Don't Worry! Japanese Curry!!!

Ok.  Ok.  It has been a while now I know.  Happy New Year to all of you as this represents my first post of 2012.  Don't worry.  Don't worry.  I have not forgotten about this blog, nor about Japan.  In fact, I think about it all the time.  Just busy doin' other stuff during and after the holidays.  I hope you enjoyed the end of your year and are off on good footing in this year of the Dragon!

So the purpose of this post is to talk about Curry.  I remember the first time I tried a Curry.  It was in the mid 1980's at a small restaurant/bar on Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica, California called the Calcutta Cricket Club.  It was part of a bar they shared a wall with next door called McGinty's.  Sadly both of these places are long gone today.  Anyway, as you can image from the name of the establishment, it was an Indian Curry.  I ordered their chicken dish, and I had my choices of different degrees of hotness for the spices.  Since I was a big fan of spicy foods, and thought I had a strong ability to handle heat, I ordered it with an "extra hot" spice level.

To make a long story short, I could only eat half the dish.  The heat was far too intense.  My forehead was sweating like I was in an oven.  As I drove home I felt like my face was beginning to melt.  Wow!!!  Unfortunately due to the intense heat I really couldn't taste the flavor of the Curry.  I also never forgot from that point forward to be more careful with how hot I would order any spicy dish.

So fast forward to the mid '90's during my early trips to Japan.  I was fairly ignorant at the time about Japanese food.  I did not care for sushi as I had not developed my palette for it yet.  While I was over on those early trips I experimented with different foods.  One thing that caught my eye was the fact that a lot of Japanese really liked Curry.  That was cool I thought, so I decided to try the Japanese version as I was certain I would like it as long as I had the heat index in the right spot.  Early on I found a small restaurant called Sher Curry that was located inside of the Takanawa Tennis complex in the Shinagawa area of Tokyo.  It obviously catered to the tennis and golf crowd that used their sports facility.  It was never very crowded.  I ordered many of their different Curry plates, starting with a mild degree of heat.  The food was always very fresh, tasty and delivered to your table quickly.  The price was also reasonable.

Through the years, I have had many nice, relaxing and enjoyable meals at Sher Curry Restaurant.  A lot of times I have even gone there by myself (sometimes on a flight arrival night if it was still open it gave me the perfect convenience).  Of course I came to really appreciate the taste of Japanese Curry, which is different from the Indian version.  I do appreciate both, although I find the Japanese style more to my liking.  It is smoother and a little darker that the Indian Curries I have had.

The photos above are from 2001 and 2002 respectively by the way.  When I returned home from those early trips to Japan, I found a great restaurant called (appropriately) Curry House, right down the street from my office.  Me and my coworkers used to eat there regularly while we still worked in that office.  Their Curry was fantastic, just like it tasted in Japan.  It is still there, and is part of a larger parent company called House Foods.  I am sure my Japanese friends have heard of it.  Here is their U.S. web-site:  http://www.house-foods.com/CurryHouse/default.aspx.  What a great place.  I need to go back!!!

Anyway finding out that I really liked Japanese Curry allowed me to add another popular type of Japanese food to my preferred list.  This was comforting, and while unfortunately I have not been back to Sher Curry in many years, I am grateful for the memories and good food they provided me.  One day I may return again.