Ukatsu & VicCup (Japanese Cutlet/Korean Rice Bowl) — Restaurant in Victoria

Being from Victoria and having moved to Vancouver recently, I was thrilled to hear that a Tonktatsu place had opened up back home. Boyfriend ordered the regular Loin Katsu with curry sauce and rice (an extra 6.50) and I ordered the cheese Katsu combo. For an extra 4 dollars I would say skip the cheese Katsu unless you really like Mozzarella cheese. The meat to cheese ratio is so skewed towards cheese that it just doesn't really feel worth the extra 4 dollars to be eating essentially deep fried cheese.

Additionally making it a combo adds another $6 to your bill which adds.... Salt... Wasabi.. rice... Udon soup and a drink. The only things that feel like they should be charged here is the soup (MAYBE) and the drink. Most other Katsu places will give you rice and salt and Miso for free. The udon soup by the way has no udon in it. Just broth. So why call it udon soup instead of just "dashi broth"? If you get wasabi and salt serperately they are $1.50 per, which feels absolutely outrageous and greedy to me. Imagine a sushi place charging you $1.50 for an extra wad of wasabi...

All this being said I will say the loin Katsu on its own is a pretty inoffensive price at 13.90 and is pretty good. All the add ons are not worth it though and I feel as if the combo should be an additional $3.50 max. Probably won't be back but it was...

I had the bulgogi burger combo. The patty was moist and tender, as was the bun. Surprisingly it had some weight to it. I think it was due to the sweet sauce it was dressed with. I liked how it added moisture, but found it too sweet and overpowering for my liking. The fries are coated which added a nice crisp. I'll have to go back to try the tonkatsu some time.

Update: the menu has shifted to cup-style servings. I tried the Japanese curry katsu which I found to be very good value. Rice, covered in Japanese chicken curry, topped with a pork cutlet, tempura prawn, and two fried dumplings. Pork sirloin inside the cutlet was moist and not dry. Tempura prawn had noticeably good flavour. Dumplings were standard, but could have been a bit crispier. Bits of chicken in the curry were noticeable and a pleasant surprise considering the multiple proteins on top already. There was even a bowl of house soup served along with it.

The serving format lends itself well to take out. If they have a few more options at the lower price point for lunch and post photos on the window of those, I think they could do quite well. Considering we've had a few Korean restaurants in town close, more standard Korean dishes in a cup might do...

Ukatsu is a 11/10 in my books, they went absolutely above and beyond for our order! I ordered a pork katsu curry and my boyfriend ordered the chicken katsu don, we ordered through Uber and had a really difficult time with the app service due to drivers cancelling.

The restaurant called me and were the kindest people! They remade our order without us asking and it arrived hot, I was pleasantly surprised!! They added a couple things to our order (even though they absolutely didn’t need to!) The service here is amazing and we will be going back again! They just earned themselves regular customers :))

Food: Pork Katsu Curry was so tender and crispy, the curry was just right and tasted very authentic (for Japanese curry) the rice was perfectly cooked and not mushy at all (another win for Ukatsu!)

Chicken katsu don was delicious and I had to keep asking for more bites! The egg in the rice was so fluffy :3

All in all, if you’re looking for a good meal at the end of the day I would HIGHLY suggest coming here. The food is so comforting, it makes you feel like your mom just cooked a delicious meal for you. The workers are so kind and generous, this is top...