By Joseph Nian
After a successful badminton game where Westmont won 10-5 against Prospect, some of my teammates and I decided to go grab a quick bite to eat. We originally planned to go eat Curry Hyuga, a popular Japanese curry restaurant right near Izumi Matcha (psst, I wrote about that too; check out the eats section for Issue 4 if you haven’t read it), however, the wait was an hour long. Seeing as it was 7:30 with everyone starving after the game, we all decided to detour to Kizuna, a nearby Japanese restaurant on Bollinger.
Walking in, my teammates and I were warmly greeted by the two owners and were quickly given our seats. Might I add, we were a group of 7 that came in about 45 minutes before the restaurant closed, so it was impressive to see them quickly help us and get our food hot and fresh within 10 minutes.
Now, I won’t lie and say I’ve had a lot of curry in my life so far, but I have to say the curry wasn’t quite what I expected. I ordered the tonkatsu curry (pork cutlet curry), and at first glance, it looked quite good. The rice, curry, and pork cutlet proportions were just right for me, and they had a nice addition to their curry that you don’t see in many Japanese curry restaurants here in America — pickled daikon. Although pickled daikon isn’t anything remarkable, it’s a perfect palate cleanser for the heavy curry and meat flavors you experience as you eat the food.
Although the dish was tasty to the eye, it was unfortunately not the same when it came to taste. Don’t get me wrong, the food was still delicious and hearty like any other curry dish, but the pork cutlet and curry had a few things that I didn’t like. Firstly, the pork cutlet was thin and dry. This did make the pork cutlet more crispy as it had that satisfying crunch sound and texture. However, I care more about the flavor and juicyness of the pork cutlet, which these pieces lacked, leaving me unsatisfied. Additionally, the curry tasted like any other curry you would find at any other restaurant, which I found unoriginal and boring.
All in all, I would give Kizuna four out of five stars because they hit the spot with the core flavor I expect from a curry dish, but they did lack something attention-grabbing and interesting within their food. Kizuna also has a bunch of sushi rolls that I haven’t tried so maybe give those a try too if you happen to be near the area.
