Sumatra Curry Kyōeidō — Restaurant in Tokyo

I am fairly certain that Curry in Sumatra does not taste like this. Pleasant 80s decor and jazz on the radio.

Seems pork curry is most popular here, but the beef is also recommended. I got the hayashi beef expecting it to be the "best" as it was most expensive.

It's basically a dark gravy with onions and mushrooms that tastes like something you'd get out of one of those soup packets in an American supermarket. The ingredients are as commodity as you can get. I don't mean that in a bad way really! It's just what it is.

There isn't really any spice, but a degree of bitterness and sweetness that I suspect is from how they cook the onion. The acid and sugar from the (also commodity) red pickles definitely...

They have a long-standing in-house recipe and they do it well, and it's well-priced; cheaper than chain curry restaurants like Coco Ichibanya. You also get a complimentary cup of corn soup. There isn't much deviation from that, but that's not a bad thing. The booths are a bit strange though, with plexiglass dividers between the seats facing each other. Maybe it's to cater to being able to seat individual diners in the same booth when it's busy, but as a group of three, it was a bit odd eating with a barrier between us. The menus are in English, the staff speak...

I ordered the “Sumatra Curry with Beef”. To be honest, this doesn’t have much to do with actual Sumatra but just a naming / aesthetic stemming from the times Japan was Westernising. The curry itself was unique but slightly bitter, and needed a little more salt. The beef itself was tender and delicious but the curry sauce itself wasn’t anything spectacular. One problem I had though was the water I was served with my meal tasted really weird, like an unpleasant tap water taste unlike what you normally get here in Tokyo where tap...