ヒロユキ@
When I hear "In Curry," the first thing that comes to mind is the album "In Rock" by the British hard rock band Deep Purple that I bought when I was in high school (laughs). A year ago, the TV show "Matsuko's Unknown World" featured the soup curry scene in Sapporo, and within that, 【Murakami Curry Shop PuruPuru】 was introduced. One of the disciples of PuruPuru worked here. However, due to its geographical location on the opposite side of Sapporo's city center, it's not a place I easily visit. So this time, I visited using the expressway from Sapporo Minami IC to Shinkawa IC. The restaurant has parking space for two cars, but it was full, so I used a nearby coin parking lot. The fee was 200 yen for 40 minutes, which is cheaper compared to the city center. There were some customers inside during lunchtime, but it wasn't too crowded. The shop is run by two women who seem to be a mother and daughter. My wife chose the classic chicken curry, while I chose lamb. When visiting a new restaurant, I usually choose chicken, but I had chosen lamb because I had previously tried it at 【Curry Soul Destroyer Nishisen 14-jou】. The two women efficiently handled both cooking and serving, but they cooked for groups of customers at a time. There are only two seats at the table, so they can serve a maximum of two meals at a time. Due to cooking for takeout customers, the serving time was somewhat long. When I took a sip of the curry soup, I thought, "Wow, delicious!" It was truly Murakami's world. Murakami's curry is known for its strong, masculine spice flavor, but here, there is a delicate touch that is more feminine, though the emphasis on spices remains. The spiciness levels range from 0 to 7, and I chose level 6, which was described as spicy but delicious. It was just the right amount of spiciness, slightly milder than PuruPuru's level 50, and it was delicious. The vegetables included only green peppers, potatoes, and carrots, but I had no complaints. The cooking of the vegetables was excellent, with all of them being boiled. In a time where many restaurants tend to deep-fry everything, a restaurant that primarily boils the vegetables is valuable, and on the contrary, a restaurant that deep-fries and then overcooks the vegetables is the worst. However, the green peppers had a texture that was too raw for my liking, so I prefer them to be cooked a bit more. And most importantly, the lamb was delicious! It was quite a large piece of meat with a satisfying amount, and for the price of 1,680 yen, I was satisfied. "Hehe, delicious, right?" My wife also seemed very satisfied. When I mentioned that I came here after watching "Matsuko's Unknown World" and that I have been a fan of Murakami curry for 25 years, the response with a smile was, "I might have met you when I was working here." The only female staff member I have met is Jun, who appears in the column, so I wonder when she worked here. Nowadays, there are several Murakami-style curry shops, but as far as I know, the first one was 【POLVO】 that opened in 2006 at Minami 2-jo Nishi 1-chome. However, during that time, PuruPuru had two shops in the old Destroyer system, and the light soup had turned into a thick one, causing me to drift away for a while, and 【POLVO】 had a similar taste, so I only visited once. Surprisingly, it was short-lived.