March/7/2020
If you’re interested in Japanese food, you might know katsudon (カツ丼), which is a bowl of rice with a pork cutlet, egg, and vegetables on top.
However, in Fukui Prefecture “katsudon” refers to a specific variety called sauce katsudon (ソースカツ丼). This is Fukui’s local specialty and is very well known there.
Sauce katsudon is a sauce-covered pork cutlet on rice. It’s simpler than katsudon, and you eat it with chopsticks.
Sauce katsudon has a history of more than 100 years. There are a lot of restaurants in Fukui where you can get it, and it’s especially common at soba restaurants.
I recommend having sauce katsudon and Echizen soba together. Both are local specialties in Fukui. (I’m going to write about Echizen soba in a next entry. Echizen soba: A Fukui specialty with a 400-year history)
Among the many restaurants in Fukui where you can get sauce katsudon, Yoroppaken is the best known. I recently went to Yoroppaken Sohonten and had it there. The restaurant draws a lot of people, and I’d often seen long lines out front.
Yoroppaken was established in 1913 in Tokyo, and in 1924 Yoroppaken Sohonten appeared at its current location in Fukui.
This was my first time to go into the restaurant, so I was very excited.(It takes 15 minutes on foot from JR Fukui Station to the restaurant.) It was very clean inside and the tables were shining. I sat down and ordered some sauce katsudon.
After a few minutes it was brought out to me. It consisted of three sauce-covered pork cutlets on hot rice. The cutlets weren’t very thick, so I was easily able to bite pieces off. They were light, crispy, and delicious, and the rice (which also had some sauce on it) was tasty too. I ate the cutlets and rice in alternating bites. The proportion of meat to rice was just right. I was happy with the meal, and afterward I decided I’d like to come again.
People in Fukui love sauce katsudon. I recommend having it at least once if you come to Fukui.
Next time I’m going to write about Echizen soba.
<Yoroppaken Sohonten Information>
Open:11:00 a.m.~8:00 p.m.
Closed:Tuesdays, every other Monday
Website(Japanese):http://yo-roppaken.gourmet.coocan.jp/
(References)
「わが町、グルメ自慢!第14回ソースカツ丼 福井市」(執筆:福井市商工労働部おもてなし観光推進室 青山)(ライフプラン情報誌ALPS2014年7月号Vol.118)
「福井「地理・地名・地図」の謎」(編著:実業之日本社)(発行: 実業之日本社 )