A proud Osakan tradition, spice curry in Japan is often known as magari (rental room) curry, a term that refers to its origins under the hands of pop-up chefs who rented temporary kitchens in bars and restaurants to dabble in the curry business.
Amateur vendors of magari curry have been liberating the dish from the limits of convention, with ingredients ranging from the exotic to the downright bizarre. One such practitioner, now celebrating his 10th year in operation, has pushed the practice one step further, infusing his food with a particularly odd and imaginative style in this not-so-quiet corner of Japan’s kitchen.
Within a nondescript office building near Higobashi Station, a wave of magenta light floods the second-floor entryway. Above a front door obstructed by an overflowing chest of cabbage and rice, a neon sign welcomes you in an odd union of hiragana and English: Haraiso Sparkle.
Inside, the sound of electronic marimbas bounce off crudely painted walls. Around the modest 11-seat bar, dozens of mustachioed cartoon faces smirk from branded glassware, reflecting the mischievous grin of Shuhei Nishikawa, the chef-owner who greets you from the kitchen sporting oversized glasses and an off-kilter, papaya-orange beanie.
From the bar’s most orderly corner, Nishikawa, 40, examines his collection of mostly Western-influenced records ranging from rare Haruomi Hosono remixes to Mariya Takeuchi numbers, before cueing up Tatsuro Yamashita’s debut album, “Add Some Music to Your Day,” which he insists you’ll like. The evening crowd arrives, sending Nishikawa back to his station.
Born in a small town in the Nara Prefecture countryside, Nishikawa started his career in advertising and soon became a regular at 100 Lounge, one of the many strange bars in Osaka’s colorful Misono Building, where the owner insisted on calling him Jorginho (a reference to the famed Brazilian soccer player), echoing a common claim that he looks more Brazilian than Japanese.
After the tragedy of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, he began wondering what life would look like beyond the 9 to 5, and the owner offered him a job.
Nishikawa embraced his nickname and taught himself how to cook. Within a few years, his first stage of transformation was complete: From Nishikawa, salaryman, he became Jor, cozinheiro (Portuguese for “chef”).
In 2014, he started making magari curry from a rented space in 100 Lounge that he called Haraiso, borrowing the name of pop musician Haruomi Hosono’s fourth album, “Paraiso.” He also drew inspiration from the late chef Hirohisa Ishii of Matatabi in Osaka: When crafting an unusual recipe for chikuzenni vindaloo (Japanese-style chicken and vegetable stew curry), Ishii would imagine what would happen to the dish if it traveled through India.
“Just as Haruomi Hosono arranged world music in a Japanese style through his own filter,” Nishikawa says, “I began arranging (my food) in a Japanese style through an Indian filter.”
After nine months as a pop-up, Nishikawa was able to move into his current, permanent space, adding “Sparkle” to its name as a homage to singer Tatsuro Yamashita’s classic hit.
Now with over a decade of experience, he remains focused on offering his guests an evolving taste of the unusual, unsophisticated and proudly inauthentic, molding his magari curry fare into one that is best described as fusion.
The dishes on his ever-changing menu combine various culinary influences and flavors in uncommon ways; some creations were drawn from his dining experiences. For example, his fried chicken with ponzu and grated daikon with Timur chili oil was inspired by soba served in a cheap Tokyo noodle shop and his encounter with the fiery Timur oil that belonged to a Nepalese producer at a food fair.
His specialty, katsu karē ochazuke (an unlikely combination of green tea over rice topped with a pork or chicken cutlet and a dashi curry base), was lauded on comedian Koji Imada’s talk show, “Spoiler MTG.”
While I found the dish sufficiently hearty, it was served a bit more tepid than I would have preferred, with the flavor of the curry itself a little lost among the peculiar combination of ingredients.
Nishikawa admits his food isn’t without flaws, as his ambition continues to outpace his abilities. He says in an ideal world he would hire a professional chef to better execute his culinary vision and move to a space with improved acoustics and large windows.
Rina Noguchi, a regular-turned-friend, praises Nishikawa’s creativity in the kitchen but stresses that it’s the man himself that sets Haraiso Sparkle apart.
“This kind of curry shop isn’t rare in Osaka,” she says. “But (Nishikawa’s) personality is. He’s one of the best (conversationalists) in the city and follows what he loves, rather than chasing profit or trying to appeal to the masses.”
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.