Yongfook is a web producer and usability consultant based in Tokyo

In Japan, deep-frying anything is like giving it an inventive new twist that everyone sees as a heroically bold challenge to the boundaries of modern cuisine. Much like the application of an attractive mayonnaise lattice or the presence of any kind of small, raw egg, the culinary device of deep-frying something is seen as a kind of sex-up tool for Japanese gourmets. I can just imagine the scene at the 22nd Annual World Championship Fine Cooking Tournament when the world’s top chefs show off their respective wares:

French Cook: Allo my name is Francois and I am ze best cook in all of ze France. I have prepared for you today a sauce using the freshest truffles man has ever seen, which will help to flavour the beautiful baby new potatoes that I will flambé for you in a combination of garlic, butter and white wine, whilst making love to a beautiful woman. This is all to accompany my delicious apple and red berry pork medallions, which are so delicious people have been known to die from joy after eating them. Sign this before you put in ze mouth.

Italian Cook: Hey letsa go! My a name is a Mario. No relation! Tis the joke! Today I a will a make for you the best meal you a will a ever a eat! I take a the freshest pasta and we eat a the basil and red snapper tagliatelle, I put a dash of lime for a the flavour! Then a I a prepare a the dessert, a 10-layer coffee and almond mousse cake, with home made soft biscotti, a dessert so beautiful people have been known to die just by looking at it. Sign this before you a open your eyes.

Japanese Cook: TODAY I DEEP FRY SANDWICH FOR YOU. CRISPY! COLD NOW BUT STILL CAN EAT!

By anything, I really do mean anything - in that, if there is a non-deep-fried food product in Japan, there is a good chance that somewhere in the country, someone is coating it with breadcrumbs, throwing it in hot oil, putting the prefix “Crispy” in front of it and calling himself the genius of the world, infinity ever.

Perhaps the origin of all this is the king of the deep-frieds, the mighty KATSU. Katsu is a bastardisation of the word “cutlet” and usually refers to some kind of meat that has been deep fried in breadcrumbs. Tonkatsu, a popular Japanese dish, is a deep-fried pork cutlet, served with a sour plum-based sauce, rice and usually some salad and miso soup.

Something I would always bring up about this country when people proclaim it is a bastion of healthy, fresh eating whilst I cover my ears and say SHUT UP SHUT UP YOU ARE WRONG is the fact that one of the main Japanese stalemate dishes found almost everywhere is Tonkatsu and that the central item “Katsu” in that dish also manages to infiltrate all sorts of other dishes like curry and sandwiches, like a kind of eccentric 70 year old British ex-spy who dresses up in cold-war era Russian military outfits and drunkenly crashes random university parties by shooting down the back door with a Kalashnikov.

The popularity of Tonkatsu and similar dishes means the humble Katsu has become something of a modern culinary icon here, whereas at home in England deep fried meat cutlets are mass produced by a company called Bernard Matthews and are eaten exclusively by students and gypsy families who need something quick to eat before they all drop some acid and watch The Magic Roundabout until it all starts to make sense. I mean back when I was a poor student I would put a Bernard Matthews’ Turkey Steak in between 2 slices of bread and call that dinner, whilst being quietly embarrassed at the shadow of a human being I had become. In Japan, you can buy pretty much that exact same thing, already in a sandwich, at a real life shop and not be laughed at. In fact, people will be your friend for eating it. Probably. Anyway the point is shut up, I’m right.

Whilst I’m sure with that with the student and gypsy demographic if you mentioned the idea of deep-fried processed ham that comes in packets and doesn’t need to be heated up would make their eyes glow with an insane fire as if to say “give me now you give me now feed face give” for the rest of the normal human population, such a product has limited appeal.

And that is the food I am reviewing in this article, one of many types of disgusting food that fill the horrific “otsumami” genre of foods in Japan - a genre we would probably refer to as “beer snacks”. Now, obviously when drinking beer one doesn’t expect the scope of snack food to be especially high class. Whilst I don’t want to nibble on petit fours or eat caviar-filled omelettes made exclusively from Faberge eggs with my glass of beer, I could never understand why the standard of food has to drop so catastrophically low in Japan when it comes to food items that are intrinsically linked to an almost cultural level with drinking beer. Typical otsumami items being octopus bits in wasabi-flavoured slime and that old favourite, dried, chewy squid.

Appearance Somehow, probably through the use of involving Real Breadcrumbs â„¢ in the production process, these quite remarkably resemble the real food item they are trying to bootleg, in a dangerous sort of way. Its like making a promise that you can’t keep to a 5 year old child but you know that if you ply them with enough alcohol they won’t care anyway. I think that’s the general philosophy behind many otsumami snacks - you’ll be drunk so you won’t really care what the thing looks or tastes like, just as long as its easy to grab and doesn’t need heating or cooking. What I dislike about this version of sos katsu is the horrific brown stripe of sauce ALREADY APPLIED that stripes the width of each paper-thin piece of katsu. Rating: 1/5

Taste and Smell I notice that my first question was answered almost immediately upon biting into it, that being “how have they managed to preserve the meat inside”, the answer being they cunningly got around the head-scratching problem of preserving meat for, you know, EVER, by simply not putting any in. Which means this is basically a stick of deep fried breadcrumbs drenched in sweet and sour sauce. That smells overwhelmingly of fish. Rating: 1/5

Fear Factor I have to say things like this frighten me more than things that are just outright gross. Give me something moving but at least with the guarantee of freshness over this, an item so loaded with preservatives that just by looking at it I am afraid that my immune system will prepare itself by filling my mouth with so many antibodies that my jaw explodes off my face. Rating: 3/5 (high = scary)

Health Implications It is a piece of deep fried batter, loaded with preservatives. Not good. Rating: 1/5

Overall Rating for children’s otsumami style SOS KATSU: 1/5

Never ever buy these.

PS. I really don’t have anything against gypsies. I would rather just say “the working class” as I really mean low-income families, but then that makes it all class warry and political. Its ok to mock gypsies though as they aren’t humans like us, and they are frightened of computers so they will never see this website.

PPS. If anyone finds any problems with the site please let me know. I’m hearing that it looks funny in Windows IE, which is entirely possible as I haven’t had a chance to check it on Windows yet. Some people are finding stuff like the navigation is absent/crooked and the bottom section near the comments is off-center. Cheers in advance.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 5th, 2005 at 5:48 pm and is filed under Food Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.