Sapana, Higashi サパナ、東

The urge for a curry has been welling up inside again for a while now, and as luck would have it an associate suggested a lunch meeting at the Nepali/ Indian restaurant Sapana, located in Higashi on the corner of the Namikibashi crossing on Meiji Dori halfway between Ebisu and Shibuya. Why not attempt to discuss business while trying not to spray ones interlocutors with naan?

Passed the place a million times, always been tempted but somehow always felt it looked too basic, like a café rather than a restaurant, and utterly devoid of the character that Jau Hai!, another Meiji Dori Nepalese, has in spades. Basic décor and furnishings, but clean and modern.  Service prompt with the option of pretty good English if required. Busy, packed in fact.

Three or four set lunches available at the usually excellent prices. One of the benefits of the Japanese economy’s ability to circulate stale money is cheap lunches. We all went for Set B, ¥990 for unlimited naan – fresh, warm and delicious. Really light, not oily, but I’m still of the opinion that it was less flavoursome than those at Jau Hai! – two little bowls of curry (I had the chicken curry and the daal), some “service” tandoori chicken, a little plate of yellowed, boiled Japanese rice (yuk) and a soft drink.

Okay, not bad for the price but although the naan were pretty good both curries were decidedly thin, watery even, and the chicken one had the tiniest scrags of chicken in it I’ve ever come across. Taste was light, almost nonexistent. Oh, there was a salad too. Corn, cabbage, dressing. Nothing else to say.

If you're there, then you might as well. But Jau Hai! is just five minutes away.

Tel: 03-6419-9095

http://r.tabelog.com/tokyo/A1303/A130301/13058048/