4 ms·

> So if you are craving for spice in Japan, try one of the two thousand "Indian" restaurants and you will not be disappointed. Erm, if you've had a proper curr

> So if you are craving for spice in Japan, try one of the two thousand "Indian" restaurants and you will not be disappointed. Erm, if you've had a proper curry recently then you probably will be. Like everywhere else, foreign foods get tailored to their locality or they die. If you fancy a naan filled with sugar and some pretty bland dishes then try an "Indian" restaurant in Japan. Which should come as no surprise, because plenty of other so-called spicy foods here are a) not spicy, and b) surprisingly/sadly, overly sweet. That's not to say that you can't get a decent curry here, but you'll have to try harder than just walking into a random curry house. And this… > Indian restaurants outnumber the top 3 pizza chains of the country put together! I think the only food more maligned by localisation in Japan than pizza could be Mexican food, which leads us back to spice and sugar. I'm not sure what having more curry houses than pizza huts in Japan proves. It would mean something in the US or Italy, but in Japan? Tastes differ.

sho 4y ago
> spicy foods here are a) not spicy Ha. Can confirm. Lived there 2 years and while I love the food, as far as I can tell there is no food available anywhere in Japan, at all, that the average south east asian would recognise as even mildly spicy. And outside the home islands I have observed Japanese people reacting hilariously to the actually spicy local food. My favourite was a co-worker who literally collapsed to the floor in the foetal position moaning after eating a mala hotpot which was, at best, medium heat. Love the people, love the country, but Golden Curry's bright warning red "EXTRA HOT" is not bloody hot at all.
- Rebelgecko 4y ago
  That's surprising, when I get Coco Ichibanya I think level 4-6 is already fairly spicy
  - johnwalkr 4y ago
    Yeah I was gonna say this. Coco (and also smaller competing chain gogo) is Japanese curry that you can find in every city and can be ordered extremely spicy. And it’s not by default but any of the Indian curry places will make it very spicy if you ask. I’ve also gone out of my way to look up the most authentic places for a specific dish, and been able to order something so spicy I could barely finish it. All of that being said, mild is definitely what to expect unless you ask for spicy or go out of your way for a specific dish.
- grogenaut 4y ago
  It took months to convince my family that the extra hot was mildy warm. But also at a wagamamas in London I had them do double extra hot on their hottest dish and could barely tell. I'm American from the Midwest living in Seattle. I refer to many spicy thing like that golden extra spicy as "spicy as katsup"
  - xboxnolifes 4y ago
    This is my problem with a lot of spiciness advertising around me (in America). When I order something advertised as "hot" or "very hot", 90% of the time it's either medium/mild at best, or just packed with spicy peppers to the point of just tasting bad. But it can be hard to communicate to some people when their upper level of spice tolerance is banana peppers.
    - grogenaut 4y ago
      I think the UK levels of spice are much lower than the US having been both places. Throw the pineapple chutney that I had at an Indian restaurant Bombay style in London plus summer was quite warm and delicious.
    - genocidicbunny 4y ago
      > This is my problem with a lot of spiciness advertising around me (in America). It might just be a thing around here, but a lot of Indian or Thai restaurants have two separate heat scales, the 'normal' one, and the Indian or Thai one. One of the Thai restaurants that I used to frequent, for example, had a scale where 'spicy' was the same as 'Thai mild' and 'Thai spicy' would genuinely make your hair stand on end.
      - grogenaut 4y ago
        It takes so much buy in to get them to take you seriously on spice sometimes.
        genocidicbunny 4y ago
- bobthepanda 4y ago
  How is the Korean food in Japan? Korean food is pretty up there in spice level.
  - rippercushions 4y ago
    Not by Thai or Sichuan standards it isn't. But to answer your question, denatured Korean food (esp. yakiniku BBQ) is widely available, and more authentic versions can be found if you head to the Koreatowns found in every major city (Okubo in Tokyo, Tsuruhashi in Osaka, etc).
    - rawicki 4y ago
      Okubo is great. I'd say it's easier to find (if you sample random restaurants in Japan) good Korean than good Indian or good Thai.
- metaphor 4y ago
  > Love the people, love the country, but Golden Curry's bright warning red "EXTRA HOT" is not bloody hot at all. I chuckled at the basis of your comparison being a globally commercialized instant product.
IIsi50MHz 4y ago
In my experience, using scales of 1 through 10 (least to most spicy), a Japanese 10 is an Indian-in-USA 2. I usually do a 5 to 8 on Japanese scale, though 3 or 4 is fine when eating with more sensitive people. 1 is tooo sweet, even when I was in grammar school, although it's marketed in Japan towards kids. If an Indian restaurant in USA offers only "mild, medium, spicy", I should choose mild because medium will cause about 30 hours of pain along the entirety of my digestive tract.
- seanmcdirmid 4y ago
  Having eaten at coco yichiban curry house a few times, a 5 is really really spicy, I typically stay at Normal or one pepper, since they charge for it anyways, no point to add on. https://www.ichibanya.co.jp/english/order.html https://www.ichibanya.co.jp/english/order.html

sho 4y ago

> spicy foods here are a) not spicy Ha. Can confirm. Lived there 2 years and while I love the food, as far as I can tell there is no food available anywhere in Japan, at all, that the average south east asian would recognise as even mildly spicy. And outside the home islands I have observed Japanese people reacting hilariously to the actually spicy local food. My favourite was a co-worker who literally collapsed to the floor in the foetal position moaning after eating a mala hotpot which was, at best, medium heat. Love the people, love the country, but Golden Curry's bright warning red "EXTRA HOT" is not bloody hot at all.

Rebelgecko 4y ago
That's surprising, when I get Coco Ichibanya I think level 4-6 is already fairly spicy
- johnwalkr 4y ago
  Yeah I was gonna say this. Coco (and also smaller competing chain gogo) is Japanese curry that you can find in every city and can be ordered extremely spicy. And it’s not by default but any of the Indian curry places will make it very spicy if you ask. I’ve also gone out of my way to look up the most authentic places for a specific dish, and been able to order something so spicy I could barely finish it. All of that being said, mild is definitely what to expect unless you ask for spicy or go out of your way for a specific dish.
grogenaut 4y ago
It took months to convince my family that the extra hot was mildy warm. But also at a wagamamas in London I had them do double extra hot on their hottest dish and could barely tell. I'm American from the Midwest living in Seattle. I refer to many spicy thing like that golden extra spicy as "spicy as katsup"
- xboxnolifes 4y ago
  This is my problem with a lot of spiciness advertising around me (in America). When I order something advertised as "hot" or "very hot", 90% of the time it's either medium/mild at best, or just packed with spicy peppers to the point of just tasting bad. But it can be hard to communicate to some people when their upper level of spice tolerance is banana peppers.
  - grogenaut 4y ago
    I think the UK levels of spice are much lower than the US having been both places. Throw the pineapple chutney that I had at an Indian restaurant Bombay style in London plus summer was quite warm and delicious.
  - genocidicbunny 4y ago
    > This is my problem with a lot of spiciness advertising around me (in America). It might just be a thing around here, but a lot of Indian or Thai restaurants have two separate heat scales, the 'normal' one, and the Indian or Thai one. One of the Thai restaurants that I used to frequent, for example, had a scale where 'spicy' was the same as 'Thai mild' and 'Thai spicy' would genuinely make your hair stand on end.
    - grogenaut 4y ago
      It takes so much buy in to get them to take you seriously on spice sometimes.
      - genocidicbunny 4y ago
bobthepanda 4y ago
How is the Korean food in Japan? Korean food is pretty up there in spice level.
- rippercushions 4y ago
  Not by Thai or Sichuan standards it isn't. But to answer your question, denatured Korean food (esp. yakiniku BBQ) is widely available, and more authentic versions can be found if you head to the Koreatowns found in every major city (Okubo in Tokyo, Tsuruhashi in Osaka, etc).
  - rawicki 4y ago
    Okubo is great. I'd say it's easier to find (if you sample random restaurants in Japan) good Korean than good Indian or good Thai.
metaphor 4y ago
> Love the people, love the country, but Golden Curry's bright warning red "EXTRA HOT" is not bloody hot at all. I chuckled at the basis of your comparison being a globally commercialized instant product.

IIsi50MHz 4y ago

In my experience, using scales of 1 through 10 (least to most spicy), a Japanese 10 is an Indian-in-USA 2. I usually do a 5 to 8 on Japanese scale, though 3 or 4 is fine when eating with more sensitive people. 1 is tooo sweet, even when I was in grammar school, although it's marketed in Japan towards kids. If an Indian restaurant in USA offers only "mild, medium, spicy", I should choose mild because medium will cause about 30 hours of pain along the entirety of my digestive tract.

seanmcdirmid 4y ago
Having eaten at coco yichiban curry house a few times, a 5 is really really spicy, I typically stay at Normal or one pepper, since they charge for it anyways, no point to add on. https://www.ichibanya.co.jp/english/order.html https://www.ichibanya.co.jp/english/order.html