting. (Call me wa-class but I don't like it.) I did like what Rhommel and Oliver ordered and when it comes to service, I give the restaurant a big two thumbs up. Their staff were friendly  and seem genuinely happy to see their diners there.





Average meal would be about 300 - 600 pesos.

Sushi Tei

Em-J ordinarily doesn't like anything Japanese so I was a bit surprised when he said that he wants to have dinner at Sushi Tei. He actually posted it as his Facebook status and spelled out Tei as Tae which was of course an easy dig.





Both he and Danny couldn't get enough of the fried salmon skin so they ordered heaps, a couple of platefuls and temaki rolls.





I'm happy with anything that has avocado or salmon thus my orders.




That's a huge avocado slice right below the crab meat.



I also ordered a tonkatsu but was given a katsudon. I didn't want to cause too much trouble for the waitstaff since it's more or less the same so I didn't complain. I wasn't able to touch it though cause I'm too full by the time it arrived.



The ika fry and this thing with scallop and cheese were both winners.





There were also a couple of orders that I wasn't particularly fond of. I forgot what they're called but this one below tasted like canned tuna and the skewered scallop wasn't too tasty.





We then proceeded to order desserts, the three of us ended up with all ice creams. I didn't know that the strawberry pino was an ice cream dessert.



Em-J couldn't resist the Nama ice cream.



Danny liked how this strawberry shell looked like and decided on it.