Sapporo Food: Spicy Soup Curry Legon

First! If you check this blog sometimes then I'm sorry for the lack of posts. Explanations will be forthcoming at some point or another.

Second! Let's get back to the soup curry!

Spicy Soup Curry Legon was recommended to me by a commenter a while back and checking the place on the web I found a few favourable English language comments. However it is absolutely nowhere near where I live, so it took me forever to actually make the trip out there. It was worth it though!

Legon's soup was really nice, and pretty unique. The closest place to it that I can think of would be Gombei Spice, since they both have pretty strong, forceful curry flavours and a consistency where you can almost feel the spices on your tongue. I'd say Legon was more delicious, but then Gombei Spice isn't for everyone anyway.

I had the buta kakuni (slow cooked pork) with extra chicken meat-ball topping. Yuki had the chicken meat-ball soup, which was why I got the topping: to stop myself stealing any of hers. There's a lot more on their menu that I'd like to try too, some really nice looking chicken and a melty-cheese-egg topping that looks pretty special. I hope we can head back soon to try those too.

The kakuni was great, really soft and delicious, and the meatballs were good too. The vegetables were well cooked, which is always important for me, and overall I have no hesitation in recommending the place to anyone who happens to be in the area. Which is at the Western end of the Tozai line... so, perhaps it'd be better to say that it's worth a trip? It is, and thanks to whoever recommended the place to me! That said, it was delicious and I had a great meal, but it doesn't replace any of my favourite Soup Curry shops in my affections. Bearing in mind that I reckon the idea of a 'best' soup curry place is pretty stupid, this place would be top ten if I were inclined to making lists. Which I ain't!

I'll mark it on my map. We drove there, but it must be about ten minutes walk from Miyanosawa station at the end of the Tozai line.

Sapporo Food: Garaku Soup Curry

Garaku is another one of the more famous soup curry shops that I've been meaning to go to forever. In fact, I have actually tried to go there on a number of occasions only for there to be far too long a waiting list, or for the soup to actually have run out. The place was full while we were there and people were constantly coming and going so it's clearly a very popular place. Plenty of celebrity autograph cards on the walls too.

The place smelled great and the menu looked so good it was hard to choose. But sadly in the end Garaku was just 'good'. I wouldn't put it up there with the best soup curry I've had in Sapporo. It was, however, absolutely soup curry. I was griping about Soup Curry S being really popular while not really looking or tasting much like 99% of the soup curry shops out there. Garaku is a perfect example of soup curry, it's just that the soup is not that amazing.

What is amazing though? Everything in the soup.

I got the kakuni (slow cooked pork chunks) which I tend to get at a lot of places, and which lets me compare between places pretty well. On their menu it was marked as being the most popular dish. I got it with extra broccoli as a topping, which was great as was everything in the soup. The meat and the vegetables were all wonderful, the pork was soft and juicy and everything was cooked to perfection. The big let down for me was that the actual flavour of the soup was... just ok. It's a shame because it looked so good, but from the first spoonful to the end of the soup I wasn't really digging it. When I was eating the ingredients in the soup... oh that was great.

Yuki got a vegetable soup with a sausage topping and her opinion was exactly the same as mine. Everything was amazing except the soup. Which, I stress, wasn't bad, just wasn't great.

So I think we'll go back if the place isn't too busy, but it's another of the more famous Sapporo Soup Curry places that didn't impress me as much as I'd hoped. It's very centrally located in Odori though, which is good, and if you're in town visiting then I'm sure you'll like the place. And as always with Soup Curry, your mileage may (probably will) vary wildly so you should go check it out yourself. It's just south of Tanuki Koji and I'll mark it on my map. Oh! I just noticed that you can use google streetview to go inside the place, so check that out too.

Sapporo Food: Curry Shop 'S' (soup curry)

Soup curry again everyone!

Before we get into this let's get the disclaimers out of the way. Soup curry is a really personal thing. Different people like different places, so it's probably best for everyone to take my recommendations as places worth checking out that I really like. Not that any of that really applies this time since I'm not all that fond of S.

But S is famous, and popular with a lot of people including my girlfriend. Famous enough to have signed autograph cards on their walls from celebrities based outside of Hokkaido (there are quite a few soup curry places around with autographs from local newscasters, sports-people and members of the local TV comedy group TEAM NACS). Famous enough that in an episode of a TV show I saw, when a bunch of really famous comedians came to Hokkaido, S was the place they went to try soup curry. Hell, famous enough that in the new video game Ryuu ga Gotoku 5, apparently you can go to S in Sapporo and have soup curry. They even have a collaborative line of soups! I really want to try that game but sadly don't have the hardware... Or the cash... Oh well...

In fact, instead of posting a real photo of the outside of the place, here's how it looks (outside and inside) in the game. In tiny pictures I found on the interweb:

There's no alleyway there in real life.

He's huge!

Recently the aforementioned TEAM NACS guys made a TV drama series called Soup Curry about a group of friends living in Sapporo, that was tied together with a general soup curry/spice of life theme. They filmed in some real soup curry joints and featured one or two places over the end credits every week. S was one of the ones that showed up there and that was what spurred me into finally trying it out.

S does soup curry and also a thicker, more standard roux curry, along with some tandoori-style chicken. The place is good, and I do like it, but it's not amazing and I'm pretty mystified as to why S is one of the more famous soup curry restaurants in town. The soup is delicious, I mean, it's really, really good, but it's just so thin! I've eaten a lot of soup curry, and for S to be one of those places that folks from outside of Sapporo go to try the dish just seems weird because it's really unlike the majority of soup curry places. Maybe they're just really, really good at self-promotion.

Here's one of their standard soup curries, with their Sapporo-style ramen noodle topping (which is a really nice idea, served with the ramen spoon too, another nice touch) and - c'mon - that just looks like ramen with extra veg.

Here's a half-and-half dish they do of their soup-curry and their roux curry.

For me neither one was satisfying and I didn't really feel like I got my money's worth on the quantity side either. I didn't really like the roux curry, didn't think much of the chicken, and the soup curry was basically a side-serving.

In general I haven't been impressed with the vegetables or the meat there, and the menu is pretty limited. Jesus, looking back at this it reads like I'm basically trashing the place. I'm trying my best not to, and since I started sticking to just basic soup curry with that good noodle topping I've left pretty satisfied a couple of times. But while the soup flavour is wonderful, I find everything else about the place just 'ok'.

S's soup is really light, and that's probably one of the reasons my girlfriend really likes the place. And god knows that it's good to have a range of soup curry places to choose from. You don't always want the kind of thick, heavy flavour-fight you can get at nearby Samurai. So if you want a light, delicious, spicy soup then you should go. But I don't think I'd head back if I didn't eat so often with someone who loves the place. That said, it's certainly no hardship to eat there. That broth is really tasty.

S is really centrally located, about two minutes walk from Susukino station on Eki-mae Dori. It's south of Tanuki Koji, down in the same basement as Hendix Art Cafe, whose sign is pretty visible when you're walking down the street. I'll mark it on my map of course, and would encourage everyone to check it out. You're not kids any more! You've got to make up your own minds about these things.

Sapporo Food: Voyage Soup Curry

Ok! It's the holidays and I am finally on holiday. Therefore I should be able to find the time to post something, right? Well here is something, and this something is long overdue.

Soup curry, that glorious and uniquely Sapporo fusion of 'curry' and 'soup' is a great love of mine. That said I know a lot of really great soup curry places but I wouldn't go so far as to label any of them 'the best'. No one soup curry place is exactly like any other and subjectivity has a huge part to play, as you can see from some old comments I got saying they didn't like the place I liked, and recommending a couple of places that I really want to go to, but still haven't been able to since I neither live, nor work, anywhere near them.

The best soup curry I can remember having was at Lavi Lavi in Kita 24 Jo, but it was their monthly special and so it was gone almost as soon as I found it. After that I found Lavi Lavi to be a great place, but one day I went and it just wasn't as good for some reason, and it's never reached the heights it used to since. Oh, but the new branch in Sapporo Station's ESTA mall is a really convenient place to get a decent dish.

So soup curry shops vary wildly in quality, style and reliability, but the place that I would recommend to pretty much anybody is Voyage in Kita 24 Jo.

I'm sorry, soup calyi, my mistake.

Voyage is run by the same people that run Xysa nearby and Picante, which has a couple of locations now. All three are similar I think, but not exactly the same, and I like Voyage, possibly because I've been there much more often.

The food at voyage is great, and it seems to be consistently great. I've never had a lousy curry there, and I always leave glad that I made the trip. Their vegetables and meat are delicious and well cooked (something which seems a little hit and miss with some places) and they don't skimp on the veggies too, which is something I'm always happy to see. You can always choose a basic soup or a rich soup (the rich soup varies by day of the week too, just to keep things interesting) and both are delicious. It costs more to take your curry above spice level 2, but spice level 2 seems just perfect so I never bother. Add to this the tremendous toppings they do and while Voyage might not be the best I really find it hard to believe anyone would be disappointed to go there.

Oh look! Photos!

Crunchy herb chicken with  fried gyoza and potato dumpling with cheese toppings. That potato and cheese thing... oh my God.

Herb Lamb with... um, the same toppings.

Basic vegetable with just the gyoza topping. They also do a deluxe vegetable curry just crammed with stuff.

The menu at Voyage seems to change pretty regularly, but some things, like the crunchy herb chicken above are always there. Voyage soups are served in these unique bowls with this big raised section in the middle. You can't see them in those photos but imagine that the actual soup is in a donut shaped section, while the middle acts like a kind of table for you to cut things up on. It's interesting, and pretty useful when you get used to it. A cynical man might say it makes it look like you get more than you do, but I am not that man, and I always leave sated so I have no complaints.

I'll say it again, I'm not promising that Voyage will blow you away but in my experience it is always very, very good. I've been meaning to blog about it ever since I started this thing and it comes strongly recommended. It's a three or four minute walk from Kita 24 Jo station on the Namboku line of the subway, and I've marked it on my map.

Sapporo Food: Soup Curry Yellow

Yellow is a very cool, popular soup curry place in Odori that's been around for a long time. I wasn't all that impressed by the soup actually, but I really should go back and check it out again since there's a lot to like.

I say cool because the place has its own DJ booth and is decked out with record sleeves from Sapporo's kings of underground hip-hop Tha Blue Herb. They even have a curry named for them, which is pretty awesome. In fact, I don't really need to tell you because they have a kind of inside-the-store google view thing linked from their site! Check it out!

And they serve this local brew that I'd never heard of and that wasn't half bad.

I really want to give the place another chance because it's popular and it's been around for a while, but I didn't really dig either the soup or the vegetables that much. The giant slice of 'bacon' that I had in mine though - that was amazing.

I'm sure the place is worth checking out, but I wouldn't recommend it yet. I often say that opinions on soup curry are far more subjective than about many other foods. People often don't like places that I love and vice versa (I actually decided to write about Yellow rather than another place that a friend asked me to go to but that I thought basically sucked). If I go back and it's great then I'll update and let you all know for sure. If it's not... well I guess I'll do that too.

It's on my map! And you should probably check it out and make up your own mind since you can never have too much soup curry.

Sapporo Food: Soup Curry King

Soup Curry King is a popular place. It's not all that small a restaurant, but when I went in there for lunch I was lucky to get a seat, and people were arriving all the time and having to wait, or simply being turned away. And that was in the middle of a blizzard!

It looks like Soup Curry King hasn't been open all that long in the grander scheme of things (thinking geologically perhaps, it only opened in 2007) but a lot of people seem to like it. I've seen it mentioned in various places, and last year at Autumn Fest (the big foodie festival in Odori park) they had a special soup curry stand with a rotating line-up that featured King several times. That, and of course the swinging door this freezing lunchtime speaks for itself.

I got the lamb and vegetable curry, and I could taste straight away why the place is so popular.

It's a very light-looking soup, but the flavour was smooth and very satisfying. It's always tough to really nail down the differences between soup curry places in writing, but the soups really are so distinct once you've tried a few. King's soup was a little oily, but a really nice consistency - not too thick and not too thin. The spice levels are named, cutely, after a suit of cards (up through Jack, Queen, King to Joker) and I got a number 4, which the menu called your basic hot taste. 3 is recommended but I could have gone hotter than 4, and others will be able to take a lot more.

The vegetables were vegetables, nice but I've had sensational vegetables at other soup curry places so this wasn't the best. The lamb however, was sensational - so soft and juicy. You can't really see it in the picture there since it was buried under the veg, but there was plenty of it and it was great.

Soup Curry King is near Minami Hiragishi station on the Namboku line, and it's well worth a visit. It reminded me of Medicine Man, another really popular soup curry restaurant with the quality to support its reputation.

I'll mark it on my map, of course, and here's the address and opening times coz I'm nice like that:

Soup Curry King

札幌市豊平区平岸3条16丁目1-1

Open for lunch 11.30am to 3pm.

Dinner is 5pm to 11pm (last order at 10.30pm).

Saturdays, Sundays and holidays it's open 11.30am to 10pm all day (last order at 9.30pm).

And it doesn't have any regular closed days.

Sapporo Food: Kanako no Soup Curry-ya san

Just a quick one I think. Yesterday a comment on this blog inspired me to go check out some new soup curry. I wanted to hit up one of the recommendations I've received, but ended up wandering around deserted streets looking for a shop that had closed down, and when I found it I realised that I'd tried to go there before and found it had closed down. Smart work, I'm sure you'll agree.

So in the end I went to Kanako's Soup Curry Shop, which I've walked past countless times (one of my favourite cafes is in the same building) but never eaten at.

Kanako's started here I think, and although this is their only store in Sapporo they also have a branch in Hakodate and two in Sendai. That kind of 'soup curry outreach' is highly commendable. The quicker soup curry spreads properly outside Hokkaido, the better chance I have of not having to go cold turkey when I travel. I kid. A little.

I just had their standard vegetable curry and it was nice. They use a spice-blend from Sri Lanka apparently, and the soup curry flavour was good, but I wouldn't rave about the place. The ingredients too (Hokkaido sourced) were good but not sensational. I think I probably need to try one of their recommended dishes to see the best of the place of course, but overall I'd say this place is worth going to if you want soup curry but you don't really mind not being blown away. Spice-wise they have a scale that goes to 100 and that gets spicy around 20 apparently. I had a 25 and for me that was a pretty mid-range spiciness.

Oh! Y'know what I've been meaning to start posting addresses and opening hours for these places, since that's the kind of thing might be seen to be somewhat useful right?

Kanako no Soup Curry-ya san (Kanako's Soup Curry Shop)

北海道札幌市中央区南1条西1丁目2-2  大沢ビル1F

Sapporo, Odori, South 1 West 1

Open Weekdays 11am-3pm and 5pm-9pm (9pm last order)

Open Weekends 11am-9pm (9pm last order)

...and it looks like they don't have a holiday!

It's nicely located really near the TV tower, and I've stuck it on the map. Hopefully soon I'll be able to check out one of the soup curry places that people love and that I haven't had a chance to get to!

Sapporo Food: Soup Curry Samurai

I knew that there were a bunch of branches of Soup Curry Samurai around, but I didn't know until recently that one of my friends rates it as the best place in Sapporo. Since in actuality I needed no incentive to go and check the place out, that was all the incentive I needed to finally go to the one I spotted in Susukino and see if it was any good.

It's very good.

Soup curry for beginners - curry in the form of a soup that's served with lots of meat and vegetables in the soup and with rice on the side that you can do with what you wish. It originated in Sapporo and as yet there's no massive nationwide chain, or in fact much similarity at all between the different shops. Some shops use vaguely Indian spices, while a lot of them have a hint of Indonesian or Thai flavour to them. But it's always grounded in a uniquely soup-curry taste. I can probably stop doing this spiel whenever I talk about soup curry can't I? There are some small chains with multiple shops in Sapporo and a few have even opened in Tokyo I think, but I find that sometimes flavour can vary between different branches of the same chain so I'm reluctant to review all of one company's restaurants on the basis of visiting one. Anyway, this was the Odori/Susukino Samurai I went to, accessed via street level but spread over the second and third floors of the small building it's in.

The place was nice and cozy and the soup curry was excellent. The soup was nice and thick in comparison to many other places, and it had a very full, rich flavour. Yuki had the monthly special which was this chicken pumpkin thing, pumpkin soup too!

Her comments afterwards were that she was blown away by the first six mouthfuls, but that after that it was maybe a bit too rich and there was too much chicken. I hardly need say that this won't be a problem for others. I went for the buta kakuni (slow cooked pork) which is something I really like trying everywhere. There's a choice of six curries but I had the regular and it was pretty wonderful. In fact the soup was so good, and so flavoursome that I regretted getting the mozzarella cheese topping for it since it really ended up confusing the otherwise wonderful taste. Then, choosing spice levels and toppings are part of the fun of soup curry. Next time I'll keep it simple.

I had spice level 4, the highest you can go before they start dropping chillis in and charging more, and it was nicely spicy. Nothing to worry about if you like spicy food. The vegetables here were crisper and less cooked than a lot of the places I've been too recently, and to be honest I prefer them softer than this with soup curry. But the pork was cooked to perfection, so I assume that's the way they do their veg here and some people will love it. There was certainly a nice selection as you can see.

I don't know that this is the best place in Sapporo, but to be honest considering the number of Soup Curry places out there I doubt I'll ever find that holy, curry-filled grail. It was great though, and I'd love to go back. There are four branches scattered around Sapporo that you can find from their website that I've linked to at the top, and I'll put this city centre one on my map. Ahhhh, I love soup curry.

Sapporo Food - Medicineman Soup Curry

Inconvenience leads to discovery! Cafe Zill, where I used to go pretty regularly for lunch has closed for a refurb until later this year, so I've been forced to wander the streets of Yamahana looking for something else to eat. Luckily one rainy day I found a well known soup-curry shop called Medicineman!

It's great, and I'll recommend it right here at the start as a great, and rightly popular Soup Curry 'shack'. It's not really a shack, don't worry. The curry is delicious, and their slogan "A Good Medicine Tastes Hot!" is very apt. As with most soup curry places you have to select a spice level when you order. The first time I went I had 'HOT1' which was great, but their menu says that 'HOT2' is apparently the best match for Medicineman's soup flavour, so next time I tried that. It was pretty hot, but it was eff-ing great soup curry.

As with all soup curry shops (perhaps all small restaurants in general) the decor is a little eclectic. A lot of places go for a weird mish-mash of Jamaican, Indonesian and Indian art and objects, but Medicineman goes for a bit of Americana and a lot of early Hanna-Barbera looking native American characters.

Here's a snap of their pork curry, which has big chunks of 'kakuni' style pork in it. The pork, also, is excellent.

I'm not sure if there are other Medicineman shops around, usually for these established places there are two or three stores, but the one I went to was probably most easily accessed by streetcar from Odori or Susukino. It's clearly very popular too, since I've been there at lunch time and after work and it's always busy. They have a board at the entrance where you can put your name down if they don't have any seats free too. I have placed it on my map, and it comes with two thumbs up and a smiley face saying "Good Soup Curry!"

Sapporo Food - Dominika (Soup Curry)

A soup curry shop so good that I went there twice in one week? That's... that's... well, not unheard of actually. Anyway, Dominika was good.

And it's in Odori, where it's always nice to find good Soup Curry. Sadly last order is at 8.30, and I need victuals later than that sometimes, but that's the way the disk of fried cheese crumbles I suppose.

Yeah! Check that bad boy out - a circular cheese wonder that you can break up or allow to melt into your soup as you see fit. Amazing as that is I did actually find I preferred the pre-melted cheese, but this fried cheese topping is apparently the most popular so you should really try it at some point.

Dominika was recommended by a friend, and it's a little tucked away on the ground floor of an office building thing just along from Tokyu hands. I must've seen that bloody wooden elephant outside a thousand times though, and that makes it pretty hard to miss.

You have a choice of four soups, should you choose to go to this place. Yellow is the regular soup, delicious and with a pretty sharp, strong flavour to start off with. Black is a richer soup, made with beef stock I think the dude said, and that was certainly the impression I got from it. These are the two I've tried so far, but there's also white - which is made milder with added soy milk - and red which involves tomatoes in a way that me, Yuki and the very, very chatty dude who works there couldn't get to the bottom of. Like - not a tomato based soup, not like tomato soup, not soup with added tomatoes... he just told us to try it next time.

The dude who took our order by the way - worth mentioning. He is very chatty, eager to explain everything about the menu and to crack jokes (or he was with us when he worked out our Japanese was ok) and quick to weigh in with advice while you're making your mind up. A lot of warnings about the spice-level of the curries, let's put it that way. I had a five both times, and it packed a punch but it was ok (the regular actually seemed a little hotter than the black one). Some other Westerner in the guest book had picked a number eight and it sounded like tough going. Anyway, the Dominika guy - best intentions in the world, but he rubbed one of my friends the wrong way, and it was kind of difficult to chill out at times with him buzzing about. It was okay by me, but... I cannot speak for all of humanity.

The top photo is the black soup with pork. The soup and the vegetables were strengths, coz while the pork was good, I've had some sensational pork curries using buta kakuni (slow-cooked pork) that have raised my standards unrealistically high. When I went back I had the tontoro (pork neck) which looks like this:

And actually feels like two dishes, since the pork comes in a wonderful teriyaki sauce that means you're not meant to transfer it into the soup. Whatever though, because that tontoro was absolutely delicious. Strongly recommended sir!

So, the best soup curry I've had in Odori. Oh and free salad! Check it out. It's on the map.

Sapporo Food: Gombei Spice Soup Curry

Slowly but surely keeping my promise to talk about my favourite soup curry restaurants (as opposed to the ones that I remember to take my camera to, which invariably end up somewhat lacklustre it seems), today I present Gombei Spice:


I used to go to Gombei Spice in Asabu all the time - like at least once every two weeks - partly because it was about twenty seconds from my front door. Oh, but that wasn't the only reason! Their awesome, life-giving vegetable soup curry was probably the main reason.

Now, Gombei Spice is not for everyone, and I can't just wholeheartedly recommend it, but it's definitely worth visiting for a number of reasons. Firstly - organic vegetables. Gombei Spice use just the best vegetables of any soup curry place I know, and I find the selection they give you in the vegetable curry very satisfying. Secondly it has a very unique curry base. It's a lot less... aromatic than most places, and a lot more blunt and harsh. That's why a lot of people I know aren't too keen on the place - it's a much darker, more intense soup in general, and that totally isn't for everyone. They have four different kinds of soup base to choose from, but they're all pretty formidable. Which brings us to the spice level - it's great providing you've got the constitution for it. Last night I choose a level two out of ten and my nose would not stop running. When I first went there, picking my level with reference to the only soup curry I'd had before, I had a level four and was left shaken and beaten. Like Lavi Lavi - I can only imagine what the upper echelons of the scale are like.

The other big issue regarding Gombei Spice is that I've been there so many times and yet almost every time I get the exact same thing, because their vegetable soup curry is by far the best thing on the menu:


In fact, I'd go so far as to say I would recommend the place a lot less without this one dish. It's amazing, and I know a couple of other people who agree that the vegetable soup curry at Gombei Spice is what makes the whole place great. That's avocado tempura topping too (you have to order it separately, but it's completely and utterly worth it). So what I'm saying is - go to Gombei Spice and order the vegetable soup curry and you won't regret it. I don't know how healthy it really is, but it sure feels healthy to eat a bowl of spicy soup full of organic vegetables.

Gombei Spice is another place that has an original branch in the suburbs and then a city centre branch too - and again I have no idea where the inner-city restaurant is. I'm happy to assume that it's just as good as the Asabu one though, and strongly recommend it. The Asabu branch has been slapped on the map.

Sapporo Food: Lavi Lavi Soup Curry

I was going to post about a couple of places in Sapporo and then I thought: no, hold on, surely I've posted about those before!? A quick search of my own blog revealed that I had not. More than that, I've barely blogged about any soup curry restaurants at all, and those that I have written about are the so-so ones! (For more info about soup curry, a fairly self-explanatory Sapporo speciality, feel free to search my blog for yourself)

This madness stops now.

Ladies and Gentleman, at the present time the best soup curry I have ever had - Lavi Lavi:


Lavi Lavi's honten (main store) is in Kita-ku, maybe ten or fifteen minutes walk from Kita 24 Jyou station, and the soup curry there is incredible. I cannot recommend the place enough, and there are a few other branches around Sapporo which I'm sure are excellent too. The flavour is rich, the ingredients are fresh and delicious, the menu is interesting and varied, and they deal in a frankly incapacitating range of spices. You can choose a spice level for your soup from zero to fifty, so the first time I went I looked at the descriptions and went for an eight. I was in a great deal of pain. If you like moderately spicy food then maybe a four would be good. Five was pretty much spot on for me, and I cannot imagine anyone surviving an encounter with the upper end of the scale, but I'm sure there are some brave souls out there happy to try.


That's a borscht-style soup curry, this month's special, and it was delicious. The soup at Lavi Lavi is generally very aromatic and full-flavoured, and the idea of making that a little more sour and adding sour cream as a topping was inspired. I've been there several times though now, and nothing I've had has been anything short of fantastic. I really love the place, and it's been sorely missing from my map so far. So now it's on there.

Actually I thought about tracking down the other locations of Lavi Lavi (and some of the other small chains I've written about) and marking them on the map too, but I've found that the quality can vary quite a lot between stores when they're a small independent chain. I've been to three different branches of Spark, for example, one of the larger soup curry chains, and each one felt like a different restaurant, and the quality certainly varied massively (from good to awful - I don't really rate the place that highly). So I'll just stick the kita-ku branch down and you can do your own research. It's worth it.

Sapporo Food: ouchi

And we're back with another place to fill your face in sunny ol' Sapporo. This time soup curry at ouchi:


Ouchi is a "curry and gohan" restaurant, so they have rice dishes too. Soup curry was front and centre of their menu though, so I figured that would be a bostin' place to start. They have two different soup curry styles, and to be honest I didn't really try to apply my lacklustre Japanese to working out the distinction but for the one I got the soup flavour was excellent.


Really tasty, spicy, curry soup (although I had "hot 2" level and it wasn't incredibly hot) - but the vegetables in the vegetable soup curry weren't all that incredible. Possibly I'm spoiled, I often eat at Gombei Spice where the vegetable soup curry is great, or at Voyage where they do a kind of all-the-veg-we-can-fit-in-the-bowl kind of thing but this had a lot of cabbage and onions and the carrot wasn't very nice.

Yeah, that's right, I'm complaining about the carrot. It's an important part of the dish as a whole! What?!

Decor wise the place is nice and retro and full of ETs. Like there's a whole bunch of the glowy-fingered fella around. That may be a deal cincher for some people, I know.

Another thing to consider is: I think I was their first customer of the day, and possibly they had only just opened when I came in, and soup curry is the kind of thing I imagine goes well when all is well prepared. Still although it didn't blow me away, it was nice and well worth a visit if you're in the city centre. It's on my map so you can see where.

Ask Small Soup Curry Bar Cancun

Hey Small Soup Curry Bar Cancun, how would you describe the relationship between you and President Obama?

Yeah, that's what everyone says.

Small Soup Curry Bar Cancun lives in downtown Sapporo and will happily assure you of its proximity to any given object or concept.

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?

Incongruous Background Music

As I mentioned before soup curry restaurants always have either reggae, Indian, or Indo-reggae themed decor, and play music to match. The shop I go to most often (because it's two minutes from my appartment and has the best vegetables I've found) has somewhat mixed furnishings, but plays a good mix of classic reggae and sometimes even British ska like the Specials, the Beat and Madness.

Tonight though, they mixed it up a bit, dropping Shampoo's Trouble in there amongst the reggae rhythms. I know Shampoo were bigger here than they were anywhere else in the world, but still, it almost made me spit-take my curry all over my book.

I was, however, the only person in the restaurant and they were about to close, so maybe they were just cutting loose from the repressive straight-jacket of soup-curry-reggae.