Wakakusa Curry Honpo

Mt. Wakakusa, which rises low behind Nara Park and is covered with grass… This mountain, where the annual burning of the mountains takes place in January, is in a sense a symbol of Nara Prefecture.

It is a well-known story in the Kintetsu Nara Station area that there is a restaurant that serves curry and rice in the shape of Mt. It may seem like a strange idea by a local restaurant to attract tourists, but in fact, it is a highly rated curry that is listed in the popularity rankings.

Healthy curry with plenty of vegetables…Try the signature dish, Wakakusa Curry at Wakakusa Curry Honpo, a well-reputed curry restaurant near Kintetsu Nara Station

The curry shop introduced here is Wakakusa Curry Honpo, located a 6-minute walk south of Kintetsu Nara Station. It is a small restaurant with a counter seating for 10 and a table seating for four, but when we visited during lunch time, the restaurant was full and there were several customers waiting to enter. The popularity of the restaurant is evident.

The signature dish, “Wakakusa Curry,” is a very healthy curry that uses plenty of vegetables such as spinach and tomatoes. The roux, which is rich in spinach, is colored green, and the appearance of the roux over a large bowl of rice is reminiscent of a grass-covered Mt.

This Wakakusa Curry…when I actually tried it, I found it to be medium spicy, but not really that spicy. Rather, although the vegetables thickened the roux, the base of the flavor was more like chicken soup. There was no bitterness from the spinach, and the refreshing acidity from the tomatoes was pleasant. Unlike curries from Indian curry specialty restaurants served with naan like tarikaro, this curry even had the elegance of a curry served at a hotel restaurant.

There, the chicken meat, which has passed through the ground meat and become knobbly, gives random irritation to the mucous membranes of the mouth. You have a dish with soft ingredients to which you add powdered nuts. It’s like you’re enjoying the fluffy texture and then the powdered nuts hit you, and the stimulation makes your head feel crispy… or something like that.

But apart from this, real nuts are also available at the counter.

This is nut oil. Adding it adds a nutty flavor to chicken-based curries and makes for a very interesting curry with two different textural accents: minced chicken and nuts. If you are in the neighborhood, please stop by and give it a try.

Be sure to check out the curry ramen on the arranged menu! Wakakusa Curry Honpo, which is rapidly gaining popularity, is a 6-minute walk from the nearest station, Kintetsu Nara Station!

At Wakakusa Curry Honpo, you can also enjoy a variety of arranged menus based on Wakakusa Curry. For example, Curry Ramen is 780 yen. As the restaurant’s website says, it is based on Wakakusa Curry soup. This is a feat only possible because the soup is so well prepared.

By the way, why is it that Curry Ramen is not seen so often while Curry Udon is a major dish?

Now, here are the details of the restaurant. Restaurant data is here…

Exit Kintetsu Nara Station and go south on Higashimuki Shopping Street, then further south on Mochiidono Center Street, and you will see it on the right side.

P.S. Near Wakakusa Curry Honpo, there is also this store…