During the pandemic, I remember all of us being sick of everything. We were having the same routine, food, and work every day and it felt good to do something different. One night I organized a fancy dinner, an excuse for us to get out of the house and go for a walk, dress up out of our PJs, and eat food other than what we usually were having. It was something to do in a time of nothingness.
When Katsu San opened up they were only doing take-out at the time, no dine-in (I mean no restaurant was doing dine-in, it was still the peak of covid). My dad had talked about this new place opening up and was very eager to order it. When placing our order we had no idea it would be SO busy, to pick it up there were tons of people outside waiting for their katsu sets. In their take-out options, you could either get Tonkatsu or Chicken Katsu, so pork or chicken katsu. Either of the options come with rice, cabbage, pickled vegetables, and miso soup almost all in compact packaging.
It’s funny, it doesn’t matter if it’s just me, just my brother, or even with the both of us, if our dad is left alone with us and doesn’t want to cook he always says “Let’s go to Katsu”. So, when our mom was headed on a flight to Manitoba for work, my dad texted me saying we are going to Katsu once I was done working. With some miscommunication, I ended up meeting the two of them at Katsu and waited about 30 to 40 minutes for a table for three. There were so many people inside and other people on the waiting list that every time a table was cleared, we thought it was for us (unfortunately it was not).
Once getting a table, we already knew what we were going to get. Aidan got the Chicken Katsu set, my dad the Tonkatsu set, and myself the Cheese Katsu Set. For reference, it is what we get every time (except for me because they don’t allow the Cheese Katsu Set for takeout I get the Tonkatsu set then). All orders, in person, come with miso soup, pickled vegetables as well as unlimited rice and cabbage. Since we had arrived and were seated pretty late, they did the last call for anything and my dad got extra cabbage.
The actual food is so good, I love katsu. It’s basically just breaded meat like chicken nuggets or anything, but much better. I think it’s cause it actually tastes like meat rather than chicken nuggets that taste fake (as good as they are). Along with how almost everything else is unlimited it is great, you can snack on some cabbage and rice along with your meal. The Cheese Katsu is to DIE FOR, I absolutely love it. Being lactose intolerant, who doesn’t love cheese? Of course, something they can do is add more meat to the set so that the ratio of meat:cheese is perfect, but nonetheless it is still amazing. I give Katsu San a 5/5.