SAMA Curry & Cafe – Delicious Sapporo-Style Soup Curry from Japan

SAMA Curry & Cafe which hails from Hokkaido, Japan, is situated on the 3rd floor of OUE Downtown (not to be confused with OUE Bayfront). It commands a snaking queue during lunch hours and sees mostly office workers clamouring for some of their Sapporo-style soup curry.

Unlike traditional Japanese curry that is thick and almost creamy, Sapporo-style curry is thin and has a soup-like consistency. In fact, if you choose the shrimp base or Japanese base, the curry is completely clear.

Over at SAMA Curry & Cafe, your dish is highly customisable – perfect for picky eaters. I love being able to choose my favourite combination of ingredients and soup base! First, choose the ingredients in your curry. Assorted vegetables are present in all the bowls. Think a mix of baby corn, broccoli, egg plant, green pepper, okra, potato, carrot and half a Japanese soft-boiled egg.

Next, choose the level of spiciness. They have a whopping 30 levels for you to choose from! Level 0-5 (Baby Bear), 6-16 (Adult Bear) and 16-30 (Crazy Bear).

Finally, choose your soup base. There are 4 available – tomato, coconut, shrimp, and Japanese.

Get the Coconut soup base if you want a milky broth. For something lighter on the palate, get the Japanese soup base which is a light chicken soup curry.

So, what did we get?

For our first bowl, we got the Hungry Bear ($18.90) which comes with a tender chicken leg, and an extra pork or hamburger patty (we picked the hamburger patty). The ingredients sit in a bowl of piping hot soup curry, together with a random selection of assorted vegetables and half a Japanese soft boiled egg. We decided on level 5 (Baby Bear), and a clean-tasting Japanese soup base, which the service staff recommended.

The chicken leg was fall-off-the-bone tender and extremely healthy tasting. It is perfect for those on a diet. We felt that the chicken leg could have been better marinated though. However, we loved the hamburger patty. The flavourful beef patty was so tender that it was rather fragile and broke apart when we tried to pick it up. We like that the soup curry complemented the taste of the assorted vegetables. To be honest, I could not taste any spice at all in our Level 5 soup.

Hence, we decided to level up to Level 15 for our other bowl. We chose the Ocean Trophy ($18.90) which has 2 large prawns, squid, a fried fish fillet and a blue mussel together with more assorted vegetables. This time, we tried the shrimp soup base, which had a fragrant and intense flavour. We thought that the robust broth was enjoyable, especially with our spice level being Level 15. I haven’t tried the other levels, but I feel that 15 is a good level to enjoy the taste profile of the soup, without the spice level being too overwhelming.

Premium Yumepirika rice grains, which are known for their sticky texture, are used. The portion of rice is slightly smaller than our usual bowl of rice, but the plentiful ingredients are sure to fill you up.

For the average Singaporean, I would recommend a spiciness level of 10-15. It lets you get a taste of the spice without it overpowering the flavour of the soup. We’ll be back to try the other soup bases in the future!

MissTamChiak.com made anonymous visit and paid its own meal at the stall featured here.

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