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What’s the best spoon for Japanese curry?【Photos】

Oona McGee Oct 26, 2020
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Testing Japan’s curry spoons to see if they live up to the hype.

As the days get shorter and colder, warming, hearty meals like Japanese curry start to look more tantalising, and the only thing that can make them taste even better is using the perfect spoon.

Our Japanese-language reporter Go Hatori had been on the hunt for a good curry a spoon for a while now, so when he heard that two of the country’s biggest 100-yen stores, Daiso and Can-Do, had them in stock, he immediately went out and bought them.

▼ Can-Do’s “Curry Spoon” on the left, Daiso’s “Spoon for eating curry deliciously” on the right.

He was impressed to discover that both spoons were made in Tsubame, a city in Niigata Prefecture renowned for its high-quality cutlery production. Another thing he noticed was both spoons had thinned edges on the bowls (that’s the pro name for the round part that goes in your mouth), despite being very different shapes.

▼ Comparing spoons (left to right): A very ordinary cheap spoon, the Daiso spoon, and the Can-Do spoon.

In terms of shape, Can-Do’s “Curry Spoon” looks very similar to the ordinary spoon, with a slender, tapered handle.

Lining the Daiso and Can-Do spoons up beside each other show how different they are, with the former having a wider handle, bowl, and neck, and the latter displaying noticeably thinner dimensions.

While both rims had thin edges to provide a satisfying mouthfeel, the angle of the neck between bowl and handle was also different.

Based purely on appearance, Go preferred the shape of the Daiso spoon, as it looked like it would deliver a more even amount of curry across the tongue, as opposed to the pinpoint precision of the pointed utensil.

Still, Go wouldn’t know which spoon was truly best until he put them in his mouth, and he planned to do that with the help of a spicy curry from Coco Ichibanya.

▼ He started with the plastic spoon that comes with the takeaway curry.

▼ So, how was it, Go? “Hmmm…well, ordinary.”

Next, he tried a mouthful of the curry with the regular everyday spoon.

▼ Again, this was ordinary.

▼ Next up is Daiso’s “Spoon for eating curry deliciously”…

“Oh…my…God!” exclaimed Go, before immediately tucking in for another mouthful. “This is amazing, really amazing!” He inadvertently kept raising the spoon to the sky as he ate, it was that good.

▼ And finally… the Can-Do curry spoon.

▼ “Oh dear…”

Unfortunately, the Can-Do spoon just didn’t cut it. Its thin edge made it feel similar to the Daiso one on the lips, but the shape of it just didn’t satisfy. As suspected, the rounder, wider bowl on the Daiso spoon made it far superior to all the others, as it delivered the roux and rice more evenly on the tongue, heightening the aroma and taste.

With the Daiso spoon being the clear winner, Go was thrilled to have found his perfect curry spoon and he highly recommends it to fellow curry lovers out there. It’ll now have pride of place in his cutlery drawer this winter, alongside all of the many other 100-yen store purchases that fill his apartment in Tokyo.

Photos: ©SoraNews24
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[ Read in Japanese ]