You call it Loup de Mer, I call it sea bass. Maybe you call it suzuki, maybe you call it a Bar de Ligne, any way you call it, there’s precious little obvious connection with Japanese-style curry, which is what’s on offer here. It’s a branch of the Perignon empire (8 locations in Tokyo plus 3 cafes, stretching perplexingly from high-end French to Japanese curry and back to French-style cakes), specifically the Dom Pierre wing of the party (cf. Dom Pierre Express in Tokyo Station). This means the curry is really good, although the prices can be described as ‘high’.
I had the #1 option on the menu on the grounds that it should be the most popular. (Incidentally, have you seen the current game show on Japanese TV where a group of people are sent to a chain restaurant late at night and have to pick the 10 most popular dishes on the menu? They order, eat (as a group), then find out if their choice was top-10. It’s funny because they generally have no idea, and also because it takes a long time and they’re sitting around complaining about full stomachs at 3 AM). I digress.) That’s a good curry. Not only is it thick, light-brown, sweet and curry-licious, it’s also spicy enough to stay interesting. The beef chunks are few, but they are really delightful; not quite meltingly soft, and really delicious. It’s very pure though – just curry and rice (actually, it tasted like jasmine rice and was nice), and a smattering of red pickles (not enough).
Should you venture outside that, you can find all sorts of other things on the menu – curry omelettes, deep-fried croquettes or pork with curry, chicken curry, ground meat curry, etc. It all gets served up in an oddly high-ceilinged, blue-painted space that’s a bit reminiscent of Europe, as filtered through Japan 20+ years ago. I noted that the blue decor makes me think of Dhaba, which also makes a nice curry in their own way (I know of no Indian restaurant in Tokyo that I recommend more highly, not that that’s saying much).
I’m calling it ‘upper-mid-price’ not because I find the Y1000 curry unreasonable (I think that’s pretty good, actually, since it’s tasty) but more because of the Y3000 omelettes and such. You’re free to avoid them.
All this curry has made me Loupy!!!
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