Ton Katsu

I noticed that ton katsu seems to have vanished from the offerings at my local Japanese sushi train. The place changed hands a year or two ago so that could explain it. Anyway, when I arrived there this evening, I asked the proprietress if I could order some. Rather to my confusion, she had no clue what I was talking about. But she asked the head chef, who is fairly elderly, and he knew all about it so I got a nice plate of it after all.

I suppose that it proves what Japs sometimes say: That ton katsu is actually a German dish. I suppose it is. It is just crumbed pork basically. But it is a popular menu option in lots of Japanese restaurants. Koreans also have it but they call it don kats.

When Paul was about 11, Jenny said she would cook him anything he liked for his birthday dinner and he immediately nominated tonkatsu. Clearly not a lad brought up on traditional British meals of meat and 3 veg. -- as I was. Though my mother made a good dish of spaghetti on occasions. When Jenny cooks tonkatsu I like to have it with hoi sin sauce -- a Chinese sauce so not at all authentic -- but I like it anyway. I got a bit of Japanese mustard with my tonkatsu tonight, which I treated with great respect. Japanese mustard can be VERY "hot".

Jenny cooked lots of exotic food for me when we were together. I remember when Joey was about one, he had green poos, as babies sometimes do. So Jenny took him to the mothercraft nurse. The nurse asked Jenny: "You haven't been feeding him anything unusual, have you?" Jenny said No but she said she was thinking: "Only a bit of larb moo". Larb moo is Thai minced pork, a dish we all liked. Anyway, Joey came to no harm.

I had some more plastic surgery today. My appointment was for 8:30am and I was on the table by 8:45am and eating breakfast at my usual Italian restaurant by 10am so that is the sort of efficiency I like. The dermo said that the wound came together well after the cancer was excised so healing should be rapid. Private medicine sure beats public medicine but it does cost a bomb. Still, I worked hard during my youth at one of the world's most unpopular and stressful tasks -- landlording -- so I can afford some extras in my later years.