Tendon Ginza Itsuki: Smelly Clothes So Worth It

Do you love tempura? For the small price of $13.90, you can now smell like a deep fried fritter all day by having a meal at Tendon Ginza Itsuki, the original go-to place for tempura in Singapore until Tempura Kohaku opened their doors in Suntec.

Poor ventilation aside, this tempura restaurant serves up mouth watering bowls of golden, battered beauties at affordable prices. And what do you get when you combine high quality food with reasonable prices?

You get a lot of customers. And i mean A LOT. This was the lunch queue slightly before 12 noon, and you can imagine the line stretches until Jurong East during dinner.

As far as i'm concerned, there's only 1 item on the menu because who would ever come here to eat vegetables..

You can understand the need to wait for ten years before getting a seat. The bar counter style restaurant only seats 24 customers at a time. While the counter seats provide a magnificent view of the chefs hard at work assembling every bowl, they come with the smell of oil that will cling onto your clothes for the rest of the day.  

For any of my dear readers who happen to be goats or cows, you will be pleased to know that pickled vegetables are complimentary for you to graze to your satisfaction.

Chawanmushi

Surprisingly, our minds were blown away even before the main course arrived. The chawanmushi that came with the tendon set was delightfully smooth and creamy, and contained ingredients like chicken, prawn and mushrooms for additional texture.

Totally not shaking my hands on purpose to show off its bounciness. It is a tough ask for steamed egg custard to leave a lasting impression but i'm craving so much for this right now.

8 / 10

Special Tendon (Tempura on Rice) $13.90

The tendon set came with 2 pieces of prawn and chicken, a runny egg, mushroom, sweet potato, corn and 2 stalks of long beans which i assumed was for decoration purposes. $14 for this bowl full of goodies is definitely a bargain price.

Kent Xu of the Blog Eatify, First Food Blogger of his Name, the Uncircumsized, Owner of 1 TB of Porn, Father to Millions of Tissue Paper and Breaker of Yolks.

Damn.. that's sexy.. Although everything is fresh out of the fryer, the batter is not the crispiest here, but everything was so yummy with the drizzle of the savoury tempura sauce that I even cleared the veggies. I did feel that while tender, the chicken tempura could have used more seasoning, which was easily remedied with a splash of sauce within reach on the counter. Other than that, the crunchy prawns, juicy shitake mushroom and perfectly runny egg were the undoubted mvps of the meal.

7.5 / 10 

So bring along your febreeze down to Tanjong Pagar and meditate while waiting for your turn in line. The food is worth the wait and stench you are bound to be stuck with. I honestly cannot pick a winner between Kohaku and Itsuki, but if you prefer your tempura heavier on the batter, this is your place.

Tempura Fact! : 7th January is National Tempura Day. There's only 365 days a year stop wasting days by dedicating them on all kinds of shit. How did that person even pick that date anyway? Did someone powerful just crave for some tempura on 7th Jan and thought "Fuck it, it's tempura day now motherfuckers!"

Address: 101 Tanjong Pagar Rd, Singapore 088522
Nearest MRT: Tanjong Pagar EW15
Contact: 62216678
Opening Hours: Daily 11:30am - 2:30pm, 5:30pm - 10:00pm