Tokyo Katsu Curry

In theory, making Japanese-style curry isn’t difficult – pre-made sauce is sold in packages for two or three dollars, and easily paired with a flattened bed of white rice and vegetables or meats. But the quality and execution of each of those ingredients matters a lot, particularly when the curry and rice are paired with fried, panko-crusted meat cutlets (katsu) that can vary dramatically in texture and flavor. So despite the simplicity of the concept, there’s actually a lot of variation between superb and mediocre katsu curries. Tokyo Katsu Curry is somewhere in the middle.

Operating out of a small plaza in Costa Mesa, Tokyo Katsu Curry has extremely limited seating, with a bar-style counter for five people and a half-dozen tables with space for two or three people. A bench out front enables three or four people to sit outside while the restaurant works through a handwritten waiting list, which may or may not be strictly followed depending on the pushiness of people in line. Once you’re seated, however, service in the small space is friendly and attentive, and dishes come out in a reasonable length of time given that they’re clearly being fried to order.

Tokyo Katsu Curry offers a thick menu with more curry variations than one might expect – curry udon noodles as well as curry rice dishes, each paired with your choice of fried pork, chicken, or beef cutlets, stewed or croquete-style vegetables, pork sausages, or sukiyaki-style ribbons of beef. Appetizers include french fries, gyoza, and deep-fried chicken karaage pieces, while add-ins can expand dishes with shredded cheese, corn, hard-boiled egg pieces, or spinach.

Notably, each table gets “curry essence” and “fire spice” containers to punch up the mild base curry, as well as a bottle of sweet brown tonkatsu sauce that can be squirted onto cutlets to punch up the flavor. Although we found the curry pretty plain, these additions really helped all three of us to enhance the taste of our dishes, in different ways we each generally enjoyed.