ICHI KATSU — Restaurant in Melbourne

First time here tonight. Here are my thoughts.

I am not a food blogger by any means but just love to eat good food. Tonkatsu is one of my favourite Japanese dishes. I've tried many in Japan and South East Asia. Also, lived in Singapore a long time too with some decent variations of the iconic Japanese dish.

Ok. No matter where in the world you are, Japan makes the best Tonki. No questions asked. If you are in a western country, it is much harder to find a real quality Tonkatsu dish. If you've tried in Japan, you know what I mean.

Ichi Katsu? Non Japanese owned and operated it seems. I'm guessing Malaysian/Singaporean owned or somewhere near there. I was reluctant to be disappointed for a while now. Afterall, I grew up on deep fried pork!.

Nevertheless, tonight I gave it a go with my wife and daughter. I was hungry and just parked in front.

Ordered the Hire-Katsu deep fried pork and Katsu Ni (the one in the hotpot over a candle with soy sauce bath). Both with the side dishes, rice and soup.

Katsu Ni - the soy sauce was just a little too sweet and overwhelming the pork. Would had prefer more egg in the mixture. However, the pork itself was very thick/meaty and surprisingly juicy and tender. Nice 'pork' taste but again overtaken by the sauce. Left over sauce was good for the remaining rice. But, I would not order this again unless the sauce ratio and other ingredients compliments the pork better.

Hire-Katsu - looks the part. Not my favourite type of crumb breading but it did have the 'crunch'. Again, juicy soft meat with all its pieces. The pork was the star in both dishes. Lots of unnecessary things like salt, tonkatsu sauce was average and too salty. Other side dishes were pretty good. The soup and rice quality was good but I had much better overseas.

Short story - keep it simple and just get the deep fried pork in its simplest form.

I will come back to try the...

TL;DR: Bad experience all over. Make sure you double check your orders with staff, else they might "forget". Not sure if all the raving reviews are fake, paid or both. Wouldn't recommend.

*Photos attached to show the outcome of the review.

Ordered a katsu set, a soup and a small fried shrimp dish. The katsu and the shrimp arrived quickly, but the soup was nowhere to be found. We finished both the shrimp and katsu, and the soup is still missing. I noticed the kitchen doesn't seem to be making any more dishes, with staff just cleaning and chattering. I prompted a staff on this, and she confirmed we do have soup ordered. When she went over to the kitchen, they all looked very confused and immediately we knew they lost the order. It took another 5+min or so before it finally arrived. Beside apologies, there weren't any compensations. Full price for a terrible experience. We could've made a commotion on the spot, but decided not to as I don't believe this is a place where customers should be haggling for a fair price for their dining experience, but for the owner to promote and sell their service. Guess this was the best they could manage. Sucks to be the customer then.

Lastly, the soup was the worst thing on the menu, overly salty and the clams were so small, it looked like it was frozen for months before being taken out. Do...

High quality and authentic dishes without the flair. I think they’ve done pretty well in that, almost taking a slice of Shinjuku’s night life and izakaya bar-style dining experience and blending it perfectly with Melbourne’s diverse cuisines.

🍳 Katsu Omurice 3.8/5 🍛 Chicken Katsu Curry 4.25/5 (curry 3.5/5, chicken 4.5/5) 🍤 Ebi Katsu Sando 3.5/5 🍚 Unagi Omurice Curry 3.5/5 🍟 Seaweed fries 3.25/5 🍹 blackcurrant raspberry soda 4.5/5 ringo rose 4.25/5

Texture here is amazing. I loved how the consistency of the gooey egg contrasted the crunchy katsu. I will say that combining the curry and omurice is a bit too much. I think if they stick to just omurice, don or curry, with their customisable meat options, that is enough to solidify my experience. High quality comfort food with reasonable portions.

Every time I go Japan, the first meal I think about is @cocoichi_official - curry is not my favourite Japanese dish but something in that Tokyo air makes me crave that as the first meal. Pls bring to Melbourne 👀 We are lucky to have restaurants that specialise in Tonkatsu, and I have to say, only 3 restaurants including this one has nailed the texture and...