If you’re suffering from bored-with-lunch syndrome, it may be time to try something new and different.
World Curry in Pacific Beach is now offering a discounted lunch special to entice locals and out-of-towners alike to try their array of curries from around the globe.
Located at 1433 Garnet Ave., World Curry is a PB institution that has been serving the community for 29 years offering a veritable smorgasbord of curries served in a plethora of styles.
“We started in 1995 right after we came back from Thailand, Hong Kong, and Singapore,” said Momoko Jackson, World Curry co-founder along with her late husband Bruce, of the establishment she now owns and is managed by their son Max. Though neither Jackson was from a food background, Momoko said they both “loved food and loved curry” in all its various flavors.
Of how they co-founded their business, she said: “We just started to get the idea that we would bring back this love for curry to San Diego, and have it in a very casual, laid-back spot, with nothing intimidating, just offer different kinds of curries in a very customer-friendly spot. Hence we picked PB.”
Noting Bruce was “really into cooking,” Momoko pointed out he took traditional curry recipes and “gave it a little bit of his translation,” which she described as being “nothing too strong or too spicy,” so it wouldn’t be intimidating those trying it out.
The Jacksons first encountered one another in Japan where Bruce was a foreign exchange student with a finance major from SDSU. “We were meant to meet,” concluded Momoko, despite the fact they were from different cultures and neither of their family backgrounds included restaurants.
Momoko said the closest her family came to being in the restaurant business
was her grandparents who were grocers which she said “totally sparked joy for me.” She added she was working at the time “for corporate Japan.” Ultimately, she and Bruce decided to move to San Diego where Bruce was born and raised.
Pointing out that curry is a “well-traveled” cuisine, Jackson said it became a Japanese staple after it was introduced there. “In Japan, we just cooked curry like a stew with potatoes, carrots, and onions,” she said adding curry is now considered to be one of Japan’s two national favorite dishes along with ramen. “We just grow up eating curry all the time,” said Jackson admitting she has an enduring “sentiment for curry.”
The menu at World Curry includes Roti Pratha, pan-fried, wheat flour-based thin flatbread; curry puffs, curry and cream cheese puffs in a crispy egg roll wrap; Samosa, potato, and green-pea filled Indian pastries; Naan bread; Edamame, steamed soybeans in the pod; soups like Thai coconut vegetable; Onion Bahji, Indian-style onion strips; Yakitori skewers, grilled chicken skewers with teriyaki sauce; Kebabs; Singapore Satay, curry marinated chicken skewers with peanut sauce; and Karaage, Japanese-style crispy fried chicken marinated in sake.
“What I like about this place is we’re focused on bringing cultures together,” World Curry’s manager Max Jackson has said of the cuisine. “We are bringing curries from all over the world. That’s why our business was founded. Thai food, Indian food, Japanese food, food from Bali – you can’t get that anywhere else all in one spot.”
WORLD CURRY
Where: 1433 Garnet Ave.
Hours: Mondays-Saturdays 11 a.m.- 9:30 p.m., Sundays noon-9 p.m.
Info: worldcurry.com, 858-270-4455.
Curry: There are many varieties and the choice of spices for each dish in traditional cuisine depends on regional cultural tradition and personal preferences. Outside the Indian subcontinent, a curry is a dish from Southeast Asia that uses coconut milk or spice pastes, commonly eaten over rice. Curries may contain fish, meat, poultry, or shellfish, either alone or in combination with vegetables. Others are vegetarian. Dry curries are cooked using small amounts of liquid, which is allowed to evaporate, leaving the other ingredients coated with the spice mixture. Wet curries contain significant amounts of sauce or gravy based on broth, coconut cream or coconut milk, dairy cream or yogurt, legume purée, sautéed crushed onion, or tomato purée.
Curry powder, a commercially prepared mixture of spices marketed in the West, was first exported to Britain in the 18th century. The British lumped all sauce-based dishes under the generic name “curry.” It was introduced to English cuisine from Anglo-Indian cooking in the 17th century, as spicy sauces were added to plain boiled and cooked meats. Since the mid-20th century, curries of many national styles have become popular far from their origins, and increasingly become part of international fusion cuisine.
