I arrived at a tonkatsu restaurant in Hamamatsu ready for fried pork. The discounted lunch I wanted was temporarily off the menu. Somehow, I ended up ordering a roughly ¥2,000 bowl of chicken and egg instead.
The weird part? I left happy without eating a single bite of tonkatsu.
My lunch plan lasted until the front door
On my visit in August 2026, a notice at Tonkaraten said the discounted lunch menu was suspended until September 15. The restaurant was open; the bargain I came for wasn't.
The regular menu offered something intriguing: gawa-jiru oyakodon, a seasonal take on Japan's chicken-and-egg rice bowl. At around ¥2,000, it was considerably more than the quick lunch I'd imagined.
Then the food arrived. The chicken had real bite, the egg was rich, and a little black shichimi seasoning made the bowl even more appealing. My budget was still raising objections. My chopsticks were not listening.
What is “gawa,” and why is it served cold?
Gawa comes from Omaezaki, a coastal town in Shizuoka Prefecture. The traditional dish is a chilled miso soup made with bonito, cucumber, pickled plum, herbs and cold water. Fishermen are said to have prepared it aboard their boats. Its name is thought to imitate the clattering sound of ice being stirred: gawa-gawa.
Tonkaraten paired that refreshing local idea with oyakodon made using Ikkoku Shamo chicken from Omaezaki. Hot rice, egg and chicken on one side; chilled savory soup on the other. Switching between them was half the fun.
And no, shamo isn't shishamo, the small fish. It's a type of chicken. I had briefly pictured a very strange family relationship in my rice bowl.
The instructions were right there. I ignored them.
A guide at the table explained how to eat the dish. I still managed to eat some of the garnishes before realizing they were meant for the gawa.
The instructions had done their job. Their reader had not.
Once I figured it out, the contrast made sense: warm, rich oyakodon, then cold, sharp gawa, then back for another bite. It wasn't the lunch I had planned, but it felt like a meal worth traveling for.
A tonkatsu review with no tonkatsu
Tonkaraten is known for its slowly fried pork cutlets, too. I can't tell you how they tasted on this visit, because I didn't order any. What I can say is that the seasonal chicken-and-egg dish was memorable in its own right.
The bargain lunch was unavailable. The bill was higher than expected. And the dish I originally came for remains untried.
I went looking for the headliner; the supporting act stole the show.
The price and lunch-menu notice describe the August 2026 visit, not a guaranteed current offering.
Sources: Omaezaki City on gawa · Shizuoka Asahi TV on Tonkaraten
