[dropcap size=big]I[/dropcap]t’s impossible to make a fancy version of Japanese curry. Unlike Thai curry, there’s no patient pounding of ingredients with a mortar and pestle. That’s because preparing Japanese curry is a simple matter of dissolving curry flakes, paste, or, most commonly, square tablets in the cooking liquid.
As such, it’s excellent as a quick meal and for repurposing leftovers. Nevertheless, Japanese curry is a dish full of meaning for those who grew up on it. For those of us who didn’t, it’s a touchstone we can tap into, one that gives us a glimpse of a community’s continuity and provides something delicious at the same time.
Not to mention it hits the spot on those rare overcast L.A. days.
“Japanese curry is the most common thing eaten in the Japanese household,” says my friend chef Jeff Osaka. He was raised in Leimert Park and today operates six restaurants in Denver, including Osaka Ramen, a buzzy spot where he uses curry (he favors S&B brand flakes) to flavor one of his broths. Another friend, chef Atsushi Takatsuki, owns Painter’s Tape in Gardena, one of my favorite L.A. restaurants because of the skillful way he infuses dishes as varied as honey-glazed brioche Texas toast and garlic-sesame organic rice with coffee-shop heartiness. Until he recently had to streamline his menu, he made his kare pan, the popular Japanese street food that’s like a jelly doughnut except it’s filled with sweet and savory curry.
Atsushi grew up in Gardena—Denker Avenue Elementary, Peary Middle School, Gardena High—and that meant a steady diet of pork shoulder curry, which his mom, Yoshi, prepared as a treat on Friday nights. He’s carried on the tradition throughout his career. During his two-year stint at New York’s Le Bernardin, he prepared weekly batches of curry for himself; he still finds a way to eat curry once a week, and, even if they’re only momentarily off the menu, he misses being able to grab one of those kare pans for himself. “Curry is one of those things people are ridiculously addicted to,” he says when I reach him by phone after a long day of preparing takeout.