Yukimura

Yukimura (之村)

⭐⭐⭐

🍤 Tempura / 📍 Shiba Daimon

📓 Visits: 4 (2024x1, 2023x1, 2022x2)

Tempura Kakiagedon Yukimura is a casual tempura restaurant that specialises in kakiagedon.  Chef Hiroyuki Tsuji trained for 20 years at Mitsumura in Nagoya under his uncle before opening this restaurant in 2018.

The restaurant gets quite a few overseas visitors.  Staff can speak some English and menus (same at lunch and dinner) are available in English, which I've reproduced below.

Soemono Don (kakiagedon + anago) (￥1900)

Tempura set (￥2000)

 

+Anago (￥1200)

 

Mix kakiage don (￥1900)

Special kakiage don (￥1900)

The mix kakiagedon contains shrimp and bits of squid.  The squid is pretty chewy so I'd skip this.

The teishoku is more of a test of the quality of the ingredients and technique (no sauce to hide behind).  Here the prawns were reasonably good.  The other items (kisu, nasu, zucchini, sayaingen) were better.  The anago was fat and fresh.   The batter was reasonably crisp.  The rice (Akita Komachi) was fine but a touch dry.  Overall a touch greasy, but I've had worse.

The signature dish is the kakiagedon.  The prawns (imported from Brazil) are fat and sweet.  The kakiagedon stays hot and crispy.  The sauce (brought originally from the Nagoya restaurant, over 50 years old and still going) is good.  The double size can get a bit salty but it's probably the most economical way of filling your stomach here on something other than rice, which itself is quite large, even when you ask for small size.

A counter seats seven with table seating up to fourteen.  It's a restaurant for a quick meal so the chef doesn't really talk to customers but is in constant and cheerful communication with staff.  You pay the chef's mother (in cash only) on the way out.

Mitsumura was awarded a Bib Gourmand in the Michelin Guide Aichi in 2019 and Yukimura a Bib Gourmand in the Michelin Guide Tokyo 2023, one of the few new additions I happily applauded.  There's also a kakiagedon restaurant called Mitsumura in Tokyo that's been around for 40 years more than the Nagoya restaurant but no idea what, if any, relationship there is and I haven't (yet) been.

It was so good the first time I went I went two days later.  The seafood is much better than at any other tempura restaurant in this price range in Tokyo.  Apparently the chef's motto is ''first-class skill, third-class prices" and to that end he hasn't raised prices in the 2+ years that have elapsed since the restaurant was added to the Michelin Guide.  Yukimura is the best casual tempura restaurant I've been to in the capital.  Bring your own napkin.

📌 https://tabelog.com/tokyo/A1314/A131401/13226656/

❓ My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ 3.95 (value: 5.0)

📱 Booking: Reservations are accepted but on every visit I've just walked in and been seated immediately and there have always been seats free.  Wait times can vary: 5 minutes for a donburi if no-one is ahead of you or 25 minutes if you order a teishoku when a family of four have just ordered before you.

📍 Location: 

6-13-13 Shimbashi. 4 mins from Onarimon Station Exit A4.
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