Wow, it’s finally a non-ramen review. About time.
This time I went to Gyukatsu Kyoto Katsugyu, which I will refer to as Gyukatsu because the full name is a mouthful. This restaurant was a novel one: they serve beef katsu, rare beef at that. I’ve only seen pork and chicken used in Katsu, so Gyukatsu was definitely worth investigating.
Gyukatsu is located close to the Yonge Street and Church Street intersection, slightly west of Yonge-Dundas Square. The vast majority of restaurants in my food reviews so far have been Japanese. Particularly, ones that claim to originate from Japan and open a store in Toronto. It’s interesting to see that this city gets a good amount of these international stores.
Food
Gyukatsu’s menu is on the pricier end. They offer cheaper items like sandwiches (or ‘Sando’ as they call it), but I doubt they would be filling to most people. If Gyukatsu uses high quality beef like they claim, then the high prices make sense.
Just keep that in mind; this place isn’t super budget friendly. If you feel like spending a lot of money, there are dishes that can get close to $100 by using fancy beef.
Original Chuck Flap Gyukatsu Zen ($26)
This was a 6oz of beef turned into a cutlet. Honestly, it looked like it hadn’t been cooked at all when I first got it.
In hindsight, I realized that I took some pretty poor pictures. Every ‘Zen’ dish comes with extra side dishes and sauces. There’s a bowl of rice and miso soup that aren’t in the picture. These, plus the cabbage at the back, are refillable.
To the top left is a half cooked (?) egg. To the top right is a sauce made of miso, garlic, and butter. There’s also a small dish with salt, soy sauce, and worcester sauce that is also not in the picture. The picture below shows what the real set looks like. The only difference was that the Chuck Flap didn’t have the curry sauce, that seems to be an optional side order.
Notice the instructions to the right of the poster. They tell you how to eat the cutlet.
I gave each of them a try (except for the curry sauce) and will rank them from best to worse, in my opinion.
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Soy sauce + wasabi
Has an extremely savoury taste. Synergizes with the beef very well. You don’t mix the wasabi into the soy sauce. Instead, you put a little dot of wasabi on the beef itself, dip that into the soy sauce, and eat it like the picture below. The savoury flavour neutralizes the wasabi, so you won’t feel anything.
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Negi miso sauce
Also very savoury, and sweet. Reminded me of honey mustard for some reason. I enjoyed this, but I am very sensitive to butter and it started to get heavy after a while. I think most people might prefer this sauce as their favourite
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Salt
It’s like adding salt to a steak. Can’t go wrong with it
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Worcester sauce
It’s worcester sauce, also can’t go wrong. But the other sauces are better
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Egg (with a little soy sauce)
Adds an extremely subtle yolk taste to the beef. Might appeal to a particular taste
The cutlet by itself is savoury like a steak. Combined with the sauces, I really enjoyed the flavour. This dish felt like a new way to experience a psuedo-steak. The breading doesn’t really make it feel like a katsu dish, but it contributes to the oily flavour that really stands out here.
Plus, the refillable rice, cabbage, and miso soup were nice to have.
Thoughts
I think Gyukatsu is pretty great. The food is certainly unique and the process of eating it is an experience in and of itself.
I’m not sure if I would personally consider this as ‘katsu’; it feels to me more like Gyukatsu offers something different. What they offer happens to look like katsu though.
Overall, I would recommend Gyukatsu. If you want to try something pretty distinct, it’s worth a visit. Maybe the more expensive wagyu dishes offer something even cooler.