Curry @ Rainbow Spice Chai Cafe, Nakano Broadway, Tokyo

 

As most of you all know by now, I am sort of a sucker for Japanese pop culture. I may be even be labeled as an otaku to some extent. This is especially if you consider my previous trips to pop culture hotspots, the Gundam Factory, being the most recent. So as such, it was no surprise I would make an eventual return to Nakano Broadway. 

Welcome to Nakano!

It was nice to see nothing much has changed since my first visit in 2018. Although there have been some shops closing down and new ones opened, the feel is more or less the way I remembered it. If you would like to know more about my previous food crawl in the area, click here to find out more. But as for today, it was a different agenda.

Always busy Broadway

My cousin and I had promised to meet here for lunch as she was living nearby and we were quite undecided about what to have. But seeing that we had not had spicy meals for quite some time, curry became the immediate inspiration. Soon enough we ended at Rainbow Spice Chai Cafe or Rainbow Spice for short. It is a chic cafe with hints of Indian inspiration. And their menu is also reliant on that as its base, where the main dishes are curry rice. 

Chalkboard, old school!

For hungry patrons, there 4 types to choose from, namely the vegetable masala curry, 2 types of chicken (masala or butter), and a pork vindaloo. You can choose to have one type or two types of curry, for 920 yen and 1020 yen a plate respectively. Seeing that both of us were game in trying everything out, we ordered two places of two types of curry. And as such covered the entire menu! Now that is strategy. The two chicken curries arrived on one plate while the other two arrived on another.

Porky cross vegetarian. Now that is contrast

They are not kidding about the rainbow part of their name. It was truly colourful. The first thing that impressed me was the rice. It may not be basmati or any kind of south Asian rice, but it was cooked like a pilaf. Seems like these people want to try to pay homage to their source material. I dug into the vegetable first. It was a bit acidic and tangy, but it had a sense of balance to it. it was mildly spicy and had a lot of chunky bits of cauliflower and broccoli. Definitely tasted pretty healthy. 

Chunky

In contrast, was the dark porky vindaloo. That was much spicier, but not to the point you need to dunk into a bag of ice. The flavour was really deep, nutty, and hearty. And being a porky dish, it has some bacon-like after tones to it. This was done pretty well too. There was a good serving of meat too! They did not go cheap on this one. 

Hot chicks

The chicken combos are not to be underestimated too. The chicken masala had the same zesty kick as the vegetarian counterpart. But perhaps due to it having chicken, the meat was able to balance out the tartness a litte. I prefer this over the vegetable version, but still as good. The butter chicken was just simply decadent. The chicken was ok, similar to the masala. However, the sauce was velvety with deep yet soft flavours. The spices here were very balanced, able to stimulate your tongue without making you feel like you are on a roller coaster. 

Cute spice and water station

Truth be told, this is not a real authentic experience. But it is pretty darn close! The herbs and spices here are pretty spot on.  The flavored rice gave it more body and dimension. Seriously, it has been a while I am really gushing on rice alone. And all of this located in otaku central and the middle of the suburbs.

Front of the house. 

Chances are that you may not be willing to make the detour here, which I understand. This place is pretty far away from the main sights and sounds of Tokyo, well unless you are trying to get those novelty plastic robots. Still, if you are in this area, this humble curry place is a must try. And if you are truly keen, then the address is as follows:

〒164-0001 Tokyo, Nakano City, Nakano, 5 Chome−52−15 ブロードウェイ B1F