Magic Spice

Name: Magic Spice
Neighborhood: Shimokitazawa
Style: Curry
Website: www.magicspice.net

Magic Spice is tucked away near the Shimokitazawa Town Hall, but it's easy to find once you're close: look for the line of people waiting outside. In general, there's not much of a waiting culture here; I'm always surprised by the fact that the default response when a restaurant is full is not, "Can I put my name in?" but rather "Ok, bye." However, at Magic Spice, they don't take reservations so if it's a weekend, you're gonna be waiting a while.

In this as in many other ways, it feels like a bit of a hippy hangover place. It's all Tibetan-themed decorations applied several layers of brocade thick and overlaid with flyers advertising various local yoga classes, and of course peridically they feature live music as well. A quick trip to the website will give you a good sense of the vibe.

But, people wouldn't be there for the decorations alone, it's all about the curries. And thankfully, unlike the canonical Japanese "curry house" that serves overly sweet, completely mild, thick curries, these are Indonesian-style, awesomely spicy, thin soup-like curries bursting with fresh ingredients. They're even spicy enough to give a San Franciscan pause, so don't rush to order the maximum spice level like you would in most places in Japan.

I went here with a group of 7 and we spread ourselves out around the menu trying various of their specialty curries, and every single one was delicious (there was a lot of sampling going on around the table). So take your time to work through the menu (an English menu is available but as is often the case, may not have the specials on it) and pick something, but don't sweat it too much cuz they're all good (you can do the sweating after the curry arrives).

The prices are all pretty reasonable -- I don't have the menu anymore but I recall it was 1000ish yen for food -- and a bowl of curry here will keep you nicely filled up. A couple draft beers and you've had a dinner that made the wait well worthwhile.