tempura tenya

Yesterday was the 7th, which means it was nanakusagayu day for us. My blog friend, Martin, recently wrote an article about nanakusagayu and mentioned us (Thank you!).

If you are interested, I have also posted about nanakusagayu here and here.

Satoshi had the day off yesterday, so after our breakfast of nanakusakayu, tsukemono (pickles) and tea, we watched some of the shows we recorded over the New Years break and walked to a nearby area for lunch. Tempura Tenya is a tempura shop located in a house about 15 minutes walking distance from our house. (I actually found this place by accident one day while on one of my walks, then googled around to find out more info.)

The young couple who own the shop, uses vegetables from Japan to create crispy, delicious tempura as well as side dishes and tsukemono (pickles).

We both ordered the lunch set, 1350 yen each(about US$13.50) which comes with one side dish, miso soup with lots of veggies in it, 3 choices of seafood tempura, 4 choices of vegetable tempura, rice and tsukemono (pickles).

I chose ebi (shrimp), tako (octopus), hotate (scallop), nasu (eggplant), kabocha (pumpkin), renkon (lotus root) and gobo (burdock).

Satoshi chose ebi (shrimp), mongo ika geso (large sized cuttlefish leg), kisu (sillago, Japanese whiting), nasu (eggplant), tamanegi (yellow onion), shironegi (scallion) and eringi (a type of mushroom).

After ordering, they brought out several side dishes from which we could choose one. Satoshi chose a marinated eggplant and I chose a salad made from vegetables and bi-fun.

Then a big bowl of miso soup filled with lots of veggies came out with some tsukemono (pickled veggies).

Tempura came out as soon as it was ready, so it was hot, crispy and delicious. The one thing I noticed was that when our bowls of rice came out, mine was really small and Satoshi's really big. At first, I was kind of shocked, but after eating most of my lunch, it ended up where I didn't really need much rice after all and ended up giving some to Satoshi (who by then already had a second bowl of rice!)

In Japan, a lot of shops serve flavored salts as well as tsuyu (dipping sauce) with their tempura. This shop had yuzu shio (citron salt), sansho shio (Japanese pepper salt) and matcha shio (green tea salt).

It was a nice lunch and we were full, so we took the long way home.

Tempura Tenya
5-6-27 Sakuragaoka
Minoo, Osaka
Phone: 072.725.5040
Closed 1st & 3rd Thursdays