Maisen (Tonkatsu Restaurant) (2007-08-30)
Maisen is kinda famous for their tender Tonkatsu (fried crumbed pork cutlet). There're branches everywhere but we visited the mother restaurant in Aoyama (
) to sample their pork.The restaurant is big. When you go inside, a long narrow
counter is all you see and you'd think, "This isn't too big". But
then you walk past it and there's a small dining room with about 7 or 8
tables, then you go further in more and an even smaller dining room
awaits you with another four four-seaters. That's not the end of
it. Several steps up the end and it opens out to a large
cafeteria-esque dining room with many tables and high ceiling.
After all this, there's a whole second floor with even more eating
area. This is perhaps one of the bigger restaurants I've seen in
Tokyo.
Service is fast and attentive. I ordered Kurobuta (Pork from
black-skin pigs) Shougayaki (panfried in a soy-ginger sauce) and KL had
the Benibuta (Pork from red-skin pigs) Katsu. Both types of pork
are famous in Tokyo and both preparation classic in the Japanese
cuisine.
When I had a taste of KL's Katsu, I came to understand its
reputation for tender pork, because it WAS very tender, so much so that
you can break it apart with chopsticks. But why so tender you
might ask? It's because the Katsu isn't a solid piece of pork
chop like a traditional Katsu, it is made up of multiple layers of
thinly sliced pork chop stacked together in a crisscross way. Oh,
they are so clever, and so cunning! Technically speaking, it is
sort of NOT a Tonkatsu but NOT NOT a Tonkatsu. I dunno, it's kind
of a cheating way to make pork chop cutlet tender.
Well anyhoo, we enjoyed our food. How can you not love
deep-fried crunchy crumbed pork? You simply can't. As for
the extra we paid for the famous Kurobuta and Benibuta, I can honestly
say that we could not tell the difference from other less expensive
pork. But that's just our unrefined palate that once again failed
us.
Maisen 4-8-5 Jinguumae,
Shibuya (
) Tel: 03-3470-0071
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