Rice dishes ── Donburi (rice bowls)
Katsudon
Yamanashi katsudon — sauce-topped cutlet on cabbage and rice, no egg
Shredded cabbage sits under a freshly fried pork cutlet doused in sauce, no egg in sight — Yamanashi's version of katsudon. The egg-topped style found elsewhere is locally called 'ni-katsudon' and considered a different dish, this one said to have originated at an old Kofu soba shop.
- Origin: Yamanashi Kofu
- About 110 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Shredded cabbage is laid over rice, topped with freshly fried tonkatsu, and doused generously in sauce. Breaking the cutlet open with chopsticks releases its juices, and the combination of sauce-soaked rice with the crisp cabbage is said to be the appeal. The egg-topped version common elsewhere in Japan is called 'ni-katsudon' locally and treated as a separate dish, it's said.
How it's made
Shredded cabbage is piled generously onto rice, topped with a freshly fried cutlet cut into easy pieces. Some shops let you choose between tonkatsu sauce and Worcestershire sauce, poured on generously right before eating, it's said. Some places add cucumber, tomato, or potato salad to the bowl as well, it's said.
Why it took this shape
In the Meiji era, the owner of a soba shop in Kofu is said to have been so taken with cutlets he tried in Tokyo that he set out to add one to his menu. Soba shops of the time mostly did delivery and favored rice-bowl dishes that needed only a single container, and that's said to be how the cutlet came to be served over rice instead of with egg. Its lack of an egg topping, replaced by sauce, seems to reflect a practical choice suited to a dish meant to travel well on delivery.
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 Yamanashi
- Akebono Daizu no EdamameThe 'akebono' soybean, said to be 1.6 times the size of an ordinary bean, is picked young and salt-boiled — an edamame from the Akebono area of Minobu town. Grown since the Meiji era but resistant to mechanization, aging growers have made it scarce enough to be called a 'phantom bean'.
- Amanatto no OsekihanMade without azuki or cowpea beans, glutinous rice is dyed red with food coloring and mixed with candied sweet beans — a Yamanashi take on celebratory red rice, sweet-salty with a sprinkle of sesame salt. A similarly sweet red rice is said to exist far away in Hokkaido and parts of Tohoku.
- AnbinSweet potato and wheat flour are kneaded with hot water, wrapped around bean paste, slapped flat, and steamed — a sweet from the Kyonan region. Its name is said to come from the slapping motion, revived in Ichikawamisato town's Rokugo area after a local school's closure sparked a heritage-food effort.
- Awabi no NigaiAbalone from Suruga Bay was soy-sauce-marinated and hauled in barrels by horse, the jostling and body heat said to have worked the flavor deep in — a specialty from landlocked Kofu. Sliced thin and paired with its liver, shiso, and cucumber, it endures as a taste of the sea inland.
- Azuki HotoHoto noodles, cut thicker than usual, are simmered in sweet azuki bean soup in place of mochi — a festival food in Yamanashi. The summer festival at Miwa Shrine in Hokuto city's Wakamiko area is nicknamed the 'hoto festival', and azuki's red color is said to ward off misfortune.
- Hirauchi TanmenA salt-based tanmen from Kofu, Yamanashi, built on wide, flat noodles said to feel almost like fettuccine. Bean sprouts, pork, and napa cabbage pile on top for a vegetable-heavy bowl carried on today by several shops around the prefecture.