Great $4.50 Lunch

After looking at more apartments this morning, I had a slightly confused subway ride to Tendon Imoya (天丼いもや) near the Jimbocho station. This tempura restaurant is a quick 3 minute walk from the A5 exit of the station.

The restaurant consists of a beautiful counter, apparently cut from a single board, with about 15 seats. A single chef prepares tempura, while two waitstaff dole out rice, tea and soup.

500 yen ($4.50) gets you rice, hot tea, miso soup with clams and, most importantly of all, 5 pieces of tempura (squid, shrimp, kisu (“sillago” in English — I’ve never heard of it), pumpkin and shiso leaf). The tempura was light and tasty, albeit a little greasy.

As an aside, we tend to think of tempura as a snack or appetizer in the US. In Japan, however, it is “real” food. You can go to a high-end tempura restaurant like yama-no-ue and blow $200 a person on amazing batter-fried morsels. Imoya captured much of the appeal of perfect tempura at a much, much lower price.