After opening his 19th restaurant Charcoal-Grill & Salad Bar Keisuke at Paya Lebar Square, ramen king Keisuke Takeda is back with yet another eatery in the same mall. This time, it’s a katsu concept called Shiokoji Tonkatsu Keisuke, which is opening on November 13 and offers deep-fried panko-coated pork (tonkatsu) marinated with shio koji, a Japanese seasoning that is made with fermented rice, salt and water.

As the enzymes in shio koji break down proteins, it’s typically used by Japanese chefs to tenderise meat. Its distinctive umami funk also enhances the food’s flavour, and the fermented seasoning is said to aid digestion and boost the immune system.

Per the restaurant name, tonkatsu is the focus here, with your choice of pork loin and tenderloin, or a mixed platter with both. If you don’t fancy pork, there’s also a chicken fillet katsu and seafood katsu like salmon, tuna and prawn (the seafood and chicken items are not marinated with shio koji as they are too fragile for the fermentation enzymes).

What piqued our interest most is the roulade-style Rolled Pork & Vegetables Katsu Set, which looks like deep-fried maki sushi and you can customise your order with a wide selection of veggies (but we’ll get to that later).

Shiokoji Tonkatsu Keisuke takes over the space of another Keisuke concept, Ginza Tendon Itsuki. The 23-seat restaurant’s original wood-clad decor has been left intact, with nine counter seats where you can watch the chefs at work. The ventilation is not great, though, and we leave the eatery smelling slightly like Eau de Tonkatsu. As with all of Keisuke’s restaurants, we expect a queue once this new eatery opens; the man’s Tonkotsu King ramen joint next door and Charcoal-Grill & Salad Bar Keisuke at the mall’s basement still had long lines when we pop by on a weekday afternoon at lunchtime.

You can get a main dish for under $20 at all of Keisuke’s eateries, but what is value for money is the free-flow salad bar he offers at some of his outlets. Good news, it’s also available at his tonkatsu restaurant, where you can balance your dietary karma by pairing your fried nosh with veggies like blanched broccoli, coleslaw and pickled Chinese cabbage (there are six complimentary dressings like sesame sauce and olive oil for you to jazz up your salad).

What’s unique to this outlet is an additional Hai Di Lao-esque condiment station stocked with a whopping 12 types of sauces like citrusy ponzu sauce, teriyaki sauce and samurai sauce (a Belgian condiment made with mayonnaise, ketchup and chilli sauce). Instead of the standard Worcestershire-style sauce that’s typically served with tonkatsu, you can mix your own tonkatsu sauce here and zhng it with six types of garnishes like chopped leeks, garlic and grated daikon.

You will never, ever run out of sauces here; if you fancy drizzling some warm sauce over your freshly-fried tonkatsu and rice, there’s also a ‘hot sauce’ station with sweet Japanese-style curry and tomato sauce. Though we find the sheer variety rather overwhelming for a meal, ’cos every sauce sounds more intriguing than the last. First world problem, anyone?

If you’re lucky enough to get a counter seat, you can watch the Japanese chefs fry up your katsu order. The pork and chicken katsu are fried in a laborious two-step process to get a crispy crust: first in a low-temperature fryer at about 134 degrees Celsius for five minutes to cook the meat and set to rest for 30 seconds before being transferred to a 160 degrees Celsius high-temperature fryer for 30 seconds (the seafood is simply flash-fried in the high-temperature fryer to keep the centre rare). Fryers equipped with technology to control the food’s water molecules are also apparently used so the katsu is less greasy than usual.

This dish that resembles maki sushi is customisable. Choose from 20 types of ingredients like asparagus, enoki mushrooms, crabstick, chikuwa fish cake and even, er, potato salad and chilli padi to go with the deep-fried rolled pork base. There’s also the option of adding cheddar cheese to make your pork roulade even more exciting.

We try a version stuffed with crabstick, bok choy, long beans, carrots and cheese at a media preview, and it’s delish; the fresh blanched veggies are nicely crunchy wrapped in tender pork with a light, crispy panko coat. Each katsu set comes with a bowl of rice, miso soup, half an onsen egg katsu and access to the free-flow salad bar and sauce stations. At $16, this tasty meal is value-for-money.

The gooey-yolked panko-crusted egg is meant to be eaten with an accompanying warm bowl of rice. We drizzle some soy sauce over the otherwise unseasoned egg and coat the rice grains with runny egg yolk before inhaling the bowl. Oishi desu. (Get chef Keisuke's tips on how to cook the perfect onsen egg here.)

We wanted to try both the pork loin and tenderloin katsu, and this set offers both (each set comes with 100g of pork loin and 60g of tenderloin). You can also order purely pork loin (from $10.90 a la carte) and tenderloin (from $12.90 a la carte) in two serving sizes, 120g and 200g. Ironically, the eponymous tonkatsu here is underwhelming. Our loin order is dry, the tenderloin fried just a bit too long, and we couldn’t taste much of the hyped umami flavour of shio koji. Luckily, there are other better options to get here (see above and below).

This platter comes with prawn, scallop, salmon katsu and a creamy mayo sauce (some tangy daikon-spiked ponzu sauce from sauce station makes this even more yummy). The same pleasingly crispy panko crust (it’s indeed less oily than the average katsu) wraps pink-in-the-middle salmon, two fresh ebi fry and a springy scallop. Although it’s still deep-fried, this feels more virtuous and doesn’t sit heavy in our tummy after the meal.

Shiokoji Tonkatsu Keisuke at Paya Lebar Square reminds us of chef Keisuke Takeda’s other hit concept in the same mall, Charcoal-Grill & Salad Bar Keisuke (both offer a free-flow salad bar and super wallet-friendly prices), though they specialise in deep-fried katsu and grilled fish respectively. But we say don’t go for the tonkatsu at Shiokoji; the cute customisable pork-and-veggies rolls and the seafood katsu are much yummier than the deep-fried pork here. The restaurant does not take reservations (it also accepts only cash or NETS), so prepared to queue.

#01-02/03 Paya Lebar Square, 60 Paya Lebar Rd, S409051. Tel: 6214-3345. Open daily Mon-Fri 11.30am-2.30pm; 5.30pm-10pm, Sat & Sun 11.30am-10pm. www.keisuke.sg.