After shutting its doors several months back, Suzuki’s — a French restaurant right outside Yokota’s main gate — has re-emerged with a new look, a new name and a new menu.
Now called Suzuki’s Katsusho, the restaurant has gotten rid of its fancier, and often very high-priced, French cuisine, replacing it with a variety of traditional Japanese tonkatsu-style food at reasonable prices.
Tonkatsu are breaded and fried pork cutlets often served with shredded cabbage, miso soup and rice.
At Suzuki’s Katsusho, the cutlets are breaded with a homemade mix and cooked nice and crispy, not over-fried, which preserves the pork’s tenderness and flavor. In addition to the cabbage, soup and rice set you can also get a katsu curry plate, a rice bowl topped with a cutlet and egg, and a few dishes with cutlets of other meats such as chicken and prawn.
The menu isn’t very extensive, with maybe around a dozen or so dishes in total. However, what they lack in quantity, they make up for in quality.
The restaurant takes pride in using fresh ingredients and homemade sauce, and even goes so far as to explain where a lot of their food comes from, including that their cabbage is grown with minimal use of pesticides and other chemicals. This attention to detail and extra effort toward freshness and quality is reflected in their food, which is delicious and filling.
Having eaten at both incarnations of Suzuki’s, I can say the new version seems to be the better fit. While the old restaurant had excellent quality food, the high prices and somewhat intimidating menu might not have worked too well for a restaurant within walking distance of the base dorms. Suzuki’s Katsusho keeps the same dedication to good food, but at much lower prices and with a far simpler and more appealing menu.
They also offer a nice little lunch menu, perfect for a quick jaunt outside the gate to get a bite to eat during your lunch break.
To see previous After Hours reviews, go to: stripes.com/afterhours
Suzuki’s Katsusho, Fussa, Japan
Prices: 1,100 to 1,600 yen for dinner entrees, 680 to 880 yen for lunch
Specialties: Tonkatsu cutlets
English menu: Yes
Dress: Semi-casual
Clientele: Base residents and local Japanese looking to enjoy a quiet meal
Location: Across the street from Yokota’s main gate, Suzuki’s Katsusho has a large brown sign in English visible from the gate
Phone: 04-2553-7171
Web site: None
