Summer in the city

Summer in Japan means booming business for the curry restaurants.Some how Japanese associate curry with summer and as the heat hits the city everybody is starts out for the nearest curry joint.On television curry commercials replace the cream stew ones.

So how many Indians take to spoil a curry?Perhaps a hundred living in the Osaka city.I have visited,eaten and cursed a lot of Indian restaurants in the Osaka region.Every curry you order tastes the same as the base sauce/gravy they use is the same just they add a bit of this and that change the name and voila you have a hundred curries to choose from and which taste all the same.Recently however a lot of Japanese owned curry joints have sprung up and to tell you the truth their curry taste better and closer to home then all of the Indian restaurants in Osaka,which are run by Indians and a hand full of Nepali's.Why?As tradition goes the Japanese have always taken a product studied it carefully and wiped off the unnecessary things and come out with a good quality finished product.Here similarly they follow the recipe to the dot and using fresh ingredients they make a hell of a curry.

One such restaurant sprung up in fukushima,hidden in the back gully's of ABC broadcasting corporation.After many back packing trips to India the Mr.&Mrs Katakura decided to open their own shop.In a bustling area of fukushima ,Chowk was born.Chowk has a twist to it.Its one of the very few restaurants which serves great south Indian thali,which consist of one vegetable of the day,lentil curry(dal),Sambhar(south Indian speciality of lentil vegetables with special spices),Raita (cucumber and yoghurt salad),pickles and a choice between Japanese or jasmine rice.All for 850￥.

The carnivores are not forgotten.There is a meat set which consists of meat curry of the day and rice for 750.I had some great chicken curry with a hint of tamarind and the next was a mutton curry cooked perfectly with the meat melting in your mouth.Better still order the above vegetarian set and add the meat curry for an additional ￥300.There are also a lot of side dishes to choose from Samosa(vegetable sambusek),raita,biryani etc.

The secret to why I keep going back to Chowk lies in Mr.Katakura's dedication to the curries he cooks with freshly ground spices,slow cooked curries and Everyday the curries change.So with just a couple of curries he can concentrate hard in perfecting all his recipe's.Sometimes the Japanese in him comes out and the curries may taste a bit mellow then the punch of spices may be missing but its best to point it out to him.

And for the finishing touch there chai to end the meal a big burp Indian style(tradition demands it, no burp the meal was not good,haha)

Chowk operates everyday from 11.00 -20.30

2-4-17 Fukushima,Fukushima ku,Osaka City.

Home page:http://chowk.tya.jp

Phone:0664530020