There’s a chef in Tokyo who wants you to eat wagyu for every meal – including dessert.
Kentaro Nakahara of meat-focused restaurant is making us forget what we know about Japanese dessert.
Here, Mochi and green tea ice cream take a back seat to make way for an unusual, not-so-sweet treat: a wagyu katsu sandwich or ‘sando’ as it’s known in Japan.
Japanese cuisine enthusiasts will be familiar with both wagyu and katsu, but they may be surprised to see the two items on a dessert menu.
Nakahara is famous for the wagyu he serves at Sumibiyakiniku Nakahara. It’s A5 grade, which is the highest possible quality in terms of marbling, yield, firmness, colour and texture. The katsu (made with fine panko crumbs) forms a crunchy coating around the thick slab of meat that melts in your mouth, providing an extra layer of texture and flavour, which complements the white bread, butter and rich tomato jam.
The katsu forms a crunchy coating around the thick slab of meat providing an extra layer of texture and flavour, which complements the white bread, butter and rich tomato jam.
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Wagyu katsu sandwiches like Makahara’s are reasonably popular in Japan, but are yet to take off elsewhere in a big way as chicken or pork katsu sambos have. This is likely because of the cost of ingredients – wagyu can go for as much as , a price that’s prohibitive for restaurateurs and diners alike.
In Sydney, we rarely see wagyu beef in sandwich proportions – it’s more likely to be thinly sliced for sukiyaki, a kind of Japanese hot pot, or tataki, a dish similar to sashimi.
Nevertheless, wagyu katsu sandos are appearing more frequently on social media and on menus outside Japan.
In California, an offshoot of popular Japanese restaurant sees customers lining up for wagyu katsu sandwiches every Sunday at various locations around Hollywood. The pop up is aptly called , and it’s gathering a strong online following. In New York, you can pick up a six-ounce A5 Miyazaki filet katsu sandwich for US$85.00 (AU$109.00) at Izakaya and sake restaurant . Expensive for a sandwich? Possibly. Worth every penny? Absolutely.
In Australia, wagyu sandwiches are a little harder to come by. Premium Sydney butcher Victor Churchill offers a Wagyu cheese burger at its outpost at the Sydney Fish Markets. Canberra’s and Bar offers a wagyu tongue sandwich with mustard and sauce gribiche for AU$10.00.
If you’re hunting for katsu, you might have to settle for chicken or pork cutlets – both popular items on Japanese menus around the country.
To find a restaurant that serves A5 wagyu beef for dessert, we might just have to book a flight to Tokyo.
