Katsu curry at Go! Go! Curry (locations in Chelsea, West Village, and Financial District), $7-$9.50
Big portions of gravy-like curry are a unique way to celebrate the breadth of Japan’s culinary canon while also saving some cash.
New York City is teeming with Japanese restaurants — you could spend your days eating in nothing but izakayas, sushi joints, and ramen houses, and it’d take some time to get through all of the different offerings — and there are a number of places that specialize Japanese curry, a popular dish ubiquitous across the Pacific. Consider Go! Go! Curry, a local mini-chain with outlets that have about as much ambience as a fast food lobby. These counters are good places to spend your hard-earned cash if you’re starving, though, because portions are huge: $7.50 gets you the single-sized katsu curry, which plates a breaded pork cutlet fried crispy atop a bed of rice smothered in that rich umami curry. An extra $2 gets you a size upgrade to the triple; we’d rather spend the surplus on a hard-boiled egg.
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