“A lot of cabbage, please.”
The server returned with enough shredded cabbage to bury the plate. I had come to Matsumoto no Rairaiken in Yokkaichi for pork steak. Somehow, dinner had become a cabbage delivery service.
The pork was supposed to be the main event
Yokkaichi's tonteki is thick pork cooked with garlic and a punchy dark sauce. The restaurant's signature dai-tonteki uses a 250-gram cut of pork shoulder.
The pork was excellent. But the pile of shredded cabbage on the side turned out to have a second job: soaking up that sauce.
A bite of pork. A forkful of cabbage. More pork. More cabbage.
The side dish was working overtime.
One refill turned into a mountain
The restaurant advertises free cabbage refills; extra servings of rice or pork soup come at an additional charge. Since rice wasn't the goal that evening, I asked for more cabbage.
There was no call button at the table. I caught a server's attention and said, “A lot, please.”
They understood “a lot” as a lot. The cabbage arrived in a heap high enough to hide the plate.
The sauce made it easy to eat, so I requested another generous helping. Then something unexpected happened: a server offered more cabbage before I asked.
The process had gone from ordering refills to receiving proactive cabbage updates. If this were software, somebody had switched on push notifications.
That was one visit, not a promise that the restaurant will offer unlimited personal cabbage service every time.
The final victim was the sauce
Skipping rice had sounded like a way to keep dinner light. Repeated servings of cabbage had other plans. By the end, I was thoroughly full.
Then I noticed what had vanished from the plate: the dark tonteki sauce. All that cabbage had soaked it up.
At first, the sauce made the cabbage delicious. By the end, the cabbage had effectively eaten the sauce.
This doesn't mean mountains of sauce-covered cabbage magically make for a balanced diet. It means an ordinary side dish became the most memorable character in the meal.
The pork was terrific. The cabbage stole the ending.
The restaurant describes its signature pork portion as 250 g. Refill policies, prices and opening hours can change; check current details before visiting.
