✨ At a Glance: Quick Facts
| 📍 Location: | Marugame Udon (Beatty Street — Vancouver, BC) |
| 🍜 Ordered: | Chicken Katsu Curry Don ($15.99), Beef Udon ($12.99), Assorted Tempura ($1.99 to $2.49), Matcha & Yuzu Drinks ($4.99 each) |
| ⭐ Smooch Verdict: | A nostalgic, cafeteria-style comfort ritual. When you need to wash away a genuinely painful day with sweet, velvety Japanese curry, crispy artisanal tempura, and bouncy handmade noodles, Marugame provides the perfect quick escape. |
It's a Tuesday. The stress eating continues. This week, I had to experience the absolute most difficult, heartbreaking part of being a middle manager. I had to sit in on a meeting with HR to let a colleague go. It was incredibly heavy and draining, and afterwards, I found myself absolutely desperate for a bit of comfort. For me, my favourite Japanese curry is an absolute necessity on these kinds of exhausting days.
To fuel up before tackling our weekly Costco run, hubby and I decided to head over to Marugame Udon for an early dinner. We walked up to the entrance closest to Beatty Street and stepped right into their signature ordering line. Looking back at it while writing this post, the whole process is delightfully reminiscent of going through a school cafeteria line!
In the first booth section, you call out your main dish to the chefs. Because rice is life when I am seeking comfort, I happily ordered the large Chicken Katsu Curry Don ($15.99). Hubby went the noodle route, selecting a large bowl of the classic Beef Udon ($12.99).
Once your mains are prepared and set on your tray, you slide down to the next window. This is the fun zone where you can pick and choose whatever pieces of crispy tempura and karaage you want straight from the warm display trays. I could not resist grabbing a piece of zucchini tempura ($1.99), a classic shrimp tempura ($1.99), and a piece of chicken tempura ($2.49). Finally, you reach the very last section to pick out a cold beverage and pay for your feast.
Let us dive straight into the food, starting with hubby's bowl. His beef udon featured a generous layer of thinly sliced, tender beef swimming alongside thick, bouncy noodles. He thoroughly enjoyed the wonderful chew of the handmade udon, noting that the broth leans beautifully onto the sweeter side of the flavour spectrum.
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| Comforting and sweet: Hubby's large bowl of classic Beef Udon. |
The assorted tempura pieces were a massive success across the board. Every single piece boasted an exceptionally light, perfectly crispy batter and excellent inherent flavour, making them the ultimate crunchy sidekick to our soft, warm mains.
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| Perfectly crispy and light: The assorted shrimp, zucchini, and chicken tempura. |
My chicken katsu curry bowl was just what the doctor ordered. The Japanese curry sauce itself was silky, thick, and leaned into that comforting, distinctly sweeter note that characterizes traditional chicken-based curry stews. The chicken katsu on top kept its great crunch despite sitting over the hot gravy. They give you a truly massive mountain of rice with the large size, and while I did not manage to finish every single grain because it was just so plenty, it completely satisfied my craving.
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| The ultimate soul food: Deeply satisfying Chicken Katsu Curry Don. |
To wash everything down, we also picked up a vibrant matcha drink ($4.99) and a refreshing yuzu drink ($4.99) from the cold fridge section. They offered a lovely, clean contrast to the rich, sweet profiles of our dinner bowls.
While it was born out of a tough afternoon, this meal was a lovely reminder of how food can gently ground us when life gets complicated. I genuinely cannot wait to come back on a much happier day to systematically work my way through the rest of the noodle menu.
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