Ten Yokota

Ten Yokota (天 よこた)

⭐⭐⭐⭐

🍤 Tempura / 📍 Azabu-Juban

📓 Visits: 1

Tempura Yokota has held a Tabelog score of about 3.90 for some time and was awarded a Bronze Tabelog award from 2017 through 2020.  Dinner starts from JPY 12,000 which is quite possibly the cheapest tempura dinner in Tokyo for such a highly-rated restaurant.  I visited Tempura Yokota in 2020.  The quality of ingredients was poor and I did not enjoy it.  I mention this because the name is very similar to Ten Yokota and the restaurants can't be more that 50ft apart.  It turns out this isn't a coincidence: the owner/chef of Tempura Yokota is the father of the owner/chef of Ten Yokota.  Both restaurants have also featured in the Michelin Guide but while Tempura Yokota's Tabelog page claims it's been in the Michelin Guide for 8 years, that's true if you're only interested in the period from 2008 through 2015.  It would probably be more accurate to say the restaurant was last featured in the Michelin Guide 8 years ago.  Ten Yokota, on the other hand, was awarded a Star in the 2022 Guide just 8 months after opening.  The course is priced at JPY 15,400 and I visited in December this year.

There's no simultaneous start so you can dine at a time of your choosing.  I arrived just before 6pm and had the 8-seat counter to myself for 40 minutes until a party of three had arrived.  By the time I left the restaurant was full but the other parties had not all yet moved off appetizers so service was not slowed down for me at all.  Tempura courses normally take at least two hours and there can be a lot of waiting so I was happy I got lucky with timings.  Chef was personable but only really warmed up conversation-wise when regular guests arrived later.

Tempura was preceded by hamaguri soup followed by two top-quality raw bottan ebi.  The best item of tempura was the anago - very fresh and with great flavour.  You get a choice of kakiagedon, tendon or tencha to finish and can choose your size of rice.  I went for kakiagedon oomori.  I was glad I went for large rice as it wasn't that big but, while a bit salty, the kakiage was huge and very satisfying.  Served with excellent akadashi and tsukemono this part of the course must have taken the best part of 10 minutes to finish.  A refreshing and very well-made apple sorbet was served for dessert.

The quality of the ingredients themselves were very good but there were were no unusual choices and nothing original to the tempura.  The tempura was not at all heavy or greasy - much less so than at Tempura Yaguchi (review here) which also won a Star this year (though in fairness I've only been there for tendon).  But the overriding taste was of strongly-flavoured sesame oil and it was difficult to look past this.

Overall I felt my meal was reasonable value for money and the award of a Michelin Star was reasonable.

If you're looking for a relaxed, greaseless but vanilla tempura experience that's easy to book then you can't go wrong at Ten Yokota.  Unless you end up at Tempura Yokota.

📌 https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1307/A130702/13258792/ 

❓ My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.0

📱 Booking: 🟩 Easy.  I booked two weeks' in advance by phone.

📍 Location: 

202 Cadre Motoazabu, 3-10-5 Motoazabu.  2F multi-tenant building.
Map data ©2021 Google

📅 Visit December 2021

Hamaguri soup
Bottan ebi (sakizuke)
Ebi
Ebi tama x2
Sumi ika
Broccoli
Asparagus
Kisu
Himekodai
Ebi imo
Shirako
Renkon
Shiitake
Anago
Ebi to ebi miso
Kakiagedon (or tendon or tencha)
Ringo sorbet

💴 Damage: 17,720 (15400 + 2 drinks @ 990 each)
⏱ Time taken: 1h30m (but see note above)