Japanese curry franchise to open first Houston restaurant

Go! Go! Curry plans to open its first Houston location in August 2018. The restaurant, located in Chinatown, will serve traditional Japanese curry dishes. Go! Go! Curry plans to open its first Houston location in August 2018. The restaurant, located in Chinatown, will serve traditional Japanese curry dishes. Image 1 of / 6 Caption Close Japanese curry franchise to open first Houston restaurant 1 / 6 Back to Gallery

Go! Go! Curry, a Japanese curry franchise, plans to open its first Texas restaurant in Houston.

The fast-casual restaurant is expected to open in August at 9889 Bellaire in Chinatown. It will be operated by franchisee Daxin LLC, founded by Shishen Li, who also owns a boba tea shop in town.

The restaurant will serve a popular Japanese dish: white rice topped with cabbage and fried pork cutlets or shrimp drizzled in black curry sauce. Curry was introduced to Japan by the British during late 19th century, when India was under British colonial rule.

"While Asian food is on the rise in the United States, Japanese comfort food is an untapped subgenre," Li said in a statement. "We are thrilled to bring the new curry craze to the Houston community before it becomes a saturated market like the ramen or sushi trends before it."

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Go! Go! Curry, originally from Kanazawa City, Japan, opened its first U.S. location in Times Square, New York, in 2007, and has since expanded to seven locations nationally, primarily on the East Coast.

The restaurant's name was inspired by former New York Yankees baseball player and Kanazawa native Hideki Matsui's jersey number 55. "Go" is the English pronunciation of the Japanese word for the number 5.

In a nod to its name, Go! Go! Curry's sauce is stewed for 55 minutes and marinated for 5.5 hours. The chain plans to open 55 locations in the U.S. and Canada by 2022.