High-Fidelity Spice at a Tokyo Curry Joint
A flatiron-shaped corner spot in Mita separates flavor notes like a pair of high-end studio monitors.
In Tokyo, there is curry everywhere you look. But it's Japanese curry: a strange culinary hybrid, unfamiliar to most westerners and rarely recognized as a distinctly Japanese food. For tourists, it barely breaks through the noise of sushi and tempura.
Turns out curry arrived in Japan during the late 19th century. But not from India. Instead, the British Royal Navy brought it during the Meiji Restoration. By then, the British had already packaged Indian spices into pre-mixed powders that they thickened using a French style wheat-flour roux. The Imperial Japanese Navy borrowed it because it was hearty, flavorful, and easy to make in giant batches. Soon, it evolved into kare raisu, Japan’s ultimate home cooked comfort food.
It's not like Indian curry, with spicy aromatics and vibrant acidity. It's not like Thai curry, made from chili paste and coconut milk. No, Japanese curry is more like brown gravy. It’s sweet, savory, a little gloppy, and thick. It’s unpretentious food, designed to coat sticky white short-grain rice and fill up your belly.
At the chain restaurant curry counters, you can always get a satisfying version that classic sweet and heavy roux. But there's also a newer wave of trendy, upscale (but still cheap), curry spots like 咖哩アンダーソン (Curry Underson) in Mita.
Curry Underson is Japanese/English wordplay. The shop's address is Mita 3-Chome (三田), right on the ground floor of the building. In Japanese, "Three" is San (三). So, the name is the address: アンダー (Andā / Under), plus サン (San / Three). In Tokyo, retro-European sounding names like Underson/Anderson signify trendiness. And that's probably one reason why this tiny little place intrigues me every time I walk past. The aesthetic is minimalist, and its flatiron-corner location makes it look uber-cool.
One evening, after a few pints at the nearby 82 Mita Pub, I decided to finally give it a try. I’m glad I did.
The man and woman behind the counter were super warm and friendly. It was late in the evening, so I had the entire place to myself. They seemed to be prepping for tomorrow's lunch service. During the day, the place is mobbed with salarymen who line up around the block for the lunchtime rush.
I ordered the chicken curry, and I liked the presentation. But what really impressed me was the clarity of flavor. It was so unique. Rather than the uniform, homogenized profile of a standard gravy roux, this was an exercise in culinary separation.
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You know how when you talk to audiophiles about high-end studio monitors or planar magnetic headphones, they obsess over soundstage. They talk about being able to place each instrument in three-dimensional space. They bloviate about the way you can hear Jerry Garcia's guitar in dialogue with Bob Weir's, both separate from Phil Lesh's intricate basslines, which are in themselves distinct from two percussionists with overly-elaborate kits. You can hear it all, even the keyboards and the organs. It doesn't muddy together into a wall of noise...although, they did call their best speaker setup "the wall of sound." But you probably have to be middle aged Deadhead to know that. And then you could draw a parallel between the British Navy's Meiji Restoration flavors and the way the Grateful Dead took an electric blues/rock already appropriated from R&B, Haitian, African, Zydeco, Cajun and blended it with an American nomadic folk music tradition, borrowed from Ireland and European troubadours. But that's too much for right now.
The point is: the food at Curry Underson is to tastebuds as soundstage is to ears.
Warm cumin, sharp citrus, edgy coriander, prickly cardamom. Served over nutty brown rice with a side of fresh acidic and tangy pickles that cut through the spice.
Japanese chefs inherited curry as a heavy, uniform Western stew, and of course they did what Tokyo always does: tuned it into hi-fi craft.
- Neighborhood: Mita / Tamachi, Minato-ku, Tokyo (3-14-1 Mita, Mita 314 Bldg 1F)
- Transit: ~5-minute walk from Mita Station (Toei Mita / Asakusa Lines) or JR Tamachi Station
- Vibe & Format: Sleek, minimalist flatiron-corner shop with clean lines and warm counter hospitality. Intimate stool seating built for quick lunch rushes or quiet evening recovery.
These are field notes on life in Japan. I'm a Temple University professor from Philadelphia, currently teaching at our campuses in Tokyo and Kyoto. After years writing about parenting, technology, and cultural psychology, these dispatches track the phenomenology of displacement. I'm considering how place, culture, and appetite reshape how we imagine our identities at midlife.
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