Tonkatsu at Saboten Parco Marina

For the past 4 days, I was running an event at Suntec. Which meant that my notions of eating healthy went out of the window. However, I refused to eat the crappy boxed lunches that were catered and went foraging for better food options in the Marina Square area.

I love pork and when it is breaded and fried......need I say more? I traditionally get my Tonkatsu fix at Tonkichi but I remember reading that Saboten did a mean tonkatsu, so I headed there during a lunch break for some fried pork.

What I loved about Saboten was that the attention to detail. They have the usual stuff that comes with Tonkatsu but each item is slightly different and you could tell that the chef had thought about how each individual item would complement each other to deliver a meal that is outstanding. Instead of the regular toasted sesame seeds, you had a mixed batch of black and white sesame seeds. Visually it looked a lot nicer and of course tasted smokier.

The soup was amazing.....it had kelp, little cubes of tofu and get this....pork fat. The pork stock was rich and restorative. I finished mine. Unfortunately, I did not take a picture of this soup.

The cabbage was a green cabbage instead of the regular white. Finely shredded, it was crunchy and came with 2 different dressings which I did not use. I feel that the green cabbage is actually sweeter and has more flavour. It went very well with the fried pork.

Finally we have the main star of the meal.....the fried pork. At other tonkatu places, the pork cutlet is dredged in flour and egg and then breaded with panko. However, at Saboten, they varied this by using a batter. This batter encased a nice cut of pork loin that had a layer of fat. The batter kept the meat moist and tender while lending a savoury crunch. I would rate this 8.5/10. BH is demanding that we have our next Tonkatsu dinner there.