Tempura Osaka in Shinbashi is a place I had been to once before and walked out of seriously impressed. If you judge it by lunch alone, finding a tempura place with better value than this is close to impossible, so I went back at lunchtime with a friend.
It is normally a place with a long line, but it was raining that day so we got in right away. And once inside we were lucky enough to find the counter seats free. A place like this really is best eaten at the counter.
Tokujo tendon
It is not exactly cheap, but it comes piled high with good ingredients. It reminded me of the tendon at Mikawa, the famous place in Nihonbashi. That said, with a tendon the sauce inevitably softens the batter, so for my taste the tempura set meal suits me better.
Miso soup and white rice
First the basic set comes out, and after that they fry each piece of tempura and put it on fresh.
Shrimp and anago
The shrimp is not all that big, but they use fresh ingredients. And the anago, of course, tastes like a first-class tempura house.
Kabocha and kisu
Not just the fish, the vegetables were fresh too.
Shrimp and shishito
Shishito is one of my favorite things on the menu, so seeing it again after a while made me even happier. On top of that came one more piece of that very satisfying shrimp.
Kakiage
Kakiage is tempura made by finely chopping vegetables and seafood and frying them together. It is generous and has a nice chew to it, so it goes with rice better than the other tempura does.
If it were nearby I would want to drop in all the time, but the location is a bit far after all. They call it Shinbashi, but it is almost in the Toranomon area. Prices go up quite a lot in the evening compared with that great-value lunch, but someday I would like to give dinner a try too. Once I am making a lot of money ^_^