Rice dishes ── Donburi (rice bowls)
Tare Katsudon
Tare katsudon — thin pork cutlets dipped in sweet soy sauce over rice
A Niigata City-born rice bowl of thin pork cutlets dipped in a sweet-savory soy sauce and laid over rice, no egg involved, typically with two or more cutlets. It is said to have spread from a Western-style restaurant in the Furumachi district in the early Showa era.
- Origin: Niigata City, Niigata
- About 260 km north of Tokyo
What it's made of
Thin, lightly breaded pork cutlets, fried crisp, are dipped in a sweet-savory soy sauce and laid over rice. Unlike the more common style, no egg is involved here; the crisp, sauce-soaked breading meets juicy pork for a combination that goes perfectly with rice. Bowls often carry two or more cutlets, making for a dish that looks as hearty as it tastes.
How it's made
Thin-sliced pork is lightly coated in fine breadcrumbs and fried until crisp. The freshly fried cutlet is quickly dipped in a sweet sauce made from soy sauce, mirin and sugar, then laid over rice. No egg is used to bind it, and because the dish is nothing more than cutlet, rice and sauce, the character of the sauce is what sets each shop apart.
Why it took this shape
In this harbor town, which prospered early and took to Western food culture sooner than most, a way of eating the then-fashionable Western-style cutlet dipped in a familiar soy sauce is said to have gradually taken shape. Combining a Western fried dish with Japanese seasoning produced a flavor that suited plain white rice well, and leaving out the egg was, it's said, a deliberate choice to preserve the cutlet's own texture.
Before you go
- How to use a convenience storeA quick guide to choosing rice balls and hot snacks, buying coffee, paying by cash, IC card, or tap payment, using the eat-in corner, and sorting your trash — the basics for a first visit.
- Station food and ekiben (station bento)Where and when to find ekiben (station bento) before it sells out, etiquette for eating on board, how standing soba and udon stalls work, and where to find souvenirs sold inside the station.
- Roadside stations, direct-sale stands, and marketsHow to enjoy buying food near where it's produced, visiting and shopping at morning markets and fish markets, what to expect at farm stands, and finding local food at roadside stations (michi-no-eki).
Dishes in the same style
- Aburafu DonDeep-fried wheat gluten, shaped into a log, is simmered in a sweet-savory broth and set with egg over rice, katsudon-style — a Tome City bowl said to trace to a tofu shop's shelf-stable gluten product, later turned into a bowl dish by a local innkeeper.
- Aizu Sōsu KatsudonAizu's sauce katsudon, doused in a thick sweet-savory sauce. Its origin has several competing accounts, none settled, but all point to it being refined through everyday improvisation on Taisho-era Western food.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Niigata
- AnboA Chuetsu-region dish of steamed rice-flour dumplings filled with sweet bean paste, pickled greens or eggplant. Similar in spirit to Nagano's oyaki but distinguished by its rice-flour skin, reflecting land suited to rice rather than wheat.
- Echigo misoA red, savory miso from Niigata, also called 'ukikoji miso' (floating-koji miso) because its polished whole-grain rice koji appears to float within the paste. Its style is said to vary across Niigata's Joetsu, Chuetsu, Kaetsu, and Sado districts, each shaped by local climate.
- Fugu no Ko no KasuzukeA rare Sado delicacy in which puffer fish ovaries are salt-cured for two years or more, then aged for a long stretch in Sado's sake lees. Only ovaries processed by licensed fugu chefs are sold, and the practice is said to date back to the Edo period.
- Fukashi NasuA Niigata dish of kinchaku eggplant halved, steamed, chilled and eaten with mustard or ginger soy sauce. In a prefecture among Japan's top eggplant producers, it is said to have been valued as a cooling dish through the summer.
- Hegi SobaA soba from Ojiya, Niigata, that uses funori seaweed, the same binder once used to size thread for the region's textiles, as a noodle binder. It is arranged in small bite-sized portions on a wooden box called a hegi.
- Hiyashijiru Miso JitateA chilled soup from the Chuetsu region, dashi thinned with miso and studded with chopped cucumber and shiso. Devised to stay appetizing through the summer heat, it is said to be eaten on its own or poured over rice or noodles.