Kawakin

Rating: OK
Meal:  Dinner
Price:  1300 yen
Payment:  Cash only
Dishes: Tonkatsu Teishoku
English Menu: No
Smoking: No

Update:  I stopped by last night to ask and here's the name:  Kawakin.

--------------------------------

Sorry about the name issue, I forgot to ask and later figured I could find out somehow...apparently not.  The first kanji in the name looks like nothing I've seen before and I can't find any radicals in it to look up.  If I swing by some other time I'll ask and update the post.

This place is much more spacious inside than it looks.  I was expecting a tiny place but there were lots of chairs and tables in there.  There were several groups of people, but it was all eerily silent.  I was feeling like an oyakodon, but figured I should try out a full teishoku just to get a feel for the place, so I got the tonkatsu (breaded fried pork).

Fuzzy picture..I was off my game tonight

It took a loooong time to come, which is odd here.  But it could have been the others already there, plus this is the time of year everyone eats unagi (eel) so I think there was a lot of special food being prepared.  It finally arrived and it didn't look like much.  But the salad was a step up from the usual with several kinds of greens mixed in with the cabbage.  The tsukemono (pickles) were nothing special.  The tonkatsu itself, however, was definitely better than most, with some nice pepperiness in the panko, and the meat wasn't too dried out.  I tried the sauce with it and it was also better than most.  Even the hot soba soup was a bit of a nice surprise.  I usually don't care for hot soba.

Overall, a pleasant surprise.  The prices overall are just a bit higher than usual, but maybe that is reflected in the better quality ingredients.