I so appreciated their services when I called them to preorder my food as my friend and I worry we would missing their lunch closing time.

Actually, I have visited this restaurant many times, and just for port cutlet. The fat and meat ratio is just PERFECT for a cutlet. If too much meat and less fat, it will be too dry. But if too much fat and less meat, there will ONLY be oil in the mouth. It shows the restaurant is using the most selective ingredient to keep their food quality. At first, they will serve refillable cabbage and veggie starters. They have 3 types of sauces for the cabbage. Cabbage with their homemade vinegar is perfect for me. Yummy.

The miso soup may be too salty for me.

Port cutlet with the sesame cutlet source is a good match, but don't put too much sauce on the cutlet, you will miss the REAL meat flavor.

Rice, they have 2 type of rice. One for healthy and one for matching the cutlet's taste. I always order the plain rice as it is ideal to match the port cutlet.

Good food are usually not that healthy but come on once in a while doesn't hurt! HAHAHADeep fried rolled pork tenderloin and the Saboten set
Geeeeeeez, how on earth can you resist such golden delicacies???????? The rolled pork tenderloin was deep fried perfectly which was not greasy at all.
The tonkatsu was still so juicy and tender. OH MY GOD this was definitely the softest and most succulent tonkatsu with CHEESE.
This was HEAVENLY!!!!!!I think i can skip all the description. Photo tells it all. Saboten set, including pork loin, pork tenderloin, prawn and crab croquettes.
I WAS IMMENSELY SATISFIED!

Lovely meal at Saboten but i think i need some herbal tea now hahaha perhaps a cup of 24 herbs

This day my wife suddenly wanted a Japanese deep fried cutlet with rice. After some OpenRice search she found this restaurant.

Though it was already 2:30 in the afternoon (the restaurant closes from 3-6pm), my wife called in and the waitress was very kind to ensure a table was waiting for us.

To the food...

We ordered the signature cutlet set (large portion of course). First came the gear.Unlimited cabbage and some cured vegetables. The cabbage was fresh, crunchy, and delightful with the vinegar sauce. Refreshing, especially on this rather hot day.Next up is the preparation of the sauce for the cutlet. This place has their own cutlet sauce, and you grind the sesame before hand to get the fragrances from the oil. The mix of sesame seeds smelled exceptional. Finally, the main dish. The pork is thick, juicy, and deep-fried to perfection. You can tell it is of the highest quality meat.

I actually had an extra bowl of rice (in the afternoon ...). Would definitely visit this restaurant again!

It was 9pm on a Saturday night when I descended the stairs into Saboten in Causeway Bay. I imagined an horrendous 30min wait for a table as the queue snaked back up the stairs. So, I was pleasantly surprised when I got a table in just 10mins.

I came for the 'Giant Hiroshima Oyster Fair.' Being a bit of a fan of oysters I was expectant of something special. Unfortunately, nothing special happened.

I went for the 'Hiroshima Oyster and Premium Pork Tenderloin Combo', weighing in at a reasonable $188. I was served pretty quickly with all the usual accompaniments. The oysters were not over cooked, but lacked depth of flavour. That 'special something of the sea' had gone. They had not retained their juiciness and the texture was too soft. OK, but no cigar. The rest of the combo was fine. The pork had a good texture and its coating was crispy. The prawn was large and not over cooked.

I also had an iced Oolong tea which was adequate but over priced.

Saboten is decent, and as you would expect from a chain that has been around for a couple of decades it can churn out pretty OK food consistently. But it should be no surprise that the food can only reach certain heights and expectations should not be raised too much. If I were to choose, I'd rather dine at Tonkichi as it edges Saboten on quality (plus its Causeway Bay branch has a view over the harbour rather than skulking in a cellar.

This is a place which we wanted to try since it opened sometime this year I believe. It's rather busy during dinner time so we aimed for lunch time. Actually, I somehow regard all tonkatsu, i.e. fried cutlet, shops including Saboten as a better place for lunch than dinner. In fact, Ginza Bairin is the only TonKatsu place which I'd even consider having an early dinner because of it's more spacious and calmer ambience. Not even Romankan Yokohama or TonKichi. I can't relax and have a beer or Sochu in these places. Having said that, once in a while, I'll crave for a Japanese pork cutlet. Anyway, after a dangerous trek down the staircase,we were shown a table for two, sandwiched between two other tables which felt a little bit crowded. Luckily, after a more spacious table was cleared, we asked for that table and were given that without any problems. Good service.

Saboten really invested a lot in interior design. The whole place was very nice renovated with light coloured wooded beams and pillars everywhere.

It's quite comfortable. I later noticed this on the ceiling:It's an excellent idea which I think many restaurants in Hong Kong could adopt. The plastic plate prevented the cold wind from blowing on to the customers directly but wouldn't not affected the coolness of the place.

After a long and hard look at the menu*, we settled for a Kagoshima pork set for two plus a separate potion of scallop. The main reason for the kagoshima set was because it was a featured product printed on a separate menu and highlighted on a menu. The scallop has always been my wife's favorite dish. The kagoshima pork ϵ( 'Θ' )϶ turned out to be their signature dish.

You could choose one out of three fillings for the pork maki (roll). I remembered it was cheese, siso leave and one which I couldn't remember. We chose siso leave.

After we've placed our orders, a big plate of lettuce, pickled cucumbers and pickled turnips were placed on our table. As with most authentic tonkatsu restaurants, it's complimentary and all you can eat. According to my wife, you could add either the sesame sauce to the lettuce or you could add the vinegar sauce to it, just don't mix them together. I tried mixing the two into one bowl of lettuce and the result was You could also choose between plain white rice or rice with barley. We chose the latter. No doubt this gives you the feel-good (but false) impression that you're actually having a healthy meal and it's OK for your cholesterol! The rice was also all you can eat. :bowl Actually, the rice with barley was quite nice. It's really healthy, and the barley was quite chewy. :The set arrived after about 7-8 minutes wait, which was quite good. The set consisted of two pretty large fried prawns, two pork maki (with siso leave filling), a small piece of pork fillet and a bigger piece of kagoshima pork:

The polite and friendly waitress (thin, dyed hair, tied up in a bun, who spoke English and Mandarin) introduced the different fried stuff to us. She also introduced the functions of the different sauces to us. I never really cared about which sauce is supposed to be for what type of food only but after I've specifically experimented with different sauce, I found those tips very important!

She told us that the sauce closest to the kagoshima pork roll, was...well, for the kagoshima pork roll. The sauce seemed to be vinegar based - i.e. "ponzu" (vinegar cooked with mirin, honey, bonito, konbu, soy sauce, some citrus juice then is added to the mixture), with some added spring onions.

The tar tar sauce was good with the fried scrimps.

She also told us that the sauce provided in a jar, after you put about two scoops into your sesame dish, was good with the small pork fillet. A very detailed explanation indeed.

In fact, I deliberately tried to dip the scrimp into the ponzu sauce and the scrimp tasted horrible however, once I dipped the scrimp into the tar tar sauce, it really brought out the sweetness of the scrimp!

On the other hand, once you dip the kagoshima pork into the ponzu, it really brought out the meat aroma. It matched very well with the both the kagoshima pork maki and the other pork fillet, but, interestingly, especially with the kagoshima pork maki as recommended!

Finally, now you won't be surprised if I tell you that the small pork fillet matched best with the original sauce.

Try it to believe it!

(No wonder all my Japanese relatives and friends always required a detailed explanation on the sauces provided once we're at a Dai Pai Dong or Chinese restaurants! There is quite a lot of science behind different types of sauces! Being a Hong Konger, I'm quite casual about these things. Usually I just dip my fried squid into the nearest chilli or sweet and sour sauce! )

Something about the sesame:I've noticed my wife did not grind everything into pulp whereas some Japanese people prefer a more grounded texture. There is no need to grind every single sesame seed into powder. In fact, you could simply grind half of it. The result was quite wonderful! Once you dip the pork fillet in it, you'll have the light aromatic sesame taste which came from the powdered sesame, as well as the strong aroma of the ungrounded one.

A lot about the sauces and sesame so a bit about the food itself:

Saboten actually meant cactus in Japanese. Even after I've checked their group's website, I still couldn't figure out why they use "Cactus" as the name. The kanji is not used in Japan. Perhaps the meaning in the name is born out by the large amount of bread crumbs used in frying all the cutlets. Other than the normal batter, they also used a lot of coarse bread crumbs. A bit too much we think, it may hurt your mouth a little bit of you're not careful, like if you're eating a cactus??

The cactus imagery applies especially to the fried prawns so please be careful when you're eating it. The prawns were reasonably fresh.

The pork fillet was a bit tough. Nothing special. Thankfully, the sauce was there to save it. In fact, I won't recommend it.

The Kagoshima roll with siso leave tasted quite nice. The meat was much more tender then the normal pork fillet. The siso was tangy so mixed well with it. This one is good with the ponzu and the original sauce.

The Kagoshima pork maki was also nice. It seemed to be about 7-8 sheets of kagoshima pork rolled together and then fried. The effect was quite good. Remember to dip this into the ponzu.

The Scallop was quite good. It was a bit thinner than usual. The cutlet scallop at "Romankan Yokohama" is still the best in my opinion.

The bill came down to HK$450 in total, which I think was OK.

Like many commentators before me, I've tried Tonkichi, Romankan Yokohama and Ginza Bairin. They all have varying strengths.

Ginza Bairin (I've only tried the TST branch) is the most comfortable and spacious. The normal pork fillet there is not bad. However, I've been there twice and their quality varies quite a lot. Sometimes their batter is soggy.

Tonkichi's pork fillets are usually quite tender. However, it's less spacious unless you could get the rare box seat and the queues are always long. It's a bit more rushed and expensive. The batter is similar to Saboten but with less "sharp edges".

I think Romankan Yokohama is overall the best. The different types of fried pork cutlet are usually consistently tender. They are best in terms of fried seafood, especially the scallop, which was big and juicy the time I tried it. The batter is a bit lighter than Saboten. The seats were a bit more packed though and I don't think they had all you can eat rice and lettuce.

Saboten has a really cool interior design. The kagoshima pork was good. Generally not as expensive as Tonkichi. However, the normal pork fillet was tough and the batter hurts your mouth a bit.

The service at Saboten was good. The price was OK.

All in all, a positive dining experience. Not worth a long wait but worth a try.





總評：

叫了鹿兒島二人餐：

- 鹿兒島豚肉卷，紫蘇卷都軟熟有肉香．
- 細豬柳較韌，不推介．
- 忌廉蟹肉卷：　忌廉很濃郁，很香．蟹肉份量ｏｋ
- 炸蝦：”杉口”！日本店不用”勝博殿”的漢字．"Sa Bo Ten" 日文指”仙人掌”．勝博殿的炸物比起其他日式炸豬排店用多很多粗粒的麵包碎．特別香口，不 過似仙人掌般杉口！
- 帶子：一般．

服務周到．有位國語及英文都流利的女侍應（金髮札髻）相當詳盡地解釋不同醬料的用法．真的要留心聽，因為有好大分別的！

　百搭醬汁：百搭－適合所有肉類及海鮮．特別豬柳．
　鹿兒島千層豚肉卷旁的”ポン酢”　- "Pon zu" （橙醋）：適合鹿兒島豚肉！其次為豬柳．不適合海鮮
　他他醬：適合海鮮．確能提升炸海鮮的鮮味！
　芝麻醬或醋：適合生菜．但不建議兩種一齊落．

裝潢相當講究．除了小部份二人抬較窄之外，其他都寬敞．

整體ｏｋ．不會排隊等，但可以一試．

”銀座梅林”比勝博殿寬敞．但炸槳有時好好，有時較淋．
”Ｔｏｎ吉”質素穩定，但好長人龍．食得趕，及偏貴．
自己比較喜歡”浪漫館橫濱”．質素穩定，價錢印象中更相宜．炸帶子尤其出色．但位較窄．

Accidentally discovered this restaurant when we were shopping around Causeway Bay and we decided to check it out. There was one customer waiting when we reached there, and we got seated after waiting for about 5 minutes.
We've ordered one combo cutlet set which came with prawn, pork loin, pork tenderloin, and creamy crab croquette; and one curry cutlet set. Shredded cabbage was served first, together with some pickles. Both are bottomless! There were two dressings available for the shredded cabbage - sesame dressing and grapefruit vinegar dressing. I'm usually a fan of grapefruit vinegar dressing but decided to try their sesame dressing too. The sesame dressing wasn't very thick. Its mild sesame flavor, mixed with the grapefruit vinegar dressing, went very well with the shredded cabbages. The shredded cabbage was very fresh, like it a lot - and they help in balancing the "greasiness" from the deep fried cutlets. We were given a small bowl of black and white sesame for the combo cutlet set. By using a small wooded stick, these sesame was to be grinded till desired texture, and followed by adding in the special tonkatsu sauce. The sauce was thick and enhanced the aroma of the sesame - made a good combination.Minutes later, the mains were served with soup and rice. We were told that the soup was bottomless too! For the cutlet combo set, the coating was thin and crispy, but a little loose and fell off quite easily. The prawn was alright. The pork loin was alright but a little dry. The tenderloin was much better, juicier and much tender compared to the pork loin. As for the creamy crab croquette, it tasted alright but a little too "creamy". The curry cutlet set was pretty good. The tenderloin was juicy and tender, but same problem - the coating tends to fall apart from the cutlet. The curry was good too, can be considered as one of the good ones in town. The rice provided was a lot, can't finish them.

Overall, the food was good and its service was great too. Will come back to try out other menu items.

We went to this pork cutlet shop for dinner.

I ordered a 日式咖哩吉列豬柳 and my wife got a 吉列豬柳 pot.

It took about 15 minutes for our dishes arrived. The cabbage, miso soup, pickles are all free flow (i.e., unlimited refill!!!!!) and they are really good. So, during that 15 minutes' time, we finished two rounds of the cabbage! I believe that we can consume more if the waiting time is longer since their cabbage is so fresh and crispy (and sweet too!)

My curry rice is pretty good. The 吉列豬柳 on both dishes are great - with hot and crispy skin. However, the 豬柳 did not carry what so-called "fresh smell or taste" (can't really explain but my intuition made me to label "沒有豬肉的味道" for the meat).

Other than the quality of the pork, I have no other complaint.

The final bill was about HK$360. Between Saboten and Tonkichi, I am afraid I prefer the latter.

Japan tonkatsu is really something difficult to make. If cooked in a wrong way, it’s just a piece of greasy and chewy meat. Therefore, I am always a little hesitated to order tonkatsu dishes in Japanese restaurant in Hong Kong. After all, Tonkatus is high in fat and cholesterol; and if the dish is going get my arteries blocked, it better tastes damn good!

The only place that I had good tonkatsu in Hong Kong is “Tonkichi Tonkatsu Seafood” located in World Trade Center. But this place is really overprized. Unless I am really craving for a good piece of pork cutlet (which is rare), I would not choose to visit Tonkichi.

That is why I was super excited about Saboten coming to Hong Kong. Saboten is one of the most famous tonkatsu brands in Japan. And from what I heard, this restaurant is reasonably priced. Therefore, when my friend asked me to have our next dinner gathering in Saboten, I was totally thrilled to try this new restaurant out.

Turned out my experience in Saboten in Hong Kong is just so-so.

I knew before going there that this restaurant doesn’t accept reservation, but I really didn’t expect that the waiting time would be that long. You pretty much have to expect an hour of waiting just to get a table.

I personally don’t mind the wait, as long as their food is good enough to justify it. But turns out, their food is just alright. Their tonkatsu does have a crispy outer layer, which is one of the difficult things to control when making tonkatsu. However, I don’t think the quality of meat they are using is the best type. It lacks flavor and texture.

What I enjoyed most is the free cabbage that they served before your main dish arrived. The finely chopped cabbage is so fresh that it washes away the greasiness of the deep fried cutlet.

Although slightly disappointed, I still think that Saboten is worth trying. Just remember to go there really early and start queuing up.

A quick note on this hot new restaurant from Shinjuku.

The environment and services are very good and comfortable, probably the best among the Japanese Cutlet restaurants in Hong Kong. However, the food itself (which is the most important) is not good enough, in my opinion. We ordered the 特上 Pork Loin sets which is supposed to be the best stuffs there. The salad is fresh and good but there are three problems with the cutlet. 1) the skin (deep fried portion) easily falls off from the pork itself. It is like some deep fried skin wrapping up some pork but they are separate. No good! 2) the meat itself is not tender enough though acceptable and 3) the meat itself does not have a strong/rich taste/smell of meat.

In Hong Kong, I certainly vote Tonkichi over Saboten. In Japan, Maisen is still the best for pork cutlet based on my own experience......

Early June(Stuffy)

My interest for this new Tonkatsu restaurant was enhanced after reading and hearing so many about it - you could hardly ignore new reviews that kept coming everyday! Therefore we paid Saboten a visit in an early evening to see if it could live up to our expectation. I am not a super fan of Japanese tonkatsu as I do not like heavy meaty meals, not to mention deep-fried ones. I had not had many experiences eating Japanese deep-fried cutlets too - only twice in Japan and twice in Hong Kong, therefore I was not knowledgeable enough to tell if something is authentic or not. But one thing for sure was that it was stupid comparing what I had in Japan with what i was going to get in HK. All I can trust and judge with is my tongue and how i genuinely feel about the restaurant. It was only six something but a number of people were already there, eating halfway through their meals - what a starking contrast with Ichigo where the place was empty even at seven!

We were instantly greeted by the energetic and polite staff, and i felt it was a bit 'over' and unnatural...but still having some service is better than no service at all. The menu was long, but they do not have oysters (and i was shocked),but a number of combinations were available, so it took a few minutes to fully digest everything. At last we decided to had the combo for 2 persons ($299), which came with the Original pork loin, tenderloin, rolled pork loin, prawn and the creamy crab croquette - basically a bit of everything, perfect for us greedy foodies. The set came with shredded cabbages(椰菜絲) - bottomless! - and we were free to add whichever dressing to our likings. Two dressings were available, either the thicker sesame dressing or the yuzi dressing. I am usually a fan of goma but i found the dressing too watery and bland in flavour - i was looking for something more grainy and aromatic, but could find none.
Disappointed, I turned to the yuzi dressing. It wasnt very sour but tasted like soya sauce. Still a better choice than the goma dressing tho, and i really like how you could refill the shredded cabbages again and again - they had helped a lot in balancing the fattiness (and guiltiness) from eating the deep-fried cutlets and seafood.We were also given a small bowl of black and white sesame to grind by ourselves, and upon reaching the desired texture we were to mix it with the special Tonkatsu sauce. The sauce itself was thick and sweet, and was further enhanced by the grounded, aromatic sesame. The little grains in the smooth sauce had made it more complex in texture, which was excellent! we LOVE the bottomless preserved veggies and cucumbers - while i think the first plate tasted best as it was best chilled. The refills were equally sour and refreshing but had lost the coldness since they had been carried around by the servers. As we were busy eating the salads and preserved vegetables the deep-fried foods came on a long plate, together with the miso soup and rice. They looked delicious! Just a quick word on the rice. Previous reviews had pointed out the issue with the moisture but mine turned out to be perfect. I asked for the bran rice(麥飯) each and every grain were round, sticky, and very, very sweet. It was a good companion of the deep-fried foods - too bad that I could not even finish a bowl of it! The waiters told us to eat the rolled pork tenderloin with cheese(芝士豬柳卷) first for freshness' sake. The cheese fillings was still molten as we bit in, and the roll was quite succulent with the many layers of thin pork in it, wrapping the cheese in a roll, the texture was a little coarser than what i had expected. Still the coating was perfectly thin and crispy, and it was a delicious epilogue to our tonkatsu feast of the night. Moving from my left to the right of the plate - the first i tried was the deep-fried pork loin(豬排). This time the coating was a little loose and even fell off at some part of the loin. The meat itself was almost 20% fat, not very tough, but not of the utmost juiciness and tenderness. Searching in my memory, I felt like the pork loin I had at Ichigo last time was far better than this, being more refined in everything. This was just so-so. Then was the creamy crab croquette(忌廉蟹餅) beneath the rolled pork loin. The croquette was filled with molten cream and crab mix. It tasted pretty sweet but not heavy, which was surprising as i thought something 'creamy' in Japanese would instantly equal something cooked with heavy cream and stuff. I found too much 'cream' and too little 'crab' in the croquette however, but in general it was wholesomely delicious - too bad there was only one piece and we had to share! Next was the deep-fried pork tenderloin/fillet(豬柳). I was not expecting a lot of meaty flavours from it as this part of the pig would be naturally blander in flavour than loins, but i was looking for something smoother and juicier in texture. And what i tasted was an awful piece of pork meat, so soft as if it had been heavily chopped with the back of a chopper to achieve a softer texture. Now the fibre were destoryed and the meat had a texture similar to a piece of broken tofu, and it literally collapsed in my mouth. it was AWFUL - the worst i had ever had. Now that i could compare between the 2, the pork loin was way better than this as it at least tasted like meat instead of tofu.If you think the pork tenderloin is the worst, it wasnt. The prawn was. It looked pretty beautiful, being big, long and fleshy. I was wrong and you could never judge a book by its cover. Similarly, never judge a prawn by its look. The prawn had a weird texture similar to the pig tenderloin and it tasted as if it was 'melting' in your mouth, literally crumbling into sands. There was no taste of freshness or whatsoever but the taste of egg in the coating. What a joke. I was expecting quite a lot from the prawn, to be honest.

One minor issue with the coating was that it became really wet and soaked with juice halfway through the meal. It appeared that the net the foods sat on did not help to keep it crisp.

I later read and discovered that Saboten is using a Taiwanese/Xiamen species of pig for regular rolled pork, loins and tenderloins, while the Nippon hogs were used only when you order the premium set. I previous thought the species of the animals would not really matter a lot but it appeared that when it comes to Tonkatsu, the species of the pig DO matter. While the Taiwanese pork had a strange and unpleasantly coarse meat fibre, i am sure that the Nippon pig would taste more juicy and tender.

M seemed interested in trying out the 'premium' pork while i was more interested in the crab croquette. It was actually my favourite in the set!

Comparison between this and Ichigo@Central was unavoidable as we just ate there less than a month ago. While we agreed that the pork was of a much better quality at Ichigo, everything else was better here at Saboten. The refillable cabbages was addictive and we had 3 rounds of it!

Not sure if we would come again, but if we were to, I am 99% sure that i would be ordering the CCC ie. creamy crab croquette