The bistro chain of restaurants is extensive, each dining place offering a different cuisine. The chain seems to reap more success, as diners flock to its outlets. A visit to one over the weekend showed table turnover going thrice.
Tonkatsu
Nuvali, Sta. Rosa City, Laguna; tel. 5026550
If diners do not come early, they are likely to be made to wait for a table. The restaurant, especially on weekends, is always full house, especially since Japanese food has captured the palate of Filipinos.
This resto derives its name from the Japanese dish tonkatsu, traditional deep-fried pork cutlets served with special sauce.
Dining area—Rather tight, the space is done in red and black. Banners of different interpretations of the dish hang from one wall. The bar and service station are on the other end. Japanese lanterns hang from the ceiling.
Service—Despite a full house, the kitchen copes and the wait staff are fast at serving each table.
Staff—A young woman by the door in short skirt and black top welcomes the guests. Inside, male service staffers wear cotton kimono tops with waist bands and extended collars in black and white, over black trousers. Two women are in dark jackets. They are fast and solicitous.
Suggested orders—How much can a restaurant extend a menu using only one kind of meat and one technique of cooking? By adopting the recipes of a traditional chef from Nagoya, Japan, chef Torazawa, who perfected the technique 20 years ago. He has since established a chain of restaurants in Asia.
His unique way of aging the pork is to wrap it in white cloth for three days before deep-frying. The resulting dish is tender to the bite and very flavorful.
Menu offers more than a dozen types of tonkatsu ensembles; they each come with a mound of shredded cabbage, which the diner laces with Japanese mayonnaise, and hot tonjiru, miso soup with pork.
The variety can be called revolutionary, because it includes an offering with melted cheese.
But who would want the taste of cheese in a Japanese dish? Not this diner.
Also on the menu is Curry Tonkatsu.
Another strange dish which titillated our taste buds was Black Spanish Iberico, but it was a disappointment. The pork did not actually have that Iberian flavor. Maybe the restaurant should simply stick to its original meat, Kurobuta pork, regarded as the finest quality of pork; it comes from the pure Oriental strains of Black Berkshire in Japan.
However, there is a play of sauces which go with each dish, such as the sourish Nagoya, the variant of salt and sesame seeds and one that is Misu-based.
Each tonkatsu is coated with nama panko, fresh breadcrumbs. You can’t go wrong ordering any of the plated offerings, except perhaps the Iberico.
With the bowl of rice that goes with each order is a small, about a teaspoon, of tsukemono (pickles), which spice up the grains. Fruits will be a most pleasant end to a very filling meal.
Service and government charges are added to the bill. Senior cards are honored.
Rating – 2 Spoons.