Japanese curry 

  Posted on April 20, 2017  by jason toner  No comments

Curry is extremely popular in Japan over rice, udon noodles and inside bread! It was brought to these shores by the Brits during the Meiji era(1868-1912) and really became widespread in the 60`s when it was available nationwide in supermarkets and restaurants. One of the biggest curry restaurant chains called Curry House Coco Ichiban which humbly means “here is the best curry” opened their first restaurant in 1978 just outside Nagoya and now have 1296 restaurants in Japan and 161 in dotted around Asia with 9 in Los Angeles and Hawaii respectively. If you are a connoisseur of Indian curry in all of its heady aromatic glory, Japanese curry will not interest you but if you want to try it Coco Ichiban is a good place to start. I`ve been in japan for a while now and only recently went to try it and it gave me nice memories of climbing Mt.Fuji as I ate curry in a mountain hut on the way to the summit!
Basically the system at Coco works like this, you choose your chicken,pork or beef curry. Then the spice level(you can go ballistic if you wish, they’ve got your back) and thirdly the topping. I kept it sensible and opted for the deep fried pork cutlet(tonkatsu)which although not a revelation, was tasty enough for a quick lunch.
They also have a rapid take-out option and refrigerated packaged meals if you want to try it at home.