Tenhachi Japanese Restaurant - 1125 West 12th Avenue

Sorry for being incommunicado on this blog. Been swarmed with a multitude of things. Hungry Gator is now back in action and promises more exciting news! Gator has been eating in a lot lately except for some interesting episodes. Should take pictures of home cooked food. But usually too busy and hungry (hehehe).

Tenhachi is a quaint little Japanese restaurant located at a lobby of a service apartment and/or hotel. They served home cooked food and it came highly recommended from a Japanese friend. As Gator was there to celebrate an occasion, we decided to go there for a splurge. Verdict: It was worth the experience. Gator was fortunate that the meal was a treat - otherwise, I will be eating instant noodles for a number of days :)

We ordered two sets - Una Don and Katsu Don. My dinner companion thought that the Katsu Don was good but was not the best. I personally liked my una don set - the eel was done very well. And both of us enjoyed the miso soup - it was rich, flavourful, had choke-ful of vegetable and and not the standard salty miso paste.

I thought my eel was done beautifully

I really like the egg - goes very well with the breaded pork and rice

A close-up shot of the breaded pork

This ought to be one of my the best miso soup I had.

We also ordered tempura as an appetiser. There was a little signage on the table stating that food is cooked using Oil Guard which contains less saturated fat and makes food crisper. We asked the waitress about details of the Oil Guard and she proceeded to ask the kitchen staff. She came back and asked us to check the website for further details because they bought the oil directly from the supplier. That was interesting - we thought that they would have done some research on this beforehand.

Nevertheless, we had our tempura. I would not say that it was the best but it was pretty good.

Our prawn tempura platter

Catching prawns by the tail :)

Trying out this photo app

We concluded our meal with sesame ice-cream. Gator loves it - Yum Yum!

Our sesame ice-cream with sesame powder. Beautiful!

My black seasame ice-cream: one of the best that I had

The deco of the place was really quite interesting - a bit retro and somehow stuck in the time zone of the 1970s. I love it though - it added a more interesting atmosphere to our dining experience.

Our dining area

Overall Experience:

Deco: 4/5 - very quaint. Gator likes it :)
Quality of food: 4/5 - Me thinks its pretty good
Value for $$: $$/5 - its pretty pricey. The dinner came up to be around 60 bucks including tips. I later found out that they have an early bird special (20%) from Tuesdays to Sundays between 5-6:30pm. Urgh - should have gone there earlier. See http://www.facebook.com/pages/%E5%A4%A9%E5%85%AB-Tenhachi-Japanese-Restaurant/161346733905275
Overall Experience: 4/5 - I had a lovely time; service was excellent. We left our car keys and our server came out looking for us.