meemalee

A lot of people think Japanese food is just raw fish. Whilst sashimi is one of my favourite things to eat, this notion couldn't be further from the truth. My husband's favourite food from Japan is tonkatsu . A pork cutlet which has been dredged in flour, egg and panko breadcrumbs before being deep-fried till it's crisp and golden yet still juicy and without a whisper of grease. Like tempura, Japan's more famous fried food, tonkatsu actually came from Portuguese traders in the 19th century, and was originally considered to be yoshoku - or Western food - but it has now been firmly adopted as washoku - Japanese cuisine. Tonkatsu is made with boneless pork loin steaks or chops (with a ribbon of fat if possible), though I sometimes go left-field and use pork loin slices cut for shabu-shabu which makes for a daintier dish. With a tussock of thinly-shredded cabbage, a dab of yellow mustard, a drizzle of fruity tonkatsu sauce, some pickles and some hot sesame rice, a meal...

I'm one of those lucky souls who commutes into town from the 'burbs, and the stop that my husband (a fellow commuter) and I usually come into is London Charing Cross. The way into work is generally fine (apart from never getting a seat, and being crushed into strangers' armpits), but on the way back, invariably something will go wrong to delay our journey home - leaves on the line, signalling problems and one time, memorably, a cloth factory in New Cross went up in smoke. Whilst we often resign ourselves to waiting, and scrunching our faces up angrily at the departures board, more often than not, we will decide that this is God's way of telling us to go away and have dinner and simply try again later. Upstairs at Hazuki Our usual haunt is Hazuki , a little two-storey Japanese restaurant hidden away on Chandos Place, past Oscar Wilde and just up from the station, and we always head straight upstairs. An old faithful, when snow is the cause of disruption, Hazuki will war...