Ray in New Orleans

I don't geddit. There's a very large stealth Japanese ex-pat population here in Austin, but the restaurants here are all about sushi and fucken teppan. This can't be explained by the fact that they probably just cook thing like katsudon at home; after all, there are tons of restaurants in Japan that serve home cookin'.

So was it a standard katsudon, meaning not neurotically picky like mine? Did they cook the cutlet in the broth?

It was chicken like yours (I thought standard was pork?) It had a lot less broth in it than yours, judging by your pictures, in fact the only way you could tell there was broth at all was that you could taste it on the rice. The chicken wasn't particularly soggy.

The other thing about it was that it was in a tall bowl rather than a flat bowl like your pictures, so you had to eat all the chicken to get to the rice, at which point you just had a bowl full of rice. If I ever make this at home, I'd probably do it the way you do so that I can mix it up a little.

I also had trouble because my hands were cramping up from pulling nails all afternoon, so my usually adequate chopsticks skills were kinda lacking. But this place gave you chopsticks by default and I hate asking for a fork.

Unlike most of the Japanese restaurants in Austin, this place only had one Asian server, all the rest looked like white college kids. Goes to show you can't judge the authenticity of the food by the skin color of the waitrons.

Yeah, "katsu" is the Japanified word for pork "cutlet."

That photo in my blog -- that's too much damn broth, actually. Now I use much less.

I don't get the Japanese cooking concept of making nice crunchy tempura or panko-fried whatever, then putting it in broth. I like to preserve the crunch, so I'll also put tempura on the side when I eat tempura soba.

I don't know why they don't serve donburi (the bowl dishes) with a spoon. It's hard to eat broth-y rice with a pair of damn chopsticks. And they eat curry with a spoon, so why not? 'cause curry's "foreign"? but aren't cutlets foreign?

anyway.

Re: the Asian servers in Austin -- it's bizarre. Most of them are Korean or Chinese, so it's like the restaurant owners are banking on a "they all look alike" mentality on the part of the customers in order to create an atmosphere of "authenticity."

I had katsudon in Austin at a place on Anderson (no, not Zen ... this one is closer to Zinger Hardware and it's newer). The katsu itself was yummy, and I like katsu when I've had it elsewhere. But I had a lot of trouble with the egg -- maybe if there had been only a little, but the bowl was totally eggariffic. The katsu was mixed in with the egg before cooking the egg, and there wasn't much broth.

I don't know why they don't serve donburi (the bowl dishes) with a spoon. It's hard to eat broth-y rice with a pair of damn chopsticks.

There was seriously no liquid at all in this. The only evidence that there used to be broth was that the rice tasted like it.

Re: the Asian servers in Austin -- it's bizarre. Most of them are Korean or Chinese, so it's like the restaurant owners are banking on a "they all look alike" mentality on the part of the customers in order to create an atmosphere of "authenticity."

The owner of Mikado is also apparently banking on the fact that all of his servers are exceptionally hot. I'll admit I've got just enough latent yellow fever that it works for me, but it wouldn't if the sushi wasn't also pretty good.

(Awaiting the bitch-slap from Hiromi.)

What's up with all the brothless katsudon? That *would* make things weirdly eggy. I'll have to poke around Anderson Ln to look for this place. What I'm really after is nabemono.

I'll admit I've got just enough latent yellow fever that it works for me, but it wouldn't if the sushi wasn't also pretty good.

:|

No bitch-slap, just grim clam-like face of displeasure.

Mmmm, clam broth.

All I need now is some linguini.

Next time I go to Hana (it'll be soon) I'll take a picture of their brothlessness.