Myeonmok tonkatsu with snowflake crust and curry: Katsu Monster

Where Katsu Monster Myeonmok is and when it opens

Katsu Monster Myeonmok is a tonkatsu restaurant at 25 Sangbong-ro, 1st floor, Jungnang-gu, Seoul, between Myeonmok Station and Seoil University.

• 📍25 Sangbong-ro, 1st floor, Jungnang-gu, Seoul
• ⏰Daily 10:30-21:00 / Break time 15:00-16:00
• 🚘No parking available

Inside, there's bar-table seating along the window and facing the kitchen, which looked great for eating alone!

Delivery orders kept coming in nonstop!

Menu lineup and the self-serve bar

Katsu Monster Myeonmok has à la carte options as well as set menus, and the set meals come with a mini soba (buckwheat noodles) on the side too, which was great for trying a bit of everything.

Wasabi, Himalayan salt, tonkatsu sauce and salad dressing are all set out at a self-serve station. The place is small, but it has everything you need, which really brings out the flavor of the tonkatsu. There's even a stack of kitchen paper towels in a container — a nice thoughtful touch.

Ordering was easy since you can just go straight to the kiosk. You can stash your bag inside the chair.

Here's what the seating looked like.

There's a corner with napkins, paper cups and a water dispenser.

What comes with the loin and fillet katsu set

This is the loin+fillet tonkatsu set. It comes with one strip of loin katsu, one strip of fillet katsu, soup, rice, salad vegetables and kimchi, plus a small serving of buckwheat soba. The curry was an add-on I ordered!

The color of the breading came out better than I expected, and it looked like it was holding in the juices, so I was excited to taste it. The soup was a clear broth-style soup — since I personally prefer a soybean-paste type soup, I didn't eat much of it, but I was still satisfied to see a full spread of side dishes, rice, soup, tonkatsu and soba all together; it would've felt lacking without it.

The buckwheat soba was tasty enough to order on its own, not just as a set side dish. It'd be a good idea to order tonkatsu à la carte along with soba à la carte for a meal. If you're visiting with two people, I'd also recommend each getting your preferred tonkatsu plus one order of soba to share.

How the crust and the pork tasted

You can see the golden color from being fried well at a high temperature. These days a lot of places fry the breading uniformly smooth or kushikatsu-style without much texture, but at Katsu Monster the breading was alive with a snowflake-crystal pattern, just like old-school tonkatsu.

Doesn't the breading look crispy? That's the crunchy breading that comes from high-temperature frying.

The ratio of fat to lean meat on the loin cut was really well balanced. The fat wasn't overly greasy and didn't carry excess oil, which made it delicious.

A big plus is that they fry it right after you order, so you get it hot. If it's fried too long it can turn dark or the meat can get tough, but this was fried just the right amount, which I loved.

Since the crispy breading had really bloomed like that, it seemed to have decent thickness rather than being thin. It was fried well with no breading falling off. It's good dipped in salt, but I like it best with wasabi. I'm not a tonkatsu sauce person, so I enjoyed it with salt and wasabi instead.

The fillet also pulled apart nicely along the grain. Maybe because there are a lot of orders, the meat seemed fresh. It's not the kind of fillet cooked to a pink center that's trendy these days, but it was plenty tender and delicious. I'd worried it might be tough since it wasn't the trendy pink color, but it was plenty soft. I prefer loin with some bite to it rather than being too soft, and the loin here had that texture, which I liked.

Is the curry add-on worth it?

The curry was Japanese-style curry, and it was thinner than I expected — more watery than a thick, clingy consistency. There weren't a lot of solid chunks in it, but the seasoning was on the strong side, so there was plenty to mix into a full bowl of rice. Mixing the curry into rice and topping it with fillet was delicious. The seasoning was a bit strong, but it worked well together with the fried katsu.

Why Katsu Monster Myeonmok works for solo diners

Katsu Monster Myeonmok has the kitchen right up front so it can feel a bit tight, but the space is well-suited for eating alone. The air conditioning was blasting nice and cold too, so it wasn't hot while eating. Since it's around Myeonmok Station, there are plenty of options nearby for solo dining or takeout as you pass through, so I'd recommend it.

Beyond loin tonkatsu and fillet tonkatsu, there's also cheese tonkatsu, and the sets come bundled in various combinations, so there are plenty of menu options to choose from.