00:00:00 John Daub: The city of Tokyo and that across the street right there is Katorea, which is the original karē pan (curry bread). It says Ganso Karē Pan on the top of the sign there. Katorea in Japanese is the first place that karē pan or a spicy donut with curry inside was born. We're going to be having one of those shortly. Friends, hello, hi, A21, welcome to Morishita. This area of Japan is very interesting. I did come here last year and walked around the area because I found out later that this shop is closed on Sunday and Monday. Well, luckily for us, it's Wednesday, I believe, the 23rd of December, two days before Christmas Eve, two days before Christmas Day.

00:00:50 John Daub: I went across the street and I already bought some. So let's go and take a look at the sign. I want to tell you about some of the history. Then we're going to try two of their karē pan. They actually have two of them. This is one of the bakeries in here. They're so busy. So I couldn't go inside and film because they have a policy of five people in at a time.

00:01:12 John Daub: Now, this karē pan here, you can see that people are waiting outside because only five people at a time can go inside. Ganso Karē Pan, Katorea. The hours are actually for hot bread. You want to come here between 7 a.m. and 11 a.m., which is right now. And then come back at 3 p.m. because they're not baking stuff. Now, this karē pan started in Showa 2, which I think was like the 1920s. Early 20th century, which is crazy.

00:02:03 John Daub: Japanese curry in general came to Japan in the Meiji era. British ships were coming into Yokohama's harbor and those British ships had Indian cooks and Malaysian cooks, I believe. The Indian cooks were cooking curry. And this was something that was really new to Japanese. They had never had curry rice before. They had the rice, but the curry. And it was so good. The Meiji era was an era where Japan was shifting over to Western things that curry ended up becoming one of the staples of Japanese bakeries and Japanese food in general.

00:02:46 John Daub: Now, curry is added into these pan (breads). And this shop here, Katorea, was the first one to do it. Let's try one of their karē pan right here. So I bought a bag of them right here. Boom. Oven fresh. We're going to try the one that is yakitate (freshly baked), which is right out of the oven here. This is what you would call a curry donut. Fresh dough. Curry wrapped around with fresh dough and then deep fried. I guess they also put panko (bread crumbs) on there to give it a consistency. It looks crunchy on the outside. Soft and delicious on the inside. This one is their spicy one. So let's give this a try. I guess this would be considered street food because we're here on the street, right?

00:03:59 John Daub: Oh, wow. Now, curry here, usually Japanese curry is and they put in roux, so it can be quite... Sometimes it's too runny or sometimes it's too... Well, let me just put it this way. This one is really jelly-like, gel-ish this curry and that's perfect for a donut. You don't want it running all over your hands. So it is a different consistency and it is a little bit spicy. But when Japanese say spicy, they're not really... It really doesn't mean spicy. I mean, spicy to Japanese. It's not spicy to us normal people. Wow, that's a beautiful donut.

00:05:04 John Daub: Oh, there's a line out the door. This was not here before. Oh, I got lucky. Come on, you want donut? Come on, come on out back. I got one for you right here. Relax, relax. I know this might be your first time. Yeah, $2. All right, good. All right, thanks, man. Here's the goods. That's right. I do deal in donuts. You want it? All right, good. Here $2.

00:06:14 John Daub: This one is sweet. I'm doing it because it's just kind of suspicious. I'm like in the street corner here in the alley. This is a deal going on. Donut deal. How much? $2. Just be cool. Ganso Karē Pan. All right, let's open her up here at noon. I got to go over to... we're doing a live stream... here's the sweet one. Now this karē pan is different than the other one. He said that... what's the difference? I asked him. He said one is sweet and one is spicy. So we're going to see if this is spicy or this is sweet. Here we go. Good morning.

00:07:00 John Daub: Now taking some back for... can I... if there's a line, I got to get back to do a live stream with the Leaflet, which is on Twitch. Hmm. It's very interesting. I think they both have a little bit of spice in it, but I can't tell the difference between a spicy and a sweet one. This one might be slightly sweeter, but it's certainly not spicier. There is a nice crunch to it. So that panko that they put around it that gives a good crunch to it. No matter if it's hot or not hot. There's still a good crunch to it because of the panko and when it was deep fried, got crunchy. So a really nice bite every time.

00:07:59 John Daub: I think the spicy is spicier. I think the sweeter is sweet. One is spicier than the other. I think maybe they made a mistake and pointed me to the wrong one, which I doubt. But just when you go in there, if you come to Japan, because this is where karē pan was born in this shop. If you go in there, you're going to want to get both of them. You got to try both. I like this one. It's the small round one. And then they have one that's shaped more like an oval with points on the end. I guess it would be shaped like a lemon. So there's two different sizes of karē pan.

00:08:43 John Daub: Mister Donut also has karē pan, but this is so much farther superior than the karē pan at Mister Donut. Mister Donut, they put so much more curry. Look at that. That is a very, very massive amount of curry inside of this donut. And this is why this place has a line out the door. All right. This cost me $4.50 for two of them. So it's about $2.25 each. But if you compare this not only are the originators so they can charge this price. But if you compare this to the price of a Krispy Kreme donut in Japan, anyways, it's pretty much about the same. Then this is far superior. Hmm. Wow. Each bite is so good. Just one last look as I finish it off here. Nice.

00:09:50 John Daub: Jim. Here's some crows. Let's scare up the crows. You have to look scarier than them. All right, let's just do a little walk by here. So you can see in here. They do have some anpan (red bean bread), which are really cute. Do you see that and some kuri man (chestnut bun)? And in the corner there. Oh, they just brought some out. You can see it out in the middle there. Do you see it through the window? Oh, there's a guy there. There it is right there. You can see through the window. They also have a really delicious looking... oh, here's the karē pan right there. There's only one left and they're going to get rid of that one. But you can see the chef is now making them and there's a bunch of them and they're going really really fast. Look at that. There's a line at the door.

00:11:21 John Daub: So you have to come back here even on the top of the bakery inside there. It says Ganso Karē Pan right there. They serve other stuff too, but also the sign here says that they're going to be closed during the holiday or they have limited hours. So if you do come here keep that in mind. That is some serious bakery goodies. The station that you're going to want to know is right here. It's right next to the station. This is pretty cool. It's Morishita Station on the Oedo Line, which is kind of like the Yamanote Line, but it's the Toei subway line, I guess you call it, and the Shinjuku Line, which is the kind of lime green one. That's not the Yamanote Line. It crosses between Shinjuku and Motoyawata across the city. This is exit A7 and it's Morishita Station. Morishita kind of means like the bottom part of the forest, but there's no forest here and in World War II this area got seriously bombed. So you're not going to find a lot of old history around here, which is kind of a shame, but it has a Showa feel. So it kind of still feels like the 1950s when you walk around and there's some neighborhoods where you'll feel like you're in Ann Arbor, Michigan or something, which reminds me of a 1950s town when I went to the University of... I can't say the name of it something because I went to Ohio State.

00:13:23 John Daub: So there you have it. What do you think? Do you think that this karē pan if you come to Tokyo is worth actually making the trip from your hotel in Shinjuku on the Shinjuku Line to Morishita to have one of these donuts? In Japan, this is the stuff that people do. They travel for food. Do you see there? People are coming in and despite the pandemic going in there and getting food at that bakery and taking out the trash. Maybe some people... write in maybe leave a comment below and let me know your thoughts sign off on your feelings is food worth it to travel. Absolutely. That's my answer.

00:14:10 John Daub: They have also other items. You don't have to just go in there and get karē pan. They also had a Santa Claus pan, dorayaki pan (pancake sandwich bread), anpan, manpan. They did some characters in there, but they also have some really good items like yakisoba pan (fried noodle bread). Pan means bread. They took the European word in Japanese and made it into that for the bakery. So panya (bakery) is bakery in Japanese and Japanese bakeries are so good. They're really really good. If you have any questions, leave me a comment below again. I want to hear from you. Karē pan are pretty good.

00:14:45 John Daub: I'm going to see if I can do a story on this because I'm very curious about the history of the food that we eat. There's a story behind each item that each restaurant makes. There's a story as to why that chef picked that item and what makes this so good and so delicious that it is worth you taking your time to go and eat it. And why do people and customers keep coming back? Is it just because it's convenient and it's near their house or is there some magical thing inside of that food that makes them just really really want to eat it all the time? For me, I could see myself coming back here and being a regular customer. Just make sure that you know, it's not open on Sunday and Monday. All right, just point that out. Daniel. Yep. I get some if I could go there. Daniel you and me both brother because this place is pretty darn good. It's pretty darn good. Jesse Santiago's here. Keep it up and the Hedge Monica. Monica. Thank you. Paul J. Paul Cottery. Thank you. He's a new traveler. Natasha Z. Did not see Dan of thank you. Big love from Pear Man. Michael Sassano. Here's for a nice beverage to wash that down. Michael. I'm in a hurry to get back to my house for the Leaflet interview. Jennifer French is in the house. Jennifer. I'm going to use that to get some for Kanae to take back in a bag of donuts. She's going to love it.