I’ll admit that I wound up eating at Hinoya Curry almost entirely due to its proximity to my Airbnb on the outskirts of Tokyo. I walked by it a few times, and eventually the delicious-looking photos posted outside of the restaurant wore me down.
I ordered their specialty, katsu curry, which features a deep-fried pork cutlet served on top of rice, and doused in a very generous amount of curry sauce.
Nothing about it particularly stands out, but it’s reasonably tasty. The flavour of the curry is a bit muted, but it’s nice and rich — certainly, it’s satisfying enough.
The fried pork cutlet retains a decent amount of exterior crispiness despite being soaked in sauce, and it’s fairly tender. Again, it’s not the best katsu I’ve ever had, but there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it.
There are a few things on the side that you’re probably going to want to add to your plate. The first couple are pickled radish slices and whole pickled garlic cloves. These do a nice job of cutting through the richness of the curry.
The other thing on the table was a container that featured a mix of puffed rice and crispy fried garlic. This was actually quite ingenious — it pumps up the dish’s crisp-factor, and also adds a nice hit of flavour thanks to the fried garlic. I kinda want this as a condiment with everything I eat from now on.
Location: 7 Chome-49-８ Nishikamata, Ōta-ku, Tōkyō-to 144-0051
How to find it: It’s right in the middle of the covered SunRise Kamata shopping street.