Hi there, Hivers and fellow food lovers! 🍱🍜
What delicious treats are you enjoying today?
In my previous blog, I shared that I went ice skating last Saturday with my long-time friends and coworkers. We’ve all been working from home since 2020, so we rarely get the chance to see each other in person. Thus, whenever we do meet, we make it special by planning a fun activity followed by a great meal.
After tiring ourselves out on the ice, we headed straight to Yabu, a well-known Japanese restaurant here in my country.
It was just past 12:30 PM, so the place was still packed. In fact, we had to wait for a table to open up before we could be seated. At the time, we were getting hungry, but not enough to leave! We waited... and waited... and… Just kidding! We were seated after only five minutes! 😄
Yabu is famous for its katsu sets (a variety of meat and seafood options).
So, what is katsu?
Katsu means cutlet in English. It's typically a piece of meat (pork, chicken, beef, or seafood) that's breaded and deep-fried to golden perfection.
Fun fact: The word katsu also means "to win" in Japanese. So, before an exam or big event, many people eat katsu for good luck! Interesting, right?
Back to our meal, each of us ordered a katsu set, which includes:
- Your choice of katsu
- Brown rice with sesame seeds (so healthy)
- A cabbage salad (with mayonnaise and lemon)
- Miso soup
- Three slices of fresh watermelon (for dessert)
- A rich, savory dipping sauce
I ordered their signature seafood katsu set, which came with:
- Cream dory
- Tiger prawn
- Salmon
- Sweet potato
It was a heavy meal, but absolutely delicious. The brown rice was both healthy and tasty, and the miso soup? Oh, how I missed it! (I actually learned how to make it from one of my Japanese students, but it’s been so long I’ve forgotten the steps!) The sauce was incredibly rich and flavorful. For me, every dip was pure satisfaction.
To make things more fun, the waiter gave us a tiny mortar and pestle set while we waited. It had black and white sesame seeds inside, and we were told to mash them up before adding the thick sauce. It was a fun little thing that made the experience even more enjoyable.
When our meals finally arrived, I paired mine with a glass of lemonade (bottomless and no ice!). It was a refreshing match for the rich, fried flavors in front of me. As we savored our food, we talked about life, work, and personal stories. We were having such a great time, we didn’t even notice we had finished off everything on our plates!
By the end, we were full, bloated, and very happy. 😂
It was truly a meet-up worth sharing and definitely one we plan to do again!
Thanks for reading my story today.
Happy eating, and see you in my next blog! 🍽️💬
Love lots,
Photos are mine, taken using Samsung Galaxy A26 and edited in Pixlr.
P.S. I did my research on katsu from Google.