The moment you walk through its doors, you are transported to a little Japanese kitchenette that seems to have been transplanted directly from Japan. Fact is, the restaurant calls itself a "Japanese kitchenette with a Japanese chef."
Husband-and-wife Osamu and Pilar Onodera run the establishment. It is a very tight setup. Osamu, a Japanese national and a chef by profession, runs the kitchen, preparing almost everything himself. Pilar, or Lani as she is called by everyone, mans the restaurant with her assistant Arlene, taking down and delivering orders swiftly to your table.
Swiftly is the clincher here. Pilar admits that, when they got a good review from a food writer last year, they were mobbed with weekend diners looking for the next Japanese restaurant. Since the restaurant is really just a mom-and-pop operation, they couldn’t cope with the demands of their hungry diners.
"We can’t serve Japanese food as fast as most of our diners want it," she admits. "My husband is a perfectionist. There’s just him and a helper in the kitchen. He slices everything and cooks all of them himself. And if he’s not happy with his cooking, he would never serve it to our diners."
The fad passed. Nowadays, they have good and bad days, just like any struggling restaurant. But they are glad that they have a discerning group of regulars who come in especially for their specials.
Pilar points to the Sushi Katsu Nabe, a hot pot of seafood, which is quite popular among some of their Chinese regulars. "They would come in every so often, and that is all that they’d order along with a platter of sashimi," she explains. "It is good for two or three diners, and it is reasonably priced at P550."
Pilar met her husband when she was working in Japan. She says Osamu learned the rudiments of Japanese cooking from scratch. He first started as a kitchen helper, gradually rising up the ladder to full-time chef. He opened a little Japanese restaurant in the Roppongi district with two friends, but the venture failed. Three years ago, they returned to Manila for personal reasons. To keep them occupied, they opened Sushi Katsu in late March last year.
She says she has two menus available, one for Filipinos and another solely for Japanese nationals.
"It’s in Japanese and offer many Japanese delicacies that Filipinos might not like," she explains.
The regular menu lists down sushi, sashimi, tempura, teriyaki, noodles and donburi. The Japanese menu, which Pilar hesitates to suggest from, has items like natto or fermented bean curd paste, hokke fish, yaki unigiri or grilled rice rolls and kunyaku sashimi, which are thin slices of a tasteless gelatinous mass made from potato flour. "It has no calories and is often referred to as the dieter’s sashimi," she adds.
Those seeking an adventurous dining experience should convince her that they do want to try it. "I don’t want our diners complaining at the end of the meal that they did not like what they had. But Japanese nationals and those who have lived in Japan for a long time know these dishes. They are really an acquired taste."
If you prefer something on the safe side, Sushi Katsu offers a number of popular items. Their Sushi Katsu Tofu, unlike the usual tofu agedashi, has a softer breading that keeps the silken tofu soft. It comes with a light soy dip that retains the tofu’s nutty flavor. The Sushi Katsu Maki is the restaurant’s version of the California maki. The rolls are as big as rolls of futo maki and are stuffed with the usual prawn and mangoes. The US rib eye steak tastes Japanese with is ponzu dip. It is a bit sour than most steaks, but is quite succulent. It comes with a glass of kani salad, making it the perfect dinner for a hungry solo diner. And then there’s the Sushi Katsu Nabe. If you have a craving for hot soup and seafood, this is it. An order of a bowl of steamed rice completes this hot pot.
Those who want to explore Japanese food are advised to try Sushi Katsu’s specials. They now have changing monthly specials, as well as bento lunches that let diners pair their choice of main dish and side dish. Also available is a sashimi and de luxe bento. All bento lunches come with plain or Japanese fried rice, miso soup and dessert.
Who was it who said that the best Japanese restaurants are frequented by the Japanese themselves? On our visit, there was a group of Japanese diners with their Filipino friends at the other table. They must know a lot about Sushi Katsu’s offerings.