|
Only have a minute? Listen instead
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
MISSION — Han’s Katsuya, a small Japanese restaurant hidden on busy Shary Road, offers great traditional food with a welcoming experience perfect for newcomers or foodies that need a new go to spot.
Having lunch Saturday with my good friend Hania — who actually studied in Japan for a bit — one thing I immediately liked about the restaurant was the space and how lax it was.
The space, with Korean or Japanese music lightly playing in the background, is good to have a chat before chowing down on some good Japanese or Korean food.
The menu is a bit small but does have a good handful of options to choose from.
I started off with ordering a glass of water and a Japanese Soda, of which the restaurant has a good amount of options. I ordered something I haven’t tried before, a Mango flavored soda.
The brand of Japanese soda comes in a glass bottle with a plastic covering resembling whatever fruit flavor it is, so mine looked like a mango. It was good and refreshing. Later on, I also tried the melon one which was like agua de melon but carbonated.
The menu has 12 options of appetizers to choose from gyoza to taco-yaki which is basically fried octopus balls. Each item is under $10 and easily shareable with whoever you go with.
I ended up getting edamame and croquette.
I usually always get edamame but the croquette is something new to me, but basically it’s a hash brown. The nice waitress explained it’s a hash brown but the potato inside had the consistency of mashed potatoes.
The potato lover in me just had to try it.
The edamame was good and came out steaming hot.
Slightly different from a normal hash brown, the croquette was good, with a crispy outside paired with the soft inside.
The menu has a great handful of options to choose from. Ranging from katsu, Japanese deep fried cutlets, ramen, udon, a thick wheat noodle soup, donburi, a japanese rice bowl, to Korean fried chicken.
Most of the items range between about $10 to $20.
Wanting to try something new, the gyu-don, a Japanese rice bowl, got my interest. To be honest, it sparked my interest because it was right below Bulgogi, a traditional Korean dish and I love bulgogi.
Gyu-don is like the Japanese version of bulgogi. The menu lists the dish as having Japanese style thinly sliced beef, egg, cabbage, onion and pickled ginger which is slightly different from bulgogi. My friend said the main difference was that the beef was thinly sliced.
My friend got the Ebi-Udon, which is the thick noodle soup with fried shrimp.
The gyu-don came out looking amazing and almost like a bibimbap.
Everything in the dish blended so well together. Each mouthful of gyu-don, you could really taste each individual flavor in it. The pickled ginger gave the dish a sweet taste to it but it was not overwhelming to the other flavors in the bowl.
I really enjoyed how thin the beef was and how much flavor it had. The rice was also delicious.
Overall, Han’s Katsuya is a great spot to bring friends and family, to have a chat and eat some really good food. I am excited for my next visit to the restaurant and trying a different dish and Japanese soda.
Han’s Katsuya, 600 N. Shary Road in Mission, is open from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5:30 to 9 p.m. Monday through Friday. On Saturday, hours are noon to 3 p.m. and 5:30 to 9 p.m.
