Soup Curries @ Sama Curry [Review]

Well known for their Hokkaido soup curries, Sama Curry & Cafe – originating from Sapporo, Japan, recently opened their second Singapore outlet – at the bustling Plaza Singapura mall in Dhoby Ghaut.

Sama Curry’s first Singaporean outlet, which is located at Downtown Gallery has seen long lines, received rave reviews and has also converted many Singaporeans to become fans of the Hokkaido native dish.

Founder had the vision of spreading his love of Japanese soup curries across the Asian region

Sama Curry & Cafe had originally been founded in 2004 by Shuichi Takahashi – who had a desire and vision of spreading his love for Japanese soup curry to the Asian region.

Takahashi explained, “The inspiration behind this was simple. I love soup curry and I wanted to make soup curry into a Japanese food culture and then spread the soul food of Hokkaido to different parts of Asia.”

Sama Curry & Cafe outlets are now widespread

Now, fast forward to today, Takahashi’s vision has certainly come true – as there are Sama Curry & Cafe outlets in not only Singapore but also in Hong Kong, as well as in Sendai, Tokyo and Fukuoka in Japan.

Invited to Sama Curry & Cafe for a food tasting

I had been recently invited to the new Plaza Singapura outlet of the Sama Curry & Cafe for a food tasting session – where I had the chance to try a variety of their soup curries. I attended the session together with a dining companion.

Diners can choose their soup base

The first thing that I had immediately noticed when I had looked at the menu at Sama Curry & Cafe, was that diners can customise their soup base, as well as the spice level of their soup curries.

There are four different soup flavours available at the eatery – these are Coconut, Japanese, Tomato and Shrimp.

I had the opportunity to try out all of the four soup bases available, and my favourite one was the Japanese soup base. This soup had a rather mild meaty note to it and the flavour could be described as a very savoury one. It was very pleasant and subtle too, and not overpowering at all. I also thought that I could detect a slight hint of miso flavour in this soup, too.

For the Tomato base, this had a slight sourish taste, which made it very interesting, balancing out quite well with the savoury flavours coming from the ingredients. As well, there were some mashed up tomato chunks in this soup, which also helped to add a little bit of texture to the soup.

As for the Shrimp soup base, this one had a very distinctive shrimp flavour – possibly from the shrimp shells that had been used to prepare this soup. I could really taste the essence from the shrimp shells coming out quite strongly, when I drank some of this.

And finally, the Coconut soup base had a very distinctive coconut flavour that I would say, hits you immediately when you put some of this into your mouth. There are also some coconut pieces present in the soup to add some texture to it, as well. So if you love the flavour of coconut, then I think that you would probably enjoy this soup.

In order to prepare their soup bases, Sama Curry & Cafe uses the traditional ramen style broth as a base and then they would mix in the soup flavouring to turn it into a full bodied soup, before adding in some curry spices.

So this is actually quite different to normal curry, which typically uses curry paste as the base, before adding water. The difference can be detected in terms of the texture and flavour when compared to the normal curry.

Spice Level can also be customised

I also realised that to cater to customers with various preferences, the spice levels on the other hand, come in three different categories – Baby Bear, Adult Bear and Crazy Bear. Within each category, customers can pick the spice level of their choice, from 1 to 30.

Levels 1-5 are ‘Baby Bear.’ Levels 6-15 are ‘Adult Bear’ and Levels 16-30 are ‘Crazy Bear.’

The Level 1 is the least spicy and the Level 30, targeted at hard-core spice lovers, is the most spicy. Also, those who do not want any spice in their soup curry, can also have the option of doing so, with a spice level of Zero.

The Soup Curries

And in terms of their soup curry choices, Sama Curry has eight different types of soup curries to cater to different tastes and preferences.

So this means that regardless of whether you prefer chicken, pork, beef or seafood, there is certainly going to be a choice suitable for you. As well, for those who don’t wish to eat meat, there is also a Vegetarian option to cater to this group of people.

The soup curries also have very interesting names that I thought are a hilarious take on the ingredients that are inside each curry. For example, the Moo Moo Hamburg soup curry, consists of a hamburger patty.

I sampled three different curries out of the eatery’s selection, and these were the Marathon Chicken (S$14.90), Cheesy Bear (S$17.90) and the Oink Oink (S$15.90).

I found that across Sama Curry & Cafe’s range of soup curries, they come with a generous helping of assorted vegetables. And what you get are baby corn, carrots, capsicum, broccoli, egg plant, okra (ladies finger), potato as well as a half Japanese soft boiled egg.

I had also felt that the portion of vegetables given, had been really substantial. But unfortunately I would have preferred my vegetables to be softer, similar to how it is done in stew. So I had thought the texture of these vegetables had been a tad on the hard side for my liking.

The Japanese soft boiled egg soaking in each bowl of curry soup though, is not bad. This is flavourful and the subtle flavour of the seasoning used to prepare the egg, blended in well with the rest of the ingredients from the soup curry.

Cheesy Bear

One of the most popular curries on Sama Curry’s menu, the Cheesy Bear curry was one that I admit had caught my attention the most, basically because I love cheese. So this meant that I just had to try it.

According to Sama Curry, this particular flavour is also popular, because it is what customers generally expect that a curry should be.

The Cheesy Bear consists of fried chicken with roasted cabbage and cheese floating amongst the vegetables. I tried this with a Tomato soup base and spice level three – as I am not a huge fan of spicy food.

The cheese however, seemed to stick to the side of the bowl and I could only taste it when I dug the cheese out. Otherwise, I thought that the cheese flavour does not really come across in the soup which was slightly disappointing. Perhaps the tomato base may also have overpowered some of the cheese flavour, too.

So as such, I had wondered if this curry may have tasted different if we had selected to have it with the milder Japanese soup base, instead.

As for the fried chicken in the soup, this was really soft and juicy and I rather enjoyed it. However if it is not eaten quickly, the bread-crumbed batter can unfortunately get rather mushy quite quickly, when it has been left to soak inside the soup.

Oink Oink

For the Oink Oink, I had this with the Japanese soup broth and again, with a spice level of three. This dish comes with pork chashu floating in a bowl of vegetables, as the name suggests.

And I thought that the pork chashu was quite good. It had a very distinctive porky note to it and was also soft and tender at the same time. So I would definitely describe this as being enjoyable if you are a pork person.

There are three pieces of pork chashu provided in the bowl, which I had thought was quite good for the price that you would pay for the dish.

Marathon Chicken

The Marathon Chicken though, comes with a healthy and tender chicken leg that is served amongst plenty of vegetables.

This is also touted as being the most healthy option on Sama Curry & Cafe’s menu and is also one of the popular items because it is one of the cheaper option available, besides the vegetarian curry.

I tried this together with the tomato soup curry and a spice level of 15.

The chicken had a distinctive chicken flavour to it; I could tell immediately that lean chicken had been used in the preparation process. However despite that, the chicken was not hard. Instead, Sama Curry had still managed to make the chicken relatively soft and tender.

I also admit that I had expected spice level 15 to be quite hot, so I was pleasantly surprised that it was not too hot for me – and I have never been a person who is fond of spicy foods.

While I admit that I could certainly taste the distinction between spice levels three and 15, I also found that spice level 15 was not completely ‘in your face’ in terms of the amount of hotness, but rather, had still blended in quite well with the sourish taste coming from the tomato soup broth.

As well, hungry diners at Sama Curry & Cafe can also choose to add extra toppings to their soup curry, at S$0.70 per portion of vegetables and S$4.95 per portion of meat.

Soup curries comes with premium Hokkaido Yumepirika rice

For each bowl of soup curry, you can also have it together with premium Hokkaido Yumepirika rice and customers can also choose to add toppings to their rice as well, such as Japanese Nato and Cheese.

Rice Omori

I had a plate of the Rice Omori (S$1.50) which is essentially the plain rice option, and also a plate of the rice with minced pork and cheese (S$3.00).

The rice used was the short grain pearl type and compared to the standard fragrant white long grain rice that most eateries in Singapore tend to use, this rice had a nice texture to it. It was also soft but firm at the same time.

The plain rice itself did not have much flavour on its own, but when mixed with the soup curry, I thought that it absorbed and soaked up the flavour of the soup really well, especially when it came to the tomato broth.

Rice with minced pork & cheese

As well, I had really enjoyed the flavour coming from the rice with minced pork and the cheese dish. I thought that the minced pork had a distinctive wok-hei taste that really went very well together when eaten with the cheese. In fact, I had felt that this could easily be eaten as a dish on its own, too.

Ramen and Udon

As well, I also noticed that on the menu at Sama Curry & Cafe, there is a Ramen and Udon soup curry option, for those who prefer to have noodles rather than rice. But we did not go for these choices though – because soup curry is, after all, the restaurant’s speciality.

The Ramen comes with a choice of either the Shrimp or Japanese soup base and this is served with pork ChaShu and Japanese egg.

On the other hand, the Udon comes with ebi yasai kakiage (prawn & vegetable tempura) and a Japanese egg.

Side Dishes

In addition to the soup curry, Sama Curry & Cafe also serves a few side dishes – that comes together with a bowl of their soup curry. These are the Shrimp Gyoza, the Sesame chicken wings, the Hokkaido crab cream croquette as well as the Hokkaido Imomochi Cheese.

The Shrimp Gyoza and Hokkaido Imomochi Cheese are priced at S$6.50. The Sesame chicken wings and the Hokkaido crab cream croquette, on the other hand, are priced at S$7.00 each.

We had the Shrimp Gyoza, the Hokkaido crab cream croquette as well as the Hokkaido Imomochi Cheese.

Hokkaido Imomochi Cheese

The Hokkaido Imomochi Cheese was easily my favourite side dish. This is basically glutinous rice cake stuffed with cheese and then deep-fried. When I bit into it, the texture was very soft and cheesy. The cheese oozed into my mouth, before the mochi then completely melted inside my mouth. So as a cheese lover, this had really agreed with my taste buds.

And in terms of the texture, it was slightly sticky and the flavour of the cheese is quite mild, without being overpowering too. As well, I thought that this is not a rich side dish, and so it blends in really well together with a good bowl of soup curry.

Shrimp Gyoza

The Shrimp Gyoza was also quite delicious. This had a distinctive yet mild seafood flavour to it. But I could not taste much of a shrimp flavour though.

As well, there were some vegetables inside that blended in well with the seafood taste, and this helped to balance out the various flavours rather well, rather than competing against each other. I could not detect exactly what vegetables were used to prepare the Gyoza though.

The gyoza pastry is also crunchy at the edges and soft and warm on the inside when it is eaten hot. When taken cold, it is also pleasant though, and the edges still retained the crunchy note, which is quite good.

Crab Cream Croquette

For the crab cream croquette, this had a strong seafood flavour. However I could not taste the crab flavour, though. The croquette is crunchy and the seafood filling, which is warm when the dish is served, oozes into the mouth.

However it is quite difficult to eat a lot of this side dish at one go – because I found the seafood flavour to be quite strong and jelak after taking a couple of bites. As well, I also discovered that when the crab cream croquette gets cold, the seafood flavour tends to come out more strongly.

But then, if you are a huge fan of seafood flavour, I think you would probably like this.

Drinks & Desserts

I washed down our soup curry meal with a Minute Maid Orange Juice (S$3.50). Other non alcoholic options on the cafe menu are quite standard, and these include green tea, root beer, sprite, coke and coke zero. My eating companion had the hot green tea (S$1.50).

Besides the hot green tea, it would be nice if other hot drink options could have been provided in order to cater to the Singaporean palette, such as perhaps coffee, milo or hot chocolate.

However, a selection of Japanese beers and sparkling beverages are also available too, for those who like their alcohol and prefer to wash down their soup curries with such options.

For desserts available, there is a small selection of Japanese style sorbets and ice creams, for those who still want to get something sweet to conclude their meal.

Overall Thoughts

Based on my food tasting experience, I would say that I’d definitely be back at Sama Curry & Cafe for a meal.

I think that their soup curries are definitely quite enjoyable and at the same time, rather different to anything that I have tried before.

Also, I felt that their soup curries are tasty and packed with lots of flavour and thus, they certainly do make a nourishing and substantial meal, with lots of greens too.

Promotions

From Mondays to Fridays 11am-2pm at the Plaza Singapura outlet, you can get a Lunch Set for S$15.90++. The usual price is S$21.90++.

The Lunch Set at the eatery consists of one main curry of your choice, one side dish as well as one non-alcoholic beverage.

Kids aged six years and under can also dine for free on weekends – at the new Plaza Singapura Sama Curry & Cafe outlet.

So bring your little ones along with you for your next meal to Sama Curry & Cafe – and they will be entitled to a complimentary portion of either the Rice with Minced Pork & Cheese or a Hokkaido Soup Curry, together with every purchase of an adult main dish.