I have a particular weakness for deep fried food.  When I was living in Japan, I found that sushi and sashimi was only the tip of the Japanese food hierarchy.  Now I laugh when people mention that they want to eat Japanese food – on the mistaken assumption that it is healthy.  There is so much oil filled goodness there, tempura (fried in vats of oil), kushiage (fried in vats of oil), tonkatsu (fried in vats of oil), you get the idea.

Life deep fried is more flavourful.

So this is how I ended up at Monkatsu – they had me just with the name.

Starters

Karaage – deep fried chicken.  Fairly flat although a big portion.  The sweet mayo was unremarkable, the scallions a bit too sparse to lift things up, the chicken was plentiful though.

Mains

Pork Katsu Set – tonkatsu with  pumpkin korokke and prawn katsu, katsu sauce and Japanese mayo.  The pumpkin was decent, the ebi fry ok but the tonkatsu, the tonkatsu…  Sliced thinly, not being of much depth itself and overcooked it tasted like cardboard.  Or perhaps I should be more descriptive, it tasted like deep fried cardboard.  The rather miserly drizzling of store bought bulldog tonkatsu sauce with decorative additions of mayonnaise did nothing, not little, nothing to save the day.  Kind of like throwing a piece of cardboard to a drowning man.  More than useless as bringing false hope.

Beef miso ramen with seaweed, pickles, dried mushrooms and sesame.  Sadly plain and weirdly too salty miso soup, it was rather one dimensional.  The noodles tasted like they had come straight out of an instant noodle package.  The beef seemed like left overs from Sunday roast.  The dish all together was something to be avoided.

Although I have hoped that a katsu place would have filled my heart with deep fried joy, it did that to my stomach but that’s about it.  I guess you could say that at least you won’t go away hungry.  Satisfied if another story.

Score

A quiet eating 5/10.

Dinner (2 courses) was GBP 26 per person excluding drinks and service.

Monkatsu

49 N Cross Rd, East Dulwich,
London SE22 9E