Curry Bondy

What sets Curry Bondy’s curry apart is the deep richness of its taste. The secret to this richness is the generous use of butter and other dairy products in making the curry. Curry Bondy uses their own in-house developed original butter, and it's served not only in the curry but with the jaga-imo (じゃがいも, Potato) as a jaga-butter (じゃがバター, Jaga Batā) appetizer. The butter adds a rich creaminess as well as a tinge of saltiness, and they encourage you to use it not just on the potatoes, but adding it into the curry to give it an extra kick.

Apples, onions and other fruits and vegetables are sauteed in butter over a long period of time before being simmered in red wine to make chutney. The secret ingredient used to impart sweetness and fragrance to the curry is actually peaches, an almost unheard-of ingredient for curry. Furthermore, the chutney, butter, red peppers and other spices are then added to the curry, to give it a uniquely sweet, yet heavily spiced-infused fragrance.

The rice is also a butter rice that is cooked over a gas stove, rather than an electric rice cooker, and is boiled in a special bouillon broth made from ginger and garlic.

Since the founder, Murata-san, studied art in France, he was also very particular about the plating of his dishes. Thus, unlike most places where curry is served together with the rice on a plate, Curry Bondy does it differently. The rice is served on a plate, sprinkled with cheese, as well as tsukemono and pickled plum on the side, to give it a nice colour variation of yellow, green, and red. Furthermore, the curry is also served in an elegant gravy boat on the side so that it can be poured on the rice just before eating, allowing the rice to remain fluffy and not soggy.

Lastly, jaga-butter (じゃがバター, Jaga Batā) is served as an appetizer due to two reasons. Typically, jaga-imo (じゃがいも, Potato) is added directly into the curry and boiled, however, adding the potato into the curry adds excess moisture into the curry roux. This changes the taste of the curry and also reduces its thickness. As such, since its founding, Curry Bondy has always served the potatoes separately. Customers can choose to cut it up and add it to the curry before eating, or they can choose to eat it as an appetiser. The second reason is that the goal of Curry Bondy is to leave its customers satisfied, as part of its omotenashi (お持て成し, Japanese spirit of hospitality), and so the jaga-butter helps to ensure that customers can get their fill. Furthermore, they also use different types of potatoes throughout the year depending on what's in-season so that customers can enjoy the full taste of the potatoes.

Jimbocho is well-known amongst locals as being Tokyo's curry battleground, and it's a crowded scene with many worthy competitors. Yet, from the moment we first dug into Curry Bondy's Beef Curry, we knew this was "the one". The taste of that curry had that amazing "wow factor" that just set it in a class above, and trust us, we've had many curry restaurants in Jimbocho.

For us, more than anything, the taste of the curry roux decides the entire dish. Whatever ingredient you choose for your curry, beef, chicken, seafood, etc., it's just an accent to the curry, not the star. No matter how good the ingredients in the curry are a lacklustre curry roux leads to a lacklustre curry dish. Curry Bondy's curry has everything that we want in a good Japanese curry dish. The roux is thick and creamy, it has an amazing spice profile (Note: this is not the level of spiciness, but how fragrant the spices are). The dish also has a well-balanced aftertaste that keeps it light and not overwhelmingly rich, probably from the sweetness and tartness of the fruits used in the curry It's our ideal curry that we can eat again and again till we're full, and not mind queueing up an hour for. It is simply an amazingly delicious dish, and quite possibly the best Japanese Curry we've ever eaten.

Each time that we go, our order is always the same. Beef Curry with Cheese Topping at Medium Spiciness. We also recommend adding a healthy dollop of fukujin-zuke (福神漬) on the side. These are the classic pickles that go with curry, chopped vegetables that are marinated with soy sauce and sugar overnight, and taste sweet enough that even the usual vegetable hater would probably like them.

All the dishes come with jaga-butter (じゃがバター, Jaga Batā) as an appetiser, but our advice is to not eat so much of it as you won't be able to finish the main dish.

Unlike many fast food curry places, the curry doesn't come atop the rice but is served in a separate dish. Rather than piling it on all at once, we recommend just eating it a single scoop at a time. We also recommend getting some of the fukujinzuke (福神漬け) (a sweet type of tsukemono (漬物, Pickles)) on the side, that helps to cut through some of the richness of the curry. We can never finish the whole dish, because we are always very full and satisfied with each visit, but you can rest assured that all the curry roux will be emptied.

Bonus Tip: If you still have some space at the end of your meal, the pudding that Curry Bondy serves is actually really good. That sweetness helps you to end the meal on a lighter afternote, and it's an all-around good pudding. But this is only if you actually still have the space to eat any more.

Do note that Curry Bondy commands long queues during lunchtime and dinnertime, so come early or at odd-hours if you can. Queues during dinner seem to be shorter than the lunch queues, in which you have to compete with the salaryman (サラリーマン, Sarariiman) in the area. The shop's entrance is also somewhat hard to find because it's on the second floor of an office building. So look out for the queue signs, and you'll be fine.

The queues might look daunting at first glance, but trust us that the experience is worth it. After all, if it can get that many busy Japanese workers to queue for it, it really has to be something special. Few restaurants have as big of a "wow factor" from the first spoonful as Curry Bondy has. The creaminess, thickness, and spicy fragrance of the curry roux is really unparalleled and will make you scoop it up till the last drop. If you could only eat one Japanese Curry (カレー, Karē) restaurant in Tokyo, Curry Bondy should be the one because it truly is Tokyo's Best Curry Restaurant.

Curry Bondy was founded in 1973 by Murata Koichi (村田紘一) who had previously worked at an Indian restaurant called Indira at Takashimadaira in Tokyo. He was invited by the then-owner of the Jimbocho Old Book Center Building (古書センタービル, Kosho Sentā Biru) to set up a curry restaurant there. While Jimbocho is known to be a curry battleground today, Curry Bondy was the first curry shop set up in the area and is the pioneer of the curry battleground. The shop still sits in the same building even today. Even in that era though, Jimbocho had already become well known at Tokyo's Book Town, and publishers, authors, and bookstore owners often patronized the shop.

When developing a unique curry for his restaurant, Murata-san decided to incorporate his experiences from studying overseas in France. At that time, he had been studying painting and sculpture in France and worked in a restaurant part-time. There, he became fascinated with the French brown sauce, one of the foundations of French cuisine.

He decided to use this French brown sauce as the base for his curry. Thus creating European-style (欧風 Ou-fū) curry, with the aroma of Indian spices, and the European-style taste. He would add brown sauce to a broth of beef, pork, and vegetable bouillon, as well as tamanegi (玉ねぎ, Onion), carrots, and apples that had been sauteed in butter. Then it is finished up with some togarashi (唐辛子, Tōgarashi, Chili Pepper) for spiciness, tomato for a sour tang, and the secret ingredient, peach, to give it a balance of sweetness and fragrance.

Butter, fresh cream, and milk are also incorporated into the curry, giving it umami (旨味, Savoriness) and richness. Furthermore, by incorporating butter, which was a luxury product back in the 1970s, they were able to serve up a unique curry that no one could replicate at home.

Curry Bondy is now run by its second-generation owner, Murata Shinsuke (村田信輔), who is the son of the founder. He continues to be dedicated to serving up the same authentic taste as his father, and also providing the same level of omotenashi (お持て成し, Japanese spirit of hospitality) to his customers. In recent years, Curry Bondy has also partnered with S&B Foods, one of Japan's largest food manufacturers, to sell packets of their curry roux that customers can have at home as well.