Our best meal - BY FAR - while in Hawaii was at a Tonkatsu place. Never heard of tonkatsu, you say? Well, it's pork katsu, silly!
Alright Wisconsinites -- this might not look like much, BUT I really do love Hawaiian BBQ and chicken katsu is my favorite dish - basically thin, breaded chicken, katsu dipping sauce, white rice, nom nom macaroni salad, and cabbage. You get it for like $8 and have it as take out.
But PORK katsu, that's apparently a different (and more fancy) beast. We went to
Tonkatsu Ginza Bairin and were seated at the sushi bar. It's always amazing to watch the chefs work and this was no exception.
The appetizer choices were brought out to you on sample plates, not listed on a menu or anything and we got the sashimi plate. We get sushi often, but true sashimi (raw fish with no rice) was a little different. My food that isn't-exactly-new-but-counts-as-new was the raw scallops in the middle of that plate. It might have been very lightly seared, or maybe just marinated in acid or something, but basically raw. I was very skeptical and sooo delightfully wonderfully surprised and happy. It was awesome!
The main dish (we got two different levels of them - mine was thicker, but Nick's was more expensive - but they looked the same) was a delight. Miso soup, pickled veggies, amazing pork katsu, cabbage salad, rice, dipping sauce -- very similar to that $8 box above, but... wow oh wow oh wow was this a super tasty - and filling! - meal.
I'm almost done with my new foods! #17: (9/10) raw scallops - CHECK
Would you eat raw scallops?? What about tonkatsu??
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