I'd been meaning to get to this one after going there the day after Portugal beat England in the World Cup, but other things have intervened and Hikaru Okabe @ the Tokyo Food Page has a review that says pretty much everything I wanted to.
The only thing that marred our experience of the evening was a noisy, drunken idiot at the table next to us (judging from his companions and the conversation, we pegged him as some kind of teacher from nearby Meiji Gakuin, there with two seminar students), who spent an interminable length of time going on about how he wanted to take on America and grind it into dust. Presumably he meant in the business arena and wasn't planning on a frontal military assault, but we were trying not to listen.
None of which detracts from the fact that Manuel is great. The location is obscure, but it's a great, relaxing place to hang out, and the number of wines by the glass was extensive. On the latter, I'm not sure how many varieties are listed on the menu; we just kept making appreciative comments and asking if we could try something else, and the friendly staff happily obliged and gave us a quick rundown on what we were getting.
[Read: Manuel Churrascaria: Shirogane-Takanawa - bento.com review]
Upper-class Nishi-Azabu tonkatsu.
Nishi-Azabu 2-24-9
03-5466-6775
Website
These people are very serious about their pig. The Gifu kenton pork that is Butagumi's standard is a specially-bred, low-volume variety produced at a few selected Gifu farms, and seems to be the most popular item on the menu; they also serve an Iberico pork tonkatsu limited to 10 servings per day, and--just to underline their fanaticism--the restaurant has a blog that seems to exist purely for the purpose of announcing the limited-edition pork varieties that form the remainder of the menu. I mean literally the remainder, by the way--the menu consists of five varieties of tonkatsu (roast and fillet for each of the Gifu and limited varieties, and roast only for the Iberico) and nothing else. (There is a drinks menu, of course.)
The tonkatsu is dead-on perfect -- cut into thick pieces, with a crisp coating of breadcrumbs around very juicy, tender meat. There's some fat, but it melts away before you have a chance to worry too much about it. The Japanese cliche about particularly tasty foods making you want a bowl of white rice doesn't usually affect me, but on this occasion the sheer appetite boost from the pork drove me to ask for a second bowl.
Budget: about Y6,000 for two, including a couple of drinks.