Katsu not so hip

Yeah, another shop to sell tonkatsu. It is not hard to understand why, as when certain restaurants become unexpectedly popular, they will copy the shop out, including menu, interior design, and even the way to name their shop by introducing Japanese romaji. However, they don't seem to be able to copy the quality of other shops.

HIP Katsu at Harbour City claims that they do nice tonkatsu in their menu, but we don't think so. Like Tonkichi, we had a bowl of sesame for preparing the special sauce for the cutlet, but the smell of sesame revealed that it was not good quality Japanese sesame. I don't know if it is me or what, the sesame was not like that in Tonkichi (the famous and excellent tonkatsu shop in the town) which can be easily ground into powder. Low quality, really.

I hate to say this, but it looks like many shops have such weird conception that having such tools or special sauces would make your menu or your food more "professional", or high-class. That is so wrong. If your food is no good, no sauce can revive its poor taste. Now, let's see how good the pork is, and see if the sauce is to enhance the meat or to cover up the mess.

The tonkatsu came, and it looked fine. However, the pork was a little tough and dry while most of it was tendon and fat. The crunchy coating didn't stick to the meat at all, and completely fell off when you picked one slice up with your chopsticks. I heard from others that this restaurant served warm cutlets instead of hot ones, but mine was fine. It was not sizzling hot but it was certainly just done from the kitchen. Still that could not help the low score of this piece of meat.

My friend ordered another thing, the tempura set with rice. The tempura looked okay but again, was not of high quality. The batter was a little bit too thick while the shrimps and vegetable inside were just so-so.

Being average was nothing bad, but if you had such a high price tag, people expect much more. The shop is located in a shopping mall which is now frequently occupied by a lot of Chinese shoppers from mainland, and perhaps this is the reason: they are the people who just have too much money to spend, and this restaurant just wants to make the most out of them. Anyway, if you are a picky eater, or if you are looking for some good Japanese food, leave this place and visit other restaurants. HIP has so much room to improve, but from the services and the skills of the chefs, I don't think they are willing to go further. They thought they were selling excellent food and services but actually they are not.

I would pay more for much better food, and those fancy Japanese bowls and so-called traditional sauces won't help to score more from me if the food is crappy. No one likes to spend on disappointment, and this restaurant has expensive one.