Would you be surprised to hear that some of the best comfort food for homesick Westerners can be found at Japanese restaurant Saboten? We stumble across this chain when our dear, aged and somewhat blinkered parents are visiting China. After six days of culinary experimentation, they are in need of something “crisp, not oily and consisting of animal parts not discernable from their outlines.”
We don’t do fast food, thank you very much, so it is the unlikely combination of Saboten’s tonkatsu pork cutlets with rice and shredded cabbage salad that comes to the rescue. The chain first opened in 1966 and has over 500 branches worldwide. We visit a Taikoo Li South branch, one of three in Beijing (additional branches can be found in Wangfujing and the Parkview Green mall.) The restaurant’s resplendent display of fake food models in the window confirms its suitability: the 5-foot tall display of innocuous-looking breaded meat and boiled rice beckon us in with an alluring plainness.
The main event is the loin set (RMB78). It’s a sliced pork cutlet in breadcrumbs, accompanied by white rice, miso soup and a large bowl of cabbage. If moisture is a must, there’s a pestle and mortar full of sesame seeds to crush into some thick vinegary sauce – but we suggest the truly homesick forgo the accompaniment. It’s a meal of recognizable textures, monochrome palates and distinctly uncomplicated dining. Unexciting to some, maybe, but we find it immensely satisfying. It’s what your school canteen wishes it could have prepared but never came anywhere close.
There’s a more zesty raddish tenderloin (RMB74, top and below), or a claypot-style tenderloin katsuni with egg and soy sauce (RMB68). The truly adventurous might go for Saboten’s hotpot (RMB98-135) but that would be like ordering the french fries at a Chinese takeaway. The kushiage options (yakitori-like breadcrumbed chuan’r) include scallop (RMB12), asaparagus with bacon (RMB10) and lotus root with minced pork (RMB8) – all recommended. Unusually for a visit to a Japanese restaurant there’s almost no foodstuff we’re unacquainted with on the menu, save perhaps for a can of lychee beer.
Comfort levels are high when the bill is ordered – enough even to entertain the idea of a lamb-spine hotpot lunch the next day. In fact, a little later research reveals (and perhaps we should have realized this earlier on) tonkatsu was invented at the turn of the 20th century in Japan as an attempt to recreate the European cuisine of former colonialist occupiers. Credit where it’s due then – it has passed the ‘homesick parent test’ with flying colors, as good an endorsement as any, we feel. Take note, all you Chinese ‘Western-style bakeries’.
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