A Cut Above the Rest: Crispy meat and seafood at Sunset’s Cutlet House
November 26, 2004
It amazes me how many ways meat can be prepared, and with the upcoming holiday season, the possibilities are only growing. Fried, broiled, braised, steamed, poached, dried, boiled … coddled.
What gets me, however, is the fried turkey phenomenon for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I remember watching a Martha Stewart episode some five or six years ago, which showed the industrious homemaker submerging a 20-pound bird into a drum of fat. As the camera panned to the bubbling cauldron of oil and turkey grease, Stewart waxed about the juiciness of the meat and the delicious crunch of the fried skin.
I’m a stickler for tradition: Deep-fried turkey — and the Turducken, chicken stuffed in a duck-stuffed turkey — does not a good turkey make. The thought of finagling a huge bird into a vat of oil just doesn’t bring out the holiday joy in me.
If you’re craving some fried meat this holiday season, a more efficient and scaled-down version is cutlets, which are any thinly scalloped meat or seafood that’s been breaded and fried. Japanese noodle houses offer cutlets atop steaming bowls of udon, and Chinese restaurants, specializing in “Hong Kong-style snacks,” feature pork or chicken cutlets with sides of rice or spaghetti.
Last week, while driving around the quiet streets of the Sunset, I stopped into the Cutlet House Café on Taraval Street, a seven-year-old restaurant situated in a mostly residential neighborhood.
The square dining room was decorated with prints of sports teams and a huge poster of Michael Jordan. Vinyl blinds, plastic roses and Christmas lights line the windows, which provided an obstructed view of the L-train tumbling down 46th Avenue.
My friend and I sat at one of the booths, which border the dining room. The restaurant was empty at 6:30 on a Friday night, and the servers were watching a Pacers and Pistons match on TV.
After we ordered one appetizer and four entrees, our server asked, “Two more coming?” His eyes popped out after he heard me reply, “No, just the two of us. … We’re really hungry.”
Cutlet House Café’s menu resembles that of an American diner, offering such fare as Club and Ham Sandwiches, French Toast, and Ice Cream Sundaes. However dishes like Oxtail Tongue and Honey Cutlet Fish Balls scream “Hong Kong canteen.”
The complimentary cup of chicken-and-corn soup was thick and sweet, and its consistency reminded me of fondue, so I dipped my order of Garlic Bread ($2) into the soup. The bread was nice and soft, seasoned with melted butter and garlic powder.
Imitation crabmeat, mussels, squid, shrimp and a slab of fish cutlet rested atop the Japanese Style Seafood Udon ($5.50), which was swathed in a sweet and salty broth. The carrots were limp, but the broccoli and cabbage were crispy and fresh. The thick strands of udon were hearty and cooked al dente.
I was really impressed with both the Chicken Cutlet ($5.75) and Pork Cutlet ($5.75). I ordered rice with the chicken, which came with a small serving of broccoli, carrots and cabbage. My cutlet experience to date had been a greasy and soggy one: Usually the batter was moist and heavy, the meat dry and chewy. But Cutlet House’s Chicken Cutlet was dry to the touch and the meat was juicy. When I cut into the chicken fillet, the “skin” of the cutlet separated from the meat, and the outside wasn’t laden with oil.
Likewise, the pork was fresh and wasn’t coated in a heavy armor of flour and grease. Unlike some pork cutlets fried in lukewarm oil (which causes the food to absorb more oil), Cutlet House’s were tender, crunchy and pleasantly seasoned.
A bowl of chunky tomato sauce can be used to douse the fried fillets or mixed with the rice or spaghetti.
My friend had never eaten tongue, but I convinced him to try a bit of my Baked Ox Tongue With Tomato Sauce ($6.95). (Before you wince at tongue, just think of the delicious lengua you’ve had at a taqueria.) Four thick slices of tongue are baked on top of rice cooked with scrambled eggs, which is then smothered with tomato sauce and sprinkled with bacon bits. The bacon adds a nice, smoky aroma to the dish, heightening the intensity of the tomatoes. The tongue was supple and tender; if you ordered the dish without knowing, you probably wouldn’t realize that you were eating tongue.
Cutlet House Café may not offer fried turkey with all the dressing, but it does have decent and hearty cutlets in a nice, homey environment. The service is no-frills and (I believe) dependent on how well the basketball game is going, but you get hot food in a timely manner.
Cutlet House Café
3560 Taraval St. (at 46th Avenue)
San Francisco, CA 94116
(415) 566-9035
Hours: Mon. – Sun. 11:30 a.m. – 11 p.m.
Prices: Appetizers: $2 - $6.50; sandwiches: $2.50 - $5; entrees: $3.50 - $7.95
Credit cards accepted.
Reach the Picky Eater at pickyeater@asianweek.com.
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