#tempura

i just had some shrimp tempura, damn that shit is so good

khafeh masako * 11.07.2026

tortoiseのライブの前に天ぷら大吉に行きました。ハッピーアワーでビール400円（税別）ですがコップ小さい。

お刺身3種盛。小皿…

桜鯛の大葉包み。これはおいしい

Zaru Soba with Tempura

I have to say, in Japan these days I find Google reviews etc to actually be a bad way to find places I really enjoy eating at. The reasons are several-fold. Firstly, if you browse in English, you'll find the places that, fundamentally, cater to tourists best. Now that's not an unimportant factor if you don't speak the language, you aren't familiar with Japanese food beyond the transect of dishes that have become popular overseas, or you just find wrangling unfamiliar places and menus stressful. But the ranking is not always representative of the quality of the food in the local sense; moreso the tourist customer experience and preferences. A five star place may only to me be three star food and the benefits don't benefit me as I'm just that much more familiar with the cuisine and language.

Secondly, it seems like if you browse in Japanese, almost nowhere is good. Japanese reviewers... love to complain. And they complain and down rate places for the tiniest things. So it's really hard to gauge if this 3-star place is a shop where there are genuine flaws and it's going to be mediocre. Or if it's actually really good and has just somehow fallen foul of some Keyboard Karens. Also sometimes the locals also prioritise experience over quality. We wandered into one 4 star cafe which... to be frank, was a dump. The guy running it was lovely and clearly popular with locals, but it was still, 100% a dump. So for me, I tend to avoid deciding I want to eat a specific thing, I tend to avoid looking on tabelog or google, and instead I just follow my nose. Pretty much every time I've done so, it's worked out great. This meal was one such. I had half an eye out for tempura as we were drifting around the edge of Asakusa and the area is supposedly a speciality location for it. We didn't want anything too heavy, either, so when I spotted this little tucked away shop doing soba and tempura (a menu of just a few items is also another green flag) lunches, it was a winner. The vegetables were light and not at all greasy, the shrimp was juicy and flavourful, and the soba had a nice bite and the pickles were home made.