Tempura Hajime (Melbourne)

Tempura Hajime is a “tempura specialist” restaurant. It sure looks like one on first impression: the counter seats and the wood counter along with the large copper pot for cooking tempura. I went here for lunch to have a look at whether this place has what it takes to rival the tempura-yas (tempura shops) in…

近藤 Tempura Kondo (Early February 2015)

  So rumor has it that the first place Shinzo Abe wanted to bring Barack Obama to dine in Tokyo was Tempura Kondo. One of the main reasons why I visited Kondo was the conflicting reviews online. Some say it is sensational. Others say tasteless or nothing special. Whenever I see conflicting reviews I tend…

Raku-Tei (June 2014)

So I decided that my last minute Tokyo trip was going to include a tempura place to suss out the finer points on tempura. Tempura, before going to Japan, was delicious albeit mono-dimensional to me. I always thought there was a ‘limit’ to how delicious you could make tempura and that it wasn’t so technical….

清壽 Tempura Seiju (Early February 2015)

  Tempura Seiju is run by Yoshiake Shimizu who trained under the venerable late master at Raku-Tei where I had the pleasure of eating truly exquisite tempura back in June 2013. To be honest when I ate at Raku-Tei I found the batter to be underwhelming: mild and not as crunchy as I would expect…

天ぷら松 Tempura Matsu (Early February 2015)

A happy case of mistaken identity producing awesome, unpretentious kappo cuisine