勝博殿日式炸豬排 - Saboten Donkatsu

I've been craving for donkatsu for a long long time,

For sure there are many Japanese back in California,

As a result, you can find numerous delicious sushi joints, yakitori places, etc everywhere,

However, I just can't find a single yummy donkatsu place,

I wonder why, maybe it's too expensive to import good quality pork and sell it at wallet-friendly price?

But all that are not my concerns anymore, I'm back in Taiwan, and I'm lining up for my favorite donkatsu dish!

Here it is, Saboten Donkatsu Shin Yi store-

They placed some chairs along the wall for people like us, who are willing to wait for food,

Actually only me, my parents know that I've been craving for this place, so they "have to" wait with me.

We waited for 30 minutes that day,

Remember, we got there before lunch rush hour, so the wait was actually "ok."

Usually I have to wait for more than an hour if I go to the other Saboten in Tien Mu area.

So right after we sat down, they brought us two little dishes as appetizers-

Those are pickled radish and sweetened black beans, all very refreshing.

Besides that, they'll also give you those "tools"-

A set of pestle and mortar.

Yes, you'll have to grind those sesames yourself,

Freshly grind sesame has more aroma than already made ones.

After you grinded it into desired size (powder or big grains), they have a special made sauce and mustard on the side to pour on top of the sesame.

The sauce tastes a little bit sweet, mostly from the vegetables and apples they used.

You can also see fresh cabbage slices in the back,

Just eat it with ponzu soy sauce.

Absolutely love it!

By the way, those little dishes are "all you can eat!" (rice too!)

Miso soup-

Contains various ingredients including konjac, radish, carrot, onion, and more.

Main dish, my dad ordered the special set that comes with curry salt and matcha sauce-

Usually they use two different types of pork,

One is called 腰內肉, which has less fat,

The other one is called 里脊肉, which has more fat but kind of chewy.

Of course they also have pork slices or hamburger meat.

One more thing,

They only use pigs that were fed by whole wheat, and only used pigs that are 120 days old (if I remember the numbers right, yum!).

And this is the one I've been waiting for, diced scallion and grated radish donkatsu-

Served with ponzu sauce.

So refreshing, so good!

I also squeezed the citrus on the side to get more aroma for my donkatsu.

Our happy ending, dessert, which you can choose between matcha ice cream or mango pudding-

Mine costs $300 NT, around $9 U.S. Dollars,

Totally worth it right?

Cindy's Rating: 8

勝博殿日式炸豬排 Saboten Donkatsu (Shin Yi store)

台北市信義區松壽路9號6樓

6 Floor, Number 9, Songshou Road, Shin Yi Area, Taipei, Taiwan

(02) 2725-5829

Taiwan website:

http://www.saboten.com.tw/index.php

Japan website:

http://www.ghf.co.jp/saboten_rest/index.html