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The story
A post on 5ch claiming that “katsu and curry taste better eaten separately” sparked a heated back-and-forth. The pour-it-on-together camp championed the texture of breading soaked in curry roux, while the serve-it-separately camp argued for preserving the katsu’s original crispiness. The discussion soon spiraled into katsu curry’s murky origins (one theory holds it began when a baseball player asked for tonkatsu to be placed on his curry) and a full-blown ranking debate over which reigns supreme: the tonkatsu set meal, katsu curry, or katsudon.
What people said
Old man, go eat your pickles instead.
and eat the crispy part together with the slightly soggy part — that's the way to go.
Sure, katsu goes with rice, and katsu goes with cabbage,
but there's no such thing as "cabbage rice" in this world.
Kind of like being stuck alone with your friend's friend — awkward.
The kind mom makes, with carrots and potatoes in it.
I want to use chopsticks.
That guy's a genius.
You really don't get it.
Katsudon broth is basically pure liquid,
but curry is a solid, not a liquid.
It doesn't ruin the crispiness at all.
It's tasty because the hot-pot broth soaks into the breading along with the meat juices from the katsu, making it nice and rich.
Katsu curry,
sashimi,
eel —
that's the only difference.
They're all delicious.
Even just a raw egg on top is delicious.
In the end, it's the rice that's great in Japan.
It was Shigeru Chiba — the guy who wore uniform number 3 before Shigeo Nagashima.
No need to turn it into katsu curry, right?
No way, that's a hard pass.
If it's cut too thick, the flavor gets muddled.
Nah, the gap's even bigger than that.
Tonkatsu set meal = katsu curry >>>>>>>> katsudon
The tonkatsu set meal just separates everything out to look fancier and charge more for it.
The Background and Talking Points
The origin story floated for katsu curry — that a baseball player once asked for tonkatsu to be placed on his curry — brought up the name Shigeru Chiba, but in truth this is a famous piece of food lore with multiple competing origin stories, none confirmed as historical fact. What split the thread was a simple matter of taste: whether you like the texture of breading soaked in curry roux, or want to preserve the crispiness. But the discussion notably expanded from there into a ranking debate — “tonkatsu set meal > katsu curry > katsudon” — and even into whether cabbage or chicken katsu belong on the dish. There’s no right or wrong way to eat it; the debate reflects each person’s own food culture, from habits like eating in a “triangle rotation” to memories of their mother’s home-cooked curry.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hello! Project board) thread “Isn’t katsu and curry better eaten separately?“
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