L gets annoyed when I use Yelp to find a restaurant. He said the restaurants I find on Yelp are good, but tailored to tourists. I agree with him, but the alternative are restaurants that do not want foreigners. I’ve found a number of restaurants catering to locals that turned us away. Plus, we are foreigners. I can’t even string together a coherent sentence. I found Tempura Tendon Tenya via Yelp, but this one is a winner. For this post, let’s listen to Shonen Knife’s “Top of the World“.
We were walking around Ueno Station when I opened up my Yelp app and saw the pictures of Tempura Tendon Tenya. I ignored L rolling his eyes and navigated to the restaurant. We were seated right away. I noticed all the customers were old men. Always a promising sign.
We were given cold cups of tea. I noticed there was complimentary hot tea at a self-serve countertop. We went through the menu to view variations of tempura on rice and soba noodles. We picked the easiest and best value option – mixed tendon on rice for only 790 Yen.
The tempura is made by a machine. We waited about ten minutes for our bowls to arrive. Each bowl came with two shrimp, eel, fish, two green beans, seaweed, and a lemon peel. I found the portion quite generous, particularly for the price.
Despite the bath of sweet tempura sauce, the generously battered seafood and vegetables remained crunchy and delicate. Oh god – this was good stuff. The tempura lemon peel was refreshing and decadent. The eel tasted like an oyster.
The shrimp was crunchy and toothsome. The seaweed was incredibly delicious – there was a layer on top of the seaweed that gave it some bite. The rice was good – firm and sticky. Next time I come, I want to order all shrimp tempura and seaweed.
There was an old man who made a loud production when he went to pay for his meal. The cook and staff come out of the kitchen to see who was making the commotion. L and I were quite shocked because no one in Japan makes a scene unless their drunk. He was yelling and it sounded like he was complaining about the food. The female server said yes, yes, so sorry a few times in a quiet soothing voice. Then she asked him to settle his bill.
I spoke to TJ about our meal at Tendon Tenya. She informed us that Tenya is a chain restaurant and one of her favourite places for tendon. I told her about the scene the customer made and she concurred that it was very unJapanese to make a public spectacle like that. She mentioned that people with mental disorders are often not diagnosed in Japan, implying that the man’s behaviour was abnormal.
Hitting the Sauce 