Tonkatsu Hamachan 浜ちゃん
Add: 176 Jiaozhou Lu, near Beijing Lu / 胶州路176号，近北京西路
Tel: 6256 8674
Hours: 11:30am-2pm, 5:30-10pm
Price: 65 RMB/set
Visited: Sep 2010
Located right across from Urbn Hotel in Jing’an area, Hamachan is a small 6-table restaurant specializing in tontaksu – Japanese style fried pork cutlet. Rumor has it that this place serves THE best tonkatsu in town…
The pork cutlet comes in two varieties, ロース (fatty) and ヒレ(lean), both at 65 RMB/set. Actually, there isn’t a significant difference in the meat itself other than the extra layer of fat on the fatty cut, which I prefer because it’s slightly juicier and the crust is thinner. All tonkatsu is served with special tonkatsu sauce and yellow mustard. The set also includes pickles, miso soup, shredded cabbage, and unlimited refill of rice.
Side order of potato salad (30 RMB).
The place was quite empty even during lunch hours, which was surprising because Hamachan appears to be a popular place on restaurant review websites. The good thing is that most diners were Japanese, which suggests that this place is authentic to a certain degree.
Overall, Hamachan was ok. The meat was a bit bland without the tonkatsu sauce, and not nearly juicy enough (Has anyone seen the とっちの料理ショー/料理東西軍 episode on tonkatsu? That’s how all tonkatsu should be!) Hamachan wasn’t bad, and might even be one of the better tonkatsu places in Shanghai…so if you happen to be craving tonkatsu, you at least have somewhere to go. Just don’t expect too much.