Sunday, May 23, 2010

TonQ

I introduced a Tonkatsu restaurant in this posting, but today let me show you another one that costs you more money. This restaurant TonQ is the best in my city and over the weekend it has many customers who come from a bit faraway cities. "Ton" means "pig" and the reason why it has Q in the name is that if you look at a pig from behind it would look like "Q". 

I exercise a lot on weekends like playing tennis, so I sometimes need to have a dish that has a thick taste and many calories. The Japanese people usually take care not to gain weight, but we can't keep eating rice and vegetables only on end.

This restaurant was showing this pork that came from a farm in Japan. We tend to consider beef, pork, chicken and even vegetables that are bred and harvested domestically as precious. This pork has been maturing for 7 days in this case.

Usually Tonkatsu restaurants get noisy with customers speaking in loud voices, but inside people were having dishes very quietly. I'm one of those people who always like it silent in a restaurant.

I had these pieces of fillet pork and a prawn. I should've dipped the prawn in the white sauce you can see on the upper left that is called "tar tar sauce", but I inadvertently poured Worcester sauce on it. The yellow paste you see on you right is "karashi", which is really spicy like wasabi. 

At this restaurant, people are supposed to dip a Tonkatsu in ground sesame. It's up to you to decide whether you do so,  but a Tonkatsu tastes definitely better with ground sesame.

And this TonQ served some rice that had a wasabi and green tea taste. I've never tried stuff like this, but I could savor a subtle taste of wasabi. You'd love this too, if you're a fan of sushi with wasabi.

These are pickles called "Otsukemono". The green stuff was, as you can see, pieces of cucumber, and the other two were made from radish that tasted a bit sweet. You can have unlimited refills, but I was careful enough not to bother the waitresses.