Tonkatsu ENbiton JEM Restaurant, Jurong East

Tonkatsu ENbiton Jem is the newest outlet of the tonkatsu restaurant chain that has outlets in other malls in Singapore such as Vivo City, Changi City Point, Causeway Point and Suntec City. Its bright spacious interior and interesting menu attracted us to try some deep-fried Hokkaido pork.

New Tonkatsu Restaurant at JEM

The newish restaurant is only a few months old and is located on the ground floor of the JEM mall in Jurong East. It is near the new Moon Moon Food restaurant that we wrote about recently. The restaurant is quite big and provides different seating options – at the tonkatsu counter, booth seats or regular tables.

According to the restaurant website, “(t)he pigs are raised in Hokkaido, where the cold temperatures are ideal for their sensitivity to warmer climates … This setting is crucial for producing stress-free, safe, and healthy pork” which is said to have a taste which is rich in flavour, sweet and juicy. In addition to tonkatsu, Tonkatsu ENbiton offers a range of other Japanese dishes such as A4/A5 Miyazaki gyukatsu, black curry ramen and sandos.

Tonkatsu ENbiton JEM Menu

It was not easy to pick a dish as the glossy menu made everything look so good. At a glance many of the tonkatsu dishes look the same, but there are also seafood options as well as differences in the type of pork and the cut of meat. Here are some sample pictures of two sections of the menu.

We decided to try the Hokkaido Rosu Katsu, Salmon Katsu & Ebi Fry Combo Set ($25++) and a Rosu Katsu Tonkotsu Ramen – Hokkaido Pork Katsu ($25++) plus a ramen egg (+$2).

Rosu Katsu Tonkotsu Ramen, Hokkaido Pork Katsu and Ramen Egg

We thought that this combination of tonkotsu ramen and Hokkaido pork katsu was a good combination. The ramen was nicely al dente and soaked up the creamy pork bone broth. It may not have the depth of flavours of some specialist ramen shops but certainly good enough.

The portion of Hokkaido pork katsu was quite large and it was certainly well cooked with a nice crisp exterior. Unlike the pork katsu served with the seafood combination which was very fatty, this piece of pork had a low proportion of fat.

The ramen egg was ok but we need not have ordered the extra egg as the rest of the dish was more than enough.

Tonkatsu ENbiton JEM Restaurant Lunch : Hokkaido Katsu, Salmon & Ebi Combo Set

We thought that lunch might get too boring if we only ate pork. And so we decided on a Hokkaido katsu, salmon and ebi combination. We did not like this as much as the other dish. The piece of salmon was quite small and had a soft texture while the prawn was fine. Unlike the first dish, the pork served with this dish seemed to have a high proportion of fat. I think we should just stick to the pork items in the future.

As is the practice in some tonkatsu restaurants, Tonkatsu ENbiton JEM also provided top-up of the shredded cabbage. Which is always a good thing as it provided a much needed break for the taste buds from the dry and heavy deep fried items.

Ratings:
Food: 3
Service: 4
Value: 3
Atmosphere: 3
Overall Rating: 3 TOPs

Tonkatsu ENbiton JEM Restaurant
50 Jurong Gateway Road #01-16 Jem
Singapore 608549

Opening hours: Daily 11am to 10pm

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