Curry Bun & Coffee @ Tenma Curry , Aurora Town, Sapporo, Hokkaido

 

It is crunch time and I do mean it in the literal sense. With a golden brown outer shell, a soft and tender meaty filling, and a fluffy bread in between, it is a combination of interesting textures that really is something hard to forget. And if this is how heaven taste like, you may not be wrong. 

Who needs advertising for food this good?

Tenma Curry is a curry chain proudly from Hokkaido that serves the local specialty of soup curry. However, the one that really brought them their infamous reputation was their fried curry buns or karepan, in Japanese. Seeing that this recommendation keeps on appearing in Japanese websites and not really made known in English based outlets, I may have hit a special local gem here. They have a few shops around the city of Sapporo, but I went to the underground mall of Aurora Town, as it is the closest to me at the time. 

Probably the hardest decision for this trip so far, what to have...

It should be noted that they serve karepan throughout the day but if you are really into meal combos, I strongly recommend waiting till 3pm where you can choose your type of fried treat with a drink. With regard to the karepan, it comes in 4 different flavours, chicken, braised pork, shrimp and cheese, and their main star maker, the beef curry. Upon hearing that from the waitress, I got myself a beef curry combo alongside an iced coffee. Standing at 530 yen, this was a serious bargain. 

Glorious

The whole thing was so indulgent. being deep fried the outer pastry was very crunchy and had that nice nutty aroma for being well, deep fried. But at the same time I know that this will be a very rare treat due to the calories. In any event, I am on vacation so some leeway would be justified. Inside however, was soft, warm and spicy. 

Molten!

The beef curry was so good, I do not mind eating it with rice. There was so much flavour going on, and it felt like a closer cousin to keema curry instead of your regular Japanese style roux curry. The only difference is that pork chunks are used instead of the traditional mince that keema is famous for. The coffee was also not some window dressing. It had a nice smoky flavour without being overly sour. The aroma really pair well with the fried bread and being iced made it a great tonic to beat the summer heat during my visit. This was indeed a great mid-afternoon snack. 

Front of the house. 

I think you can see by now I really enjoyed this. And if you are in any of the main parts of the city, I am sure you can find an outlet that would be kind enough to welcome you and try their amazing fried curry buns. They of course have soup curry too and I was very tempted in getting it. Well, probably during my next trip. So if you fancy a go, why not look out for an outlet near you when you are in Sapporo? And if you would like to try the shop I went to, then the address is as follows:

〒060-0042 Hokkaido, Sapporo, Chuo Ward, Odorinishi, 2 Chome, Sapporo Aurora Town, No A-13