I went to a restaurant called "Tendon-Tenya" that was in Tokyo. In my city Tsukuba, there isn't a restaurant that serves mainly "Tendon", or a bowl of rice topped with deep-fried prawns. We usually buy the toppings of a Tendon at a supermarket or have it at a restaurant, as it is irksome to deep-fry vegetables and a prawn.
After walking around in Ochanomizu in Tokyo where many instruments like electric guitars are sold, my friends and I decided to have lunch at this Tendon-Tenya. This restaurant operates only in Tokyo, Saitama, Kanagawa, and Chiba. I wanted to try something that can't be seen in my city.
As I wasn't so hungry, I ordered this shou-Tendon that cost only 4.7 us dollars. "shou" means small. I could have had a bigger Tendon bowl, but it was about 2:30pm, so having so much would have made it difficult for me to have dinner at 7 or 8pm. As I go to bed relatively early, having dinner later would have made me gain some fat, which I liked to avoid.
Clockwise from top: squid, kidney bean, prawn, and sweet potato. I think the main filling in this bowl is definitely the prawn. People have a "Tendon" to have the fried prawn. And we tend to think the prawn is the bigger, the better.
We usually pour some "Tare" or sauce that is intended for a Tendon only. And this restaurant had this "Tendon no Tare" on the table. For those who want to learn Japanese, "no" basically means "of" in Japanese, so if you want to say "a guitar of mine", you should say "Watashi no guitar".
I think this is the first time for me to introduce Miso soup. It is made from fermented soybeans and sometimes includes vegetables like potato, spinach. But I think you can have this at Japanese-styled restaurants only like Hanaya Yohei, or in order to have this you should order a Japanese food set at a western-styled family restaurant.
Tendon is very similar to Tempura that I introduced in this posting. But what differs from Tempura is that Tendon consists of a pair of rice and Tempura, and you should put some "Tare" on a Tendon bowl, which is much sweeter than soy sauce. Like Tonkatsu, a regular size Tendon would instantly fill your stomach =)
