Budget Food

Ten-don Tenya – My favorite chain restaurant in Japan!

26 April 2013

Ok, I lied.
It’s probably a tie with Kura sushi. I love them both muchly! ♥

But I do eat Tenya more often because it’s much more accessible. Kura sushi branches are mostly hidden away in ulu residential areas >___>

Oh, just to clear up any ambiguity,

  • Ten-don = Tempura rice bowl
  • Tenya = Shop that sells tempura

Basically, don (丼) is rice bowl, so anything-don = rice bowl of the anything. Hahaha. My explanation is ridiculous.

Let me try again.

For example, Gyu-don is…?

Answer: Rice bowl of Gyu (where Gyu = beef)
Therefore, Gyu-don = Beef rice bowl.

/end of mini Japanese lesson

Picture time!

My usual is the ‘All Star Ten-don’, which consists of:

ALL STAR TEN-DON
Prawn (ebi), Scallop (hotate), Squid (ika), Mushroom (maitake), Green beans (ingen), Lotus root (renkon)

My standard set, which comes with miso soup and refillable mugicha (roasted barley tea)

I had an extra free serving of maitake mushroom for this one (from a coupon they gave!)

Your eyesight’s fine. There really are doubles, heh

They run seasonal specials depending on which time of the year it is, and during winter, they had a Winter Feast:

Crab, prawn, scallop kakiage, fish were the highlights (Close to 900yen)

Shu insisted I try this and I’m glad I did, even if it was a bit pricey (compared to my usual). The crab was really delicious :9

After the Winter Feast, they had a Spring Special:

Scallop, shrimp, squid, maitake kakiage, topped with shredded yuzu

The best thing about Tenya is that the food is not expensive, and plenty delicious!

The All Star Ten-don is just 650yen (~SGD 9). Cheaper for me at 600yen, because I downsize the rice portion. I wished I could downsize it even more because I’m always stuffed to the max even with the smaller portion of rice -__-

Even though they are primarily a rice bowl shop, they also serve soba and udon!

I highly recommend you trying this chain out, especially if you enjoy Japanese food.

So far, I’ve had 100% success rate with introducing people to eat there, and them loving it. I guess the only downside is that if you love it, you will miss it terribly too after leaving Japan, just like so many before you…

There’s one in Haneda Airport, B1.
For other outlets, refer to the link below!

— —

Ten-don Tenya
(天丼 てんや)

Menu (Google-translated, ridiculous phrases included)
Branches (also Google-translated)

One easy-to-access branch is in Harajuku.
From JR Harajuku station, walk to end of Takeshita street, and you can see it right there across the road.
(you can see it on Google Maps’ street view!)

3 Comments

  • Reply Rin R 2 May 2013 at 12:25 pm

    I REALLY DO MISS IT. THANKS. grr.

    (that wasn’t me being grouchy, that was my stomach. Again, thanks.)

  • Reply Rin R 2 May 2013 at 2:39 pm

    …aaaand we have one of our cold turkey tenya lovers here!

    You’re welcome. :D

  • Reply My favorite Oyako-don in Japan • tripleRIN 4 March 2015 at 7:02 pm

    […] Oyako-don is written 親子丼. The -don part means rice bowl, as explained in this post. […]

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