On 22 August I visited Curry no Chikara, in the underground shopping level of Sapporo Station.
It is a roux curry shop built around onions from Kitami, and it opened in the Apia Food Walk in December 2025.
I walked in at 11:40, and after taking a seat you scan a QR code and order from your own phone.
I ordered the Whole Onion Curry at 1,370 yen.
It is served in limited numbers, but there was no sign showing how many were left, and I was simply told that it was still available.
The plate arrived at 11:44, only a few minutes after ordering.
There is no setting for choosing a spice level, so you adjust it yourself with the hot oil and the chilli spice on the table.
The first mouthful is strongly sweet, and the heat comes chasing after it.
As for the curry itself, hot may be closer to the truth than medium.
The onion is fried very firmly, and given how quickly the plate came out, I think it must be fried in advance.
The flavour is calmer than something fried to order, and I found that this works in its own way.
Because the roux is built on onion, it never fights with the fried onion on top, and the two blend together entirely naturally.
The thickness is just right for the rice, and the balance between the amount of roux and the amount of rice is good, so I could eat to the last bite without thinking about it.
The underground level of Sapporo Station has chain restaurants such as Nakau, Yoshinoya and KFC, as well as a soba shop selling a bowl for 440 yen, so the competition looks fierce.
There is a soup curry shop down there too, so the rivalry must be considerable.
The cheapest curry, the Onion Curry, is 870 yen, and the Whole Onion Curry I ate is the most expensive at 1,370 yen.
In the past I would have felt that 1,370 yen was far too much, but that is no longer something you can say.
At a set-meal restaurant I visited the other day, dishes that used to be 700 to 800 yen had become 1,200 to 1,300 yen.
When I think that these things once cost 500 or 600 yen, I suppose we now live in an age where staying under 1,000 yen is difficult in itself.
Seen that way, in a battleground like the station basement, this is a shop that is trying very hard for us.
