Menchi-Katsu (mince meat cutlet) is an old school Japanese western food in Japan. What is Japanese western food? It’s a Japanese food inspired by western culture. Yokohama, the city which I’m writing this post is a port city, the old port which welcomed foreigner in old, old days ago and because of that, the city have lots of Yo-syoku ( Yo=western, shoku=food) related restaurant. The typical Yo-shoku are, hambaagu (hamburger), corott-ke (potato croquette), guratan (white sauce based gratin), napolitan (tomato based stir fried spagetti) and much, much more.

The above picture is taken at a local butcher’s deli after lunch today (so a lot are already sold out) and from left to right, Menchi-katsu, Hire-katsu (port tenderloin katsu), chilli ham katsu (breaded deep fried chili sausage). Behind are a batch of deep fried chicken wings. As you can see it doesn’t look very Japanese.

We have lots of food like these. We can buy these at pretty much any kind of place where they sell ready made food. Supermarket, butcher(the photo above), convenience stores anywhere. Yo-shoku are served everywhere, school cafeteria are usually our first contact point, home cooking (mom’s makes the best) and if you want to try the old school style, real good ones are at old Japanese coffee joint called kittsa-ten.

Ok, back to the theme, Menchi-katsu.

Why am I suddenly writing about this? I wasn’t a super fan of [Menchi-katsu]. It’s seems too oily, too meatish (if this makes sense) too strong for me. I don’t like it therefore, I don’t make it. I thought even if I homemade them my disliking of Menchi-katsu will not change. But, that was all wrong ! I made them last week and couldn’t belief it was so good. Ok I changed a bit, but still. I made it twice in a week just to see if I still like it and yes I loved it and it’s on our menu forever.

More about menchi-katsu in the next post!