Tendon Ginza Itsuki @Tanjong Pagar

We finally tried it!!

On this not-too-particularly-hungry early evening, we figured that we could probably withstand a bit of queuing 😛 The queue started from around the corner of the shop (it’s located at the end of the building) to almost the end of the building wall when we arrived, only about 30 minutes into dinner service. The shop was very socially responsible and put up the PSI level at the start of the queue to remind customers on the haze situation.

Some time into the queue, a waiter came out and asked for the number of persons in our party, and to take our orders. We couldn’t really remember how long we took to queue for seats. Maybe around 30-45 minutes, judging from the timestamp of our photos. 🙂

There were only 2 items on the menu, the Special TENDON (with 2 pieces of prawn, 2 pieces of chicken, a (hidden) half-boiled egg, and 4 pieces of vegetables), at $13.90 and Vegetable TENDON (with pumpkin, shiitake mushroom, lotus root, eggplant, and 4 pieces of other vegetables) at $12.90. Needless to say, we had the Special TENDON which also comes with chawanmushi (steamed egg) and miso soup with complimentary pickles on the table.

The bowl was overflowing with the tempura pieces when the dish was presented! The tempura pieces were superbly prepared and one can still taste the freshness of the ingredients within. The tempura sauce was drizzled over the tempura itself to make for easy eating, and to enhance the visual of the don. However wifey did not appreciate too much the sauce being already poured on to the tempura itself, as opposed to leaving it at the side for the customer to dip in. She found the sauce too sweet and empowering. She also felt that there were too much rice for female customers.

The (hidden) half-boiled egg added a surprise to the bowl because one can only see (and hence break/eat/savour) the egg when you finished some of the tempura pieces. On first look, you may think that’s it to the bowl, but the egg was well-hidden and added texture to the rice when you break it and eat it together with the rice.

A not-too-bad experience and I wouldn’t mind going back again, especially when the price is so affordable! 🙂