Minami

Minami is, in my opinion, the best Japanese restaurant in town. It's one of my favourite restaurants and the item I order the most is the chicken katsu don (pictured). Not because it's the only good thing on the menu. Of course not. Just about everything served in Minami is good. I order it so often because Minami is the furthest of the regular restaurants that I eat at, which means that I don't really get to go there all that often. Now Minami has the best food, but it's too far to walk to during lunch break and the other Japanese restaurants located closer to where I work and live serve decent (but not as good) everything except chicken katsu don (and yakiniku beef). Chicken katsu don everywhere else is tasteless crap. So I can get decent teriyaki chicken, sushi, Japanese curry, tempura and what not but not chicken katsu don, and that is why I always feel that should order chicken katsu don when I do go to Minami.

If you don't know what this thing that I've been going on and on about is, let me attempt to describe it. It's rice topped with battered, fried, boneless chicken pieces, egg, onions and spring onions and some shredded seaweed, steamed with a special savoury sauce that is like soya sauce but no where near as salty or strong tasting. I absolutely love it. Having a bite of the steaming rice soaked with the special sauce and runny egg with some of the sweet onion pieces, a bit of the tasty battered chicken and the contrasting taste of the bits of shredded seaweed (seaweed tastes like seaweed, I can't describe it), I tell ya, it is THE MOST satisfying and comforting thing on a cold day. And even though the serving doesn't look very big, it always fills me up. Man just writing about it makes my mouth water!

On the whole, everything at Minami is just that little bit (if not more) better than the equivalent item at any of the other Japanese places here. Their dishes just have that little extra flavour and 'kick'.