A note on the words: tonkatsu is a crumbed, deep-fried pork cutlet. Hire (pronounced hee-reh) is fillet and rosu is loin. A teishoku is a set meal — the cutlet with rice, red miso soup and pickles. Items marked toku are sold as the cutlet alone.
Tonkatsu Marugo on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
Hangover Meshi here. Akihabara has a surprising number of famous places with high ratings. And the Ueno area generally seems to gather well-known tonkatsu shops. So — the famous queueing tonkatsu shop of Akihabara is Marugo. There is always a line, which had kept my interest, and I had never managed to get in. This time I decided to take the plunge and turn up right at the start of weekday lunch.
Five groups ahead already, and it had not even opened. As you would expect of a famous shop.
The sign has aged rather nicely.
There is something exciting about finally going somewhere you have wanted to go.
I was shown upstairs. So there is a second floor.
Toku hire katsu 2,200 yen
Toku rosu katsu 1,950 yen
Hire katsu teishoku 2,200 yen
Rosu katsu teishoku 1,950 yen
Hire sauté 2,200 yen
Set menu 450 yen
I see. It is a little hard to follow, but the hire katsu teishoku is the one that comes with rice, red miso soup and pickles. The toku hire katsu is the cutlet on its own, and unless you add the 450 yen set menu it does not become a teishoku. Why write it that way? Just call it toku hire katsu teishoku, 2,650 yen. And toku rosu katsu teishoku, 2,650 yen. Anyway — since it is only 450 yen either way, I of course took the toku hire katsu and added the set menu to make it a teishoku.
Right, order placed. A look at what is on the table while I wait.
Dressing, pickled shallots, umeboshi plum, mustard and various other things.
And the tonkatsu arrives. Crisply fried, and it looks very good indeed.
First a bite as it comes: crisp coating, and the fillet inside is soft and delicious. How to put it — soft, but not too soft, with a real presence to the meat. The coating, or rather the character of the frying oil, may be a little different from ordinary tonkatsu. Something quite distinctive about it.
Good with salt too. It brings out the flavour of the meat. And of course tonkatsu means sauce.
The sauce has a distinctive spice to it. It is very good, this sauce.
It goes perfectly with the rice too. There is dressing available, but pouring this sauce over the cabbage is delicious and I recommend it. Good with rice, and good in itself. You can see why there is a queue.
Marugo does not take reservations. Queueing is the premise of the place.
I went at weekday lunch, right on opening. Even so there were already about five groups ahead of me. After a wait it opened and I got in on the first turn, so if you want to be sure of a seat, join the queue before opening.
Opening hours are 11:30–15:00 for lunch (last orders 14:00) and 17:00–21:00 in the evening (last orders 20:00). It closes on Mondays and Tuesdays, so heading over at the start of the week will find it shut. Worth watching for.
There are 34 seats. As well as the counter on the ground floor there is seating upstairs, where I was shown.
Tonkatsu Marugo — menu
A la carte (cutlet only)
Items marked toku are the cutlet alone. Add the set to make it a teishoku.
Rice, red miso soup and pickles. Added to a solo cutlet, it becomes a teishoku.
Teishoku (set meals)
Comes with rice, red miso soup and pickles.
There is no item called “toku hire katsu teishoku”. You build it yourself: toku hire katsu (2,200 yen) plus the set menu (450 yen) = 2,650 yen.
* From the menu in the shop at my visit. Prices can change, so please check the latest at the shop.
Tonkatsu Marugo, which I had wanted to visit for so long. Getting there at last was quite something, and it was as good as I had hoped — thoroughly satisfying. I can certainly see why there is a queue. Next time perhaps the rosu katsu. Ah — perhaps the reason the toku items have no teishoku is that they want you to order toku rosu or toku hire together with the set menu. Which is fair enough, I suppose.
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
One more for the road?
