A note on the words: tonkatsu is a breaded, deep-fried pork cutlet, served here either as rosu, the loin, or as hire, the lean fillet. Sangen pork refers to pork bred from three distinct pig varieties. An izakaya is a Japanese pub serving food with drinks, and nori is the sheet seaweed used in the miso soup here.
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Fumizen Toranomon hiruzu on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
Hello, this is Hangover Meshi. Thinking about what to have for lunch around Toranomon, I was about to search outside, but it was far too hot, so I gave up! Deciding to just look inside Toranomon Hills, what I found was “Fumizen Toranomon hiruzu”. I really had been craving tonkatsu (pork cutlet). Being midday, the restaurant was full. Luckily there were a few open counter seats, so getting in quickly was fortunate.
Royal Sangen pork rosu katsu set — 1,800 yen
Royal Sangen pork hire katsu set — 1,900 yen
There were various other items on the menu, but the cheaper lunch sets and the limited-quantity wasabi katsu were all sold out, ha. With no other choice, I went with the royal Sangen pork rosu katsu.
After waiting a little while…
The tonkatsu. In terms of size, it’s about average, I suppose? The thickness is an average size too!
The cross-section looks good!
For a second I thought about eating it with salt, but I believe tonkatsu works best as a trio — cutlet, sauce and rice, so I poured on a generous splash of sauce. The sauce here is special, said to be a secret house sauce passed down since the shop’s founding; tasting it, it is a sweet sauce with a fairly strong spicy kick. Just as I imagined, it pairs perfectly with rice.
I tried a little salt too, but for this tonkatsu, sauce seems tastier than salt, I think.
There is no salad dressing, so sprinkling a touch of salt over the cabbage might be the way to go!
The miso soup was a nori (seaweed) miso soup. It is great how it soothingly washes everything down at the end. Yes, the tonkatsu was delicious.
Apparently, it was a second location of a venerable tonkatsu izakaya in the New Otani or somewhere like that, and I gather that the secret sauce has carried on since back then. It was tasty too, ha. Well, it was a shame that only the pricier tonkatsu options were left, and at 1,800 yen it feels slightly on the expensive side. Still, the breading is thick and pairs wonderfully with sauce, so when you want a hearty, heavy-duty tonkatsu lunch, I thought it was very good indeed. Being able to drench your tonkatsu in sauce without hesitation right from the start is great! I might well come back again!
Fumizen Toranomon hiruzu (Tonkatsu / Toranomon Hills Station, Toranomon Station, Kamiyacho Station)
Tabelog lunch rating ★★★☆☆ 3.4
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
One more for the road?
