Maisen: Japan’s revered tonkatsu house

MANILA, Philippines - Ben Chan now is at the Maisen kitchen in Aoyama, learning from Maisen meister Yoshitaka Matsuoka how to prepare breaded porkchop. The mantra goes like this: put the meat in flour, dip it in egg, cover it with panko breadcrumbs, and then apply pressure with both hands. I can’t tell you the specific kilograms of pressure involved because it is classified information according to mister meister. The breaded pork chop is then cooked in Maisen’s very own sunflower oil. The same with the Chococro, Ben’s pork cutlet turns out well. If he ever needed a fallback career….

In another part of the building is a roomful of men busily pounding away at the slabs of meat to tenderize them, so the tonkatsu strips will be soft enough to be cut by chopsticks.  One guy has been on the job for 40 years. Has pleased many foodies with the constant rhythm he has kept through four decades. (Well, no one can tell this guy, “Not my tempo!”)

Maisen — founded by a housewife, Chiyoko Koide, in the ’60s — is one of the best tonkatsu houses in Japan. One of the executives, Tadakazu Fujishiro, says the first Maisen was put up in Hibiya in 1965. More restaurants and kiosks followed. It currently has nine restaurants and 55 stores all over Japan, with seven outlets in Thailand. The chain boasts sandwiches (hire-katsu, tama-toro pocket ones, etc.) and burgers (mince-katsu, chicken-katsu), bento boxes, deep fried treats, as well as select merchandise (rusk of bread heel in Hello Kitty cans, tonkatsu sauce, spice salt, etc.). One of the items on the Manila menu is a lunchbox with six pieces of tenderloin sandwiches at a really affordable price.

 We are in the flagship restaurant in Aoyama and, interestingly, it used to be a former public bathhouse. Maisen became a member of Suntory Holdings Ltd. in 2008. (As Bill Murray says in Lost in Translation, “For relaxing times, make it Suntory time.”)

An interesting story: in the ’60s, the Japanese generally didn’t eat meat (just fish and vegetables), pork and beef were expensive, and tonkatsu was considered a dish for special occasions. Koide was one of the persons who popularized tonkatsu in the mid-‘60s as the Japanese economy started booming.

Matsuoka says what makes Maisen tonkatsu special is that it originated as a home-cooked meal. He says, “The housewife is always providing food that is easy to eat — especially for children. That’s the idea behind Maisen.”

We proceed to the restaurant to taste different types of pork — Amaiyuuwaku (Sweet Temptation), Okita Kurobuta (black pork) and Chamiton (from tea leaf-fed pig) — paired with three different sauces —Amakuch sauce (sweet), Karakuch sauce (tangy) and Kurobuta sauce (a medley of flavors, goes well with the denser black pork).

And like Damon Albarn with tonkatsu on my tongue, I say, “Pork life.”