There was certainly no lack of restaurants trying to create Japanese curry, that's for sure. There are many Japanese places in the city center, but they largely focus on ramen. A few of them, though, serve chicken katsu curry -- just chicken, never pork.

Wagamama, which also has some locations on the U.S. east coast, features the bizarre monstrosity above: A thin lukewarm chicken katsu, a football-shaped mound of rice, and cold, unappetizing yellow curry that tasted much more Indian than Japanese. All this for just €12.95, about US$18.

Wagamama was actually quite popular with Dubliners on their lunch breaks. I got in right around noon, and immediately after I sat down a massive lunch rush piled in, lining up all the way up the stairs and straight out the door. And lest you think me a fool for ordering the curry at a noodle shop, may I point out that Wagamama was selling tons of curry. People apparently loved it. Oh, Ireland... if only you knew.

Yamamori Noodles, located just across the Liffey river north of Temple Bar, wasn't that much better. At least their chicken katsu curry (€12) was a nice brown color and tasted Japanese. The katsu itself, like Wagamama's, was not very warm and pounded thin. But the big disappointment was that there was, like, a tablespoonful of curry sauce on the plate. As if it were ketchup on a burger.

Luckily, Yamamori sells extra curry sauce for only €.50 (about 70 cents), and I was handed a comparatively huge bowl of curry. So there's a fix for that issue.

Still, though, having tried Dublin's two most prominent Japanese restaurants, my advice would be to avoid trying to find J-curry here in the first place.

On a recent return trip to Volcano, I found that a lot had changed. The curry didn't taste that much different, but it was all arranged properly, on real dinnerware with metal utensils. It made the experience so much better that I felt Volcano needed to be re-rated. I'd actually recommend it to people, now.

(Unfortunately, the cheese is still placed on top of the katsu and not in the sauce, which isn't really where it's supposed to go.)

While I've left our original review intact -- you can't erase the Internet any more than you can unring a bell -- I've changed it from a "2" to a "3".

If you Americurry readers ever think we should go back and re-review a restaurant's curry because significant changes have been made, for good or for ill, please let us know!

It's no mystery that one of the star ingredients in sweet Japanese curry is fruit. Just read the ingredient list on a box of store-bought curry roux and you'll come across ingredients like apples, raisins, dried dates, and even bananas. All very sugary, but mild in flavor. Surely, I could not possibly imagine incorporating anything citrusy or tangy into Japanese curry. Or could I?

Watashi To Tokyo spotted an intriguing variant of Japanese curry on the Yahoo! Japan marketplace: cherry curry. Yes, Yamagata Sakuranbo Karē's pink-tinged sauce is not only flavored with cherries but actually has actual plump gems of cherries in it! One might ask, "who thought of adding tart cherries to Japanese curry?!"  Well, Sakuranbo Karē is a proud local product of the Yamagata Prefecture, Japan's largest cherry producer, and this curious curry is described as having a wonderful and mildly tangy flavor.  To be honest, I'm both afraid and intrigued.

Japan is probably the only country that heavily markets gender-specific foods. While  dark chocolate Pocky and extra-thick-cut Doritos are explicitly labeled as man-food, savvy marketers are targeting the ladies with foods that are sweet, tangy, or pink. So it's no surprise that the pink-colored cherry curry has graced the pages of Japanese women's magazines.

• Yamagata Sakuranbo Karē on Yahoo! Japan Marketplace
• Watashi To Tokyo: Weird stuff on Yahoo! Japan Shopping

So perhaps it was inevitable that Curry House would experiment with this unlikeliest but most delicious of toppings. Just read over on Lunch.com that the Torrance branch now offers cheese for a mere 75 cents extra.

"So you think your dish is perfect? How about topping it with CHEESE?" reads the sign. I absolutely agree, having believed in the perfection of cheeseless curry in my misspent youth, only because I had not yet tried topping it with CHEESE.

Here is what food blogger "reynaldo" said of the experience:

Although the cheese on the menu picture looked like American cheese, in reality it is not.  I'm not quite sure what kind of cheese it was, especially since the curry and meat have strong flavors themselves.  At first I liked the combination of the melted cheese, crispy katsu and curry (I get the curry mild).  But by the end, the cheese had hardened and the novelty wore off.  And since katsu is filling anyway, the cheese only made it more so.  I would recommend sharing a portion with someone if you are going to get the cheese.  Either that or take half home and warm it up later so the cheese is hot and melty again.

I'm not quite sure about Curry House's execution here: I'm not sure why they'd melt the cheese onto the katsu, where it will eventually get congealed and crusty, versus the traditional method of putting it into the curry where it will melt and stay creamy the whole time.

Still, they're on the right track. Hopefully they'll bring this to the other branches soon.

Curry House Pork Katsu with Cheese [Lunch.com]

• Curry House Review (Cupertino)
• Curry House "Grilled-Stone Curry" (Irvine)

New People, a new center for Japanese pop culture to be opened in San Francisco's Japantown, will feature food from local curry maker Delica rf-1.

While New People currently says that it will get fresh daily deliveries of "bento boxes" from the Japanese deli, it doesn't specifically mention whether any of those will contain curry rice. But we can dream, right?

(Read Americurry's review of Delica rf-1.)

New People is the brainchild of Viz Media founder Seiji Horibuchi, bankrolled by a $15 million investment courtesy Japanese comic publisher Shogakukan. (I'm fairly certain the name comes from the Japanese phrase shinjinrui, their term for "Generation X.")

The four-floor building will have a theater for screening J-pop films, stores selling all things Japanese, and fashion boutiques from Harajuku. It will open on August 15.

(Image: Viz Media)

New Yorkers rejoice!  Forum user Copperchef informed us that Americurry's fave Go Go Curry is holding the first annual Curry Rice Eating Championship in America!

Oh, I know what you're thinking, "I get to eat massive amounts of the most delicious Japanese Curry Rice in America? How hard could that be?"

Well, hard.

Thanks to Nathan's famed Hot Dog Eating Contest and its spawns of championship eaters like Sonya Thomas and Takeru Kobayashi, New York City has become the arena and the training ground for this serious sport.  That said, I expect no less from Go Go Curry, and from the looks of it, the rules seem pretty hardcore.  One in particular caught me eye:

• If water is put into your plate, you will be disqualified.

I am thoroughly impressed that Go Go Curry actually thought of this.  Before I even read the rules, I came up with the strategy of mixing curry rice with water and chugging the whole darn thing (similar to dunking hot dog buns into water to eliminate chewing time.)  Well, there goes my idea.  I'm excited to see what kind of eating tactics people will come up with.

For those who are thinking of participating, Go Go Curry is holding the preliminaries on certain dates between 4/15 and 5/20.  Registration fee is $20.  Very detailed registration details and contest rules are on their website.

For those of you who want to witness the potential awesomeness/horror of this momentous event, email ggc@notionsunited.com or call Go Go Curry (212) 730-5555 to reserve your audience seats for the Finals.

Gambatte!