Food Review: Mr Curry by Waraku

Most of my friends know that one of the first few things I do whenever I visit Tokyo is to head for Coco Ichiban Curry house. The curry is delicious and the ingredients are taste, plus you get to put as much preserved veg on your curry as you like.

So when I say Mr. Curry in Central, I thought we could get a good japanese curry experience in Singapore… finally.

So some of my friends went in and order some of the curry sets and I must say that its very dissappointing.

Tim order a beef cury set and when the beef curry came, there was only strands of fats float in the curry with very little trace of meat. We thought it was a mistake, but the waitress told us that its normal, but offer to change another dish for us.

I order a fried oyster curry. The fried kaki was okay, nothing to cry about. However, I find the curry a bit too starchy, almost empty of personality. For around $12 per set, I had expected more.

Now our sets all come with the soup of the day, but I wanted to try their onion soup and found that I had to pay an additional of $2 for the soup. When it came, I regretted paying extra $2 for a bowl of onion water.

All in all, the curry is no where near any good curry house in Japan and for the price, I expected more and got much less.

My verdict: I wouldn’t go there again.

おいしいそば

I was never impressed with soba, especially 茶そば or even ざるそば. What a waste of money eating nothing but carbohydrates with soy sauce!

Well, not until I tried the ざるそば at Kuriya at Raffles City basement, the other day. I was impressed by the rich texture and taste such a simple meal could afford. I cannot really describe how it tastes like, but its something you know it if you eat it. Even my boyfriend who don’t really like stuff like ざるそ, says its nice.  At least now I know why my friend Tadashi was raving about some soba at　新宿　２ chome. Really makes me want to fly there immediately to try it.

Having tried the soba at Kuriya, I have since tried soba from a lot of other places, but have not been impressed enough yet. For one thing, its my belief that soba should be eaten cold, that how the taste and textures comes out in full. In hot soup, some may just become soggy. However, I belief a good soba shop would know how to dish out good soba in hot soup.

The other day, we were at Shin Kyushiya at Vivo city and I order something similar but its udon.  The dipping sauce is sesame based instead of dashi.  The うどん looks a bit like our hor fun or the vietnamese pho (flat rice noodles), but the texture was good, it was actually unlike typical udon, taste more like a good pho. The dipping sauce was unimpressive but the udon was good. Worth the money spent.

Frequent eating places

Here is a quick list of the places I frequent for dinner or wished I did around where I stay at Yushima. Mostly I go there because they are close by and its late at night and I really don’t want to travel too far for anything else. Nevertheless, they are good (to me) and that’s why I visit them more than once, well not necessary everyday, but I won’t mind going back to them.

Lunch time

It must be very cold today… and it is. The cold winter winds are blowing at full force and you can scarcely see anyone walking along the streets at lunch time… all in mole city (underground).

It must be usually cold also, because most if not all of the bento lunches are gone at my B1 of the office building by 12:30 pm. Usually, even at 1:30 pm, I could still have a good selection of bento boxes. Not much to choose for today though.

Mont Blanc

Was shopping at Muji for bikes (no, have not bought yet) around Yurakucho which is near Ginza area and so I decided to walk around the fringe of Ginza. Well, I’ve walked around Ginza, its nothing but tai tai goods like 5 stories of Hermes and what’s not. As you can see, I don’t really like it there. Anyway, came upon a small cafe called “Cafe & Cake”, which sells its own popular Mont Blanc pastries.

Now, french pastries are very popular in Tokyo, almost most of the cake shops or cafe are selling french pastries. Of course, this fits into the Japanese liking for small petite and beautiful things. Also, they are quite into, you know, classical European furnishing and style…

Grilled dinner on Sat

Anyway, I met up with Tadashi and Saeki last Saturday for dinner. Tadashi asked me to decide between Shabu Shabu buffet and french dinner… Duh!! Need he ask at all? Of course, its the buffet.

So we went to this restaurant and guess what, we had to wait like 45 mins because its full. Okay, got to meet earlier next time for this. So we headed for something simple instead. Grilled meat.

Grilled meat is another of those common fairs in Tokyo. The most common are beef and pork. Chicken is also common. Of course, you have those grilled fishy stuff, but they are usually served in a different type of restaurant.

美味しいたこ焼き

I think its quite difficult to understand what the Japanese really means by 美味しい (Oishii [delicious]), until you actually try something really oishii! Its like what the Taiwanese means by “Q”, you wouldn’t know till you get it.

Anyway, one would think that the Japanese would be tired of たこ焼き (tako yaki [octopus balls]) After all its been there for ages and as Singaporeans we are quite tired of those back home. But no, they are not! Not surprisingly, its not uncommon to see queues forming at takoyaki-kan (shops). The Japanese simply loves these things

デザート at Shinjuku Ni-chome

デザート (dezato), obviously means desserts. Anyway, we (me, Tadashi and his friend(s)) would hang out around the Cocolo Cafe at Shinjuku ni-chome, simply because its the only cafe around this gay area. All other shops are either video parlours, bars or pubs. Of course 24 Kaikan is around there also. I will try to get photo shots of the area next time.

Anyway, its sort of Halloween and they had pumpkin cheese cake dessert this time round and its yummy!

You can see that I am enjoying the dessert!

Click here to see video

Also tried their “Vietnamese spring rolls” which is not what I would get in Vietnam! Typical of most foreign food in Japanese, they’ve added some herby Japanese minty pungent leaves, which over-powered the whole thing. The skin is thick and too chewy. Didn’t like it…

Dinner under the rails

One common sight you will see in Tokyo, and I guess any over crowded cities, are rows of shops underneath the railways. And from what I’ve heard there are like a waiting list people trying to start businesses underneath these rails.

Yum yum pork chops

Okay, I must declare that my favorite food in Japan so far is カツレツ (Katsuretsu) or more precisely 豚カツ (Tonkatsu)

The tonkatsu in Japan is one of the most common and much more creative that a lot of the crap you get in Singapore.