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Do You Like Japanese Curry?

According to NTV, foreigners like Japanese curry. How about you?

It seems that Coco Ichibanya made them fall in love with Japanese curry.

Take Coco Ichibanya curry house in Yokosuka near U.S. military base, for example, 70-80% of the customers are foreigners. They have increased more than 40 branches worldwide, and they are planning to build more branches to meet high demand.

Japanese curry is so popular today that it’s even featured in some local magazines in New York City. Three years ago, Go!Go!CURRY opened as first Japanese curry restaurant in NYC, creating the trend. Go!Go!CURRY is still very popular, with many customers inside the restaurant. When they opened 3 years ago, most of their customers were Japanese people, however 80% of their customers are now Americans.

It’s not only Japanese curry restaurants that attract Americans but some grocery stores in NYC sell Japanese curry roux.
Unlike Indian curry, Japanese curry has vegetables and meat inside and the soup is very thick because it contains flour. Also, Japanese curry is very cheap for its volume. A price of USD7.50 for a Katsu curry (curry & rice with deep fried pork) sounded reasonable to many of the New Yorkers!

What do you think about Japanese curry? Do you like it or not? Do you also think it’s very reasonably priced? Well, I think it’s quite reasonable, too!

{democracy:444}

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Contributor Bio: Kirin is a Japanese woman spending her life so far somewhere around Tokyo. She now works from home and is also spreading Japanese kawaii culture and etc. through her popular blog, Tokyo Kawaii,etc.
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42 comments - What do you think? Posted by kirin - September 30, 2010 at 9:13 am

Categories: Japanese Food Tags:

Ochazuke

Unlike Indian curry, Japanese curry has vegetables and meat inside…

Knee-jerk reaction perhaps, but are you implying that Indian curry, despite the myriad dishes to which that term is used to refer, contains no vegetables or meat?

nagoriyuki

@5:30, it says Indian curry is likely to separate meat from vegetable dishes for some religious reasons. So the video is showing mutton curry, bean curry, and spinach curry served in each dish.
Japanese curry cooks them all together in one soup, which makes its taste more complex.

But Basically, Indians don’t use “curry” as a term for their cuisine.
It’s British people who began to call it so in a rough way.
Bob

I agree.. the writer of this article knows nothing about real curry, and has probably never tried nihari. Please do your research or at the very least consult with a South Asian before you write about our cuisine.
weirdo

The original video said that 「インドのカレーは宗教上な理由で肉と野菜は別々に作るのが一般的」 (Indian curry typically has meat and vegetables prepared separately for religious reasons). Not that Indian curry doesn’t have meat or vegetables.
lilyqueen

Yeah, the news piece is incorrect. There many different types of Indian “curries.” Some of them include both meat and vegetables. Some of them have just meat and a sauce or just vegetables and a sauce. Japan seems to have a very, very limited exposure to Indian food, and I think that when they think “Indian curry,” they think of keema, which is meat in a sauce. At any rate, it’s a wildly incorrect description of all Indian curry-like dishes.

(I like both Japanese curries and Indian curries, for the record.)

DCL

Japanese curry roux (Vermont, S&B) is sold at a large variety of US supermarkets all over the country and has been for many years.

Karisu

Name 1. None I’ve ever visited, surely.

lovely

wegman`s

Karisu

I need to look again then because I have never seen it at Wegmans in their foreign foods section next to all their other Japanese items (pocky, udon, and sushi rice among them).

http://madpla.net aragoto

Could we drop the word “foreigner”? It isn’t much favoured in polite English usage these days, and neither is the blanket use of a single term to cover every nation but Japan. And I rolled my eyes at the opening of this post: “a Japanese TV station has made yet another lazy generalization about every non-Japanese in the world; do you fit into it?”

This is an old chestnut, undoubtedly, but I mention it because it’s a jarring note on a blog that is otherwise spot on in both tone and content in its coverage of Japan and its place in the world. A sudden descent from thoughtful commentary into “Wow, Japan is weird! Can you use chopsticks?” territory.

Simon

Hang on — you mean all people who aren’t Japanese _don’t_ all necessarily share the same tastes and opinions?

*sob* MY WORLDVIEW … RUINED!

I totally agree with you, aragoto. When contributors such as Kirin are comfortable with questions such as “Many Asian people eat with their hands. Do you eat with your hands?”, then perhaps “foreigner” will be very slightly more acceptable.

Since the majority of the people I have spoken with are quick to differentiate Japanese from the rest of Asia, though, that day might be a long time coming.
http://tepido.org/ LB

So what word do you recommend using to express the concept “all human beings aside from Japanese”?

Simon

Unless you’re talking about immigration- or legal-related matters, it’s unlikely that you’ll need to lump “all humans aside from Japanese” into a single group that needs to be expressed as a single word.

How about just “people from other countries”?

“It’s common in Japan for people to line up for a long time, even over an hour in some cases, to get into a popular ramen restaurant — a practice that people from other countries often find bemusing.”

See? You don’t have to drag the image of “foreignness” into it at all. You just simply state that they are people and they are from other countries. It would even keep Debitard happy since people-who-are-foreign-nationals-yet-live-in-Japan aren’t included in that group.

tl;dr: “people” unless “foreign” is absolutely necessary.

Kevin not kevin

“People from other countries” in Japanese is 外国の方, or as it’s found in it’s abbreviated form – 外国人. See how we just went in a circle?
Simon

Yes, Kevin, but we’re talking about English words, not Japanese. Your Japanese is very jouzu though.
Piglet

Although 外国人 and “foreigner” have the same meaning, the modern usage of the word “foreigner” in English is limited to non-casual use (legal/social). It is considered It is similar in French: the word “étranger” should not be used casually in polite French (unless the topic of discussion is related to citizenship or political matters) because it is not appropriate anymore.

TofuUnion

If you understand Japanese, you hear the Japanese word on the video “Gaikokujin no Kata” which is the highest polite form to be meant “foreigner”. Therefore your argument doesn’t make sense in terms of Japanese expression. When it might exist a problem here it would be just about English translation.

cambio

more than 200 people answered “I’ve never tried it” in the above poll…

I find that really hard to believe… unless they’re living in Siberia or something…

Japanese curry is great! I also like the traditional Indian curry(when I’m in the mood
for spicy curry)

Karisu

Japanese Curry is in no way attainable anywhere within a 200 mile radius from me. It’s hardly common anywhere outside of Japan.

marc30510

http://shrinecastle.blogspot.com/2009/02/ga-ga-for-gogo-curry.html
lovely

japanese curry is “meh.” and i am not a foreigner in japan. i am an american in japan.

ponta

Americans are foreigners, no?

Hamachiman

I like both Indian and Japanese curry, but to me Indian curry is as much about the other ingredients in the curry such as meats, vegetables, etc. I couldn’t just pour Indian curry over rice and eat it.

Japanese curry on the other hand is thicker and I could eat it by itself poured over rice. Delicious.

hiMe

Lot’s of indian curries are made to be eaten over rice or mixed in, such as sindhi biriyani.

Tony D

Needs an option above “yes”. Katsu curry is definitely one of my all-time favourite dishes, because it’s so simple and awesome.
Piglet

Japanese curry is very good but I find the way the question is asked quite offensive in modern English (“foreigners like japanese curry”). Current writing standards indicate that the word foreigner should only be used in a political or social context (“the right to vote for foreigners”, “living standards of the foreign population”), not in a casual context. A better way to say would be something like : “Japanese-style curry has grown in popularity worldwide. For our overseas readers, have you ever tried Japanese-style curry and do you like it?”
Chino

I like Japanese curry the best, but when you try and go for other ethnic curry here, it still taste like Japanese curry. Japanese love to change anything ethic and make it taste like Japanese theirs:/
sublight

I prefer Indian and Thai curries. Japanese curry can be good, but it’s usually more because of the other ingredients tossed into it rather than the sauce itself (especially if you’re talking about Coco Ichibanya).
Karisu

Curry is possible the most disgusting food substance on the planet.

Comment

You, kind sir or madam, appear to lead a sheltered life:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casu_marzu
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balut_(egg)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surstr%C3%B6mming
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A1karl

Chino

I don’t understand why people think balut is gross. Sure it looks gross, but it taste like an egg with a piece of chicken and some chicken soup in it. In fact when people have eaten them on shows like fear factor, they usually are not grossed out at all. Don’t shelter yourself until you try it.

Comment

“I don’t understand why people think balut is gross. Sure it looks gross…”

You answered your own question. It may taste like mana from heaven, but it is still difficult for most people of the world to get past its looks. But really, don’t get hung up on one of the foods I included on my list that you happen to like, the point is that curry is FAR from being: “possible the most disgusting food substance on the planet”.

“Don’t shelter yourself until you try it.”

Please don’t presume to be so familiar with me. You don’t know which foods I have or have not tried.
Chino

Never said I liked it;)
Comment

“Never said I liked it;)”

You questioned why people thought it was gross, you described the way it tastes in pleasant terms, and explained how people on some TV show don’t seem to mind it too much. It’s safe to say you made no effort to indicate you disliked it;)

Him Royd

I devour Japanese curry when my wife cooks it, but I have to admit that I like most Indian and Thai curry better. There has always been kind of a chemical or artificial flavor to JCurry that I can’t shake.

http://whatjapanthinks.com Ken Y-N

I know what you mean – wifey loads up with veggies, but the average serving suggestion, and the current S&B advert, is just some beef chunks and a few carrots. I feel there’s no depth or subtly to the flavour of the average supermarket roux; stews are much better in that respect.

flowby

I like Japanese curry.

I like Indian curries.

And I’m even partial to some fire-breathing Celoynese curries.

But I think the author of this piece has a rather fixed idea of what constitutes a curry.

Essentially there are no rules and there certainly isn’t anything “unique” about Japanese curry. It is mild in bite, sweet on the palate and combines multiple ingredients – much like my mother was making 30+ years ago. In fact my mother used whatever was available in the vegie line, including corn, zucchini, capsicum, beef, lamb, seafood etc. And she oftened thickened the sauce with corn starch or made a roux.
In fact when I first tasted Japanese curry – I thought it was a commercialized version of My Mum’s real thing.
Dio

For reference, Go! Go! Curry isn’t the only Japanese curry/katsu place in NYC. Personally, it’s the least appetizing of all. I live two blocks away and, after two visits, I don’t consider it a dinner option. Hara Hana in Koreatown is infinitely better.
ZZ

I’ll toss in my favourite as the Glico brand. It’s one of my comfort foods and amazingly widely available in North America. After having worked (with great regret) in an Indian outsourcing company for a few years, I’ve had the opportunity to try a number of ‘curried’ dishes from various regions of the subcontinent. Personally, I very quickly developed revulsion to the cuisine from having far too much of it. I also find that Japanese roux’s allow for some of the more subtle tastes of the ingredients to show through (at least in the majority of my experiences).
http://3615-mavie.blogspot.com Stéfan

I love Japanese curry, discovered it in a CoCoCurry Ichibanya 2 years ago, and would love to see a Japanese curry restaurant to open in my city (which is very unlikely…), or at least have Japanese restaurants here offer curry, not just the usual sushi and yakitori they all serve. I’d like so see ramen too. It’s quite rare in the local Japanese restaurants here.
ama

Well, how much is there a person who has eaten the curry of Japan in this?
Papushi

Unlike Indian curry, Japanese curry has vegetables and meat inside

This makes no sense. Of course Indian curries have vegetables and meat.

Do You Like Japanese Curry?

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