Tendon Tenya

Hi Eaters,

One of Japanese famous dish and truly has been a signature among Japanese dishes is Tempura. I remembered watching one episode of the US Masterchef and it is also said by the legendary chef, Gordon Ramsay, that Tempura might seemed simple but it took finesse and skills to make an excellent Tempura dish. Cooked it wrong then it can either be too overcooked or undercooked.
Speaking about Tempura, have you ever heard of Tendon? Tendon is Tempura on top of a bowl of rice. Last weekend I got the opportunity to be invited to try some of these special Tendons at Tendon Tenya. 

Tendon Tenya is located at Cilandak Town Square. If you lived maybe quite far from this area then don't worry because Tendon Tenya will soon open other outlets at Grand Indonesia and Mall Taman Anggrek.

The interior was dominantly wood. Well as a Japanese restaurant it is quite common that wood is the dominant material in the interior. The overall feeling I got in this restaurant was it's quite comfortable.
Well let's get back to the food. Let's see what I tried that day.

Side Dishes - IDR 10K/item

There were 4 kinds of side dishes presented that day: Green Salad, Wakame Cucumber Salad, Edamame, and Agedashi Tofu. For my palate the salads tasted pretty nice. The edamame should be more salty. And the agedashi tofu seemed to need more time on the fryer, since its color was a bit pale, it's supposed to be golden brown.

Classic Japanese Moriawase

This is one of the latest menu from Tendon Tenya, so I'm sorry there isn't any price tag for this menu yet. Moriawase means "the chef's choice" so I'm pretty please that the chef made some good choices here. The tempura batter was good and it's not too thick. My favourite was the ebi tempura. I love that the prawn was still moist and it's not dry.

Chicken & Chorizo Mayo Tendon

The topping was chicken breat fillet covered in the same tempura batter. Also there were sliced cucumbers and sweet corns. The chicken breast fillet was good, it's not dry and the meat was still quite juicy.

Shrimp Kakiage Tendon

Kakiage is a tempura which is deep fried as small round fritters. The tempura batter still uses the same ingredients. In this dish the fillings were shrimps and bellpeppers. I love the shrimp, they're so soft, juicy and so yummy.

Chicken Kakiage Tendon

Its looks is almost the same as the Shrimp Kakiage Tendon. Basically the fillings are the same except this dish uses chicken and not shrimps. The taste is basically also similar with the Shrimp Kakiage. Perhaps if the chicken was seasoned differently, it would shine more.

All Star Tendon - IDR 65K

What I love about this dish was the salmon tempura. It's very delicious. But besides salmon, there were also prawn, squid, crab stick, bellpepper and green beans on top of rice dressed with don tare sauce. For my palate the don tare sauce was nice. But it didn't have that flavor profile to be memorable. It lacks some punch in flavors. It's good but it could be better.

Tendon - IDR 45K

This dish is rice dressed with don tare sauce and on top of it were prawn, squid, sweet potato, kisu fish, and green beans. All of the tempuras tasted good. Maybe the sweet potato was still a bit hard to chew in my consideration.

Chicken Tendon - IDR 45K

Basically all of the Tendon menus have the same rice and don tare sauce used in them. This one had chicken breast fillet tempura along with sweet potato and green bean tempuras as the rice toppings. Again, the sweet potato was a bit hard.

Jo Tendon - IDR 50K

This dish had one extra ebi tempura as the topping. And there were also sweet potato and green beans. The sweet potato surprisingly wasn't that hard here.

Chicken Soba Cold Set

I remember Natasha from Masterchef US season 4 once cooked this cold soba noodle. And now I finally know how it tasted. Well it tasted good for a cold dish. I love this dish.

Shrimp Kakiage Soba Hot Set

The hot soba tasted good. But I prefer the cold one. This dish since it's hot it has more fragrant aroma though. And this one came with a shrimp kakiage tempura.

Miso Soup

The Miso Soup here tasted quite tasty. I can really tasted the strong soybean. The soup was perfectly seasoned too.

Banana Tempura Ice Cream

There were 2 kinds of the dish that were served that day. The difference is only the sauce used. One uses caramel sauce, one uses chocolate sauce. It's quite delicious, although for my palate the tempura batter was too thick making the banana hard to chew.

Cold Green Tea - IDR 10K

I love the flavor of the tea. It was quite strong. And it was served inside a traditional japanese tea glass.

Ice Lemon Tea

This lemon tea had a good level of sourness and it's pretty refreshing too.

Overall conclusion, this is a nice alternative for me since I only have one reference to a good tempura restaurant on my list. Well now happily I have two.
The price is quite affordable and the taste was quite pleasing. The place is very comfortable and the service was not disappointing.
So this could be a nice alternative for you tempura lovers. Give it a try and you might actually love this restaurant.

Keep on chewing!


Jazzy Dee

Twitter: @jzzydee
Instagram: @jzzydee
Questions: http://ask.fm/jzzydee


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Tendon Tenya
Cilandak Town Square Lt. 2
Jl. TB. Simatupang Kav. 17, Cilandak