Euljiro katsudon restaurant: black pork tare bowl at Hunta Euljiro

Compared to five years ago, there are so many more great pork cutlet spots these days. And yet the really good ones always seem to be tucked away somewhere far from me, which just makes me want to track them down more. Crispy batter, tender juicy meat — sure, that's the baseline, but I hadn't had many black pork cutlets before, so here's my review of Hunta in Euljiro :-)

Where is Hunta Euljiro, and how do you walk there from Euljiro-1(il)ga Station?

Hunta Euljiro is about a 4-minute walk from Exit 1 of Euljiro-1(il)ga Station. You'll find it on the 1st floor of the FastFive building. There's a Baekmidang café right next door that I've been to a few times, so it wasn't hard to find!

This spot with the Hunta sign is where I'll be eating today...

Hunta Euljiro menu and the price of the kataroshu tare katsudon

I'd hesitate to call Hunta just a pork cutlet restaurant — it felt more like a place laser-focused on the meat itself. For one thing, they age their black pork before using it. And the menu is organized by cut — not just loin (rosu) or fillet (hire), but also sangrosu and kataroSu — which felt pretty distinctive.

You order through the kiosk at the table, and the tare katsudon, made with Hunta's own tare (sauce), caught my eye right away. I'm not normally a fan of eating rice and cutlet together, but the reviews were so good I decided to give it a shot. KataroSu (pork shoulder) tare katsudon, ₩23,000.

Inside Hunta Euljiro and the meat-aging fridge

Since there are so many offices nearby, there are plenty of solo-dining seats. The wood interior keeps things clean and simple. What made me even more hopeful about Hunta was the large meat-aging fridge sitting off to one side. Pork cutlet lives and dies by the meat, after all — the raw pork itself was clearly excellent, and you could see the care that went into it.

While waiting, they also walk you through how to enjoy your cutlet the best way...

Cooking takes a while after you order, so plan on waiting 15 to 20 minutes.

This is the kataroSu tare katsudon I ordered. Apparently kataroSu is the Japanese term for pork shoulder (moksal).

Side dishes at Hunta Euljiro: broth, cabbage salad, scallion kimchi and diced radish kimchi

To run through the side dishes quickly: broth, cabbage salad, scallion kimchi, diced radish kimchi, and three dipping sauces for the cutlet — salt, katsu sauce, and wasabi.

The side dish that stuck with me the most was this one... the dressing on the cabbage salad. It tasted almost like a sweet corn dressing. Genuinely delicious, and it surprisingly went really well with the katsudon — I cleaned the whole bowl of it, ugh.

How does the black pork shoulder kataroshu taste with Hunta's tare sauce?

Since kataroSu is shoulder meat, the first bite had way more spring and bounce than a rosu (loin) cutlet. The more you chew, the more that distinctive chewiness and meaty aroma of black pork shoulder builds up — kind of fascinating, honestly.

And this tare was genuinely delicious, ugh. It's absolutely not one of those overly sweet-and-salty rice bowl sauces — it just adds exactly the right amount of savoriness without overpowering the flavor of the meat! Hunta's tare soaked nicely into the rice, and the egg was cooked so softly that a big spoonful with a piece of the cutlet was just so, so good.

It's a nice touch that the scallion kimchi shows up as a side, so you don't get sick of the flavors partway through.

It really wasn't tough at all... it wasn't just soft either — there was a chewy texture too, which made it even more fun to eat.

I dipped it in all sorts of combinations of the katsu sauce, wasabi, and salt too. The price is a bit on the higher side, but I felt it was worth every won.

Isn't katsudon just rice with cutlet on top? -> Yeah, that's true, but that combination was absolutely magical at Hunta Euljiro...