[Eat It]: Tonkatsu Katuzen | SmartShanghai (2024)

When making distinctions between hunks of deep-fried pork, the details are key. Many deep-fried foods are delicious; many pork things are delicious. In distinguishing Katuzen, a Japanese tonkatsu specialist in Gubei, from Hamachan, a tonkatsu specialist in Jing'an, the details are three:

1. Katuzen is in Gubei's Parkson mall. This is important in case, sometime, you are not in Jing'an but are in the mood for a deep-fried pork cutlet, a mound of shredded cabbage, and Bull-Dog sauce. Perhaps you're visiting Hooters, just across the way, or perhaps you're headed out towards the airport to catch a flight to Guilin. It is very nice down there at this time of year; the rice paddies are just filling in.

Maybe you work out west. There can be many other reasons.

2. Katuzen has more than the two default variations many tonkatsu restaurants offer, which are usually a choice between lean pork or fatty pork, and come in either cutlet form, or oversize nugget form. (Katuzen has identified its specialty as the lean, nugget-ish version, #2 on the menu.) The mall-bound restaurant also offers stuffed tonkatsu, with fillings of ume and shiso, cheese and shiso, and just cheese. This can happen as a relatively straightforward stuffing, or in the confusingly translated ‘shabu-shabu' version, where the cutlet is sliced, layered with the filling, re-assembled, and fried. All are a refreshing twist. Even the cheese. The menu translates shiso as Japanese basil.

3. For the traditional tonkatsu, Katuzen offers up a ridged bowl of toasted sesame seeds and a wooden pestle. You're meant to grind the seeds yourself into a rough paste, popping them on the ridges of the bowl and releasing a wonderful, toasty aroma. You add the ubiquitous Bull-Dog sauce to this. It's Katuzen's most crucial detail, and it's lovely.

Katuzen's frying prowess is a shade behind Hamachan's. Katuzen serves their cutlets on a wire rack, presumably to drain any excess oil. Hamachan doesn't do that. Despite that discrepancy, Katuzen's tonkatsu can be just a touch greasier than Hamachan. It's minor. The sesame seeds and lack of crowds make up for it.

The story I heard about Katuzen this afternoon may or may not be true, but it was told directly from the chef to a friend of mine, and it is entertaining:

Katuzen has a bunch of stores in Japan. The chef, an older Japanese guy, was passing the years with his fryer and his pork cutlets, and finally the company deemed him too old and demanded he retire. But he wasn't ready to give up, and let the boss know as much. So, they offered him a choice: Retire or China. He chose the latter and they shipped him off to Gubei to open/run this one. He's a tonkatsu devotee to the death, living out his golden years in the Hongqiao Parkson, turning out golden cutlet after golden cutlet.

Some people really love pork.

Katuzen, 5/F, Hongqiao Parkson, 100 Zunyi Lu, near Xianxia Lu. More details and a map here. Number 2 on the menu – the tonkatsu in the pictures – is part of a 70rmb set meal, with miso soup and a few other little treats.