Want to be transported back to the streets of Tokyo? Step this way, please.
It’s right there in the name. Uncle Don is a don restaurant. It sells dons, or donburi, the popular Japanese rice bowl dish of steamed rice topped with fresh or cooked ingredients.
Uncle Don serves more than 20 donburi variations, yet one of its most popular dishes isn’t a don at all, it’s a sandwich.
“It’s like one of the donburi,” owner Brian Lee says, laughing. “It’s basically a signature now, so maybe we need to sit down and figure out how to make it a bowl.”
Who is Uncle Don and what does he do?
Uncle Don is the creation of Brian Lee and his Eastern Culinary Collective, which also operates Nonda and the recently opened Nonna San (a converted Uncle Don) at South City Square in Woolloongabba.
Restaurant reviews, news and the hottest openings served to your inbox.
Sign up
Lee says the rationale for the venue was simple: he saw a gaping hole between the casual sushi spots around town and the medium to high-end Japanese restaurants, where you would typically order donburi.
“I wanted to create something affordable,” he says. “You go to a high-end restaurant and you can easily spend $70 to $100 per head. We have higher-end restaurants in the group so we’re capable of that cuisine, but we also knew how to present it at a casual, more affordable price.”
And it’s been a success. Uncle Don’s precisely presented salmon and wagyu beef donburi hit that sweet spot in terms of price and produce that makes them popular both for dine-in and takeaway.
Still, they’re perhaps outshined – in this humble column’s opinion, at least – by an unassuming sanger over there on the starters menu.
And by sanger we mean sando
A good katsu sando is hard to find.
Often the bread’s too squishy and lacks structural integrity, or it’s been toasted, which isn’t a sin in itself but a katsu sando in Japan is usually left untoasted (or perhaps lightly toasted on the inside to prevent sogginess). And then you’ll get all sorts of odd proteins shoved in the middle.
None of the above are deal breakers but sometimes you just want a traditional (or traditionally minded, at least) pork cutlet katsu sando. This is that, but elevated in all sorts of subtle ways.
For the bread, Uncle Don uses a yamagata-style shokupan, which is baked lid off to allow it to stretch upwards and develop its light and fluffy texture. Lee won’t be drawn on who does his baking because he’s been trying out different suppliers recently, but says it’s local to his specs.
Pork comes from The Valley Butcher.
“The strawberry sauce adds just that little bit of sweetness.”
Uncle Don owner Brian Lee
“They select the appropriate cut [usually loin or tenderloin] for us daily and ensure it’s delivered fresh, which helps us maintain consistent quality,” Lee says.
Once in the kitchen, Uncle Don’s chefs tenderise the pork and bathe it in sake to further soften its texture and enhance its savouriness. Then they bread the cutlet in room-temperature panko crumbs and let it rest before service.
To order, the pork is fried, layered between the bread with finely shredded cabbage and a housemade mayonnaise. Then, instead of a tangy tonkatsu sauce, comes Lee’s minor masterstroke: a house-made strawberry sauce, spread with the lightest of touches.
“That is a little bit different,” Lee says. “One of my chefs said at the time that it sounded a little bit dodgy but I said, ‘We’ll never know until we try.’ We tried it and thought, ‘This is better.’
“The strawberry sauce adds just that little bit of sweetness, because the cabbage slaw is already a bit sour and it balances that out.
“You don’t want too much, just the right amount.”
Is this Brisbane’s ideal katsu sando?
Uncle Don’s katsu sando isn’t the best I’ve had in town. Not quite. That honour goes to Honto with its whiting and ground-pork sandos, which are a long-term signature at that Valley restaurant (evolved from its original lobster sando) and spectacular little creations.
But in terms of taking what you find at the FamilyMart of 7-Eleven in Tokyo and elevating it into something restaurant quality, it’s hard to argue with Uncle Don.
This thing eats so well: the bread is fresh and fluffy but never dry or too sweet, the pork is tender. There’s the crunch of the cabbage and that lovely lick of sweetness from the strawberry sauce. And it never loses its structural integrity, like so many off-the-shelf sandos that leave an incriminating trail of cabbage and sauce in their wake.
You could argue Uncle Don’s katsu sando is almost too subtle, but not really. Maybe it just takes until the last bite to decipher what’s going on under the hood, meaning you might want to order a second. No shame.
Where to get it
Uncle Don’s katsu sando is $17. You can get one from 154 Melbourne Street, South Brisbane.
Matt Shea is Food and Culture Editor at Brisbane Times. He is a former editor and editor-at-large at Broadsheet Brisbane, and has written for Escape, Qantas Magazine, the Guardian, Jetstar Magazine and SilverKris, among many others.
