Ginza Bairin Honten — Restaurant in Tokyo

Tonkatsu at Ginza Bairin. Been coming here since 2015, but it's our first time here since they renovated. Over two visits, we tried the...

ロースカツ: pork loin chop set meal. a great little katsu teishoku for a very low price. I love that it comes with a small twirl of spaghetti on the side (of which I ordered an additional portion!). the spaghetti also goes great with a bit of togarashi. KUROBUTA ロースカツ: the same thing but with an upgraded variety of pork. ~three times more expensive but well worth it, the lean is much more tender. the portion is also much larger. エビフライ: prawn katsu. big juicy prawns. comes with a nice tartar sauce (not too oniony), and some fried shisitos. it's not specified on the English menu, but you can order this as an a-la-cart dish to supllement any of the set meals. mix katsu set: comes with ヒレカツ (pork tenderloin katsu), エビフライ(prawn katsu, slightly smaller than the ones in the prawn-only dish but still great), and pork meatballs (surprisingly the highlight of this dish, juicy with a great demi-glace sauce) ハンバーグステーキ: hamburg steak. basically a big pork meatball. it might seem odd to order a non-fried dish at a katsu place but this is well worth a try. you can also get this stand-alone to supllement any set meal. カツサンド: pork tenderloin katsu in a sandwich. the freshly fried katsu steams the bread so nicely. a serious upgrade from the usual convenience store katsu-sandos (although those are excellent too). comes with mustard, but you can order it without and add your own mustard to taste.

tl:dr - everything here is excellent and has been excellent for a long time. a contender for the best katsu...

After arriving into Tokyo from our flight from Nagasaki, we headed out to the nearby Ginza area to look for dinner. We had last visited Ginza Bairin Main Shopとんかつ銀座梅林 本店 back in 2017 and has been a fav spot since we first tried out their location in Hawaii years ago.

The last time we were here, the restaurant was on the main floor. This time, we noticed that the restaurant is located in the basement and there was a fairly long line of diners waiting along the staircase to get in. Fortunately, the line does move fairly quickly.

We were lucky that they fit us in a special room as there was 4 of us. I think the space downstairs seems more spacious than when we visited in 2017.

We ordered the mixed cutlet set meal (2500 yen) which came with very good meatballs that were light on texture, a thick pork cutlet, and meaty shrimp tempura. All items in this dish were super tasty.

The special katsu don (2300 yen) came with a beautiful egg with runny yolk and onions.

Drinks were Coca Cola (600 yen per bottle). The mustard that came with the dish was strong and the cabbage and rice came with tonkatsu sauce.

Worth the wait (we waited about 30...

This is hands down the BEST tonkatsu I’ve had in my life.

First of all, service was great, fast and friendly. Atmosphere was good as well, the temperature was good and we felt very private but you can still see the chefs cooking the food in front of you.

The food was just awesome, we ordered the 200g set made with black hair pork. The batter was crisp and light, the pork was so juicy with a great balance between fatty parts and lean parts. It literally feels like a wagyu steak with how soft and juicy it was. The cabbage was thinly cut and fresh. Dark miso was great and had firm tofu. Rice was awesome too.

The sandwich was amazing, not the best I’ve had but among the best, bread was milky, soft and fluffy. Good amount of mustard and the pork was firm and had great taste.

This is a great store with lots of history and lives up to the hype, and it’s reasonably priced for its...