Tokyo 2024 day 4: Instagram-famous tonkatsu

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Over the years, the core group of alumni from my high school in Tokyo living in Hong Kong has gradually shrunk, as friends move back home to be with family. A few guys have relocated back to Tokyo, and I'm taking the opportunity on this trip to meet up with them. While I had originally thought about going back to a curry shop I visited a few years ago, or even checking out a biryani restaurant I had heard about, I eventually left the choice up to the locals.

I was pleasantly surprised that my friend suggested lunch at Tonkatsu Marushichi (とんかつ 丸七), as it was kinda on my "hit list" for Tokyo. The place is "Instagram-famous" thanks to its very thick cuts of tonkatsu (とんかつ), and I always wondered whether the pork cutlet actually tasted good.

Since no bookings could be made for this popular chain of restaurants, I suggested that we visit the Fukagawa Fudo (深川不動) branch as they have 14 seats at the counter, versus 8 seats at the nearby honten or 6 seats at the Ginza branch. This would increase our chance of getting seated early and, hopefully, in the first round.

Foursheets and I arrived 15 minutes before the official opening time of 11 a.m. and there were 4 other tourists with their suitcases at the front of the line. I guess that fits with their Instagram fame. We were relieved that we would be seated in the first round, and I got to spend some time chatting with my alumni friends while we waited for the doors to open. Meanwhile, a long line started to develop while we waited.

I was surprised that the restaurant only opened up and seated us around 11:30 a.m., which was 30 minutes late and quite unusual for Japan. As we had pre-ordered everything while waiting in line, the cooks inside simply waited until they had fried all the pork cutlets for everyone in the first round, then served us within a couple of minutes after being seated. Well, I would have preferred to wait for my food while sitting down inside and not stand outside for an extra half hour...

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BABY, THIS IS WHAT YOU CAME FOR! OF COURSE I chose the thickest cut, as did the other 2 guys. Foursheets, though, took the "half portion" of the same cut of pork, so she "only" had 180 grams instead of 300 grams of pork.

Premium pork cutlet (特上) - DAMN, this was big! We always knew this was gonna be chunky, but when it's finally served in front of you, it still took me a while to take it all in while staring at the thing. The katsudon (カツ丼) came with fluffy eggs between the rice and the pork, but without any onions in the egg. The cut comes from the front part of the loin that the Japanese call リブロース.

The thickness starts to become an issue when I tried to pick the slices up with my kiddie chopsticks. To be honest, the middle of the cutlet was a little lean and not as juicy as I would have liked, but we've still got a strip of very tasty fat running down one side to help make it better.

But the end cuts had plenty of fat, so those were the best parts for me.

I was pleasantly surprised by the miso soup, which came with shijimi (しじみ) clams.

That was quite a stuffing! We were pretty happy that we came and took down a big, satisfying hunk of fried pork. Everyone ate fairly quickly so that we could vacate our seats for the people still waiting in line outside. While I thought we might go and sit for a cup of coffee after our quick meal, one of my friends seemed to be in a hurry to get back to work, so we bid them farewell and look forward to seeing them again sooner rather than later.

There were a couple of temples nearby and my friends suggested that we check them out on the way back to the subway station. The first was Fukagawa Fudo-do (深川不動堂), dedicated to the Buddhist deity Acala (不動明王).

The walls of the Main Hall (本堂) are covered in the mantra of Acala in sanskrit, which makes this rather stunning visually.

We also checked out Tomioka Hachiman Shrine (富岡八幡宮) just a couple of blocks away, dedicated to Hachiman (八幡神), a deity of archery and war.

Foursheets needed to do some shopping and check out the latest trends in kawaii (可愛い), so we returned to Tokyo Character Street (東京キャラクターストリート) at First Avenue Tokyo Station (東京駅一番街). It's always interesting to stroll around here and which are the most popular characters at any given moment. After going through most of the shops, our legs needed a break so we went back to our hotel to wait for dinner.