“Hey, this must be really hard for you. How about some katsudon?”

Japanese diners have famously high standards for restaurants. Not only should the food be tasty, it should also be pleasing to the eye, and the establishment’s atmosphere has to be appealing as well…which is why one restaurant opening later this month will offer the experience of eating lunch while being interrogated by the police.

That may sound like an odd ambiance to aim for, but this restaurant will serve only one dish: katsudon, or pork cutlet bowl. Filling and flavorful, katsudon is one of Japan’s most satisfying one-bowl meals, and it’s said that it used to be a common tactic for detectives playing the good cop role to offer a suspect katsudon part-way through their interrogation. “Hey, this must be a lot to deal with, and you’re probably starving, too” the investigator would say, putting on a compassionate persona. “How about if we get you a katsudon?”

The idea is that the act of kindness would either cause the suspect to drop his guard and incriminatingly slip up or to simply repent the error of his ways and compel him to come clean. It’s not clear how common this tactic actually was (although we’ve spoken with one katsudon chef who used to make regular deliveries to his local police station’s interrogation section), but police serving katsudon to suspects in custody is one of Japan’s most strongly established storytelling tropes, and something you can see often in detective movies and TV dramas.

All of which brings us back to the new restaurant opening in the town of Kisarazu in Chiba Prefecture, which is called Kisarazu Police Substation. Despite the name, it’s not actually affiliated with the local police department, and is instead the latest guest at pop-up restaurant venue 80/Eat, which hosts unique eating experiences for 80-day stints.

The katsudon they’ll be serving up (pictured above), looks mouthwatering, with its golden-brown breading and fluffy egg on top of the rice. Those handcuffs aren’t just for show, either, as standard operating procedure is for the staff to slap the restraints around your wrists as you enter the eatery, which is set up like an interrogation area, and you’ll also be questioned during your meal, with the staff encouraging you to confess to your crimes.

Kisarazu Police Substation is open for lunch only, from 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., since 80/Eat switches over to a different theme at night, and its 80-day run starts on July 11.

Restaurant information
Interrogation Katsudon Kisarazu Police Substation / 取り調べかつ丼 木更津派出所
Venue: 80/Eat
Address: Chiba-ken, Kisarazu-shi, Fujimi 2-1-1
千葉県木更津市富士見2-1-1
Open 11 a.m.-3:30 p.m.

Source: @Press via Otakuma
Top image: Pakutaso
Insert images: @Press
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