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The story
A thread titled “Kansai people use beef in curry,” posted on 5ch’s Nandemo Jikkyo G (Anything Goes Live) board, sparked a wider debate over whether curry should be made with beef or pork. Team Beef argued that “beef is obviously tastier, so why settle for pork? It’s a mystery,” while Team Pork fired back with practical points like “curry roux brands such as Vermont Curry and Java Curry are seasoned assuming you’re using pork.” The thread veered into tales of beef-tendon curry curdling into a jelly-like mess, and even a detour into cultures that eat water buffalo instead of cow — turning into a wide-ranging chat that went well beyond a simple East-vs-West rivalry.
What people said
Bet you eat soggy, awful takoyaki 🥹
Foreigner: 'Osaka takoyaki sucks! Throwing it out! lol'
Gindaco fanboy getting salty, lmao
There's a seafood day too
Sometimes I make it with surf clam
Great umami and a nice bite
You mean like CoCo Ichibanya's watery, thin curry?
https://image.rakuten.co.jp/kissui/cabinet/ht/ht01734_top2.jpg
Is beef tendon cheap in Kansai or something?
Honestly, that sounds good in its own way
Feels like it pairs better with pork than beef
Not sure about Java Curry, but Vermont Curry probably does suit pork better
Pork belly beats chunky block meat for it
Probably just caters to whatever meat's easiest for most people to cook with
Curry's not exactly a fancy feast dish and people don't sweat the details, so the mindset is just to make it cheap
Kind of sad, honestly
Bet this guy likes Gindaco too
Are you Hindu or something?
They eat water buffalo instead
Pork in it, that's just curry rice
Chicken in it, that's butter chicken
Never heard of pork curry?
That's sad
https://imgur.com/a/CwJ3IVj.jpg
So the whole 'Kansai takoyaki has to be cheap' thing is also about saving money, and deep down you'd rather eat the pricier stuff?
More like, what are you even expecting from curry
If you were blending your own spice mix from scratch and really into it, sure, nitpick the ingredients all you want, but come on
This is the real Osaka standard
Beef curry topped with fried chicken, huh
Wait, is that takoyaki on top? No way. You should just eat takoyaki on its own
Forget 'what are you expecting' — I'm asking why you'd deliberately pass up the option that turns out great with less effort and pick pork instead
As long as you don't screw up the roux or spices, curry turns out fine no matter what meat goes in, so there's no real 'choice' to begin with
Saying beef is unconditionally better than chicken or pork is really just personal preference at that point — but you do seem a bit more particular about it than most people
This isn't about Kansai people just preferring beef — it's that they're saying pork feels cheap and unpalatable
The harder you push the beef angle, the more it makes me wonder why Kansai people are so desperate to reject pork
I mean, if the comeback was 'Curry's nothing special! What about the spices?!' that'd be way too funny
It's just personal preference, that's all
Background and Key Points
The “beef or pork in curry” divide is a classic topic that often comes up when discussing food culture differences between western and eastern Japan, with a long-standing pattern noted across dishes like nikujaga (meat and potato stew) and gyudon (beef bowl) of “beef in the west, pork in the east.” Even within the thread, one comment noted “there are beef days, and there are pork and chicken days too” (Reply 5), suggesting the split really comes down to individual households and personal taste rather than a strict regional rule. This particular debate mainly split over “why people choose pork,” with some citing cost (Reply 72) and others chalking it up to plain preference (Reply 97). What readers should be careful not to misread is that claims in threads like this aren’t based on any survey or statistics — they’re just a pile of individual anecdotes — so it would be premature to take “Kansai = beef, Kanto = pork” as a strict, clean-cut rule.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo G) thread “Kansai guy: ‘Curry’s gotta have beef, right?’ ← wait, what?“
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