Kitano Selection's Premium Curry

You can tell it's premium because of the shiny box

Spice: 2
Rating: 8.5

This is your standard curry pouch that you buy in the store (in Japan) and heat up in boiling water for a few minutes.  Thanks to my awesome family in Japan I'm actually able to get ahold of many of these curries which you cannot buy in the States.

This is another instance of choosing a curry based solely on the box. This time I could only read "Kitano Selection" on the box, but I was able to find out that this is called 'Premium Curry' thanks to my personal translator (wife). I don't know what makes this premium other than it being in a fancy looking box - which was the reason I ate it. I was in the mood for something a little more 'upscale'. ^_~

When I open the pouch I always try and smell the curry before I pour it over rice. Sometimes the smell is very obvious - but that seems to happen  most often with the spicier curry. If I can't immediately smell it I lean in. This curry happened to smell absolutely GREAT.  I knew it was going to be good right away - and I was right.  I poured it over rice and thought that it also looked really tasty.  It has a dark color similar to a 'black curry' I ate in Tokyo.  I believe that curry was called "classic curry" or something along those lines and the waiter told us that this is the way curry was made in Japan before the 1950's.  The black color comes from squid ink if I remember correctly, and this also adds a rich flavor.

Perhaps this premium curry contains squid ink?  I don't know because I can't read the label.  I also don't know for sure, but I believe the meat in this curry is beef.   What I do know is that this curry is delicious and is creamy in the best way and has a very deep rich flavor.

It's not spicy at all and tastes very rich and creamy.  It feels 'heavy' and filled me up very well. The portion size was perfect - any more and I would have been stuffed.  I would eat any quantity of this curry that was given to me because it tastes so good, so I'm glad it wasn't so large that I finished eating and felt stuffed afterwards.

If you're looking for a nice thick, creamy, and satisfying curry dinner I highly recommend you give Kitano Selection's Premium Curry a try.  It's a classic flavor that will not disappoint and will leave you feeling satisfied and content. 

Currysan's Spicy Surf n Turf Curry recipe

My spicy surf n turf curry

Spice: 8 out of 10 
Rating: 9 out of 10

Another day, another curry!  I've been eating a lot of beef curry lately so I decided that I wanted something different for the protein in this newest batch of curry.  I thought "I never use tofu, should I try now?" No. Chicken? Sounds great! Shrimp? This also sounds great! 

So the question is how do you choose between the shrimp and chicken when they both sound good?  The answer was simple, I don't have to choose - it's time to make a surf n turf curry!  I decided that not only would this be tasty, but it'll be fun to make a themed curry every now and then.  This is my first one, but I'm sure I'll think of others in the future.  Does anyone out there have an idea for a themed curry to try?

This curry was great!  I think this may be one of the best I've ever made.  The spice level was really good although I was trying to go a tiny bit spicier than it came out. This was the kind of spice that builds as you eat more. It didn't burn the tongue but I found that as I ate more my body temperature began to rise, I started to sweat a little, and the back of my throat started to feel it. I was generous with the cajun spice blend and I'm glad I was!  Plus, I think mixing the hot versions of curry from two companies made a really nice blend of spicy flavors.  

I was loving this curry from the first bite. It had spice, it had a ton of flavor, and it was great getting both chicken and shrimp to taste. I found that the best bites had both a piece of chicken AND a shrimp in the spoon. It was amazing and a really nice combination. The only thing that might have made this even more incredible would be to have it all fried as I love katsu curry!

I think it's time to make some curry only using one brand of curry to really get a feel for the flavor of each one. This will help me eventually make the ultimate curry! You need to know your ingredients, so I need to get back to basics.

If you want a great protein-full curry, this is it! I definitely recommend this over the previous recipe I posted. I'll be making a curry like this again for sure!

  

Ingredients
2 yellow onions
2 large carrots
1 red bell pepper
4 oz sliced mushrooms
1 lb cooked shrimp
1 lb chicken breast cubed
2 cups chicken broth
8 fingerling potatoes
1 cut sweet peas
2 Tbsp ketchup
Urban Accents cajun spice burger blend to taste
Golden Curry Hot
Java Curry Hot




This makes a very large amount of curry - I froze half of it for later and happily ate it for dinner for a few days. 

How I cooked it

First I prepared all of the vegetables and meat.  Then I cooked the onions, chicken, and potatoes in the pot and sprinkled on the cajun burger blend to taste.  I was generous with this blend so that the chicken and potatoes would have some spiciness regardless of whether it was in a curry or not. Then, once the onions were browned I added 2 cups of chicken broth, 3.5 cups of water, the carrots, pepper, and sweet peas. I brought it to a boil and then lowered the heat to medium and let it cook for 20 minutes. 

Then I ran out of time as I was meeting people to see a movie.  So I left the half-cooked curry covered on the stove for 4.5 hours while I went to the movie and then dinner with coworkers. When I got back I reheated the food and added the curry stock, ketchup, and shrimp and let it cook on low heat for another 20 minutes.  

As I had already had dinner I wasn't hungry but I had to at least try a bite - it was great! Since I wasn't going to be eating I just left it covered on the stove until I left for work the next morning.  When I was at work I left it in the pot inside the fridge and I reheated it on the stove for one of the better curry dinners I've had the pleasure of eating.  :D

Second Chance: Kuroge wagyu (Japanese black beef) chokotto beef curry from Sanda-ya Souhonke

This time with the correct amount of properly cooked rice!

Category: Store Bought (From Japan)

Flavor:  6 out of 10

Spice: 1 out of 10

The other night I got home from work kind of late and I wasn't very hungry. I did want to have a little something for dinner though, and I didn't feel like cooking.  There were not many choices and so I realized it was the perfect time to give the chokotto curry a second chance!  I had a little bit of rice made (properly this time) from the other day so I heated it up, put the curry into some boiling water, and 5 minutes later I was tasting kuroge wagyu (Japanese black beef) chokotto beef curry for the second time - but trying to keep an open mind as if it was my first time. 

My initial reaction was "Mmmmm, this is quite nice". A very different reaction, but this time I was eating this curry under the proper conditions.  I wasn't very hungry and only wanted a small portion and this time it turned out it was the perfect amount.  

There still wasn't a lot of beef, but it seemed like a little more. Rather, the beef was cut into smaller pieces, so while it may have been the same amount I felt less cheated. I would have liked more meat and more vegetables, but it wasn't such a big deal since I wasn't very hungry.  This time everything just seemed acceptable.  It still had absolutely no spice to it but the flavor was nice.  

I think this is great for when you want a small meal, don't want to put any effort into it, and don't really care for something really delicious.  Last time I used a scale of 1-5, but I've been using 1-10 in later reviews so this time it gets a 6 out of 10.  An upgrade from the previous review, but still not among the kings of curry.

Sushi King - Rio Rancho, NM

Website: Sushi King
For some reason they don't list the location that I went to on their website.

Good spice, ok flavor

Spice:  7 out of 10
Overall:  5 out of 10


The other day I found myself at a Japanese restaurant with some co-workers here in Albuquerque. I had pretty much given up on finding any good Japanese food here, but I was told that they had been here before and that it was good.  I can't judge the entire restaurant because I only had the curry, but I'll say that it probably is the best Japanese restaurant in Albuquerque. However, the bar here is set pretty low.  It actually is run (I think) by Japanese people unlike the other restaurants I've been to here which are run by Koreans and have a lot of Korean food on the menu. Not that there's anything wrong with Korean food, but if you're calling yourself "Sushi Ichiban" I expect yakisoba not bibimbap.  I was surprised to find curry on the menu and thought "It must be a good sign". I had to try the curry.

On the menu it didn't say anything about spice and the waiter didn't ask me if I wanted it mild, medium, or hot so I immediately asked about it. That should have been the first clue that I wasn't about to be blown away. He asked how I wanted it because they could make it as spicy as I wanted. I told him I wanted a lot of kick to it, but not to the point where I start sweating like crazy (I was with co-workers afterall).  I have to say, they got the spice level PERFECT.

The rest of the curry, sadly, was not up to this same standard. For one, it was watery. You can even tell how watery it was from the picture. The beef was well cooked, but it could have used a bit more spice - any spice - when it was cooked.  I also would have liked a little more vegetables to be thrown into the curry, but it was an ok amount.  Overall the curry itself had a decent taste. The disappointment was more that it was so close to being good, but it was just too watery.  I could overlook everything else if the curry had been thicker, and maybe it was just an 'off' day.  I doubt I'll try it again though as I'd prefer to just make my own.

If you live in Albuquerque and want to eat curry in a restaurant then this is probably the place to go. If you want a good curry that doesn't fall short, just make it at home.

Currysan's home made curry recipe #1

My (not so) Spicy Beef Curry

Spice: 6 out of 10 
Rating: 7 out of 10 

I wanted to make some spicy curry because it's something I normally only get in restaurants because my wife does not like spicy food. I'm currently working away from home so it's the perfect time to try some spicy cooking. I thought that if I made some curry with half hot and half medium hot curry stock it would at least have a decent amount of spicyness to it.  Apparently I was wrong and to get it anywhere near the spicy levels of CoCo Ichiban spice level 5 (out of 10 which is the spiciest I would 'like' to go) I'll have to add spices of my own or make the curry completely from scratch, which I don't have the time to do right now.  

I made this curry using two products from House Foods -  Java Curry: Hot and Vermont Curry: Med Hot. I used the Vermont Curry to get the sweetness that comes from the apple and honey.  I did get the hint of sweetness that I wanted, but I was expecting it to be hotter overall. It was disappointing that it wasn't as spicy as I had wanted, but other than that this curry was great.  I used my microwave rice maker again and this time the rice was better.  I actually used too much water this time, I guess I was overcompensating from the hard rice disaster last time! So the rice was a little soggy, but not such a big deal. I will figure it out soon!


As you eat this curry the beef is nice and tender and it has a really good flavor. I can taste the combination of the apple and honey with the faint hint of the ketchup that I mixed in with the normal curry flavor.  It's a sublte thing but it really pulls the whole thing together.  Even though the curry doesn't seem spicy on my tongue I noticed that the longer I ate it the hotter my body became.  So, I guess it's the kind of spicy that grows on you - it's the perfect curry to warm you up on a cold winter night without making you run for a glass of water. 




Ingredients
.6 lbs beef round steak - thin sliced
1 1/4 cup broccoli florets
1 red pepper - chopped
1 yellow onion - minced
2 carrots - sliced
8 baby red potatoes - quartered
2 Tbsp Ketchup
Java curry - Hot
Vermont Curry - Med. Hot
salt and pepper to taste








How I cooked it
Cook beef, broccoli, potatoes, and onion at medium high heat until onions are browned. While these are cooking sprinkle on salt and pepper to taste.  Once the onions start to brown add 5 3/4 cups of water, carrots, and the red pepper. Bring to a boil and cook for 20 minutes. 


After 20 minutes remove the pot from heat and stir in the curry stock and 2 tbsp of ketchup. Place the pot back on the burner and cook at medium heat for another 20 minutes stirring infrequently.  A way to know that it is cooked is to make sure that the potatoes are soft to the touch. When it's finished remove from heat and let stand for at least 5 minutes.  Then serve over rice and enjoy!!

Kuroge wagyu (Japanese black beef) chokotto beef curry from Sanda-ya Souhonke

Category: Store Bought (From Japan)

Flavor:  2.5 out of 5

Spice: 1 out of 10 

***  I need to make a note before this review.  I'm out-of-town for work right now and I don't have a rice cooker with me. What I do have is a small plastic thing which allows you to make rice in a microwave. This was the first time I used it and I didn't use enough water so the rice was undercooked which definitely made a negative impression with this curry.  I'll be reviewing this curry another time to give it a chance at a better rating since terrible rice is a big deal ***

This is what I will be making rice with for the next 4 months.

The name of this curry means "a small portion of beef curry".  Chokotto is right, but they should have named it Chokotto-oishii because that's what it is.  It wasn't bad, but at the same time it wasn't good.  It was just a very small portion of curry with no distinct flavor or anything to set it apart from other currys. 

When they say the portion is small that is an understatement. For Japan - maybe it's a small portion, but for the United States this is almost a small portion and I should have made both of the packets.  I usually consider American portions to be too big and feel that Japanese-sized portions are the right size most of the time. So when I think a portion is too small it's definitely small. Unless you're not very hungry or you're on a very strict diet this really isn't enough to satisfy you. 

Along with the small size there was literally one piece of beef in the entire thing.  One piece!  That's it?  I guess you have to put at least one piece in there to call it beef curry but come on Sanda-ya Souhonke, you can do better than that.  To add to the disappointment of the single piece of beef, there wasn't much flavor. There was no more spice to this curry than to a cup of water.  I've had mild curry before that was spicy compared to this. 

Now, I happen to enjoy fairly spicy curry so I at least like a little spice even when it's mild. To me a total lack of any spice means it's essentially bland and just made to not be offensive to anyone.  When you make any product, curry included, so that it's for "everyone" you end up with a product that's actually not for anyone. Yes, it was a little sweet, but even that flavor wasn't strong enough for this curry to have any real flavor to it. Be bold and put some flavor - any flavor- in your curry!  Maybe I won't like it but at least I can't blame you for not even trying. 

Overall, this curry was not very satisfying.  It didn't fill me up, it wasn't delicious, and all it did was make me feel a bit disappointed. On the other hand it wasn't actually bad. The best part is that I didn't feel so bad about messing up the rice, because I wasn't wasting good curry on it. 

My Favorite Curries

When it's time to eat curry there are essentially three categories of curry to consider.  Homemade, store bought that you heat up at home, and curries prepared at a restaurant. I don't think it's really fair to compare curries from one category to another because they're different and each one can be amazing. There are benefits to each category and I happen to have favorites for each one as well. Perhaps one day I'll try a curry that becomes a new favorite or I'll figure out the secret to making one curry to rule them all! But for now here are the best:


Homemade


Favorite: My mother-in-law's beef curry.
Why it's my favorite:  While I haven't eaten curry in every Japanese household, my mother-in-law's curry is definitely better than any curry my wife and I have made at home. The flavor is so rich and there is a perfect balance between sweet and salty. Everything is cooked to perfection and the beef is so tender you'd think it was tenderized before it was cooked (but it wasn't). It is the most umami curry I've had.
          I've helped make it and that is when I learned that the best curries are a combination of different brands of curry mixed together. I don't know which ones are used or what the ratio is to the family recipe, but even if I did I wouldn't give the entire thing away. I'll have to fully learn the recipe next time we visit Kanazawa.
          It might be the best curry I've ever eaten but I will never make a claim like that without conducting a blind taste test with all of my favorite curries at the same time.
Pros: Obviously when you are making curry from scratch at home you know your ingredients will be fresh. You also can make it with whatever vegetables and meat you want. Plus, you control the portion size, if you want to make a lot and eat it for days you can. If you want to make a lot and freeze some for later you can do that as well.  Curry also tastes best the day after it was made. So if you cook it at home you can leave it on the stove overnight and reheat it the next day for a mouth full of oishiiness!
Cons: You have to spend time buying the ingredients and cooking the curry. This can be a lot of fun, but sometimes you're too tired to enjoy cutting vegetables or waiting for curry to cook. Sometimes all you want to do is make some rice and eat which is where the next category comes into play.




Store bought

Favorite: Noto Beef Curry.
Why it's my favorite: It actually tastes like it was freshly prepared even though all you had to do was heat it up in boiling water for 3-5 minutes. The beef tastes really good and the flavor of the curry itself is sweet and tangy. I'd be happy to get curry this good in a restaurant and I've had worse curry in a restaurant in Japan, so for pre-made food that's pretty amazing.
Pros:  All you have to do is place the pouch in boiling water for 3-5 minutes and then pour over rice. It also tastes great.
Cons:  You can only buy this in Japan so if you live in the United States (or anywhere else) like I do, you're out of luck. The ingredients are not as fresh as homemade or restaurant curry and it contains a bunch of preservatives. For store bought curry this is one of the most expensive - I think it's worth the price to have every now and then but it's a little expensive to be an every day item. Sometimes I forget to make boiled eggs ahead of time and I'd rather eat than wait for eggs to boil and then cool down. Curry is always better with a boiled egg on top.



Restaurant

For restaurants I have a tie. I'll write about each one separately below. 

Favorite:  Hurry Curry of Tokyo, West Los Angeles, CA

Why it's my favorite: It might be bias because this is where I first discovered that Japanese curry existed.  I had just moved to Los Angeles and a friend conveniently lived across the street and took me here. Previously I had only had Thai and Indian curry, but Japanese curry is something even greater! 

          Even though it was first, I've now had a lot of curry and this is still a place that I crave to go. Until I went to Japan it was my number 1 with no competition. The curry itself is so full of flavor and I could eat their chicken katsu curry at least once a week and never get tired of it. 

Pros:  It's pretty fast, the staff are always great, and it has a really nice atmosphere. All in all it's a nice experience going here and you're guaranteed amazing curry every time.  It also comes with a really tasty salad - it's one of my favorite salad dressings ever! If you don't feel like curry they also have a selection of Japanese spaghetti's (I know, weird right?) which are delicious as well. 

          If you live in Jakarta, Indonesia there's a location there as well. 

Cons:  It's not very close to my home and the way traffic is in Los Angeles I don't get to go there very often. Trying to get to the westside of Los Angeles during rush hour is worse than a paper cut. The location being so close to the 405 seems convenient, but it actually makes it a pain in the ass to get to from the eastside. 

          There used to be a Pasadena location which was much more convenient but sadly it closed almost 2 years ago when the building was sold and the new owner severely raised the rent. I still mourn the loss of that location and I refuse to ever patronize the restaurant that took it's place. 

Favorite:  CoCo Ichibanya, Osaka, Japan (although there are many locations with a new one in Torrance, CA that I need to go to)

Why it's my favorite: As with all of my favorites it comes down to taste.  CoCo is full of flavor, plus they have a very large range of spicyness. You can go from no heat to burn your tongue off and sweat like you're sitting in a sauna.  

Pros: It's a fairly large chain so there's a decent chance that you can get to one of their locations. It tastes amazing and is pretty quick. One day I need to put CoCo against Hurry Curry in a taste test because it might just be as good. You can customize your curry here which is awesome and something that I haven't seen anywhere else - at least to this extent.  You get to choose your level of spice, if you want extra rice, plus a whole slew of extra toppings for a small fee. The customization is almost as good as if you were cooking at home, except you don't have to do any work! 

Cons: It's a chain and the idea is that it's sort of a fast-food comfort place.  The decor is boring and only a slight improvement from a place like Denny's. The idea is that you go here for a quick and delicious meal, which is great, but the surroundings leave something to be desired.  The staff does their job properly, but you can tell that they work for a large company.

          As far as the Osaka location it takes 12 hours in a plane to get to Japan, plus all the time involved dealing with LAX. There is a Torrance, CA location now which is only about 40 minutes away but I haven't been there yet so I don't know if it lives up to Japan standards.