A note on the words: tonkatsu is a breadcrumbed, deep-fried pork cutlet, served as a set with rice, cabbage and miso soup; tororo is grated mountain yam, slippery and mild, poured over rice; JAPAN X and TOKYO X are branded pork breeds; Date is the samurai house that ruled Sendai, so the name signals Miyagi prefecture. Prices are as of this writing (August 2026).
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Tonkatsu Datekatsu Ikebukuro Tobu on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
I want something good to eat today too! This is Hangover Meshi. You know how you suddenly want tonkatsu?
I had shopping to do at the Tobu department store in Ikebukuro, and as it was just about lunchtime I went up to the restaurant floors to eat something.
Then, passing this shop, a thought crossed my mind: “I do not think I have had tonkatsu in a while!”
That settles it. Let us eat tonkatsu.
The truth is I was slightly hung over. For a mild hangover, something fried is the best thing there is!
It says Date on the sign, so: Sendai.
Indeed — this is a tonkatsu shop that uses JAPAN X, a branded pork from Miyagi prefecture.
Not TOKYO X but JAPAN X? There is such a thing?
Loin, fillet, and unusual things like a cutlet of prawn paste wrapped around bamboo shoot — all sorts!
But when the mood is “tonkatsu! I want tonkatsu!”, what one wants is the loin.
Miyagi made me think of beef tongue, so I took the mixed-grain rice and added tororo on the side.
They fry it after you order, so there is a wait.
Ta-da! Doesn’t that look good!!!!
You can tell just by looking that this is going to be good. An ordinary tonkatsu set like this is reassuring.
The coating is a lovely golden brown and puffed up, and the cut face still shows pink inside.
Since they fry to order, it is of course straight out of the oil.
First bite: the coating is properly crisp.
Then the sweetness of the fat of the Miyagi JAPAN X pork spreads slowly through it.
It is not greasy or heavy in the least — it goes down easily, and yet the satisfaction is considerable. The fat is sweet and delicious.
You can choose from three: the orthodox tonkatsu sauce, a Sendai miso sauce, or salt. Eating it plain with salt first tells you the most about the meat. Yes — delicious.
But look. Tonkatsu, and loin especially, is at its best when you pour the sauce all over it and load on the mustard. That is what I think.
At the end I tried a little of the Sendai miso sauce, and that has its own sweetness — good as a change of flavour halfway through.
And the tororo I added for 300 yen turned out to be exactly the right call.
Poured over the rice, it makes the mouthfeel light and fresh, and goes superbly with the tonkatsu!
Rice and cabbage looked to be refillable, but there was a good deal of meat, so I did not need seconds and was perfectly satisfied.
(If anything, adding the tororo made it slightly too much rice.)
Being able to eat the thing you want to eat is the greatest happiness there is — and this time it was tonkatsu.
The urge for tonkatsu comes round regularly, doesn’t it! A 5,000-yen slab where both the meat and the cooking have been fussed over is delicious too, but there is something to be said for this: a reachable price, orthodox in style, branded pork, fried to order.
Being able to eat good tonkatsu like that without ceremony is a fine thing!
I also learned that Ikebukuro Tobu has a great many restaurants in it, so I shall drop by again next time I am shopping.
Tonkatsu Datekatsu, Ikebukuro Tobu branch (tonkatsu / Ikebukuro Station, Higashi-Ikebukuro Station, Toden-Zoshigaya Station)
Tabelog lunch rating ★★★☆☆ 3.5
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
One more for the road?
