Dragon's Print

Katzpapa is a Korean-Japanese fusion restaurant located in Gaisano Country Mall, Banilad, Cebu City. This restaurant offers exquisite and affordable food. However, it is especially known for its wide variety of tonkatsu, a Japanese dish consisting of a deep-fried breaded pork cutlet! This restaurant doesn’t just serve that, though. Katzpapa also serves unique combinations of Tonkatsu, such as tonkatsu with cheese or tonkatsu with sweet potatoes. And if you are a fish lover, Katzpapa has the right dish for you–this restaurant also serves fish tonkatsu!

Due to my love for tonkatsu, I happily invited the Dragon Print members out for lunch! We all ordered different versions of tonkatsu and each of us did our own food review. After reading this food review, I hope that this helps you all decide whether or not to come to the restaurant that I love!

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If you feel HOOOOOOOT in the Philippines (which you should), then this is the ULTIMATE dish for you. This dish consists of 4 neatly rolled and ice-chilled soba noodles that are topped with laver and spring onions. The Soba Plate comes with a cool dipping sauce that complements the soba noodles. Eating this extravagant dish is more than enough to cool yourself on a hot day. The soba noodles dipped in the dipping sauce taste so chewy and cold that it would make you beg for more! Due to its taste, appearance, quality, and low price this dish deserves a 4/5! I didn’t give it a 5/5 because I believe that the taste can be improved; the noodles get dried up pretty quickly if you do not eat it fast. Furthermore, it gets soggy if you leave it in the cool dipping sauce for too long. I believe that this can still be refined but overall this is an excellent dish on a hot day!

Rating: 4/5

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To say I was ‘hyped’ for this restaurant would be an understatement. From seeing stories on Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, Katzpapa’s Cheese Katsu is always labeled as the “OMG” dish. Yes, this dish, for 450 pesos, is quite filling, due to the unlimited bowls of rice and miso soup (also a part of any other Tonkatsu set). When you order a tonkatsu, you expect a thick piece of pork or chicken with a nice coating of crispy warm bread crumbs––however this dish does not do that. The cheese to meat ratio is literally just an excuse to cop out the fact that the meat is too thin, probably due to budget cuts. However, its overall taste isn’t the worst. It has its moments and is truly best eaten when hot, which really releases the saltiness of the cheese and blends in decently with the layer of meat! The quality of the Tonkatsu and cheese taste cheap nonetheless so if you’re a cheese fanatic like myself, don’t expect this dish to capture the essence of melted golden amazingness, or even surprise you.

Overall? It’s decent. There’s simply nothing groundbreaking or spectacular about it, so cheese lovers, don’t expect too much because this dish did not surpass any of my expectations.

Rating: 3/5

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This was my first time to try Katzpapa, and I was not disappointed. The chicken, though a bit lacking in flavor, was crunchy without being greasy. The tonkatsu sauce added a new dimension to the meat, while the several sides provided -at least three vegetables cooked different ways- allowed you to have sweet, sour, and spicy combinations as you choose. The unlimited miso soup that came with the meal was also very good. My only two complaints would be that the chicken was quite dry and not as juicy as I would have liked, and sometimes the sauce would overpower it because the latter’s flavor was stronger than the meat. The chicken portion is also quite small, given the number of sides and the fact that it comes with unlimited rice and miso soup. Nevertheless, this is a good deal, and if you like having more sides than meat, I recommend this dish!

Rating: 4/5

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This is a VERY filling dish that consists of Rosu Tonkatsu, one fried, breaded tempura and pumpkin,  NEVER-ENDING miso soup, ENDLESS cabbage, and the best part, drum roll please……..UNLIMITED RICE!!!! This beautiful creation needs to be given to those who love to sink their teeth into crispy, juicy, and soft tonkatsu. Along with the Rosu Katsu, you can order either cool soba or chewy udon. I ordered the soba because it’s my favorite. 🙂

The soba is topped with laver and spring onions that give a more unique taste when you eat the noodles with the cold dipping sauce. Overall this is a dish that will satisfy your stomach and soul!

Rating: 4/5

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Fast service, good food, and affordable prices are what you can expect from Katzpapa. During our visit to the restaurant, I was more than surprised with my experience. On the day of my visit, I found my watch running on Filipino time, and I was 45 minutes late. My biggest worry on the way there was that I would still have to go through traffic, wait for my food, and have to keep the rest of my company waiting for me. As I left my house, I texted Dong Ha my order; the Soba Plate plus Katsu. Surprisingly, there was barely any traffic on the way there, and when I arrived, within five minutes I was greeted with a delicious meal of four soba noodles and fried tonkatsu with rice. The food itself was what shocked me the most. Four whole soba noodles AND a tonkatsu dish with rice all for the price of 450 pesos? I’ve been to restaurants with ONE soba noodle for that price and they cannot even compare to the overall experience I had at Katzpapa.

I gulped down that entire meal within minutes; happy and satisfied!

Rating: 5/5

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Pros of the restaurant in general

• Fast Wi-Fi
• Kind staff
• Free trail mix as an appetizer
• Unlimited rice, cabbage, and miso soup for every purchase of tonkatsu. One tonkatsu set is all you need to buy which is very affordable.
• A clean environment
• Can do full meal takeouts

Cons of the restaurant

• Couldn’t pay with credit card
• Only 1 waitress at the time, wasn’t very alert so we had to call her more than once to get her attention
• The seats at the booth can comfortably fit six people (three on each side), but the accompanying table can only fit four meals so the space can be deceiving
• No delivery service

Overall Rating: ★★★★☆

Affordable prices, fast wifi, and, most importantly, delicious Tonkatsu dishes are what you can find here at Katzpapa!

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Thank you for reading this food review. We hope that our experience at Katzpapa can make you try this restaurant! Tell us about your own experiences in the comments below!

Written by Dong Ha C., Nathan C., Axelle M. and Katrina R.

Feature image by Katrina R.

Disclaimer: Reviews are uncommissioned, unpaid, and represent the personal views of the author. They should not be taken to represent the views of Dragon’s Print and Cebu International School.