I had a bit of an ordering hiccup at Tonkatsu Katsusei, a Michelin-rated tonkatsu restaurant in Sendai. The Michelin connection made me think they’d either have an English menu, or photos I could point at. They had neither.
Typically I’d have a picture ready to point to, but this caught me a bit off guard, so I just pointed to the first item on the menu and hoped for the best.
Thankfully, it worked out quite well — among other things I obviously didn’t understand, the waitress said “teishoku” when I ordered, which is basically the Japanese word for “combo” or “set.” In retrospect, I probably should have just said that to start with, but it didn’t occur to me at the time.
I wound up with some tasty tonkatsu (a panko-breaded fried pork cutlet), coleslaw, potato salad, a bowl of rice, and miso soup.
The breading on the tonkatsu here is particularly light and crispy; it’s quite delightful. The pork itself is a bit on the dry side, but it’s still quite tender, so that’s a minor complaint.
It comes with a generous dollop of something that looks like mustard, but basically tastes like pure horseradish. It’s quite good, but a little goes a long way.
And of course, there’s a container of the obligatory tonkatsu sauce on the table (essentially a Japanese version of HP sauce), which obviously compliments the tonkatsu very, very well.
Everything else was quite good, particularly the deeply flavourful miso soup, which was one of the better versions of that I’ve had in a while.
Location: 7-25 Kitamemachi, Aoba-ku, Sendai-shi, Miyagi-ken 980-0023
How to find it: There’s no English, but look for the old-school wooden sliding door, and the plain white sign with black text.