I sometimes have an intense desire for tempura bowls. When I see the long queues in front of famous tempura bowl restaurants at lunchtime, I'm sure there are many people out there who share my craving.

This time, I will introduce my top three picks: Ginza's "Tentei," Kanda Matsuya in Kanda Sudacho, and Asakusa's "Tempura Nakasei."

Oh, and there's one more bonus. Well, read on!

The interior of Ginza "Tentei" is sparkling clean.
The spirit and the tempura are wonderful

When it comes to tempura bowls, both cooks and eaters seem to be divided into two camps: crispy and mushy. The crispy camp prefers a thick tempura batter that is as crispy as possible. The mushy camp prefers a thick tempura batter that has absorbed plenty of the bowl sauce. I'm in the latter camp.

If you like crispy food, wouldn't it be better to eat a tempura set meal with regular deep-fried tempura instead of a tempura bowl with a thick batter? (I know that's none of my business, but) The author's understanding is that the two types of tempura are similar but not the same.

So, this is "Tentei" in Ginza. As soon as you enter the restaurant, you can tell that it is located in the basement of a building and is a store that deals in oil, but every corner is sparkling clean. Even the toilets are polished to perfection. Isn't this amazing considering it has been in business for over 30 years? That alone tells you the mindset of the store.

And the chef at the frying area and the ladies on the floor are gentle, polite, kind and considerate. I couldn't stop praising them (lol). They quickly refill my tea before I'd even finished half of it. I guess that's what you'd expect from Ginza. It seems like there are a lot of customers with companions.

The chef deep-fries the tempura right in front of the customers. Apparently the oil used is a mixture of Taiko Gokutan sesame oil and a bit of corn oil. Once he's done deep-frying with a serious look on his face, he quickly hands them over to the person behind the scenes. There, the tempura is generously doused in soup and then served on rice, still piping hot when it's brought out. When the lid is removed, the steam is incredible. Each tempura piece is beautifully presented.

The ingredients change with the season. Today's dish is two shrimp, maitake mushrooms, asparagus, white fish, and shrimp tempura. First of all, you have to start with the shrimp. Yes, it's delicious shrimp tempura that has been carefully fried.

Moreover, the sauce is not too sweet, which is nice. It has a mellow taste without any harshness. The tempura batter has absorbed the sauce until it becomes soft. The batter soaked in the sauce is what makes the tempura bowl so good. The rice topped with the sauce is also delicious. That's another important point.

Hmm, this is a nice place.

You should try the Tendon at Kanda Matsuya
The batter soaked in the soup is the best

It's a soba restaurant that everyone knows. It's a place where you can say "Welcome!" in unison. The one with the most shocking daily queues is Kanda Matsuya in Kanda Sudacho. Now, half of the customers are foreigners.

However, because they handle the turnover very quickly, the queue is not that long. That is also an important aspect of their service.

Or rather, the foreigners continue to chat even after they finish eating, but many Japanese customers leave quickly. Maybe they are aware of the Edokko way of things, saying "It's unrefined to have a long tail at a soba restaurant."

However, there are many good lunch restaurants in this area, so you won't have any trouble if you give up on this restaurant. It's a great area with Yabusoba Kanda (which is also crowded, so you'll need a numbered ticket), Botan, which serves oyakodon, and Topka, which serves curry.

When I go to a soba restaurant, I first order a bowl of "seiro" (a type of soba noodles). I slurp it up and enjoy the soba itself. Next, I usually eat a bowl of hot soba -- tempura soba, kamo nan soba, kakiage soba, egg-topped soba, or yam-topped soba. In other words, I eat two bowls (laughs).

Instead of this warm soba, it is common to have tempura bowl, pork cutlet bowl, or oyakodon.

This time, I ordered a bowl of "seiro" (bamboo steamer) first. It was our specialty Nihachi soba. However, I know I'll get some flak from Matsuya fans, but no matter how many times I eat it, I don't really get the aroma or flavor of soba. I wonder. Speaking of soba, I think the nearby Yabusoba Kanda is better.

Just when things were starting to lose steam, the tempura bowl arrives!

Hmm, the sauce is soaked into the tempura, it feels good. Since they're going to pour sauce on the tempura anyway, I want them to do it thoroughly. This is how a tempura bowl should be. There's plenty of sauce on the batter and on the rice. It's good. And (above) there are three big shrimps.

I ordered three shrimps on top of the bamboo steamer, so the waitress was surprised. She asked me again, "What?! Not two, but three?!" But if I'm going to eat it, I'll eat three anyway (laughs).

Apart from the pitch black tempura bowls found around Asakusa, it is probably rare to see shrimp tempura soak up so much of the bowl's sauce.

If you bite into the tempura as is, the thick shrimp is like pudding. The batter is soaked in the tempura, meaning that the brown batter alone can be a side dish for white rice. It's also refreshing that the only ingredient is shrimp.

However, the pickled vegetables were too sour and the pickled radish was not sweet enough. In short, it was not tasty. That was disappointing.

Tempura Nakasei's "Raijin Agedon" is the best in the Tokyo suburbs!
The amount and taste of the shrimp is amazing!

If you ask about tempura in Asakusa, this is the first name that comes to mind.

Let me start by saying that I think the kakiage bowl here is my absolute favorite.

"Nakasei" is located across the street from the Asakusa Public Hall. It is a restaurant that has been favored by many great writers, such as Nagai Kafu and Kubota Mantaro. It has a long history. The first owner started a food stall at the end of the Edo period. That's the Edo period! The restaurant opened in its current location in 1870.

I've avoided it because I thought it was about great writers and history. So this is my first time going in. I'm very ashamed of my ignorance.

The atmosphere of the antique building is nice. When you go inside, it's spotlessly clean. For me, that alone increases my trust in the store by about 50%. The tiles in the bathroom are also sparkling clean.

This restaurant serves not only tempura, but also course meals. They also cater for various celebrations, children's celebrations, memorial services, and even tatami-flooring with geisha (!), making it a restaurant that is closely linked to the lifestyle of the so-called downtown area. As with Kyoto tatami-flooring, it is admirable to preserve the culture of the common people. That is why they have so many tatami-flooring rooms.

I popped in alone on a weekday afternoon. I was shown to a table for six facing the courtyard. Of course, it was for one person. Wow, that's so generous. I'm usually alone when I go undercover, so I'm always drawn to counter seats or two-person tables, but I was a bit taken aback when I was shown to such a nice seat. It seems like they're not even in a hurry.

There is a pond in the courtyard, and because of the continuous drizzling rain that day, the plants and moss are nicely wet. The colors and patterns of the Nishikigoi carp swaying in the pond are vivid.

Well, the reason I came here was to choose the Kakiage Donburi. I had already decided without even looking at the menu.

The "Raijin Agedon" is a specialty of this restaurant, and it was named by Dr. Tatsuno Takashi, a French literature scholar at the University of Tokyo, because it resembles the thunder drum held by the god of thunder at the Kaminarimon Gate.

I was surprised when I opened the lid of the bowl. A large amount of tempura soaked up in the bowl's broth appeared. It was like a thunder drum. I started to pick at it from the edge, but it didn't look like I would be able to get to the rice right away. After digging quite a bit, I finally saw the rice that had absorbed the broth.

In other words, the kakiage is 50 to 60 centimeters thick. Unlike the usual kakiage that is bulked up with batter and onions, this one is packed with ingredients. The ingredients are only small shrimp and Aoyagi scallops, but there are probably about XNUMX to XNUMX of them. It's impressive.

So it's quite heavy, but even though it's thick, the heat penetrates all the way through to the middle, and the shrimp is delicious. This shows the skill of the chef. It's the best tasting food there is.

The batter, which has soaked up the sauce, is so tasty that it could be eaten as a side dish with rice. The sauce is rounded and has no sharp edges.

As a Tendon, this is a masterpiece. It's a specialty! And it's priced at 4400 yen! It's worth it.

I was a little worried about whether I would be able to finish it all. However, even if I ate it slowly, the tempura was so thick that it didn't get cold at all. This was also amazing.

To cleanse the palate, I had miso soup with firm tofu and mitsuba, and pickled daikon radish and green vegetable. The miso soup was white miso, but it was rich and delicious. The pickled daikon radish had the perfect flavor, and the pickles were salty and savory, and together with the miso soup, they cleaned up the sweet and spicy taste of the tempura bowl. That's why I was able to eat it all. I'm sure an average girl wouldn't be able to finish it all.

What was really strange was that after finishing their meal, groups of about four people came out of the tatami room, all of them foreigners. I was the only Japanese person there on the first floor. I wondered what was going on, considering that this is the best restaurant in Tokyo that serves kakiage donburi. Well, I guess it's okay because I can get in without having to wait in line.

Bonus: "Iseya on the Bank" (comic style)

I'll introduce one more place. It's "Dote no Iseya" located on the bank of Minowa. It's a very famous restaurant. It's far from the station, so I took a taxi at Uguisudani Station on the Yamanote Line. I don't know if the driver was a good choice or not.

When I told him to go to Iseya on the bank, he replied in a good mood, "Oh, sir, you're just before Yoshiwara Daimon. That's where the bronze statue of 'Ashita no Joe' stands, right? It's a famous shop."

"Oh, there's a bronze statue here! I didn't know that." "That's the place, sir. It's where Tange's father met Joe, who was always fighting. There used to be a sewer river running through there. Do you know that, sir? He says, 'Stand up! Stand up, Joe!'"

Yeah, of course I know.

"I was thinking that this would be the end of my day, so I'd give a ride to a girl who works at Yoshiwara. She'd say, 'Oh, brother, I'm free today, so why don't you stop by the shop?', hahaha."

Hahaha, sorry I was the last customer.

And then, "I'm burned out... I'm all white..." Joe fights Jose Mendoza and turns to ashes, and the animation continues to play out. He even showed me a photo he took with Chiba Tetsuya-sensei. I don't know why, but when I got out of the taxi, he waved at me (lol).

However, even though I arrived 20 minutes before opening, there was a long line and I was about 40th in line. What is this? I gave up for the day and vowed to come back. Stand up, stand up, don't give up.

But since then, I haven't been able to go. Please forgive me for just giving you a comedy-like introduction (laughs). When I watched it on YouTube,The owner of this restaurant seems to like crispy food,I don't know if the Tendon here is good or not. Sorry.

Author profile

Bassey is a foodie who has been eating around for over 40 years. In addition to Japan, he regularly goes to Hong Kong to eat Chinese food at his own expense, and also travels to Taiwan, Singapore, Bangkok, and Seoul for delicious food. During his time as the editor-in-chief of a travel magazine, he visited many Michelin-rated restaurants around the world, especially in Europe, and later on in the World's Best 50 restaurants. We want everyone who loves food to try ``Crab Miso Bean Paste Noodles'' from ``Tenkorou'' (Hong Kong). Actually, I like the Chinese food at this restaurant the best in the world. Another example of the best Western food is "El Seger de Can Roca" from Girona, Spain, which was ranked number one on the World's Best 50 list. Ah, I want to go there again.