Special tendon ($13.90++)!
Japanese tendon restaurant special tendon $13.90++ — assorted tempura on rice with sweet-soy tare. Prawn, fish, vegetables, soft-boiled egg.
Sunday lunch with BB at a Japanese tendon restaurant. Tendon is one of those Japanese dishes that’s all about execution: fresh tempura, hot rice, and a sweet-soy tare sauce that ties the whole bowl together. The special tendon is the upgrade order with more variety.
We ordered:
- Special tendon — $13.90++
The bowl arrived steaming — a base of fluffy short-grain rice with the assorted tempura piled high on top: two tempura prawns, a piece of white fish, slices of pumpkin, eggplant, sweet potato, shiitake, lotus root, green bean, and a soft-boiled egg fried in tempura batter sitting at the centre.
The tempura batter was the test — light, airy, with that hollow crunch that comes from cold batter hitting hot oil and frying quickly without absorbing. Each piece had its own distinct character: prawn was sweet and snappy, white fish flaked clean, pumpkin had a slow root-vegetable sweetness, eggplant went soft and silky underneath the crisp shell.
The sweet-soy tare sauce is the binder — drizzled over the tempura and soaking into the rice underneath. Mirin-soy-sugar-dashi base, slightly thickened, glossy. As the rice absorbs the sauce, every spoonful gets that perfect tendon ratio.
Soft-boiled egg battered and tempura’d is the gimmick of the dish but also the highlight — you split it open, the yolk pours into the rice, and now you have egg-yolk tendon.
$13.90++ for a tendon at this level is fair Japanese chain pricing — better than mall food court, less than a sushi restaurant.
Overall: 4.5 / 5. 😋👍🏼 Excellent special tendon — would happily revisit.
