Kashmir - Indian restaurant with wide selection of hotness of curry

When it is hot, I often feel like eating curry. Last Saturday, I went to an Indian restaurant Kashmir that is 20-minute walk from JR Hamamatsu Station. I had seen the restaurant several times from Bus #80 going eastward from the station, and it was quite easy to find it.

They have some holiday lunch sets, and I chose Set A that consists of two kinds of curry (out of five options), one pieces of samosa, salad, naan bread or rice, and oolong tea (980 yen). For curry, I chose Mix Vegetable Curry and Mix Dal Tarka or curry with mixed beans. The naan bread included in the menu is a plain type, but you can have another bread at an extra charge. Including the plain one, they have nine kinds of naan bread in total, such as butter, garlic, and green (spinach) naan bread, Onion Kulcha, etc. I ordered Stuff Kulcha (+150 yen). In addition, you can choose the level of hotness of curry from 1 to 20. According to a staff member, Level 1 to 3 are not hot at all, so I choose Level 5. I was looking forward to tasting how hot it would be.

The interior of the restaurant was interesting to see. These are accessory boxes from India. On the table, they had cloth with a motif of elephants.

First, I got a glass of oolong tea. It is popular Chinese tea found in many kinds of eating places. For example, those who can’t drink alcohol often order oolong tea at drinking parties at Japanese style bars.

Here they came! The salad was an ordinary kind of salad with orange dressing that you often see in Indian restaurants in Japan. I was glad to see the samosa steaming when I cut it with a knife. The colors of two kinds of curry looked similar to each other, but I found potato, mushroom, ginger, and several other vegetables in Mix Vegetable Curry. The beans in Mix Dal Tarka were all unknown to me. Though the hotness was just Level 5, both of them were hot enough to make the inside of my mouth feel tingly. It was surprising, and I wondered how hot Level 20 would be. However, I prefer hot curry to mild one, especially on hot summer days. I enjoyed eating them very much.

This is Stuff Kulcha, naan bread stuffed with potato, green peas, and cashew nuts flavored with spices. I ate this kind of naan bread for the first time. I noticed at once that the stuffing was almost the same as that of the samosa. Maybe Onion Kulcha might have been a better choice. However, it was appetizing and good.

In addition to Set A, I had chai. I had already oolong tea, but I felt like drinking something Indian and was satisfied with it. It was tasty without sugar.

This restaurant is recommendable as there are many options to choose from. Naan bread contains milk and egg, but there seems to be several vegan curry options. If you search with “Curry of India Kashmir Hamamatsu”, you can find menu items also in English (They don’t have a separate English page).

Kashmir
Address: 5-12, Aioi-cho, Naka-ku, Hamamatsu-shi, Shizuoka
Tel: 053-461-1830
Open hours: 11:00-22:00  Open 365 days a year
Access: Take Bus #80 from the bus terminal and get off at Aioi (5-minute ride)