CoCo Ichibanyan (Umeda Station): Osaka 2017

I remember having curry on occasion while I was growing up… however, back then, Chinese curry just didn’t do it for me. You know what I’m talking about – that relatively bland yellow curry with the large potato chunks and little if anything else. If you thought that Japanese curry is anything like Chinese curry, you’re in for a big surprise.

Curry was introduced to Japan back in the Meiji era by the British and has a strong influence from Indian curry. However, this has evolved over time to become a uniquely Japanese dish.

CoCo Ichibanyan is a very popular chain of Japanese curry shops. It was during a visit to one such hole-in-the-wall CoCo Ichibanyan in Tokyo last year that we fell in love with this place (Note: Not all CoCo Ichibanyan are created equal – we saw one in Hawaii that didn’t have the same type of curry menu). This particular location is right outside the busy Umeda Station in Osaka.

The great thing about CoCo Ichibanyan (aside from having an English menu) is that you can fully customize your curry dish. First, you pick your curry sauce (I went with the Hashed Beef for 597円). Next, you pick how much rice that you want (I just went with the standard 300gm). Then you pick your spice level (regular is usually a safe bet… not too spicy and not too bland). Then the fun part begins… you add whatever toppings that you’d like – and there are a lot of options. I went with the soft boiled egg (72円) and a cheese-filled hamburger (308円).

The hashed beef curry sauce is amazing and I get it every single time. I normally don’t like to eat too much rice anymore but you’ve just got to have rice with this dish to truly enjoy it. Check out our previous post on the Coco Ichibanyan in Tokyo where we had the soft boiled egg and chicken meatball.

If customizing your own curry dish sounds a bit too daunting, you can pick from a number of preset dishes such as the Fried Chicken and Veggie Curry.

Whatever you choose, you’re sure to be super full after leaving this restaurant.

Ōsaka-fu, Ōsaka-shi, Kita-ku, Shibata, 1 Chome-3-16

tenpo.ichibanya.co.jp

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