Usually when I come out from work, I’m so hungry that I can no longer think properly. In such a situation, I quickly need a good nutritious meal. Usually, a donburi is a perfect solution to this problem. A donburi (丼) is a bowl of rice with some food on top. A place I used to go often is Tenya, a restaurant chain specialized in tenpura (天ぷら, delicious crispy japanese deep fried battered vegetables or seafood usually) and tendon (天丼, Tenpura donburi, a bowl of rice topped with some tenpura). Tenya restaurants can be found nearly everywhere in Japan, often close to railway stations. This time, I went to the Tenya of Naka Okachimachi.
Once you’re there, the best choice you can make is to take a Jôtendon (上天丼, a superior tendon). The bowl of rice is topped with two shrimp (海老, ebi) tenpura and one of each of bean (いんげん, ingen), aubergine (なす, nasu) and pumpkin (かぼちゃ, kabocha) tenpura. On top of this, some very delicious sweet sauce is poured. All of this contains 716 kcal (or 1122 kcal if you go for the big rice portion) according to the Tenya website. Enough to sustain an evening of serious drinking and karaoke! And all this for the modest price of 580 yen (about 6$ with the current exchange rate).
And as you can see on the picture you of course get the usual miso soup, and free mugicha (麦茶, barley tea, at beginning it’s strange and then you can’t live without it. Hum, sounds like some kind of drug). Yummy!! What’s better than a good meal like this. Now I can think again, where could I go now ? Karaoke ? Izakaya ? Shibuya ? Shinjuku ? Anyway, let’s have a beer before deciding…
Bon appétit et Santé!!!
Tabemonogatari 
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