Neon Nights and Katsu Curry: channeling your inner salaryman

Heated toilet seats and wet-room showers. Endless vending machines and the cacophonous siren call of shop assistants and storefront jingles. These are the things that remind me of the wonder of Tokyo.

I lived in Tokyo from 1989 to 1994, during it's heyday some might say. As a gloriously carefree expat brat, Tokyo was the ultimate playground - a neon wonka fun factory where the noise never dulled and threats never surfaced. It is a wondrous land of contradiction. It is both the safest place I have ever lived and the most morally twisted. The Japanese are a fascinating cocktail of stoic traditionalism and bug-eyed lunacy. I went back after finishing university in 2001 for a year off, studying Japanese in the mornings, teaching English at night and DJing on the weekends. It was one of the best years of my life, and the city will forever feel like my second home. London is the only other city in the world where I feel as much in my element, and even today there are indelible shards of Japanese culture nestled within my rambling psyche.

So it is with enormous joy and nostalgic excitement that I get to return there occasionally for work. Flippant reports about godzilla and mega-radiation never dampen my enthusiasm for the place, and even though the whole experience is framed within the breathless agenda of a business trip, this is a city full of surprises.

My first stop was an old favourite from when we lived there, a family-run tonkatsu restaurant called Tonki's. Nestled down an alley (like everything in Tokyo), it's as unassuming as they come. When you step through the sliding doors however, you are in for a treat. The sweet, crispy aroma of freshly frying tonkatsu wafts through the air, cushioned by the chatter of the patrons sat at the bar and the hushed awe of those watching the family ply their trade. They are hushed, because they have a bird's eye view of the entire kitchen. Each station is manned by various generations of the same family, and they all work flawlessly in unison: a well-oiled machine with incredible speed and disciplined attention to detail. The best thing about this? They only serve two dishes: pork fillet, or pork chop. That's it. And they haven't changed in decades.

The father greets you as you come in, takes your order and memorizes your face. The youngest guys egg and batter the pork fillets. The elder sons manage the fryers, gently dipping the katsu into huge copper vats. The grandfather awaits the freshly fried katsu with a razor sharp blade, and with fingers like blushing cherries he grabs the cutlet and slices it into perfectly formed pieces. If you've ever tried to slice tonkatsu just after frying it, you'll have discovered as I did that it is a) hotter than hades and 2) incredibly hard to slice neatly. The man is an absolute master at this one very specific task, just like the rest of the family. Each person has a role that they have mastered completely, no matter the significance. Two more staff then plate everything and attend to refilling the diners' plates with steaming rice and crispy fresh cabbage.

Beautifully simple and expertly crafted. 

Like very few other places I can think of, Tonki's has an atmosphere that really is just hard to express in words. You sit at the bar, take a load off, and watch this family craft your meal from start to finish without any drama, fuss or commotion. It arrives on your plate accompanied with a small dish of pickles and the best miso soup you'll never get in London. My colleague who had braved the journey with me, jetlagged to the gills like myself, was entranced by the place and wolfed down his meal with blissful gusto. For me, it was a uniquely surreal experience, finally going back after nearly ten years. Seeing all the same family members attending the same tasks was like stepping through a timewarp to one of the happiest periods of my childhood. Being there with a colleague from my life now, having come so far since my life in Tokyo, was like having the most nostalgic experience ever and then discovering that you can still enjoy it today. I will definitely go back the next time I am out east.

The rest of the trip was a frantic sprint between meetings, hotel buffets and crazed meals around the city. It's incredible seeing how much stuff the Japanese have managed to cram into this dense metropolis. We found a shop that was literally situated in a staircase. We stopped in an underground bar that played jazz remixes of Disney theme tunes. I met up with an old family friend at the smallest yakitori restaurant ever built (eight chairs around a bar). Everything is on multiple floors and basements, with drinking dens, cafes, boutiques, hairdressers and hostess bars all sharing vertical real estate. It is a swarming rabbit warren of activity, with surprises lurking on every floor.

I could write pages and pages on my love for Tokyo and all the strange things I have encountered there. But for me, what I thought would be slightly more useful and interesting would be to put down a recipe for something that will always, always take me back to Japan in a second: katsu curry.

Katsu curry is a stalwart of the salaryman. If you've ever been to Tokyo and witnessed the black and white tsunami of downtown rush-hour, you will know what I'm talking about. Millions upon millions of office workers, clerks and attendants, all suited, and all eating in little stand-up noodle bars and curry houses. Katsu curry is a particular mainstay, alongside tempura udon/soba for people who need to eat, and eat well, in a hurry. Outside every train station in Tokyo you will find a handful of these places, where you pop in, get a food token from the cash machine, plonk it down at the counter and receive a steaming bowl of food in return. It is glorious in its simplicity, and the realisation that this is, in effect, fast food. It goes without saying, however, that fast food done by the Japanese is unlike anything you'll ever encounter at the Fast Chicken Cottage in Hackney (speaking of which, Japanese KFC is amazing).

Self-Serve all-you-can-drink bar. Utter carnage.

The nicest katsu curry I have come across in central london can be found at Ten Ten Tei, on Brewer Street in Soho. Wagamama's can probably be attributed with bringing katsu curry to the masses, but I find their version too plasticky and dry, a real low-budget manufactured version. Ten Ten Tei's at least doesn't taste like it's been microwaved in a sachet. Naturally then, I decided to try making it myself at home. Japanese food, by and large, I find rather intimidating due to it's exotic ingredients and incredibly strict cooking guidelines. It's generally a very delicate cuisine, and not one that I've ever found anywhere near as accessible as chinese or mexican. Thankfully however, I can reassure you that katsu curry is one of the easiest and simplest japanese dishes you can find. It's hardly gourmet cooking, but then if you've read this blog before you'll know that's not what I'm going for anyway. The next time you're in the mood for it, grab a couple of the specific ingredients from a japanese/oriental shop, some pork loins and give this a whirl - you will be amazed at the difference.

Katsu Curry at Home
Ingredients:

150 g of pork loin
1 cup of panko breadcrumbs
1/2 cup of flour
1 medium egg (beaten)
Japanese curry sauce mix
+ however much boiling water the sauce mix requires
200ml chicken stock
2 large potatoes, cubed
1 medium sized carrot, sliced
2-3 medium yellow onions
2 tablespoons of garlic
1 green pepper (optional)
2 cups of rice
2 tablespoons of pickled red radish
vegetable oil
Salt & Pepper

For the Curry Sauce mix, you can get packets of this stuff in any Japanese food store - my preference is for the medium hot packets, but there are hotter or milder versions available. If you're not sure which brand to get (they're all pretty much the same), just ask one of the staff members and they can happily assist.

Fry a couple of cloves of garlic in vegetable oil and slice up the vegetables. Gently fry the onions until they have wilted and are translucent. Add the sliced carrot and the potato and cook for a few minutes. Add the chicken stock and however much water the curry sauce mix requires and bring to a simmer. Once the water is boiling, add a packet of the curry sauce mix (usually half of the packet), and reduce to the lowest heat. Mix it well and after a few minutes it will take on a thick, creamy consistency.

Take your pork loins and tap them firmly with the back of a knife to tenderize in a cross pattern. Then season well with salt and pepper, and push the pork loins together as the tapping will have spread them out slightly. This will ensure the katsu is tender.

Prepare your beaten egg, panko and flour in 3 bowls. Then, taking each piece of pork, dip it in the flour, the egg and the panko, then lay carefully in a frying pan with 1cm of hot oil in it to shallow fry.

The oil shouldn’t be too hot – test it first by putting the tip of a toothpick or a wooden chopstick in to see if bubbles form. If they slowly appear, the oil is at the correct temperature. If they appear suddenly and bubble violently, the oil is too hot. Fry the pork loins on both sides until golden. One tip I learned: if you are frying multiple pieces of pork, be very mindful of the temperature. As soon as the first one is looking ready, get the second one all dusted and ready to go because if you leave the pan empty while you are preparing the next chop then the oil will start to burn.

Once the pork is a nice golden brown, remove from the oil and place on a rack in the oven to dry off and crisp up.

If you wish, slice the pork into equal vertical slices and lay on a bed of rice Pour the curry over the middle of the plate and garnish with pickled red radish. Sit down, eat, and think of Tokyo.