CDOmnivore in Manila: Tonkatsu by Terazawa

Tonkatsu by Terazawa at Greenbelt 2, Makati, MM.

On my last night in Manila for my school's benchmarking trip, our party was invited to dine at a fairly new concept restaurant by an alumna. The restaurant's name was Tonkatsu by Terazawa, which was brought to the Philippines by the Bistro group. Current restaurants owned and managed by the Bistro group include TGI Friday's and my favorite from their portfolio, Italianni's. Our alumna was one of the partners of this new restaurant.

As the name suggested, Tonkatsu by Terazawa served various iterations of deep fried pork cutlets, or tonkatsu. One could appreciate the fairly straightforward name which left no room for doubt what was served by their kitchen.

I had their Roso Katsu or the Deep Fried Pork Loin Set. The set came with four side dishes: rice, radish soup, pickled vegetables and shredded cabbage. The food was artfully presented as my enclosed photo shows and I really love their chopsticks which were multi-sided and very easy to grip and use for beginners.

The cutlet was fried perfectly, crispy and still juicy. It went very well with the shredded cabbage, which was refillable and had two sauces which gave one the option to make some impromptu Japanese style cole slaw. Still, I fell in love with rice; it was of the Japanese variety, long grained and glutinous, I could eat it by itself.

I love how they set my plate, this and unlimited rice and vegetables too.

This was one restaurant I would want to visit again. It may not replace Italianni's in my heart but since it's brought by the same people, I have no doubt that the service and food would appeal to families dining out in Cagayan de Oro.