Katsuhama

[raji]

While it has come up a number of times in this forum, Katsuhama on 47th between 5th and Madison up to this point did not have a dedicated thread. I feel it's definitely worth mentioning as a a very good, affordable, niche Japanese restaurant, that does not rest on it's culinary laurels because it is the ONLY restaurant of it's kind in the city.

NYC is unique and gifted in that it can sustain a large number of Japanese niche restaurants - a sushi bar, a shabu-shabu place, a soba-ya, a ramen-ya, which is indeed how it is back in Japan. More commonly, across America, and in New York, across all price ranges, you will find generalist Japanese restaurants where you can order everything from sushi to sukiyaki to noodle dishes, which often makes them jacks-of-all-trades and masters of none.

Katsuhama is first and foremost a katsu (meaning deep-fried) restaurant. In Japan you will find chicken, pork, shrimp katsu, variations on those, and then they often double as curry shops where you can get curry alone or most popularly a friend chicken or pork cutlet, pickles, and curry over a generous heap of white rice.

It is owned by the group responsible for Onagashima and Menchanko-tei, and has been around for quite some time, although I can't tell you how long. You'll find a small dining room in the back after passing a long takeout sushi display and then an even longer bar for dining; they sustain a large throng of lunching Japanese salarymen.

The dish to order at Katsuhama is tonkatsu, which, once you've had a good one, is something you will have to return again and again for. My favorite is their rosukatsu (tenderloin), but you can also find berkshire pork, minced meat, all sorts of tonkatsu, chicken, shrimp katsu. Theirs succeeds for a number of reasons - they blend their oils daily and whatever blend their using imparts perfect flavor on their katsu, and their technique is very refined. Your cutlet will not have shrunk in a thick panko crust; rather it's very expertly fused to the meat, tender, and the entire slice of katsu is perfectly crispy to soft through-and-through as it should be. They blend their own Tonkatsu sauce, another plus, as well as dressing for the mounds of cabbage, and their rice is damn good too. And there you have all the elements of a proper tonkatsu. In Japan, it doesn't get all THAT much better than theirs; but usually they can succeed on much higher quality cuts of the finest Japanese pork, and variations on the tonkatsu sauce and/or the a mortar and pestle to pulverize your own toasted sesame seeds for the sauce.

While the entire group of restaurants is not known for using greenmarket-quality ingredients, what you will find is a very authentic and fresh renditions of all of their dishes.

Last night, three of us split -

3 courses of Kushiage - deepfried skewers of shrimp and shiso, salmon, whitefish, yam and other vegatables.

Hijiki

Snow crab Salad

Maguro Yukke

Daikon oroshi rosukatsu

and another tonkatsu with curry

plus 3 large-ish pitchers of draft Sapporo and a 500ml carafe of Iichiko shochu

Fat, drunk, and happy - there is a singular word for this in Japanese, "manzoku", and this is how we left for a mere $120 plus tip.

Edited October 2, 2007 by raji (log)

[anpanman]

Just wanted to correct you on your rosukatsu error. Rosukatsu is loin and hirekatsu is tenderloin. I also think there's some grade inflation going on here as Katsuhama puts out a decent product, but it doesn't really come close to the quality you can get in Japan.

[raji]

Thanks for the clarification on rosukatsu and hirekatsu. My bad.

Maybe saying "it doesn't get all THAT much better" in Japan is not strong enough, because I agree with you, the ceiling is much higher in Japan.

At the same time, this is the New York forum, and I want people to know that this is the best of it's breed they are likely to get in the tri-state area. That, and my waxing nostalgic about how good the food is in Japan gets real old here; if the members here aren't going to Japan, there's kind of no point to going there, but you just don't get excited about eating Japanese food if you think it merely pales in comparison to anything in the homeland.

[raji]

Just wanted to correct you on your rosukatsu error.  Rosukatsu is loin and hirekatsu is tenderloin. 

Oh yeah, and while I pride myself on my Japanese, hopefully you'd understand the error, there were only 3 of us, one of them my mom, sharing "3 large-ish pitchers of draft Sapporo and a 500ml carafe of Iichiko shochu", so the drinking was prodigious and I got mixed up...

[Fat Guy]

It seems to me that a very high percentage of the Japanese middle class lunch customers there are ordering katsu curry. Which, by the way, I find questionable. That's not to take anything away from the restaurant. I think this particular food item may simply not be all that great, despite the fact that Japanese are crazy for it. The gloppy brown curry sauce is a far cry from a good, complex, subtle curry. It's just one-dimensionally curry-ish, like a gravy version of the curry powder sold in grocery stores, though with a somewhat different flavor. Not to mention, it ruins the crust of the katsu. (The Japanese penchant for taking crispy fried items and making them wet -- in soups, under sauces -- also eludes my comprehension.)

[raji]

It seems to me that a very high percentage of the Japanese middle class lunch customers there are ordering katsu curry. Which, by the way, I find questionable. That's not to take anything away from the restaurant. I think this particular food item may simply not be all that great, despite the fact that Japanese are crazy for it. The gloppy brown curry sauce is a far cry from a good, complex, subtle curry. It's just one-dimensionally curry-ish, like a gravy version of the curry powder sold in grocery stores, though with a somewhat different flavor. Not to mention, it ruins the crust of the katsu. (The Japanese penchant for taking crispy fried items and making them wet -- in soups, under sauces -- also eludes my comprehension.)

←

You're not going to hear an argument from me - as at least part Indian, I used to really despise Japanese curry. It came to Japan via the British from India, and in the process lost it's layers of spice and flavor and became sweet. Living there, it eventually grew on me, but only as "KARE" and not "CURRY", I would just have to insist it is NOT curry. But Katsuhama's is good and Japanese curry can be pretty good, for what it is.

As for the crispy in wet - think of it like a ramen that you want to consume in 5 minutes, lest the noodles fatten up - if you eat it quickly, you'll still get the crispiness...

[Hiroyuki]

raji says it all. It will grow on you. About fourty years ago, my mother still used S&B curry powder and wheat flour to make curry, but since then, curry roux has become so popular that gloppy curry full of lard has become standard Japanese curry. The concept behind Japanese curry roux was to enable housewives to make curry as easily as they would make miso soup.

Also, as raji says, the curry doesn't ruin the crust of the katsu. On the contrary, what you get is a symphony of textures and flavors, which is more apparent when you have katsu-don: crunchy katsu, soft onions, partially runny eggs, and fluffy hot rice.

Besides, people want variations in texture. For example, you make tonkatsu one night and you make katsu-don the next night, with leftover tonkatsu. The same goes for tempura.

That being said, I must say that I'm not much of a fan of katsu curry. Just too much lard and oil.

[raji]

I don't think lard or oil would be a complaint over here - I think you'll find Japanese with a much lower tolerance, and Westerners with a much higher tolerance, for the amount of fat, be it as oil, lard, butter, etc., in their food.. I know a richer vs. a "thinner" curry, but I didn't know it was lard. Certainly Indians are guilty of loading some curries with ghee and cream...

Definitely true that in Japan, a lot of the chains have upped the fat content to garner more customers, which is why I've had the best katsu curries at small neighborhood shops that concentrate on a vegetable and spice blends.

How do you like Go Go Curry? They opened one in Chelsea here. My favorite in Japan was Cocoichibanya, if that's the one from Nagoya.

Anyway, the katsu curry I had at Katsuhama was quite good - it wasn't some S&B Curry block curry but their own blend, and the katsu there is very good as I've been discussing.

[SobaAddict70]

I'm going to have to check this place out for lunch soon. Do they accept walk-ins or are reservations necessary?

[raji]

I'm going to have to check this place out for lunch soon.  Do they accept walk-ins or are reservations necessary?

←

Oh I doubt they even take reservations. First-come first-serve, Japan-style. When you see the place, you'll understand why too.. Up front is a sushi takeout, then through a cloth door, a looong dining bar, and in the back a dining room, separate by an awkward staircase. The decor is pretty much no-frills.

[Hiroyuki]

I don't think lard or oil would be a complaint over here - I think you'll find Japanese with a much lower tolerance, and Westerners with a much higher tolerance, for the amount of fat, be it as oil, lard, butter, etc., in their food.. I know a richer vs. a "thinner" curry, but I didn't know it was lard. Certainly Indians are guilty of loading some curries with ghee and cream...

Definitely true that in Japan, a lot of the chains have upped the fat content to garner more customers, which is why I've had the best katsu curries at small neighborhood shops that concentrate on a vegetable and spice blends.

How do you like Go Go Curry? They opened one in Chelsea here. My favorite in Japan was Cocoichibanya, if that's the one from Nagoya.

Anyway, the katsu curry I had at Katsuhama was quite good - it wasn't some S&B Curry block curry but their own blend, and the katsu there is very good as I've been discussing.

←

As I mentioned here, Cocoichibanya, or Cocoichi for short, uses just normal curry roux and one of their secrets is to freeze the curry for one week before sending to each of their restaurants.

I haven't eaten at Go Go Curry or Cocoichi. When I was young and lived in Tokyo, Curry no Osama was the only big chain in Tokyo. I had a lot of curry rice, 170 yen then, at the university cafeteria, especially when I was low on money and/or wanted to have a quick meal. In any restaurant, curry rice is one of the fastest items on the menu, which may be one reason why busy businesspeople opt for katsu curry at Katsuhama for lunch.

This is a thread on Katsuhama, but unfortunately, they don't provide any information about their curry on their website.

[zEli173]

Mmmmm ... I dig Katsuhama. One of the best lunches in midtown.