Tonkatsu is a Japanese meal, put simply a piece of fried pork cutlet in breadcrumbs. As usual, because its a Japanese meal, they manage to elevate it to another level beyond your standard fried pork cutlet.
Ikingza serves tonkatsu and is located inside a department store. They do set meals and are displayed by the entrance. You can see exactly what you'll be eating.
It was a quiet weekday and the waitress led us to our table. There were only two other tables of customers.
The menu is quite large almost like the catalogues when you buy a new car, glossy with lots of photos. This was very useful as they show images of nearly all the main meals, which to be honest were just different cuts of the pork, so different size and shapes of the same thing, with different prices bof course. I can't remember exactly which two set meals we ordered, but one was the fillet as that is always a tender cut.
After we ordered we were served a bowl of refillable cabbage salad, this is part of the set meal. And we were each given a bowl of sesame and a wooden stick. The stick is to grind the sesame to make sesame dipping sauce. I think they do this to keep you occupied in case it takes too long for your food to arrive. Luckily, that wasn't an issue for me.
The set meal came with a couple of pickled dishes, also refillable. This is turnip pickled in pomelo dressing, and had a lovely citrus flavour. My wife loved this and requested three additional servings!
Next came the seaweed miso soup. This was ok, nothing spectacular about it.
It didn't take long for the rest of the food to arrive. The pork cutlet came on little mesh wire, presumably to drain off the excess oil. But it was fine as it wasn't greasy at all. They already pre cut this in strips otherwise it will be tricky to eat with chopsticks.
You can see the inside of the tonkatsu, it's very succulent, not dry at all. Plus you have the sesame dipping sauce, which has a hint of sourness like Worcestershire sauce. The combination is very good.
And finally, to round off the meal, there's a little dessert, Japanese rice cakes. My wife gobbled mine up of course.
Overall a great meal.
Restaurant Information
Ikingza Tonkatsu
No. 459, Section 2, Taiwan Boulevard, West District, Taichung City, Taiwan 403
Ikingza Tonkatsu
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