First and foremost, Happy New Year dear readers! I can’t believe that its almost 3 years now and my blog is still going strong.

I am always on the look out for not only new places to try but good places to eat at. Although this might not be entirely be a new place it certainly is new to me. Yabu definitely excites me. With promises of deep fried pork or chicken with the Katsu sauce and authentic Japanese rice, I was eager to troop down to Megamall on a Saturday afternoon for this.

To be honest, Megamall usually doesn’t hold too much promise in terms of foodie finds. I mean c’mon the mall is a behemoth more suited towards shopping and designer brands.

But I’ve learned never to judge a location for what it might hold and I’ve surprised myself many times.

Actually, Megamall holds some of my favorite food places around the metro with it having one of the last El Pollo Loco branches that I can think of, and H.K. Choi for my chinese fix.

Here comes Yabu: The House of Katsu.

Boasting of highest quality ingredients, I was excited to try some of their best selling dishes to see what the craze was all about.

The staff was polite and accommodating even though the restaurant was full. Luckily there was a table right away and we didn’t have to wait.

Gisa was kind enough to accompany me on this hot saturday afternoon so as I won’t have to dine alone! Thanks again Gisa!

The table contained all the condiments but none of the traditional ones. We had sesame seed pig, the katsu sauce, japanese mayo and sesame seeds for the salad and vinaigrette.

We quickly ordered our appetizers. One order contains 2. You have to pick which 2 combination you wanted. We settled on the seaweed and tofu. It promptly appeared as we were starting to get into our conversation.

The tofu was high quality japanese tofu. It was supple and tasty. It didn’t taste as if it bland. It was really tasty.

The seaweed was altogether a story on its own. It was simply divine. Throughout the meal, Gisa kept going back to the seaweed. It was a bit sweet with just a subtle hint of tanginess. It really prepares you for the meal to come and luckily I wasn’t disappointed.

I tend to begin my articles about restaurants with items which are not really my favorites. But for this meal I didn’t know where to start. I mean seriously everything was really good. But let me attempt to begin.

I am not a huge fan of curry. In fact, I don’t really particularly like it. I’ve only liked  one curry so far in my travels, Singapore’s Beach Road Scissor Cut Curry rice. (search my blog and you’ll see!) But I have to admit, this came pretty close. (Nav’s Penang Curry also comes close) I enjoyed the Chicken cutlet deep fried and eaten with the soft sticky japanese rice. The curry was just right. I chose to go HOT but in reality it wasn’t spicy at all. It just had a little it of a spice to it but nothing to really scorch the palette.

The meals came in nice huge ceramic plates and I really appreciated eating with ceramic dishware as compared to plastic!

And now for the main course. I ordered the Kurobata or Pork Katsu. For those of you wondering what Katsu means, the word katsu, is an abbreviation of the word katsuretsu which means cutlet.

But before I indulge you with photos, one must prepare the Katsu Sauce. The restaurant will give you a bowl full of sesame seeds along with a pestel.

You basically ground the sesame seeds using the pestel until they are almost of powdery consistency.

The waiter mentioned that 2 scoops should be enough, but I like a lot of sauce on my rice and pork so I poured in more than 2 scoops! If you run out of the sesame seeds you can always add more via the PIG container on the table.

You should basically come up with something like this.

Finally my kurobota. This was one of the best Tonkatsu’s I have ever tasted. The pork meat was tender and flavorful. It was perfectly done but not over fried so much so that it lost its juicyness or that it was burnt. The coating was also just right as I didn’t feel that it was over coated so much so that it lost its taste.

Over all it was one of the best Tonkatsu meals I’ve ever tasted. Succulent pork. Authentic Japanese Rice. The sauce was amazing in itself. I really had an enjoyable time. The waiters were attentive and the manager was knowledgable about the items on the menu. If ever you are in megamall, I urge you to give Yabu a try! Definitely a great way to start my blogging year.

Thanks to Isay for the heads up on this resto!

Yabu: The House of Katsu

2nd Floor, The Atrium, SM Megamall

http://www.yabuhouseofkatsu.com/