Sapporo Food: Magic Spice

Tonight Olivia was all like, "Let's go to Magic Spice", and I was all like, "Yeah alright". Then we got there and I was all like "Holy crap!"


Yow! That's some exterior, and the interior is similarly dazzling. There are so many strings of fairy lights and hand written laminated cards telling you about special toppings and extras that it becomes very hard to choose, or even do anything.

Magic Spice is pretty famous, I've often heard people talk about it, and I reckon they have a few stores in Sapporo. According to the chopstick paper they also have stores in Tokyo and Osaka, spreading the sord of Soup Curry it looks like. Soup Curry, do I have to cover that again? It's a Sapporo speciality, curry flavoured soup filled with chunks of vegetables and chicken or whatever you want in it. It's incredibly delicious, and really is something for Sapporo to be proud of. There are no big Soup Curry chains (yet), just hundreds of individual stores so the taste varies massively, although the decor is always either Hindu, Rasta or a hideous combination of both. "Soup Curry Stylistics" is one of those things that makes me think Sapporo is a city of hippies and beatniks, which in turn makes it rather strange that I like it here so much.

Magic Spice serves Indonesian Style Soup Curry. I have no idea what that means, but the soup was a lot weaker and paler than most other places, maybe that's the key. Our visit was kind of surreal, as when we first sat down we were told sorry, no chicken, pork or katsu curry tonight. Then two minutes later, no vegetable. Then two minutes after that, no beef. We hurried up and ordered the Indonesian Gyoza option before the entire menu became off limits:


It was nice, but not as fabulous as I expected. The flavour was good, but really not very strong. They have pots of spice on the table for you to spice it up if you want I suppose, but to get the stronger levels of Soup Curry (I had level three, called "Ecstasy" and it wasn't spicy at all) you have to pay a lot more. Possibly the dearth of ingredients in the kitchen carried over to the soup in general but I don't think so.

It was nice, but there are so many interstellar soup curry restaurants in Sapporo that I have a hard time wholeheartedly recommending Magic Spice. I'd say go for it for sure if you're a big soup curry fan of course, and who isn't one of those?