“Ambushing the plate” – Review of Go! Go! Curry

“Ambushing the Plate”- Review of Go!Go!Curry

BY SARAH IP

Go!Go!Curry
273 W. 38th St
(between 7th Ave & 8th Ave)
Midtown West / Garment District, NYC
(212) 730-5555
gogocurryusa.com

Guerilla guards the GoGoCurry. Photo by Sarah Ip.

Attack! Attack! Go!

To Go!Go!Curry, at once! If only all lunches could be like this…

Colorful menu board. Photo by Sarah Ip.

My friends and I arrived there around 12:15 p.m. to a relatively empty store. Not more than ten minutes later, a nattily-dressed Japanese couple entered, along with polo shirt-clad Asian guys in their 20s and 30s who were sitting all by their lonesome selves…  Curry seems to be a popular choice among the younger set.

The left-hand wall was transformed into a vortex of curry and Japanese regalia pasted collage-style, hiding almost every inch of the original white paint. A veritable shrine to Yankees’ hitter Hideki Matsui (well, in a place that harps the Grand Slam and Hideki Matsui chips, it’s to be expected, eh?).

In case you didn’t know, “Go” means five in Japanese. So, put together, “GoGo” stands for 55, or Matsui’s number. Total coincidence? I think not.

The bashful cashiers, two young ladies, chirped with girlish laughter and beamed their wide smiles at me. Clad in their yellow uniform shirts, the ladies giggled when I requested a picture with just the two of them. The one with plump cheeks tried to hide her face, claiming her cheeks were too fat.

Katsu Curry. Photo by Sarah Ip.

Go!Go!Curry operates like a small fast food restaurant – you order at the counter and pick up your dish when your name is called.  I made a beeline for the Katsu Curry, or breaded chicken cutlet with curry, which is what I came for.  Go!Go!Curry serves three sizes: Walk (S), Single (M), Double (L) and Triple (XL).  For 8 dollars, I had an ample-sized portion of pork cutlet over rice, with some shredded lettuce on the side.  But seeing how tasty the curry was, I could have used seconds on the rice to savor the curry.  Bring on the sauce!  Some Japanese comfort food joints pride themselves on the sublime melding of their curry-to-rice ratio, which should ideally be 1 part rice to about 1.5 parts sauce.  However, this is not a hard-and-fast rule.The “Grand Slam” consists of two fried shrimps, a breaded and fried chicken cutlet, a breaded and fried pork cutlet, two fried sausages, a hard-boiled egg, lettuce, a large mound of white rice and thick curry drizzled over it.  I’ll definitely come back for that when I have a bigger appetite. Side dishes include Natto (fermented soy beans), Fukuzinzuke (pickled daikon) and Rakkyo (pickled shallots).  Every 5th of the month, enjoy a free topping of your choice!

L-R: Katsu Curry and Chicken Curry. Photo by Sarah Ip.

Just so you can see the size difference…

L-R: "The only thing she thinks is about Grand Slam Curry!!” Photo by Sarah Ip.