The Place Located on Tras Street in the heart of Tanjong Pagar, Tonshou is a new Japanese tonkatsu specialty restaurant which is run by the same group behind Seoul Noodle Shop. Despite being new, Tonshou is already quite popular and it was full on a weekday night which I visited.

The interior of the shophouse restaurant is counter seating and it reminds me of those tonkatsu specialty restaurants in Tokyo, especially with the open kitchen and hooks on the wall to hang your jacket. Interestingly, the brand is not from Japan but hails from Busan, South Korea where there are four outlets currently. This is Tonshou’s first overseas outlet. 

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The Food The pork cutlet at Tonshou is charcoal-grilled and there are various cuts on its menu. There are various condiments and ways to enjoy the tonkatsu here – Dipping the pork cutlet in Maldon Salt, Tonshou’s Special Sauce, Wasabi, Lemon Kosho, or Mustard. 

I had the Hire Katsu Set (S$28) where each set comes with refillable rice, miso soup, and cabbage salad. The pork tenderloin cutlet here is characterised by the slightly pink interior of the pork and I find its taste tender, juicy and flavourful. I understand that this uses Australian pork.    

The other cut I tried was the Hokkaido Kurobuta Rosu Katsu Set (S$32) which features pork loin from Hokkaido. What I like about the texture of the tonkatsu here is that the exterior of the meat is not too greasy, though this Rosu cut is less flavourful for me as compared to the Hire Katsu.

Portion wise, it is quite generous in the sense that I was full at the end of it.

My preferred way of having the pork is to pair it with either the lemon kosho sauce or Tonshou’s special brown sauce. Do ask for a refill of the miso soup which is a cloudy mix along with some shreds of pork meat.      

For sides, I highly recommend trying the Menchi Katsu (S$6 per piece) which is a nice and crisp minced pork cutlet, as well as the Ebi Katsu (S$5 per piece) aka Shrimp Tempura where the golden-brown batter is awesome.  

Rants No reservations are taken and given that it is all counter seating, it is not so ideal for big groups. 

Will I Return Again? The idea of Tonshou is a great addition to Singapore’s dining scene given that there are not many specialised tonkatsu restaurants in town. I like that restaurants keep to one specialty dish on their menu and execute it well. In the case of Tonshou, it fills up a gap in the tonkatsu dining scene in Singapore which is a nice alternative if you are unable to jet off to Japan to enjoy this classic Japanese cuisine. 

TheRantingPanda says:
Taste bud: 4/5
Hole in the pocket: 3.5/5
Ambience: 3.5/5
Overall Experience: 4/5 

Tonshou 
51 Tras Street 
Singapore 078990 

Opening Hours 
Monday to Sunday: 11am to 9pm 

Ranted by The Ranter