Yabu: House of Katsu Lunch

Yabu: House of Katsu Lunch

One day while browsing through my blog’s Facebook page, I saw a message from Denize (Brand Manager of Yabu) where she’s inviting us for lunch at Yabu: House of Katsu. Without any prior knowledge about Yabu, I agreed and I’m glad I did. The next day, Jessa and I met up in Yabu for lunch and we were met by Denize. I’m very thankful she gave us an overview on what Yabu has because we were really clueless.

Yabu: House of Katsu is a Japanese restaurant that specializes in katsu (e.g tonkatsu, katsudon) dishes. Each order comes with miso soup, unlimited rice and cabbage, pickles and a serving of fruit. However, they do have a la carte orders for those who only want the katsu (goes with 5% service charge). Now, we shall start with our food.

Edamame and Hiyayakko Tofu – PHP 160

The Edamame (young green soybeans) looked like peanuts and I was eating them as such. To open, you just need to squeeze it at the space between the two beans and it will just pop out.

The Hiyayakko Tofu (in panko sauce topped with bonito flakes) tastes like cold taho. I found the panko sauce too strong for my taste though.

Before we go to the main course, let’s talk more about katsu.

Katsu is simply breaded pork chop. The breading is called panko and for Yabu, they make it on a daily basis. They also pride themselves with the thick cuts (0.5 to 0.75 inches) of premium pork that they use. They also have the kuro-buta which they call the angus in the pork world which I really want to try.

They gave us a mortar and pestle to grind the sesame seeds. After grinding the sesame seeds, we would then put the sauce and that would be our dip for the katsu.

Rosu Katsudon – Yabu Special Katsudon Set – PHP 330

They have two types of katsudon. They have the original one (the one we are familiar with – egg and katsudon together on top of rice) and their new one, the special katsudon. The special katsudon has a different sauce (sweet miso-based sauce), nori (seaweeds), bonito flakes (tuna flakes) and a fried egg on top. I really loved the bonito flakes in this dish. It is a viand of its own already that I nearly forgot that I’m here to try out the katsudon.

They also have two types of pork katsu; rosu and hire. Go for rosu if you want a hint of fat else go for hire. Now, spot the hint of fat. Upon first bite, I was amazed at the texture and taste. It would be an understatement to simply say that the panko was very crunchy and the pork was tender and soft. I’m out of words to describe it but definitely, this was the best tonkatsu I have tasted.

Hire and Seafood – Mixed Katsu Set – PHP 475

They offer mixed Katsu sets for those who want to try out the other dishes such as chicken, cream dory, black tiger prawn, scallop, salmon and even an eggplant katsu.

 

In this set, we had black tiger prawn, cream dory, scallop and eggplant. Unfortunately, the rosu katsu has set a very high bar that these other katsu were simply so-so.

Creamy Crab Katsu – PHP 115

We also ordered an additional creamy crab and it was a good choice. It was really creamy and “crabby”. Delicious! Although it’s something I wouldn’t want to pair with rice.

So that ends our lunch at Yabu: House of Katsu. I have to admit that I was skeptical about it before with thoughts of overpriced breaded pork chop ideas but those thoughts got erased when my teeth sank into the rosu katsu. I instantly became a convert and it made me appreciate katsudon/tonkatsu more. In fact, I’ll be giving away this PHP 500 Katsu Gift Certificate so that one lucky winner can try it out too! (will be posted in another post as I didn’t realize this was already a very long post). Watch out for it!

Disclosure: Yabu: House of Katsu paid for our meals.

Till next time,

Allen

Location:

Yabu: House of Katsu, SM Megamall
2/F, SM Megamall, Julia Vargas Ave
Mandaluyong City, Metro Manila
Philippines
(02) 576-3900

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