I guess at this point there’s not lying to you anymore. We love our deep fried foods such as chicken karaage or deep fried chicken wings. Ok, so we get that it’s not the healthiest choice to make but deep fried foods can be an occasional indulgence. So we’re very happy Saku on Broadway opened up!
That’s why I decided to take my friend to Saku for their tonkatsu (fried pork cutlet) during lunch. Note that Saku has two locations – one in downtown and the Saku on Broadway. We went to the Broadway one because I had previously been to the downtown location with Howie. This location is only a few months old and I wanted to see how it compared.
THE WAIT
There’s a lot of hype surrounding Saku and we noticed that during peak hours there’s always a lineup. We decided to be smart and have a late lunch at 1:30, thinking there would be a wait at all. To our surprise, when we arrived and still had to put our names down on a waiting list. We waited for about 15 minutes before we got seated at a counter. The staff were adept at handling the demand – they will hand you a menu when you’re waiting outside so you can order ahead and get served when you’re seated.
THE FOOD
I kept things simple and ordered the Rosu Katsu which is the pork loin. It arrived with rice, salad, miso soup and some Japanese pickled vegetables. Note that all the side dishes except the pickled vegetables are refillable. The staff will come around and check on you if they see you running low or you can flag someone over and they will happily get you a refill. I had 3 bowls of miso soup and 1 salad refill and they were always prompt with the refill.
Look how crispy the tonkatsu is! That delicious crunch when biting down is why I love tonkatsu. I like that the pork loin is slightly fatty but not overwhelmingly so. It’s not the most flavorful but Saku provides salt flakes and tonkatsu sauce which I made sure to take advantage of.
Here is my friend’s Miso Tonkatsu. As you can see, there is sauce on top of the pork. While my friend says the sauce was yummy, it did soften up the breading so she would skip it next time.
I gotta give a shout out to the sesame dressing here. It was creamy and had a delicate sesame flavor. I deliberately ordered more salad just so I could eat more of this sauce.
CONCLUSION
If you like tonkatsu, give Saku on Broadway a try! Just make sure you get there with the expectation that you will wait. The service is very friendly and there are a lot of staff around. My recommendation is that you don’t get any meats with sauces on them as it’ll soften up the breading. Show up hungry and ready to take advantage of all the free refills!
