Home-style ── Yoshoku (Japanese Western-style dishes)
Katsu Karee
Katsu curry — a fried pork cutlet served over curry rice
A freshly fried cutlet laid over curry rice. Said to trace back to a Ginza restaurant that opened in 1947 and paired its own curry sauce with a fried cutlet.
- Origin: Tokyo Chuo
- Rice dishes
Lineage
What it's made of
A freshly fried cutlet sits half-submerged in a sea of curry sauce. The breading soaks up sauce and turns moist at the edges while the still-oily center keeps its crisp bite. The sauce, made by simmering grated vegetables, is thick and is said to carry a soft sweetness beneath its spice, catching the cutlet's fat and pulling the whole plate together, often finished with a side of fukujinzuke or pickled shallot.
How it's made
The usual method is to prepare a curry sauce separately, fry a cutlet, and lay it over rice so it sits half-dipped in the sauce. Some shops thicken the sauce with grated vegetables rather than flour, and some let it rest for about two weeks to let the flavor settle. The cutlet is fried just before serving to keep its breading crisp, and some shops stand it upright when plating.
Why it took this shape
One account traces it to a yoshoku restaurant that opened in Ginza in 1947, which is said to have paired its prized curry sauce — then called 'Calcutta-style curry' — with a fried cutlet. The restaurant still operates today with the same recipe, and the dish is also said to have grown out of a wish to enjoy curry and a cutlet on a single plate, later spreading as a staple of neighborhood yoshoku diners.
Before you go
- How to shop at a supermarketHow to choose prepared foods, sashimi, and packaged sushi, when discount stickers tend to appear, region-only specialties, buying by weight, the checkout and bagging flow, and sampling etiquette at a local supermarket.
- Food for Obon and the harvest moon (tsukimi)A guide to the meat-free shojin ryori and somen served at Obon, and the tsukimi dango offered on the night of the harvest moon.
- What to know if you have dietary restrictionsHow allergen labeling works, where fish-based dashi, pork, and alcohol turn up, and phrases for checking with staff.
Dishes in the same style
- Chikin RaisuRice fried with chicken, onion, and ketchup. Said to have started as omurice's filling before being served on its own, without the egg wrapper.
- DoriaButter rice topped with shrimp in cream, covered in white sauce and cheese and baked. Said to have been improvised at a Yokohama hotel for a guest who wasn't feeling well.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Tokyo
- Abura SobaNo broth is poured at all — noodles are tossed in a soy-and-sesame-oil tare pooled at the bottom of the bowl, said to have started at shops in the Musashino area in the late 1950s, with vinegar and chili oil stirred in partway through.
- Ajitsuke NoriSheet nori brushed with a soy-and-sugar seasoning and toasted crisp, said to have been devised as a gift for an imperial visit to Kyoto in the Meiji era. Its snap gives way to a burst of flavor and aroma.
- Anago ZushiConger eel, simmered sweet and savory, is laid over sushi rice and brushed with a reduced glaze called tsume — a staple Edomae topping from a fish that thrived in Tokyo Bay's nutrient-rich waters, its slick skin demanding a sushi chef's careful hand to clean.
- AnmitsuCubes of agar jelly topped with red peas, sweet bean paste, and dark syrup. Said to have begun when a Ginza sweets shop in the early Showa era added its own bean paste to the simpler "mitsumame" — jelly and peas in syrup — marking a point where wagashi met café culture.
- Asakusa shichimiA seven-spice chili blend from a shop tracing back to 1625 in Asakusa's old Yagenbori district, often described as the origin point of shichimi togarashi. The neighborhood's history as a hub for medicinal-herb wholesalers is credited with shaping a blend informed by traditional Chinese medicine, and the shop is known for custom-mixing blends to order.
- Bettara-zukeDaikon salted first, then pickled sweet in rice malt and sugar — said to descend from a lightly pickled daikon once sold at Edo's ebisu-kō market. The rice malt gives it a natural sweetness, and it still headlines Nihonbashi's autumn "Bettara Market."