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Food
One of my favorite places to eat in all of Japan is MOS Burger. Here is a great article, from Flakmagazine about the history of this fast food chain.
Tonkatsu
Tonkatsu (豚カツ, とんかつ, or トンカツ), invented in the 1930s, is one of the most popular dishes in Japan. It consists of a breaded, deep-fried pork cutlet one to two centimeters thick, and is generally served with shredded cabbage. The etymology of the word is "ton" (pig) + "katsu," a shortened pronunciation of "cutlet" ("katsuretsu"). It is eaten with a brown sauce called Tonkatsu Sauce (トンカツソース), commonly called simply "sauce", the ingredients of which vary from place to place but which usually has a taste similar to Worcestershire sauce or Kansas City-style barbeque sauce. In Nagoya, tonkatsu is eaten with a miso-based sauce. Some people also like to eat their tonkatsu with a spicy yellow mustard or soy sauce. When ordering tonkatsu, diners generally specify either a pork fillet (ヒレ, hire) or roast pork loin (ロース, rosu) cut. Prices for a tonkatsu vary from 198 yen for a pre-cooked tonkatsu available in a supermarket to over 5000 yen in an expensive restaurant. The finest tonkatsu is made from kuro buta (black pig) from Kagoshima prefecture, in southern Japan.
Some very good Tonkatsu restaurants: Tonki 1-1-2
Shimo-Meguro, Tokyo, Japan
Meguro, a neighborhood
distinguished for almost nothing else culinary, has arguably the
best tonkatsu restaurant in Tokyo. It's a family joint, with
Formica-top tables and a server who comes around to take your order
while you wait the requisite 10 minutes in line. And people do wait
in line, every night until the place closes at 10:45. Tonki is a
success that never went conglomerate or added frills to what it does
best: deep-fried pork cutlets, soup, raw cabbage salad, rice,
pickles, and tea. That's the standard course, and almost everybody
orders it, with good reason. DC, V. Closed Tues. and 3rd Mon. of
month. Subway: JR Yamanote and Namboku subway lines, Meguro Station
(Nishi-guchi/West Exit).
There are many other great restaurants in Japan and I will be talking about my favorites in days to come.
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