Taipei – Tonkatsu

Taipei seems to have a lot of cultural influence from Japan.  A lot of foods served in Taiwan look like Japanese food.  We also lots of Japanese restaurant chains in Taipei.  This place we visited specializes in Tonkatsu which is Japanese breaded pork.

There are many variations of the breaded pork on the menu.  The meals are all served with shredded cabbage, a bowl of rice, dessert Jell-O, edamame beans and miso soup.  The cabbage, rice and miso soup is unlimited!  We first ordered the curry Tonkatsu meal.  The pork is lightly battered and boneless.  The pork was very lean which gave the tonkatsu its firmness.

We also ordered a non pork meal.  This one is breaded shrimp cakes which came in threes. It used the same batter as the tonkatsu.  The shrimp cakes seemed to be more oily than the tonkatsu so it felt very filling after eating a few pieces of it.  Tartar sauce was included  with this meal.

Overall, the look and taste of the meals closely resembled the Tonkatsus we tried in Japan a few years ago.  The only thing missing was sesame and a sesame press.  We saw these when we were in Japan which is for you to grind sesame together with your favorite sauce to use as dip for the tonkatsu. 

These meals were kind of heavy for us since it’s fried.  The best part of the meal was the unlimited miso, cabbage and rice.  Overall, an interesting meal to try out if you are in Taiwan (or Japan).

SFDD gives 4 out of 5 Delights.