18 November, 2011

【Local Gourmet Food】 Kakogawa Katsumeshi

Recently, local gourmet dishes are becoming very popular in Japan. These dishes are usually inexpensive, and use popular local ingredients. These local gourmet dishes are also usually easy to make, for example, noodles (like ramen and fried noodles), hamburgers, curry, bowl dishes and fried food. Many of the cities promote their local gourmet food to attract visitors from other parts of Japan.

Some of the Local Gourmet Food

For the next several blogs, we’re going to introduce some of the famous local gourmet dishes from Hyogo. So today, we’ll start with “katsumeshi.”
Have you ever heard of katsudon? Katsudon is tonkatsu, or pork cutlet, cooked in a soy sauce - based broth with egg placed on top of bowl of rice. Katsudon is popular throughout Japan, but katsumeshi is basically a western-style katsudon.

Katsumeshi (Link) 

Katsumeshi

  What’s unique about Katsumeshi is that it uses a beef instead of pork. Instead of using broth and eggs, it uses demi-glace sauce, and also, you use chopsticks to eat katsumeshi instead of a spoon or fork.
  It’s a popular dish found in many magazines and pamphlets, but I’ve never had it before, so I finally got a chance to give it a try! 

Katsumeshi Sign

The restaurant I went to had two options; regular wagyu (Japanese beef) or supreme kuroge-wagyu (black-haired Japanese beef). So I decided to go with the supreme.The katsumeshi was covered with demi-glace sauce, and looked VERY delicious.

Katsumeshi at Lucky Shokudo

The katsumeshi here came with miso-soup, salad and fruit. During lunch time, it also comes with a free drink. It was \1350 (regular was \1100) so it may be a bit extravagant for lunch, but I was extremely satisfied.
  Depending on the restaurant, they also offer pork cutlet and deep-fried prawns.

  Kakogawa is located between Kobe and Himeji, so if you’re planning on visiting Himeji Castle, get off at Kakogawa and have Katsumeshi for lunch!

  Katsumeshi can be found at restaurants and cafes near Kakogawa train station.
Katsumeshi Map http://www.kako-navi.jp/katsu-meshi/map.html Japanese

  Our next blog is going to be on the B-1 Grand Prix, a very popular event that was held in Himeji between November 12 to 13th. See you next time!


HanaHyogo Tourism Association)