- A video review of Tonkotsu Ginza Bairin
the best katsu anywhere in the USA.
I'm Chris, this is Yellow Productions.
I do travel guides
that are fun, informing, and entertaining.
This is the traveling princess joining us for this meal.
This restaurant is specializing in their breaded pork loin.
You can get the pork set or the Katsudon, I like both.
I'm going to show you what we have in a second
but we ordered the pork set
the special Kurobuta pork set
which have you ordered that for 30 some dollars
then the beer is only a dollar and 30 cents
with a big head on it.
And So the sauce with this comes with these Sesame seeds
that you basically stir up with this wooden stirrer
come in and take a look at this.
So this thing has this edge on it that's rough
and you basically grind it yourself.
And then after you're done grinding this
you can add a little bit of a sweet sauce to it.
So you get these ground seeds
plus the sweet sauce for dipping the pork
that's going to come into our table in just a moment.
As I'm grinding this, the Sesame smell really comes
out quite a bit and you can smell it
and smell the sesame aroma tastes like a
baked Sesame pastry.
Traveling princess is really interested in this.
This is her first time at a katsu restaurant.
She's dressed as a strawberry today.
Pretty sweet.
Okay, so we ordered both
of the items that I recommended and that bowl is really hot
so I'm gonna put it down,
but this is the special katsudon set, $29.
In addition to the katsudon, which has rice, pork and egg
on top, we spent $2 and 50 cents, take a look at this,
this is the tonjiru.
The tonjiru is a miso soup that also has pork in it
and some daikon radish, and carrots.
This is pretty tasty.
We never had it before.
Get this, you get unlimited refills of the soup,
the pickles, and the cabbage.
And on top of the katsudon, it's got egg in it,
but it's also got this like really runny egg up there.
And so we break that open.
Then you can see that helps just kind of
like melt on top of the katsu.
And if we look inside of this
this pork is like some of the juiciest pork ever.
It's too hot to eat right now.
So I'm going to come back and eat in just a second.
She wants to eat it right now
but toddlers have no self control.
And then underneath it is some rice and some onions
with just the appropriately sauced amount of rice.
If you know, if you wonder how I know how this tastes
I've eaten at this place over 20 times,
my favorite place to eat
anytime I come to O'ahu.
Let me show you the katsu set next.
So this is the katsu set
she's pointing because she wants the katsudon
that we saw over there.
This is the special katsu,
these things come in like four different varieties.
This is about the $30 variety.
This has the regular miso soup.
The katsu is cooked fresh to order,
extra cabbage right here.
And if we pick up one of these, then you can see
this is another nice juicy pork right there.
She is stealing some soup that soup thief.
Before we can eat the Katsu.
We've got our sesames and some sauce.
They're particularly known for this sauce.
It's a specialty of theirs.
We pour it in there and then we get our chopsticks
and we stir that up.
If you're looking at my table and think it's kind of wet
we did just have a soup casualty, so.
It's super juicy and super tender
and just the right amount of crunch to it.
Delicious. You got to get this when you come to O'ahu.
Now, if you like veggies,
it's got some cabbage on the side
and there are two types of dressing.
There's a Sesame dressing and a vinegar dressing.
I like the Sesame dressing better than the vinegar dressing.
And you can kind of like
squirt that down there on the cabbage.
And then you can pick up a little bit
of cabbage and a little bit of pork
together.
If you aren't trying to rush, because you've got a toddler
on the side that wants to spill your soup.
And that gives it just a little bit more crunch,
a little bit more cold,
a little bit more veggie to go with that pork.
It's really good too.
It's really good they
have unlimited refills with the miso soup.
Since, we lost a lot of it on the table.
So we finished the meal.
The katsudon is empty.
The katsu plate is empty, at the end of the meal.
They bring us a hot green tea.
That's really quite hot, but really quite good.
I know now why they give the discount
for the beer for the katsu set.
The beer goes really well with it.
I'm not a huge beer drinker
but this was really good going with it.
And the Japanese green tea at the end,
delicious to wash it down.
Now on a scale of one to five tophers.
Because people who watch this channel know
we rate all of our restaurants, hotels
on a scale of one to five tophers,
this gets four and a half tophers.
So let's talk about why I got four and a half tophers.
The katsu is amazing.
It's the best in the US and actually
if we just rated this against
other katsu restaurants in the US
It would perhaps get five tophers, but we actually,
just before the pandemic,
the last place we went to was Tokyo.
And we ate at some Michelin starred katsu restaurants.
That,
were a little fancier.
Were a little nicer.
The decor was a little bit better and a similar price point
but you do have to go to Japan to get those.
So, as far as katsu in the US goes
this is top-notch now OC girl and I were discussing,
would we get the katsudon, the rice bowl?
Or would we get the katsu set next time?
And we're split on it.
I liked the katsudon.
I liked the saucy, egg-y, moist thing.
OC girl really likes just the breaded katsu
because she likes to taste the high quality of the meat.
So if you have two people get both and split the difference.
We just got the bill as it came right here.
And it shows, you know, it's a real Japanese restaurant
cause it says JCB on it right there.
Now, if you don't like katsu, but you want to
try some Japanese Western food or you can't get in here.
Cause it's really, it gets busy.
Like you have to make reservations during busy season
try their restaurant next door.
It's specialized in Japanese, Western cuisine
like Hamburg steak and beef katsu
which is a different one.
But their sister restaurant, because it's newer,
a little less busy than this one.
Traveling princess, what do you think?
she thinks this.
Oh, and the time we were here,
keep a look out for coupons because there was actually a
a coupon on the lookout for like 10% off.
And it was good for this restaurant
and also the Western restaurant.
What was this coop-, people always ask,
"Chris, what was that coupon book in?"
It was in the O'ahu's best coupon book
that you find out on the street in Waikiki.
So now there's a few different types
of pork on the menu here
and the prices range for the katsudon from like $16 to $29.
And you might be wondering, is the $29 pork a gimmick?
And I've tried the different porks here
the cheaper one and the more expensive one.
And let me tell you the more expensive one is not a gimmick.
It's worth it. Just go for it.
This premium pork, you won't find in almost any restaurant.
And she's helping us
with the bill with that coupon that we brought.
It was nice of her, I forgot to show it to her before.
And she saw the coupon book cause we were busy
and she's like, I'll give you that discount.
So I love the staff here too.
Now, if you find it too busy, you can't get a reservation.
You can't get in.
They also do to go.
So go ahead and do to go.
They're on Yelp.
There seems like reservations on Yelp
but we didn't see any reservations on Yelp.
It seems like you can make reservations if you come here.
You can call them.
We actually got here at 10:50 AM
before they opened at 11 to get our table at 12:45.
They didn't have any other tables at opening time
popular place, not a lot of seats, but it's worth it.
- So we love this place so much.
We came back just a couple days later
for the special Kurobuta pork.
This is their premium, most expensive delicious one.
Cause they were out of it,
they only have 10 orders every day.
Look at how juicy that looks.
It's really tender.
Moist.
You probably wouldn't even need to cut it.
You could probably cut this with a spoon.
But you got to get here when they open,
for the special one.
- Well as usual, I won't say goodbye
cause I'll see you in the next video.
If this is too expensive and you're looking
for cheaper things to eat, you might enjoy checking out
my Waikiki cheapest eats video right here.