When I want something simple and hearty to eat I've been a few times now to Daichi no Curry Shinta, for a Japanese curry and trimmings that's a little too much for me to finish. That doesn't mean much by the way, I'm sure a bigger eater could easily finish it off, but actually it's not just the size that makes it hard to finish.
EDIT! EDIT! E-E-E-EDIT! This place has closed down and is gone from Sapporo City Centre now! There's still one in Tomamu though, if you happen to be in the area! I'll leave the post up for posterity but kill the tags.
Daichi no Curry Shinta is in Tanuki Koji and is wonderfully central and easy for me to stop off at on the way home from work. It's very much a simple, sit down, eat and leave place with no tables, only bar seating. But the quality of the curry is surprising and that's what has me recommending the place. With your curry you also get a free little side salad, and a free 500ml bottle of water to wash it down, which are both nice perks. And the curry is rich.
It's really good. It's thick, a little spicy (I'd say falling at the 'dry' end of Japanese curry, not the 'sweet' end, which isn't really all that spicy anyway) and the ingredients are very nice. Up there we have the buta kaku-ni (slow cooked pork chunks) with cheese topping, and man it hit the spot. Plus you have the bonus/issue of the fresh cream. At the top you can see a lump of fresh cream cradled lovingly by a single prawn cracker. The guy explained that the idea is that if the curry is too spicy you can mix in some fresh cream and make it milder. Now the curry wasn't all that spicy at all, so I was in no hurry to make it milder, but I was certainly interested in mixing some fresh whipped cream into my curry because HELL YES I WANT TO MIX FRESH CREAM INTO MY CURRY. But it's already very rich and buttery (and this time had that cheese in there too) and adding the cream made it even richer, and of course, even less healthy.
Which didn't stop me.
In the end I couldn't finish the plate probably because of adding too much cream to my curry and making it a little too sickly, but I was full too. Shinta isn't very expensive - more expensive than your super-cheap fast food places of course, but the quality is countless times better. Worth it if you're looking for somewhere to get a quick satisfying meal in the centre of Sapporo. I'll put it on the map, shall I? Yes I think that's how this works...
