Manten Curry - Jinbocho
This is the Japanese curry joint currently ranked #1 on the new Curry Database (http://currydb.supleks.jp/).
First, it's not too hard to find. We only had to ask directions one time, and once turned around it much easier to see the signs that clearly pointed in the right direction.
Upon arriving, I felt as if this was a ramen shop. A very old ramen shop. The kitchen is surrounded on 3 sides by a long counter. The kitchen itself consists mainly of a gigantic tub of rice, a larger tub of curry and a big deep fryer. We sat down and were immediately served a small glass of water with a spoon in it along with a shot of coffee. I commented on the spoon in the water and my co-worker replied, "obviously the counters aren't clean enough" and he was right. Overall, it wasn't a terribly clean place although I didn't find it too far out of the ordinary as far as Japanese sanitation goes.
We ordered the "zenbu no se" curry which is a gigantic everything curry. It came with tonkatsu, 3 fried shumai, 3 fried mini hot dogs, and 2 croquettes. All of this was portioned onto a gigantic helping of rice, covered in the curry.
As we waited for our order, we watched the workers assemble the other dishes ordered before ours. I took special note of one instance. The woman was cutting a tonkatsu and noticed that the end of was a little scraggly (I would have happily ate it myself). After noticing this, she threw out the scraggly bit, grabbed another katsu and cut the ends of to include with the original.
This was a good sign, they don't skimp and they actually care about what they serve.
As for taste, I'm not the best judge. I'm not a huge fan of Japanese curry in general, but my co-workers did say that, "it's the best curry i've ever had". I did like it. The tonkatsu was cooked well and quite crispy, the fried shumai were delicious, the hot dogs were... hot dogs, and the croquettes were gigantic and had corn and peas inside which ws nice.
I think the total weight involved was close to 2 kilograms. None of us finished, and as we were getting ready to leave the younger guy behind the counter looked at us with amusement and said, "give up?"
