The restaurant specializes in Korean-style katsu made in a variety of ways: plain, with curry or stuffed with cheese. You can also get some fun things here like omurice (Korean version of a viral egg dish), a few pasta dishes, udon and soba.
Big portions at a reasonable price point are the two common denominators of the menu. If it's your first time having Korean food, a lot of choices will be unfamiliar. But all the options are classics, so you're guaranteed to find something you'll enjoy.
We were recommended the two most popular dishes: the No. 5, hamburger steak and the No. 8 donkatsu (deep-fried pork cutlet).
Most people come here for the katsu, so we went with the chicken version of the donkatsu, No. 4 on the menu. We grabbed a plate of shrimp tempura to start things off. It hits the spot every time, and One Don's tartar sauce is made in-house.
Katsu is technically a Japanese dish that is usually a cutlet of some kind (chicken, pork or vegetable), breaded with panko, deep fried, then cut into strips and served with a sauce.
The Korean version of Japanese katsu is similar but differs because it's served whole and not sliced. We asked the proper way to eat it and learned how to navigate a chicken cutlet that's bigger than your face: cut the end piece off first, eat it plain, then slice each piece one by one and dip it into the sauce. Voila.
Asking if you pour the sauce over the cutlet was similar to asking an Italian if you break pasta before putting it in the boiling pot of water — absolutely not. "You'll lose the crispiness," the owner told us. Aye aye.
The chicken cutlet is surprisingly thin and juicy. It came right out of the fryer, so the breading was piping hot and perfectly crisp. It's obvious why this dish is the talk of the restaurant. The homemade sauce was similar to rich Japanese-style curry: think of a thicker beef stew that's slightly sweet.
All of the sides were on the simpler side: white rice, cabbage salad and Korean macaroni salad (pasta noodles with mayonnaise). On their own, they're pretty simple, but with how rich the curry is, you don't need them to be anything more.
The orange and jalapeños on the plate came out of left field. Those were left off our instructions but we freestyled it and just squeezed the orange over the chicken and sides and incorporated the jalapeños into our bites of katsu.
You most definitely won't leave with leftovers, but you will leave with multiple K-pop hits to add to your playlist.
Aaren Prody
One Don is just across the street from a micro Koreatown that has a Korean BBQ, karaoke lounges and a few other places we're keen to pop into as well. During our dinner, we were one of only three diners, which was a shame. Get out there and try some katsu.
One Don, 11434 Emerald St. Daily, 11 a.m. – 8 p.m.
