Specialty ingredients and traditional flavours make 38 Katsu a winning combination

Verity Lane’s newest vendor is 38 Katsu, from the same team that recently opened Yakitori 38 just around the corner.

The new stall is owned and run by managing director Jun Jang and Chef Guno Chung, who met when working together at Buvette in Hotel Realm.

Jun told Region he wanted to serve up dishes that he enjoys eating.

“Katsu is a homey Japanese dish,” he staid.

“With Yakitori 38, we wanted to introduce that late-night izakaya-style of dining to Canberra, and this is a bit heartier.”

Katsu refers to the Japanese and Korean methods of breading and frying cutlets, usually pork or chicken. These can then be served in a variety of ways. At 38 Katsu, the menu offers a classic tonkatsu sauce, rice, curry udon katsu and donburi bowls.

I tried the 38 Pork Katsu, which is served with Chef Guno’s signature 38 demi-glace, kyabetsu cabbage salad, rice and pickles. The paper-thin cabbage is sliced with an ingenious rotary slicer from Japan, and it’s not the only thing the team has imported: all their specialty ingredients, including batter and the specific panko crumbs, are brought in from overseas.

Jun explained that using what he calls wet panko gives much more surface texture than the dried crumbs, which end up looking more like schnitzel. The texture was certainly a selling point: perfectly crispy and still toothsome when smothered in sauce.

The cabbage salad is topped with ground sesame seeds, which give it a nutty depth, and a few pickles on the side balance out the silky smooth richness of the demi-glace.

I also tasted the chicken katsu curry udon dish. The curry has a nice peppery spice, and the noodles have a beautifully chewy texture and are extremely slurpable. However, I would recommend caution if you’re wearing white!

I was intrigued by some of the snacks, like the okonomiyaki fries and crispy chicken skin, but I will have to return another time for those.

Jun tells me that there’s a simple reason the food is so good: Chef Guno Chung worked under internationally regarded chef Marco Pierre White in London at a Michelin-starred restaurant. He settled in Canberra with his family, but his cooking remains world-class, and everything at 38 Katsu is made from scratch.

Jun also explained the significance behind the number 38. In the traditional Japanese card game Hanafuda, each card signifies a month of the year. The third month, March, signifies sowing seeds in Spring and the 8th month, August, signifies Autumn and the importance of the harvest.

“With a 3 and an 8 in your hand, you can’t lose!” Jun said.

This winning hand seems to be working for the pair, as just a few days into their Verity Lane tenure, there were plenty of people lining up to try the different Katsu offerings.

The food hall – which recently celebrated its fourth birthday – once again has a full house, with every stall filled.

Pizza Artigiana has rebranded to Una Pizza, and Petite Saigon is fully settled into Lim Peh’s former space. The food hall now hosts six local businesses serving Indonesian, Korean, Japanese, Spanish/South American, Italian and Vietnamese cuisines, as well as the well-stocked bar and adjacent beer and wine venues Dear Prudence and Brew Nation.

Follow Verity Lane Market on Instagram. Verity Lane Market is open from 12 pm until late Tuesday to Saturday.

Find out more about 38 Katsu at Verity Lane Market.