Hurry Curry

HURRY CURRY

37 S. Fair Oaks Ave
Pasadena, CA 91105
(626) 792-8474

www.hurrycurryoftokyo.com

Soo, I'm going to try to keep this blogging consistent from now on. Read: I will avoid doing my homework at all costs. Anyway, back in December during Winter Break, I went with my boyfriend (my partner in crime for all things, including food-tasting) to this little shack. Well, not so much a shack but a mid-level dining 'place.' I don't remember the cost, now that it's nearly five months later so I'm going to say (as according to Yelp): $$ depending on how much you get. An entree and drink will probably set you back about $10 including tip. Not too pricey but not cheap enough, but one must take into consideration the location, location, location. This particular one is in Old Town Pasadena and caters to the mass amounts of rich kids who live in surrounding areas. On with the review!

The BF and I went between lunch and dinner. We're always hungry so there's never a set meal time for us. Just FYI, we were expected to show up at a Jewish Latkah party about one hour after finishing up at Hurry Curry. He had been here before and rated the food "okay, pretty good." Let me note, then, that my boyfriend has pretty picky tastebuds. He will scarf down a burger from Mickey D's but critisize a steak from Ruth's Chris. I guess you can say he sets standards according to his expectations that come from the reputation of the restraunt. Hurry Curry isn't one of those gourmet places and it's definitely no drive-through. When I left, I also felt like it was "okay, pretty good."

On the flipside of the menu was a picture of 'authentic' Japanese school girls in their sailor uniforms (fuku???) enjoying each others' company. Despite my appreciation for the picture, I couldn't help but feel that this was a bit tacky and exploitative of the "Tokyo culture." This place was obviously one of those white-washed-asian-places catering to, dare I say it, white folk. This created a chain of thoughts that consisted of phrases like: small portion, lack of flavor, plain rice. This will be explained as I review the actual contents of my order.

I ordered the Tokyo Curry. It was highlighted on the menu! How could I resist? Highlighted always means house special, and I always love me one of those. On the menu, it is described as this: A mixture of ground beef and vegetables are combined to make this unique curry, garnished with hard boiled egg. This sounded alright; pretty average stuff. If you've ever had Japanese Curry, it tastes a helluva lot different from Indian and Thai Curry (which share more flavor in common, imo). At Hurry Curry, I was able to choose from a range of spiciness. Considering that this was not authentically Asian, I chose the "hot" option assuming it would be okay for my accustomed tongue. As our 'appetizer' that came with the curry, we had the usual Japanese style salad with the 'special' sauce that you can find at any Japanese restraunt. I thought it was very good actually. I'm a sucker for salads and tasty dressings. The curry was served in a bowl soon after and rice was given separately on a modern square plate. I was delighted with the smell and quite surprised by the appearance of my curry. I expected it to be a lighter brown, but I guess the extra spiciness created a darker hue. It didn't LOOK appetizing, but it sure smelled good. I followed my boyfriend's lead and pushed an indentation into the plate of rice with my spoon. Then I started globbing the curry over my rice. At first taste, I noticed how salty it was. I quickly adjusted the amount of curry in each spoonful, realizing the possible reason for such a large portion of rice. I would have preferred less rice and less salty curry actually. The egg that "garnished" the curry was yummy, but this might be due to my bias for eggs in general. The spiciness, as predicted, was not that spicy. So for all those who have had Schezhuan (sp?) cuisine, don't even trip. This place won't have your mouth burning, but it might have you gulping water [if you don't like rice] from the sheer amount of sodium. I don't think there's MSG, but I still felt thirsty afterward. I don't want to say this place sucks, because it really doesn't. I mean, they do offer you a truckload of rice for the meal, so when eaten in the correct proportion, the curry was "pretty good." I'd say this place is one of those hard to review kind of eateries. My friends have had mixed reviews here and it seems to be a hit or miss kinda place. Maybe they switch chefs often. I wouldn't mind coming back here again, but I haven't thought of it once in the past five months since my first visit there. It's one of those affordable places you go to because of its convenient location after a couple hours of foot numbing, wallet emptying shopping.