How to Find Outstanding Japanese Curry in Hirosaki Dotemachi

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For what may be the best I’ve ever had, you must try this Japanese curry in Hirosaki! カレーとコーヒーかわしま (Curry and Coffee Kawashima) has been in business in Hirosaki since 1973 (!). You can’t get more mom and pop than 45+ years of Japanese curry perfection.

You also can’t talk about the curry shop without the street it is apart of, Dotemachi has been around since castle times!

[Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in August of 2018 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.]

Dotemachi (土手町) History

As you’ll see in a second, Japan’s names stick around for a long time. They also to someone that doesn’t speak the language sound very eloquent when really they are very straight forward names. But much as we English speakers tend to forget when some of our road names make sense, I’ve pointed out how names translate to English to my Japanese friends and they laugh and say they’ve never thought about it that way.

To this day, addresses in Japan utilize the “town” as a pinpoint, including how to locate Curry and Coffee Kawashima (カレーとコーヒーかわしま) on a map. You don’t label the street, you label the blocks within a 町 or “machi” which means town. However, not as in a town as we think of it. Imagine if you will the “downtown” area of a small town. It’s on Main Street but not all of Main Street.

Towns, in this case, are more areas. Over here were the butchers, over there were the blacksmiths, etc.

So what’s Dotemachi mean (besides the “town” part at the end)? 土手 or “dote”, means bank as in the bank of a river (it can also be a type of stew but I digress). When Hirosaki Castle was being built, gee, 400+ years ago, this was the only way into the castle from the east. The embankment part comes from the thought that there was one such feature installed along the Tobuchi River that it crosses.

It’s been a merchant area since 1685 (!!!).

Dotemachi Shopping Street (土手町商店街)

This shopping arcade has been around since the early 1960s and is so large that each region has it’s own promotion association and is split up into its own information, even though they are all kind of the same.

• Kamidotemachi shotengai (上土手町商店街)
• Nakadotemachi shotengai (中土手町商店街）
• Shitadotemachi shotengai (下土手町商店街）

Notice the similarities? The first words are kami, naka, and shita. Which translates to upper, middle, and lower and 商店街 is “Shotengai” and means shopping street.

Curry and Coffee Kawashima (カレーとコーヒーかわしま) is located within Kamidotemachi shotengai. So it’s in the “upper” embankment town shopping street.

Shopping streets are great little windows into history and where you’ll find the lively areas of town much of the time. Something to check out!

It’s common to have street art in areas of shopping districts (and towns in general, think of all the apples!) but this one is what I was jokingly called “little kid feet” street.

Why are there tiles with children’s footprints on the street in Hirosaki?

This is the question that I kept repeating as I was walking through the shopping arcade. It seemed like an interesting choice of art work. Was it a memorial? Something else?

As part of the Nakadote Town Street Improvement Project back in 2010, along with replacing the arcade (the “umbrella” to the walkway), they installed a snow melting system into the sidewalk. With such, they wanted to have not only somewhere that was safe but something that represented the area. They ran a lottery in which almost 600 children from ages 0 to 6 entered. The qualification is that your family came from the region.

As such, 100 of them were chosen and now you have “little kid feet” (子供の足型, kodomo no ashigata, children’s footprint) street on your way to have some great Japanese curry in Hirosaki. It’s a cute meaning of “let’s walk into the future together with our new sidewalk!”.

Wooden signs along Shopping Street

Make sure you also look up at all of the wooden signs along the street. They represent the businesses and are a nice touch of different art in the land of apple artwork (and children’s footprints).

Curry and Coffee Kawashima (カレーとコーヒーかわしま)

I bet you never thought I would get to talking about the curry! It’s well worth the wait and I think the little bits of history are fascinating. Keep your eyes open while you’re out around, even in your own town! You never know what you’ll newly discover.

Takeshi Takahashi opened Curry and Coffee Kawashima (カレーとコーヒーかわしま) when he was 25 back in 1973. Now a family affair with his wife and son, they cook the curry 15 hours each and every day, heating up the order when placed.  And though some of the suppliers have changed over the years, they’ve kept to the original recipe as much as possible (source). 

All are served with pickled condiments (漬物, tsukemono in Japanese) that are usual to have with Japanese curry.  Ginger, pearl onions, and radish which they also make themselves. Pickling is a big thing in Japan – I’ve love to learn how to make some homemade!

Curry and Coffee Kawashima: The menu

The quintessential Japanese curry is slightly on the sweeter side (unless you go to Coco Ichibanya where you can up the anty spice wise).

At Curry and Coffee Kawashima (カレーとコーヒーかわしま) you have a choice of three levels for the Japanese curry which comes with a piece of pork.

• カレーライス, curry rice, this is the normal level
• ホットカレー（辛い), Hot curry (yes, ホット, hotto is “hot”) and 辛い is pronounced “karai” for spicy, just in case you missed the intent of the “hot” I suppose
• Ｗホットカレー（超辛). Japan uses several singular letter abbreviations and “w” is one of them. As we pronounce it “double u”… yes, it means “double”. So this is double hot curry or 超辛 (cho-kara, super spicy) as they also state on the menu.

It doesn’t stop there though for toppings. You can also have cheese, katsu (fried pork), ebi-fry (think one giant shrimp) or just normal small shrimp, fried scallops, potato, egg (fried egg on top or they also have omelet style), hamburger and others. Get the set meal for a side salad and coffee or juice to be included.

The name is Curry and Coffee Kawashima so you can bet there is also coffee! The blend coffee has been the same since the day they opened. More on Japan’s cafe’s later! Get the coffee if for no other reason to see them make it from a very cool siphon apparatus.

Curry and Coffee Kawashima (カレーとコーヒーかわしま): The price

The set which comes with a basic salad and coffee or juice was 1100 yen at the time of my partaking. For lunches and even dinner, look for the word “定食” or “teishoku” (set meal) and you normally can’t go wrong! 

Figuring as the price started nearly 50 years ago at 100 yen, that hasn’t changed much over the years either! The other menu options range in price from about 700 to 1200 yen so this isn’t going to break the bank and the portions are HUGE. 

I felt like I didn’t need to eat for two days afterward.  If for some reason, the normal size isn’t large enough, you can have them add extra rice.

How to find カレーとコーヒーかわしま

A mere 10 minutes on foot from JR Hirosaki Station, but don’t forget to check out the rest of the shopping street. You can also find some of the apple pie stores around here. Curry and Coffee Kawashima is on the second floor and the sign is in Japanese so look out for “カレーとコーヒーかわしま”. 

Other Japanese Curry in Hirosaki

There are plenty of local Hirosaki specialties to try while you are visiting Hirosaki Castle or any of the number of other local area attractions like the apple park or Neputa village, among others. However, this is apple country after all and if you haven’t yet gotten your fill with apple pie, and cider, there’s another type of Japanese curry in Hirosaki you should try – the apple curry!

There are several locations in town that have it, just look for “りんご” (Japanese for apple) and “カレー” (curry) on the menu together.

Disclosure: Kristenabroad.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program and other affiliate programs. For some links to products or services in this article, I may earn a small commission by you using my link.  The price for you is not affected.

Apple Curry (りんごカレー) to-go

If you didn’t get to try apple curry while in town, they come in packets from a local store called Iwakiya! Hirosaki puts apples in everything, not just apple pie and your delicious hard ciders but also in Japanese curry in Hirosaki!

Retort packets (I just learned they were called that recently) are available in all different styles of curry across Japan. And very much like ramen, you can find local varieties or special edition “just like the store” versions.

For Iwakiya apple curry, you get the roux in which you can use to cook with. There are instructions on the packet for what ingredients to add.

What’s your best mom & pop find?

Let me know in the comments :).

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