Review: This Kyoto restaurant is perfecting Wagyu katsu in L.A.

There is a specific expression of longing and mild despair that plagues the face of someone waiting for a table at a restaurant in the hour between 7 and 8 p.m. If you happen to be seated at one of the tables on the patio at Ten No Meshi, the new Wagyu katsu restaurant on Sawtelle Boulevard, it’s an expression you will become acutely familiar with. The group hovering around the entrance will stare without abandon, their eyeballs searing into your Wagyu like laser beams for the entirety of the meal.

With wait times that regularly exceed an hour, you do not have the luxury of choosing your table when your name is finally called. Just cross your fingers and toes that it’s inside, or that you’re in a seat facing the back of the restaurant.

Ten No Meshi is the first Los Angeles outpost of a Wagyu katsu specialist from Kyoto, Japan. It arrives at a time of peak Wagyu in Los Angeles, with the high-end beef filling everything from pitas to Philly cheesesteak sandwiches. It’s become a perfunctory luxury for finance bros and the kind of diner who collects watches and shiny things that run on four wheels. Ten No Meshi is making what should be a special-occasion indulgence a little more accessible to the rest of us.

• Share via Close extra sharing options

Like many of the best Japanese restaurants in the world, Ten No Meshi adheres to an admirable level of specialization. The menu is built around sets of katsu, the Japanese dish of panko-breaded and fried protein — mostly pork or beef — served with rice, miso soup, shredded cabbage and the equivalent of a condiment bar on each table.

There are sets of both A5 and American Wagyu, pork loin and tenderloin. At $57, the A5 may be the most affordable Wagyu filet mignon in town. But before the meat, there is seafood, and a little theater.

Every five minutes or so, the attention of the entire dining room shifts to whichever party is about to receive its first course of the set. A grinning server places a woven serving tray holding bowls of panko-crusted scallops under a mesh dome onto the table then asks if you’re ready.

“Three, two, one, Ten No Meshi! Yoisho! Hotate dashimasu [scallops coming]!”

A second server crowns each scallop with a generous scoop of ikura, delivering a piercing “yoisho” with each spoonful.

“‘Yoisho’ means like ‘let’s go,’” explains manager Takeshi Yamamura. “You say it when you put energy and enthusiasm into something.”

The words are delivered with an enthusiasm that borders on giddy, and the excitement permeates the dining room like a contact high.

The ikura are slightly sweet and umami forward, with gossamer membranes that burst and flood your mouth with an intense brininess. Juicy and salty, they super boost the natural sweetness of the scallop, served as a plump nugget under a sheath of crunchy panko. If it were possible to order a giant bowl of fried scallops and ikura for dinner, my entire party would have screamed “yoisho!”

A bottle of green tea. Manager Takeshi Yamamura. The ebi fry with panko-fried shrimp. (Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

The rest of the set arrives in a flurry of platters, plates and bowls. A sliced cutlet of beef or Kurobuta pork on a raised wire plate with a heap of cabbage and a cup of demiglace. On the side, a bowl of steamed rice, miso soup, a tiny dish of grated daikon spiked with yuzu and another with a runny poached egg meant for dipping. Each diner receives a hot stone to ignore or use to finish cooking the cutlets to desired doneness. On the table are self-serve containers of dashi soy sauce, garlic soy sauce, both regular and spicy tonkatsu, salt and wasabi. Everything but your, scallop, cutlet and the poached egg can be replenished by request, free of charge.

If you prefer pork, the tenderloin is the more tender of the two available cuts, though on multiple occasions, the meat leeched all moisture in the fryer and the panko breading completely detached. But served as katsudon, under a deluge of sweet and savory dashi broth, onions and beaten egg, the pork can be a desirable embellishment to a mound of white rice.

The Wagyu is the main character of the menu, with both American and A5 that eat like slabs of meat butter. The steaks are sourced from both Miyazaki and Kagoshima — two Kyushu Island prefectures revered for their Wagyu. The meat is coated in what Yamamura describes as “special flour from Japan,” then dunked into “melted butter from Japan” and breaded in “a certain size of fresh panko.” The cutlets are fried in a bubbling vat of palm oil, beef tallow and pork lard.

The Kurobuta Rosu Katsudon from Ten No Meshi.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

The specific size of fresh panko creates an exaggerated, feathery coating for a delicate crunch. The American Wagyu, priced at $44, will satisfy those seeking the cornerstone traits of Waygu beef: heavily marbled and exceedingly tender with a robust, beefy flavor. If you can afford the upgrade, the A5 is a worthwhile indulgence, with succulent tiles of steak so supple and yielding, they nearly dissolve on your tongue.

Yamamura insists that there’s no wrong way to eat the Wagyu katsu. Sear it on the stone, if you wish. Swish it through the runny egg, then swipe it through the garlic soy sauce. I like to interchange bites of salt and grated wasabi, with pieces dunked into the demiglace. Perhaps the sauce is a nod to the French origins of tonkatsu, created as a Japanese twist on côtelette de veau, a breaded veal cutlet pan-fried in butter. The Ten No Meshi version of the mother sauce channels a silky tomato-meat gravy you can use as a dipping sauce for the Wagyu, or anything else on the table.

If you drink beer, or appreciate the effervescence of bubbles while devouring a meal mostly prepared in the deep fryer, the hankering for an Asahi will come on fast and strong mid meal. While Ten No Meshi waits for its beer and wine permit, there is excellent iced Sencha tea, grassy and refreshing enough to snap your palate back into a semblance of post-fried balance. And there is Ramune, the Japanese fizzy drink sealed with a glass marble. You use the cap to plunge the marble into the inner chamber, releasing the drink’s carbonation. It’s sweet, citrusy, and the marble rattles while you sip. Yoisho!

There is a specific expression of longing and mild despair that plagues the face of someone waiting for a table at a restaurant in the hour between 7 and 8 p.m. If you happen to be seated at one of the tables on the patio at Ten No Meshi, the new Wagyu katsu restaurant on Sawtelle Boulevard, it’s an expression you will become acutely familiar with. The group hovering around the entrance will stare without abandon, their eyeballs searing into your Wagyu like laser beams for the entirety of the meal.

With wait times that regularly exceed an hour, you do not have the luxury of choosing your table when your name is finally called. Just cross your fingers and toes that it’s inside, or that you’re in a seat facing the back of the restaurant.

Ten No Meshi is the first Los Angeles outpost of a Wagyu katsu specialist from Kyoto, Japan. It arrives at a time of peak Wagyu in Los Angeles, with the high-end beef filling everything from pitas to Philly cheesesteak sandwiches. It’s become a perfunctory luxury for finance bros and the kind of diner who collects watches and shiny things that run on four wheels. Ten No Meshi is making what should be a special-occasion indulgence a little more accessible to the rest of us.

• Share via Close extra sharing options

Like many of the best Japanese restaurants in the world, Ten No Meshi adheres to an admirable level of specialization. The menu is built around sets of katsu, the Japanese dish of panko-breaded and fried protein — mostly pork or beef — served with rice, miso soup, shredded cabbage and the equivalent of a condiment bar on each table.

There are sets of both A5 and American Wagyu, pork loin and tenderloin. At $57, the A5 may be the most affordable Wagyu filet mignon in town. But before the meat, there is seafood, and a little theater.

Every five minutes or so, the attention of the entire dining room shifts to whichever party is about to receive its first course of the set. A grinning server places a woven serving tray holding bowls of panko-crusted scallops under a mesh dome onto the table then asks if you’re ready.

“Three, two, one, Ten No Meshi! Yoisho! Hotate dashimasu [scallops coming]!”

A second server crowns each scallop with a generous scoop of ikura, delivering a piercing “yoisho” with each spoonful.

“‘Yoisho’ means like ‘let’s go,’” explains manager Takeshi Yamamura. “You say it when you put energy and enthusiasm into something.”

The words are delivered with an enthusiasm that borders on giddy, and the excitement permeates the dining room like a contact high.

The ikura are slightly sweet and umami forward, with gossamer membranes that burst and flood your mouth with an intense brininess. Juicy and salty, they super boost the natural sweetness of the scallop, served as a plump nugget under a sheath of crunchy panko. If it were possible to order a giant bowl of fried scallops and ikura for dinner, my entire party would have screamed “yoisho!”

A bottle of green tea. Manager Takeshi Yamamura. The ebi fry with panko-fried shrimp. (Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

The rest of the set arrives in a flurry of platters, plates and bowls. A sliced cutlet of beef or Kurobuta pork on a raised wire plate with a heap of cabbage and a cup of demiglace. On the side, a bowl of steamed rice, miso soup, a tiny dish of grated daikon spiked with yuzu and another with a runny poached egg meant for dipping. Each diner receives a hot stone to ignore or use to finish cooking the cutlets to desired doneness. On the table are self-serve containers of dashi soy sauce, garlic soy sauce, both regular and spicy tonkatsu, salt and wasabi. Everything but your, scallop, cutlet and the poached egg can be replenished by request, free of charge.

If you prefer pork, the tenderloin is the more tender of the two available cuts, though on multiple occasions, the meat leeched all moisture in the fryer and the panko breading completely detached. But served as katsudon, under a deluge of sweet and savory dashi broth, onions and beaten egg, the pork can be a desirable embellishment to a mound of white rice.

The Wagyu is the main character of the menu, with both American and A5 that eat like slabs of meat butter. The steaks are sourced from both Miyazaki and Kagoshima — two Kyushu Island prefectures revered for their Wagyu. The meat is coated in what Yamamura describes as “special flour from Japan,” then dunked into “melted butter from Japan” and breaded in “a certain size of fresh panko.” The cutlets are fried in a bubbling vat of palm oil, beef tallow and pork lard.

The Kurobuta Rosu Katsudon from Ten No Meshi.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

The specific size of fresh panko creates an exaggerated, feathery coating for a delicate crunch. The American Wagyu, priced at $44, will satisfy those seeking the cornerstone traits of Waygu beef: heavily marbled and exceedingly tender with a robust, beefy flavor. If you can afford the upgrade, the A5 is a worthwhile indulgence, with succulent tiles of steak so supple and yielding, they nearly dissolve on your tongue.

Yamamura insists that there’s no wrong way to eat the Wagyu katsu. Sear it on the stone, if you wish. Swish it through the runny egg, then swipe it through the garlic soy sauce. I like to interchange bites of salt and grated wasabi, with pieces dunked into the demiglace. Perhaps the sauce is a nod to the French origins of tonkatsu, created as a Japanese twist on côtelette de veau, a breaded veal cutlet pan-fried in butter. The Ten No Meshi version of the mother sauce channels a silky tomato-meat gravy you can use as a dipping sauce for the Wagyu, or anything else on the table.

If you drink beer, or appreciate the effervescence of bubbles while devouring a meal mostly prepared in the deep fryer, the hankering for an Asahi will come on fast and strong mid meal. While Ten No Meshi waits for its beer and wine permit, there is excellent iced Sencha tea, grassy and refreshing enough to snap your palate back into a semblance of post-fried balance. And there is Ramune, the Japanese fizzy drink sealed with a glass marble. You use the cap to plunge the marble into the inner chamber, releasing the drink’s carbonation. It’s sweet, citrusy, and the marble rattles while you sip. Yoisho!

There is a specific expression of longing and mild despair that plagues the face of someone waiting for a table at a restaurant in the hour between 7 and 8 p.m. If you happen to be seated at one of the tables on the patio at Ten No Meshi, the new Wagyu katsu restaurant on Sawtelle Boulevard, it’s an expression you will become acutely familiar with. The group hovering around the entrance will stare without abandon, their eyeballs searing into your Wagyu like laser beams for the entirety of the meal.

With wait times that regularly exceed an hour, you do not have the luxury of choosing your table when your name is finally called. Just cross your fingers and toes that it’s inside, or that you’re in a seat facing the back of the restaurant.

Ten No Meshi is the first Los Angeles outpost of a Wagyu katsu specialist from Kyoto, Japan. It arrives at a time of peak Wagyu in Los Angeles, with the high-end beef filling everything from pitas to Philly cheesesteak sandwiches. It’s become a perfunctory luxury for finance bros and the kind of diner who collects watches and shiny things that run on four wheels. Ten No Meshi is making what should be a special-occasion indulgence a little more accessible to the rest of us.

• Share via Close extra sharing options

Like many of the best Japanese restaurants in the world, Ten No Meshi adheres to an admirable level of specialization. The menu is built around sets of katsu, the Japanese dish of panko-breaded and fried protein — mostly pork or beef — served with rice, miso soup, shredded cabbage and the equivalent of a condiment bar on each table.

There are sets of both A5 and American Wagyu, pork loin and tenderloin. At $57, the A5 may be the most affordable Wagyu filet mignon in town. But before the meat, there is seafood, and a little theater.

Every five minutes or so, the attention of the entire dining room shifts to whichever party is about to receive its first course of the set. A grinning server places a woven serving tray holding bowls of panko-crusted scallops under a mesh dome onto the table then asks if you’re ready.

“Three, two, one, Ten No Meshi! Yoisho! Hotate dashimasu [scallops coming]!”

A second server crowns each scallop with a generous scoop of ikura, delivering a piercing “yoisho” with each spoonful.

“‘Yoisho’ means like ‘let’s go,’” explains manager Takeshi Yamamura. “You say it when you put energy and enthusiasm into something.”

The words are delivered with an enthusiasm that borders on giddy, and the excitement permeates the dining room like a contact high.

The ikura are slightly sweet and umami forward, with gossamer membranes that burst and flood your mouth with an intense brininess. Juicy and salty, they super boost the natural sweetness of the scallop, served as a plump nugget under a sheath of crunchy panko. If it were possible to order a giant bowl of fried scallops and ikura for dinner, my entire party would have screamed “yoisho!”

A bottle of green tea. Manager Takeshi Yamamura. The ebi fry with panko-fried shrimp. (Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

The rest of the set arrives in a flurry of platters, plates and bowls. A sliced cutlet of beef or Kurobuta pork on a raised wire plate with a heap of cabbage and a cup of demiglace. On the side, a bowl of steamed rice, miso soup, a tiny dish of grated daikon spiked with yuzu and another with a runny poached egg meant for dipping. Each diner receives a hot stone to ignore or use to finish cooking the cutlets to desired doneness. On the table are self-serve containers of dashi soy sauce, garlic soy sauce, both regular and spicy tonkatsu, salt and wasabi. Everything but your, scallop, cutlet and the poached egg can be replenished by request, free of charge.

If you prefer pork, the tenderloin is the more tender of the two available cuts, though on multiple occasions, the meat leeched all moisture in the fryer and the panko breading completely detached. But served as katsudon, under a deluge of sweet and savory dashi broth, onions and beaten egg, the pork can be a desirable embellishment to a mound of white rice.

The Wagyu is the main character of the menu, with both American and A5 that eat like slabs of meat butter. The steaks are sourced from both Miyazaki and Kagoshima — two Kyushu Island prefectures revered for their Wagyu. The meat is coated in what Yamamura describes as “special flour from Japan,” then dunked into “melted butter from Japan” and breaded in “a certain size of fresh panko.” The cutlets are fried in a bubbling vat of palm oil, beef tallow and pork lard.

The Kurobuta Rosu Katsudon from Ten No Meshi.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

The specific size of fresh panko creates an exaggerated, feathery coating for a delicate crunch. The American Wagyu, priced at $44, will satisfy those seeking the cornerstone traits of Waygu beef: heavily marbled and exceedingly tender with a robust, beefy flavor. If you can afford the upgrade, the A5 is a worthwhile indulgence, with succulent tiles of steak so supple and yielding, they nearly dissolve on your tongue.

Yamamura insists that there’s no wrong way to eat the Wagyu katsu. Sear it on the stone, if you wish. Swish it through the runny egg, then swipe it through the garlic soy sauce. I like to interchange bites of salt and grated wasabi, with pieces dunked into the demiglace. Perhaps the sauce is a nod to the French origins of tonkatsu, created as a Japanese twist on côtelette de veau, a breaded veal cutlet pan-fried in butter. The Ten No Meshi version of the mother sauce channels a silky tomato-meat gravy you can use as a dipping sauce for the Wagyu, or anything else on the table.

If you drink beer, or appreciate the effervescence of bubbles while devouring a meal mostly prepared in the deep fryer, the hankering for an Asahi will come on fast and strong mid meal. While Ten No Meshi waits for its beer and wine permit, there is excellent iced Sencha tea, grassy and refreshing enough to snap your palate back into a semblance of post-fried balance. And there is Ramune, the Japanese fizzy drink sealed with a glass marble. You use the cap to plunge the marble into the inner chamber, releasing the drink’s carbonation. It’s sweet, citrusy, and the marble rattles while you sip. Yoisho!

There is a specific expression of longing and mild despair that plagues the face of someone waiting for a table at a restaurant in the hour between 7 and 8 p.m. If you happen to be seated at one of the tables on the patio at Ten No Meshi, the new Wagyu katsu restaurant on Sawtelle Boulevard, it’s an expression you will become acutely familiar with. The group hovering around the entrance will stare without abandon, their eyeballs searing into your Wagyu like laser beams for the entirety of the meal.

With wait times that regularly exceed an hour, you do not have the luxury of choosing your table when your name is finally called. Just cross your fingers and toes that it’s inside, or that you’re in a seat facing the back of the restaurant.

Ten No Meshi is the first Los Angeles outpost of a Wagyu katsu specialist from Kyoto, Japan. It arrives at a time of peak Wagyu in Los Angeles, with the high-end beef filling everything from pitas to Philly cheesesteak sandwiches. It’s become a perfunctory luxury for finance bros and the kind of diner who collects watches and shiny things that run on four wheels. Ten No Meshi is making what should be a special-occasion indulgence a little more accessible to the rest of us.

• Share via Close extra sharing options

Like many of the best Japanese restaurants in the world, Ten No Meshi adheres to an admirable level of specialization. The menu is built around sets of katsu, the Japanese dish of panko-breaded and fried protein — mostly pork or beef — served with rice, miso soup, shredded cabbage and the equivalent of a condiment bar on each table.

There are sets of both A5 and American Wagyu, pork loin and tenderloin. At $57, the A5 may be the most affordable Wagyu filet mignon in town. But before the meat, there is seafood, and a little theater.

Every five minutes or so, the attention of the entire dining room shifts to whichever party is about to receive its first course of the set. A grinning server places a woven serving tray holding bowls of panko-crusted scallops under a mesh dome onto the table then asks if you’re ready.

“Three, two, one, Ten No Meshi! Yoisho! Hotate dashimasu [scallops coming]!”

A second server crowns each scallop with a generous scoop of ikura, delivering a piercing “yoisho” with each spoonful.

“‘Yoisho’ means like ‘let’s go,’” explains manager Takeshi Yamamura. “You say it when you put energy and enthusiasm into something.”

The words are delivered with an enthusiasm that borders on giddy, and the excitement permeates the dining room like a contact high.

The ikura are slightly sweet and umami forward, with gossamer membranes that burst and flood your mouth with an intense brininess. Juicy and salty, they super boost the natural sweetness of the scallop, served as a plump nugget under a sheath of crunchy panko. If it were possible to order a giant bowl of fried scallops and ikura for dinner, my entire party would have screamed “yoisho!”

A bottle of green tea. Manager Takeshi Yamamura. The ebi fry with panko-fried shrimp. (Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

The rest of the set arrives in a flurry of platters, plates and bowls. A sliced cutlet of beef or Kurobuta pork on a raised wire plate with a heap of cabbage and a cup of demiglace. On the side, a bowl of steamed rice, miso soup, a tiny dish of grated daikon spiked with yuzu and another with a runny poached egg meant for dipping. Each diner receives a hot stone to ignore or use to finish cooking the cutlets to desired doneness. On the table are self-serve containers of dashi soy sauce, garlic soy sauce, both regular and spicy tonkatsu, salt and wasabi. Everything but your, scallop, cutlet and the poached egg can be replenished by request, free of charge.

If you prefer pork, the tenderloin is the more tender of the two available cuts, though on multiple occasions, the meat leeched all moisture in the fryer and the panko breading completely detached. But served as katsudon, under a deluge of sweet and savory dashi broth, onions and beaten egg, the pork can be a desirable embellishment to a mound of white rice.

The Wagyu is the main character of the menu, with both American and A5 that eat like slabs of meat butter. The steaks are sourced from both Miyazaki and Kagoshima — two Kyushu Island prefectures revered for their Wagyu. The meat is coated in what Yamamura describes as “special flour from Japan,” then dunked into “melted butter from Japan” and breaded in “a certain size of fresh panko.” The cutlets are fried in a bubbling vat of palm oil, beef tallow and pork lard.

The Kurobuta Rosu Katsudon from Ten No Meshi.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

The specific size of fresh panko creates an exaggerated, feathery coating for a delicate crunch. The American Wagyu, priced at $44, will satisfy those seeking the cornerstone traits of Waygu beef: heavily marbled and exceedingly tender with a robust, beefy flavor. If you can afford the upgrade, the A5 is a worthwhile indulgence, with succulent tiles of steak so supple and yielding, they nearly dissolve on your tongue.

Yamamura insists that there’s no wrong way to eat the Wagyu katsu. Sear it on the stone, if you wish. Swish it through the runny egg, then swipe it through the garlic soy sauce. I like to interchange bites of salt and grated wasabi, with pieces dunked into the demiglace. Perhaps the sauce is a nod to the French origins of tonkatsu, created as a Japanese twist on côtelette de veau, a breaded veal cutlet pan-fried in butter. The Ten No Meshi version of the mother sauce channels a silky tomato-meat gravy you can use as a dipping sauce for the Wagyu, or anything else on the table.

If you drink beer, or appreciate the effervescence of bubbles while devouring a meal mostly prepared in the deep fryer, the hankering for an Asahi will come on fast and strong mid meal. While Ten No Meshi waits for its beer and wine permit, there is excellent iced Sencha tea, grassy and refreshing enough to snap your palate back into a semblance of post-fried balance. And there is Ramune, the Japanese fizzy drink sealed with a glass marble. You use the cap to plunge the marble into the inner chamber, releasing the drink’s carbonation. It’s sweet, citrusy, and the marble rattles while you sip. Yoisho!

There is a specific expression of longing and mild despair that plagues the face of someone waiting for a table at a restaurant in the hour between 7 and 8 p.m. If you happen to be seated at one of the tables on the patio at Ten No Meshi, the new Wagyu katsu restaurant on Sawtelle Boulevard, it’s an expression you will become acutely familiar with. The group hovering around the entrance will stare without abandon, their eyeballs searing into your Wagyu like laser beams for the entirety of the meal.

With wait times that regularly exceed an hour, you do not have the luxury of choosing your table when your name is finally called. Just cross your fingers and toes that it’s inside, or that you’re in a seat facing the back of the restaurant.

Ten No Meshi is the first Los Angeles outpost of a Wagyu katsu specialist from Kyoto, Japan. It arrives at a time of peak Wagyu in Los Angeles, with the high-end beef filling everything from pitas to Philly cheesesteak sandwiches. It’s become a perfunctory luxury for finance bros and the kind of diner who collects watches and shiny things that run on four wheels. Ten No Meshi is making what should be a special-occasion indulgence a little more accessible to the rest of us.

• Share via Close extra sharing options

Like many of the best Japanese restaurants in the world, Ten No Meshi adheres to an admirable level of specialization. The menu is built around sets of katsu, the Japanese dish of panko-breaded and fried protein — mostly pork or beef — served with rice, miso soup, shredded cabbage and the equivalent of a condiment bar on each table.

There are sets of both A5 and American Wagyu, pork loin and tenderloin. At $57, the A5 may be the most affordable Wagyu filet mignon in town. But before the meat, there is seafood, and a little theater.

Every five minutes or so, the attention of the entire dining room shifts to whichever party is about to receive its first course of the set. A grinning server places a woven serving tray holding bowls of panko-crusted scallops under a mesh dome onto the table then asks if you’re ready.

“Three, two, one, Ten No Meshi! Yoisho! Hotate dashimasu [scallops coming]!”

A second server crowns each scallop with a generous scoop of ikura, delivering a piercing “yoisho” with each spoonful.

“‘Yoisho’ means like ‘let’s go,’” explains manager Takeshi Yamamura. “You say it when you put energy and enthusiasm into something.”

The words are delivered with an enthusiasm that borders on giddy, and the excitement permeates the dining room like a contact high.

The ikura are slightly sweet and umami forward, with gossamer membranes that burst and flood your mouth with an intense brininess. Juicy and salty, they super boost the natural sweetness of the scallop, served as a plump nugget under a sheath of crunchy panko. If it were possible to order a giant bowl of fried scallops and ikura for dinner, my entire party would have screamed “yoisho!”

A bottle of green tea. Manager Takeshi Yamamura. The ebi fry with panko-fried shrimp. (Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

The rest of the set arrives in a flurry of platters, plates and bowls. A sliced cutlet of beef or Kurobuta pork on a raised wire plate with a heap of cabbage and a cup of demiglace. On the side, a bowl of steamed rice, miso soup, a tiny dish of grated daikon spiked with yuzu and another with a runny poached egg meant for dipping. Each diner receives a hot stone to ignore or use to finish cooking the cutlets to desired doneness. On the table are self-serve containers of dashi soy sauce, garlic soy sauce, both regular and spicy tonkatsu, salt and wasabi. Everything but your, scallop, cutlet and the poached egg can be replenished by request, free of charge.

If you prefer pork, the tenderloin is the more tender of the two available cuts, though on multiple occasions, the meat leeched all moisture in the fryer and the panko breading completely detached. But served as katsudon, under a deluge of sweet and savory dashi broth, onions and beaten egg, the pork can be a desirable embellishment to a mound of white rice.

The Wagyu is the main character of the menu, with both American and A5 that eat like slabs of meat butter. The steaks are sourced from both Miyazaki and Kagoshima — two Kyushu Island prefectures revered for their Wagyu. The meat is coated in what Yamamura describes as “special flour from Japan,” then dunked into “melted butter from Japan” and breaded in “a certain size of fresh panko.” The cutlets are fried in a bubbling vat of palm oil, beef tallow and pork lard.

The Kurobuta Rosu Katsudon from Ten No Meshi.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

The specific size of fresh panko creates an exaggerated, feathery coating for a delicate crunch. The American Wagyu, priced at $44, will satisfy those seeking the cornerstone traits of Waygu beef: heavily marbled and exceedingly tender with a robust, beefy flavor. If you can afford the upgrade, the A5 is a worthwhile indulgence, with succulent tiles of steak so supple and yielding, they nearly dissolve on your tongue.

Yamamura insists that there’s no wrong way to eat the Wagyu katsu. Sear it on the stone, if you wish. Swish it through the runny egg, then swipe it through the garlic soy sauce. I like to interchange bites of salt and grated wasabi, with pieces dunked into the demiglace. Perhaps the sauce is a nod to the French origins of tonkatsu, created as a Japanese twist on côtelette de veau, a breaded veal cutlet pan-fried in butter. The Ten No Meshi version of the mother sauce channels a silky tomato-meat gravy you can use as a dipping sauce for the Wagyu, or anything else on the table.

If you drink beer, or appreciate the effervescence of bubbles while devouring a meal mostly prepared in the deep fryer, the hankering for an Asahi will come on fast and strong mid meal. While Ten No Meshi waits for its beer and wine permit, there is excellent iced Sencha tea, grassy and refreshing enough to snap your palate back into a semblance of post-fried balance. And there is Ramune, the Japanese fizzy drink sealed with a glass marble. You use the cap to plunge the marble into the inner chamber, releasing the drink’s carbonation. It’s sweet, citrusy, and the marble rattles while you sip. Yoisho!

There is a specific expression of longing and mild despair that plagues the face of someone waiting for a table at a restaurant in the hour between 7 and 8 p.m. If you happen to be seated at one of the tables on the patio at Ten No Meshi, the new Wagyu katsu restaurant on Sawtelle Boulevard, it’s an expression you will become acutely familiar with. The group hovering around the entrance will stare without abandon, their eyeballs searing into your Wagyu like laser beams for the entirety of the meal.

With wait times that regularly exceed an hour, you do not have the luxury of choosing your table when your name is finally called. Just cross your fingers and toes that it’s inside, or that you’re in a seat facing the back of the restaurant.

Ten No Meshi is the first Los Angeles outpost of a Wagyu katsu specialist from Kyoto, Japan. It arrives at a time of peak Wagyu in Los Angeles, with the high-end beef filling everything from pitas to Philly cheesesteak sandwiches. It’s become a perfunctory luxury for finance bros and the kind of diner who collects watches and shiny things that run on four wheels. Ten No Meshi is making what should be a special-occasion indulgence a little more accessible to the rest of us.

• Share via Close extra sharing options

Like many of the best Japanese restaurants in the world, Ten No Meshi adheres to an admirable level of specialization. The menu is built around sets of katsu, the Japanese dish of panko-breaded and fried protein — mostly pork or beef — served with rice, miso soup, shredded cabbage and the equivalent of a condiment bar on each table.

There are sets of both A5 and American Wagyu, pork loin and tenderloin. At $57, the A5 may be the most affordable Wagyu filet mignon in town. But before the meat, there is seafood, and a little theater.

Every five minutes or so, the attention of the entire dining room shifts to whichever party is about to receive its first course of the set. A grinning server places a woven serving tray holding bowls of panko-crusted scallops under a mesh dome onto the table then asks if you’re ready.

“Three, two, one, Ten No Meshi! Yoisho! Hotate dashimasu [scallops coming]!”

A second server crowns each scallop with a generous scoop of ikura, delivering a piercing “yoisho” with each spoonful.

“‘Yoisho’ means like ‘let’s go,’” explains manager Takeshi Yamamura. “You say it when you put energy and enthusiasm into something.”

The words are delivered with an enthusiasm that borders on giddy, and the excitement permeates the dining room like a contact high.

The ikura are slightly sweet and umami forward, with gossamer membranes that burst and flood your mouth with an intense brininess. Juicy and salty, they super boost the natural sweetness of the scallop, served as a plump nugget under a sheath of crunchy panko. If it were possible to order a giant bowl of fried scallops and ikura for dinner, my entire party would have screamed “yoisho!”

A bottle of green tea. Manager Takeshi Yamamura. The ebi fry with panko-fried shrimp. (Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

The rest of the set arrives in a flurry of platters, plates and bowls. A sliced cutlet of beef or Kurobuta pork on a raised wire plate with a heap of cabbage and a cup of demiglace. On the side, a bowl of steamed rice, miso soup, a tiny dish of grated daikon spiked with yuzu and another with a runny poached egg meant for dipping. Each diner receives a hot stone to ignore or use to finish cooking the cutlets to desired doneness. On the table are self-serve containers of dashi soy sauce, garlic soy sauce, both regular and spicy tonkatsu, salt and wasabi. Everything but your, scallop, cutlet and the poached egg can be replenished by request, free of charge.

If you prefer pork, the tenderloin is the more tender of the two available cuts, though on multiple occasions, the meat leeched all moisture in the fryer and the panko breading completely detached. But served as katsudon, under a deluge of sweet and savory dashi broth, onions and beaten egg, the pork can be a desirable embellishment to a mound of white rice.

The Wagyu is the main character of the menu, with both American and A5 that eat like slabs of meat butter. The steaks are sourced from both Miyazaki and Kagoshima — two Kyushu Island prefectures revered for their Wagyu. The meat is coated in what Yamamura describes as “special flour from Japan,” then dunked into “melted butter from Japan” and breaded in “a certain size of fresh panko.” The cutlets are fried in a bubbling vat of palm oil, beef tallow and pork lard.

The Kurobuta Rosu Katsudon from Ten No Meshi.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

The specific size of fresh panko creates an exaggerated, feathery coating for a delicate crunch. The American Wagyu, priced at $44, will satisfy those seeking the cornerstone traits of Waygu beef: heavily marbled and exceedingly tender with a robust, beefy flavor. If you can afford the upgrade, the A5 is a worthwhile indulgence, with succulent tiles of steak so supple and yielding, they nearly dissolve on your tongue.

Yamamura insists that there’s no wrong way to eat the Wagyu katsu. Sear it on the stone, if you wish. Swish it through the runny egg, then swipe it through the garlic soy sauce. I like to interchange bites of salt and grated wasabi, with pieces dunked into the demiglace. Perhaps the sauce is a nod to the French origins of tonkatsu, created as a Japanese twist on côtelette de veau, a breaded veal cutlet pan-fried in butter. The Ten No Meshi version of the mother sauce channels a silky tomato-meat gravy you can use as a dipping sauce for the Wagyu, or anything else on the table.

If you drink beer, or appreciate the effervescence of bubbles while devouring a meal mostly prepared in the deep fryer, the hankering for an Asahi will come on fast and strong mid meal. While Ten No Meshi waits for its beer and wine permit, there is excellent iced Sencha tea, grassy and refreshing enough to snap your palate back into a semblance of post-fried balance. And there is Ramune, the Japanese fizzy drink sealed with a glass marble. You use the cap to plunge the marble into the inner chamber, releasing the drink’s carbonation. It’s sweet, citrusy, and the marble rattles while you sip. Yoisho!

There is a specific expression of longing and mild despair that plagues the face of someone waiting for a table at a restaurant in the hour between 7 and 8 p.m. If you happen to be seated at one of the tables on the patio at Ten No Meshi, the new Wagyu katsu restaurant on Sawtelle Boulevard, it’s an expression you will become acutely familiar with. The group hovering around the entrance will stare without abandon, their eyeballs searing into your Wagyu like laser beams for the entirety of the meal.

With wait times that regularly exceed an hour, you do not have the luxury of choosing your table when your name is finally called. Just cross your fingers and toes that it’s inside, or that you’re in a seat facing the back of the restaurant.

Ten No Meshi is the first Los Angeles outpost of a Wagyu katsu specialist from Kyoto, Japan. It arrives at a time of peak Wagyu in Los Angeles, with the high-end beef filling everything from pitas to Philly cheesesteak sandwiches. It’s become a perfunctory luxury for finance bros and the kind of diner who collects watches and shiny things that run on four wheels. Ten No Meshi is making what should be a special-occasion indulgence a little more accessible to the rest of us.

• Share via Close extra sharing options

Like many of the best Japanese restaurants in the world, Ten No Meshi adheres to an admirable level of specialization. The menu is built around sets of katsu, the Japanese dish of panko-breaded and fried protein — mostly pork or beef — served with rice, miso soup, shredded cabbage and the equivalent of a condiment bar on each table.

There are sets of both A5 and American Wagyu, pork loin and tenderloin. At $57, the A5 may be the most affordable Wagyu filet mignon in town. But before the meat, there is seafood, and a little theater.

Every five minutes or so, the attention of the entire dining room shifts to whichever party is about to receive its first course of the set. A grinning server places a woven serving tray holding bowls of panko-crusted scallops under a mesh dome onto the table then asks if you’re ready.

“Three, two, one, Ten No Meshi! Yoisho! Hotate dashimasu [scallops coming]!”

A second server crowns each scallop with a generous scoop of ikura, delivering a piercing “yoisho” with each spoonful.

“‘Yoisho’ means like ‘let’s go,’” explains manager Takeshi Yamamura. “You say it when you put energy and enthusiasm into something.”

The words are delivered with an enthusiasm that borders on giddy, and the excitement permeates the dining room like a contact high.

The ikura are slightly sweet and umami forward, with gossamer membranes that burst and flood your mouth with an intense brininess. Juicy and salty, they super boost the natural sweetness of the scallop, served as a plump nugget under a sheath of crunchy panko. If it were possible to order a giant bowl of fried scallops and ikura for dinner, my entire party would have screamed “yoisho!”

A bottle of green tea. Manager Takeshi Yamamura. The ebi fry with panko-fried shrimp. (Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

The rest of the set arrives in a flurry of platters, plates and bowls. A sliced cutlet of beef or Kurobuta pork on a raised wire plate with a heap of cabbage and a cup of demiglace. On the side, a bowl of steamed rice, miso soup, a tiny dish of grated daikon spiked with yuzu and another with a runny poached egg meant for dipping. Each diner receives a hot stone to ignore or use to finish cooking the cutlets to desired doneness. On the table are self-serve containers of dashi soy sauce, garlic soy sauce, both regular and spicy tonkatsu, salt and wasabi. Everything but your, scallop, cutlet and the poached egg can be replenished by request, free of charge.

If you prefer pork, the tenderloin is the more tender of the two available cuts, though on multiple occasions, the meat leeched all moisture in the fryer and the panko breading completely detached. But served as katsudon, under a deluge of sweet and savory dashi broth, onions and beaten egg, the pork can be a desirable embellishment to a mound of white rice.

The Wagyu is the main character of the menu, with both American and A5 that eat like slabs of meat butter. The steaks are sourced from both Miyazaki and Kagoshima — two Kyushu Island prefectures revered for their Wagyu. The meat is coated in what Yamamura describes as “special flour from Japan,” then dunked into “melted butter from Japan” and breaded in “a certain size of fresh panko.” The cutlets are fried in a bubbling vat of palm oil, beef tallow and pork lard.

The Kurobuta Rosu Katsudon from Ten No Meshi.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

The specific size of fresh panko creates an exaggerated, feathery coating for a delicate crunch. The American Wagyu, priced at $44, will satisfy those seeking the cornerstone traits of Waygu beef: heavily marbled and exceedingly tender with a robust, beefy flavor. If you can afford the upgrade, the A5 is a worthwhile indulgence, with succulent tiles of steak so supple and yielding, they nearly dissolve on your tongue.

Yamamura insists that there’s no wrong way to eat the Wagyu katsu. Sear it on the stone, if you wish. Swish it through the runny egg, then swipe it through the garlic soy sauce. I like to interchange bites of salt and grated wasabi, with pieces dunked into the demiglace. Perhaps the sauce is a nod to the French origins of tonkatsu, created as a Japanese twist on côtelette de veau, a breaded veal cutlet pan-fried in butter. The Ten No Meshi version of the mother sauce channels a silky tomato-meat gravy you can use as a dipping sauce for the Wagyu, or anything else on the table.

If you drink beer, or appreciate the effervescence of bubbles while devouring a meal mostly prepared in the deep fryer, the hankering for an Asahi will come on fast and strong mid meal. While Ten No Meshi waits for its beer and wine permit, there is excellent iced Sencha tea, grassy and refreshing enough to snap your palate back into a semblance of post-fried balance. And there is Ramune, the Japanese fizzy drink sealed with a glass marble. You use the cap to plunge the marble into the inner chamber, releasing the drink’s carbonation. It’s sweet, citrusy, and the marble rattles while you sip. Yoisho!

There is a specific expression of longing and mild despair that plagues the face of someone waiting for a table at a restaurant in the hour between 7 and 8 p.m. If you happen to be seated at one of the tables on the patio at Ten No Meshi, the new Wagyu katsu restaurant on Sawtelle Boulevard, it’s an expression you will become acutely familiar with. The group hovering around the entrance will stare without abandon, their eyeballs searing into your Wagyu like laser beams for the entirety of the meal.

With wait times that regularly exceed an hour, you do not have the luxury of choosing your table when your name is finally called. Just cross your fingers and toes that it’s inside, or that you’re in a seat facing the back of the restaurant.

Ten No Meshi is the first Los Angeles outpost of a Wagyu katsu specialist from Kyoto, Japan. It arrives at a time of peak Wagyu in Los Angeles, with the high-end beef filling everything from pitas to Philly cheesesteak sandwiches. It’s become a perfunctory luxury for finance bros and the kind of diner who collects watches and shiny things that run on four wheels. Ten No Meshi is making what should be a special-occasion indulgence a little more accessible to the rest of us.

• Share via Close extra sharing options

Like many of the best Japanese restaurants in the world, Ten No Meshi adheres to an admirable level of specialization. The menu is built around sets of katsu, the Japanese dish of panko-breaded and fried protein — mostly pork or beef — served with rice, miso soup, shredded cabbage and the equivalent of a condiment bar on each table.

There are sets of both A5 and American Wagyu, pork loin and tenderloin. At $57, the A5 may be the most affordable Wagyu filet mignon in town. But before the meat, there is seafood, and a little theater.

Every five minutes or so, the attention of the entire dining room shifts to whichever party is about to receive its first course of the set. A grinning server places a woven serving tray holding bowls of panko-crusted scallops under a mesh dome onto the table then asks if you’re ready.

“Three, two, one, Ten No Meshi! Yoisho! Hotate dashimasu [scallops coming]!”

A second server crowns each scallop with a generous scoop of ikura, delivering a piercing “yoisho” with each spoonful.

“‘Yoisho’ means like ‘let’s go,’” explains manager Takeshi Yamamura. “You say it when you put energy and enthusiasm into something.”

The words are delivered with an enthusiasm that borders on giddy, and the excitement permeates the dining room like a contact high.

The ikura are slightly sweet and umami forward, with gossamer membranes that burst and flood your mouth with an intense brininess. Juicy and salty, they super boost the natural sweetness of the scallop, served as a plump nugget under a sheath of crunchy panko. If it were possible to order a giant bowl of fried scallops and ikura for dinner, my entire party would have screamed “yoisho!”

A bottle of green tea. Manager Takeshi Yamamura. The ebi fry with panko-fried shrimp. (Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

The rest of the set arrives in a flurry of platters, plates and bowls. A sliced cutlet of beef or Kurobuta pork on a raised wire plate with a heap of cabbage and a cup of demiglace. On the side, a bowl of steamed rice, miso soup, a tiny dish of grated daikon spiked with yuzu and another with a runny poached egg meant for dipping. Each diner receives a hot stone to ignore or use to finish cooking the cutlets to desired doneness. On the table are self-serve containers of dashi soy sauce, garlic soy sauce, both regular and spicy tonkatsu, salt and wasabi. Everything but your, scallop, cutlet and the poached egg can be replenished by request, free of charge.

If you prefer pork, the tenderloin is the more tender of the two available cuts, though on multiple occasions, the meat leeched all moisture in the fryer and the panko breading completely detached. But served as katsudon, under a deluge of sweet and savory dashi broth, onions and beaten egg, the pork can be a desirable embellishment to a mound of white rice.

The Wagyu is the main character of the menu, with both American and A5 that eat like slabs of meat butter. The steaks are sourced from both Miyazaki and Kagoshima — two Kyushu Island prefectures revered for their Wagyu. The meat is coated in what Yamamura describes as “special flour from Japan,” then dunked into “melted butter from Japan” and breaded in “a certain size of fresh panko.” The cutlets are fried in a bubbling vat of palm oil, beef tallow and pork lard.

The Kurobuta Rosu Katsudon from Ten No Meshi.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

The specific size of fresh panko creates an exaggerated, feathery coating for a delicate crunch. The American Wagyu, priced at $44, will satisfy those seeking the cornerstone traits of Waygu beef: heavily marbled and exceedingly tender with a robust, beefy flavor. If you can afford the upgrade, the A5 is a worthwhile indulgence, with succulent tiles of steak so supple and yielding, they nearly dissolve on your tongue.

Yamamura insists that there’s no wrong way to eat the Wagyu katsu. Sear it on the stone, if you wish. Swish it through the runny egg, then swipe it through the garlic soy sauce. I like to interchange bites of salt and grated wasabi, with pieces dunked into the demiglace. Perhaps the sauce is a nod to the French origins of tonkatsu, created as a Japanese twist on côtelette de veau, a breaded veal cutlet pan-fried in butter. The Ten No Meshi version of the mother sauce channels a silky tomato-meat gravy you can use as a dipping sauce for the Wagyu, or anything else on the table.

If you drink beer, or appreciate the effervescence of bubbles while devouring a meal mostly prepared in the deep fryer, the hankering for an Asahi will come on fast and strong mid meal. While Ten No Meshi waits for its beer and wine permit, there is excellent iced Sencha tea, grassy and refreshing enough to snap your palate back into a semblance of post-fried balance. And there is Ramune, the Japanese fizzy drink sealed with a glass marble. You use the cap to plunge the marble into the inner chamber, releasing the drink’s carbonation. It’s sweet, citrusy, and the marble rattles while you sip. Yoisho!