I’ve eaten a lot of Japanese curry in Singapore. Most of it is the same. Thick. Brown. Sweet. Poured over rice, sitting heavy, gone from memory before the plate is cleared.
I came to Soup Curry by Ki-setsu the first time expecting a version of that. I was wrong. I wrote about it during the soft launch and said a kitchen like this usually gets better once it settles.
So I went back after the official opening on 8 October. Not to be polite. To check.
Soup Curry by Ki-setsu is the first and only traditional Hokkaido-style soup curry restaurant in Singapore. It sits at #04-13 Fortune Centre, 190 Middle Road. The soft launch ran from 7 September. The doors are properly open now, and the menu has grown with them.
Let’s not waste time. Here’s what’s actually good.
The Broth Is the Whole Story
Hokkaido soup curry is not curry rice. It’s closer to a bowl of soup that happens to carry the depth of curry. Drinkable. Thin enough to sip, deep enough to sit with.
The base is simmered for more than six hours. NO MSG. Chicken bones. A blend of spices. You taste the time in it. There’s no shortcut that gives you this. Either you wait the six hours or you don’t, and most kitchens don’t.
I took it at Spice Level 2 again, the normal setting. The spice came through clean. A real kick, but never loud enough to bury what sits underneath. There’s a quiet sweetness holding it in place.
If you’re sensitive to spice, start at Level 1. No shame in that. The broth still speaks at the lower setting.
This is a soup you finish. I did. Twice now.
The Vegetables Still Behave
Here’s where the dish earns its name.
More than ten pieces of vegetable per bowl. Flash-fried. No flour, no batter, nothing hiding what they are. Just the vegetable, met with quick heat, then set into the broth.
Potato, pumpkin, lotus root, mixed bell peppers, carrot, eggplant. Each one held its own texture. The lotus root kept its snap. The eggplant went soft and drank the soup. The pumpkin carried that natural sweetness that grounds the whole bowl.
Nothing collapsed. Nothing turned to mush. That balance is harder than it looks with this many pieces cooked at once.
The selection follows the market. What comes in fresh is what lands in your bowl. So the plate shifts week to week, and I like that. It means someone is paying attention to the season, not printing the same order form every day.
The Proteins: Now There Are Options
The chicken drumstick is still cooked separately from the soup. That is still the right call.
Drop chicken into the broth to cook and it goes stringy, tired, boiled of everything good. Cook it apart and it keeps its juice. Then it meets the soup on its own terms.
What’s new is the top-up list. Two of them are worth your money.
The chargrilled tsukune. Chicken patties, properly marinated, with a char on the outside that stops exactly where it should. Inside, still juicy. Most grilled patties give you one or the other. This gave both.
The deep-fried boneless chicken thigh. Crisp on the outside, the way the name promises. Then real tenderness underneath, with the juice still in it. The crust held while I worked through the bowl. That is the hard part, and they got it.
Order one. Order both if you came hungry. They change the bowl.
The Sides Are Not Filler
Three stood out.
The chilled smoked duck slices. One of the most tender duck slices I have eaten. The smoke sits exactly where it should, present without taking over. Cold, clean, sliced properly.
The deep-fried oyster. Kaki Karage. Plump and juicy inside, and the oyster flavour comes through strong. The umami is heavy. If you don’t like oysters, skip it. It will not convert you. If you do, this is the one to order.
And of course, the ever-popular Kani Cream Croquette. Crisp Outer shell with flowy kani cream on the inside. I even heard that it was sold out for the day when I went. Luckily I had mine before it was gone. The Singapore crowd can be scary.
The Cold Tofu Finally Landed
The Ginger Yuzu Miso Cold Tofu is on the menu now.
Cold. Refreshing. A break from a hot spiced bowl, which is exactly what it is there for. The miso brings the salt. The ginger kicks. The yuzu lifts. Three things that could easily fight each other, and they don’t.
Clean flavours. Clear intention.
The Fries
I don’t usually write about fries.
The Crisp Fries now come in a curry spiced version. These are the best fries in Singapore, and it is not close.
These are the stars. Order them.
At Night, It Changes
Last time I wrote that I hadn’t sat through a full evening service. I have now.
The izakaya side has grown with the opening. More small plates. And the part I didn’t see coming: Soup Curry by Ki-setsu now pours Craft Beer by Ki-setsu, their own label.
The draft premium malt pilsner runs off the gold taps at $7.80 a glass. Happy hour is all day, every day they are open. At that price, in that room, there is nothing to think about.
Past the pilsner, they have brought in craft beers with flavours you rarely see on a Singapore tap list. Kaya toast. Mango. More on rotation. I tried a few. I did not get through the list.
A bowl of curry by day. A cold glass and small plates at night. Same hands behind both.
Who Is Behind This
This is the second concept from Ki-setsu Group. The first is Sushi Masa by Ki-setsu, a high-end omakase restaurant.
That pedigree matters here. Fortune Centre is full of Japanese eateries. Good ones. But most are run by people cooking one thing well. This is a kitchen that came from omakase, where precision is the whole job, and brought that discipline down to a casual bowl of curry.
You feel it in the details. The separate grilling. The flourless vegetables. The six-hour base. These are decisions made by people trained to care about the small things, applied to food that costs a fraction of an omakase counter.
That gap between pedigree and price is the quiet reason this place stands out.
The Room
I usually don’t write about the room. The food should carry it. But I’ll note this much.
The interior is one of the most striking in Fortune Centre. It doesn’t shout. It just feels considered, the way a good bowl feels considered. A calm space to sit and take your time with the soup.
What to Order
- Start with the chicken thigh soup curry at Level 2. Still the honest introduction to what this place does.
- Go Level 1 if you’re spice-sensitive. The broth holds up.
- Top up the chargrilled tsukune or the deep fried boneless chicken thigh. Both earn the add-on.
- Get the curry spiced Crisp Fries. Don’t argue.
- Order the smoked duck if you’re drinking. The deep fried oyster if you’re an oyster person.
- Pay attention to the vegetables. They change with the market, and they’re still a reason to come back.
- Come back at night for the izakaya plates and the gold taps.
A Few Honest Notes
The oyster is not for everyone. The flavour is strong and the umami is forward. That is a feature, not a fault, but know what you are ordering.
The vegetable selection still shifts with the market, so your bowl will not match mine. That is the point. Don’t come chasing a specific photo. Come for whatever the season gave them that morning.
And understand what this dish is before you sit down. If you want the thick, sweet curry you already know, this will confuse you. This is soup. Aromatic, spice-led, meant to be sipped. Come with the right expectation and it delivers.
Would I Return
I already did. I’ll do it again.
Not for novelty. Being first means little if the food doesn’t hold. This holds.
What I’m watching now is the group. Ki-setsu runs a hard-core F&B operation. Good food, priced fairly, with care put into the places where care costs money and nobody would notice if they skipped it. That is rare. That is worth tracking over the next few years.
I’ll be back for the beers. All of them.
If you find yourself at Fortune Centre, take the lift to Level 4. Order the chicken thigh soup curry. Sip the broth first, before anything else. Then stay for a glass.
Good food needs no explanation. This was one of those bowls. Again.
Visit them. You’ll understand.
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