Don’t be fooled by how this shop looks on the outside. This hole-in-the-wall curry eatery serves delicious Japanese-style curry using a recipe made by a chef who honed his skills at a famous restaurant in Ueno under the Imperial Household Agency. It’s named after a dog the owner adopted, which has brought good luck over the years and is now the logo of the shop.
The curry at Pao Pao is made with 20 kinds of spices, vegetables and fruits that have been simmered and matured for around seven days, giving it the perfect nostalgic flavour of a quintessential Japanese curry. We recommend ordering the menchi katsu (ground meat cutlet) curry (¥890), which comes with a deep-fried menchi katsu that’s been made-to-order, served with a side of cut tomatoes. The flavour is pretty mild, but you can sprinkle on some free spicy powder to give it extra punch.