Ramen Keisuke, a wildly popular ramen chain in Singapore, has launched its eighth new concept outlet Ginza Tendon Itsuki. Located in Tanjong Pagar, this new 24-seater outlet is Ramen Keisuke chain’s first concept in collaboration with the highly acclaimed Ginza Itsuki Sushi restaurant in Tokyo, Japan.

This is the fourth outlet to join neighbouring Ramen Keisuke outlets such as Keisuke Tori King, Keisuke Gyoza King and Takeda Shouten Sake Bar – the first bar concept under Ramen Keisuke, located at Orchid Hotel. The Keisuke group has transformed Tanjong Pagar into a Japanese food street where you can find a stretch of many small but comforting restaurants in the area.

Tendon, otherwise known as Tempura Rice Bowl, is often regarded as delightful one-bowl soul food meals for many Japanese around the world especially during summer. It’s a shortened word for tempura donburi. In my opinion, tempura in Singapore is not a hot trend, as compared to ramen. Or probably because most Japanese restaurants do not take great care in making real good tempura to begin.

So how do you take effort to make quality tempura? The art of frying at the right temperature plays an important role, because each ingredient takes different timing at different temperature to reach its optimum. For example, when I arrived at Ginza Tendon Itsuki for a tasting, I was told that they fry meat and vegetables in different pans. And even within the vegetables, they fry pumpkin and corn separately from spinach because the temperature and timing differs. That is how detailed Keisuke is to ensure everyone gets a good bowl of Tendon.

Together with Mr Keisuke Takeda’s childhood friend and chef-owner of Ginza Itsuki Sushi – Mr Naoki Takaku, these Tendon creations are crafted using the freshest ingredients and will be served in porcelain bowls by Arita – a 400-year-old porcelain brand from Japan.

Here, you can look forward to authentic Japanese Tendon – Special Tendon (Tempura Rice Bowl, $13.90) and Vegetable Tendon (Vegetable Tempura Rice Bowl, $12.90) creations. Yes, only two options in the menu. You don’t have to flip the huge menu and not sure what to order. It’s either you go for the meat one or the vegetarian one. The heavy and thick bowl helps to keep the temperature and heat within the bowl for a longer time.

Only Japanese flour is used to make the batter. No, the restaurant uses only local vegetable. Unlike many other Japanese restaurants which has a heavy and thick batter, the batter at Ginza Tendon Itsuki is light and allows you to still be able to taste the freshness and texture of the ingredients. It is not very oily and drizzled with their homemade seasonings. My only gripe is that, the ventilation is really bad here and I leave the restaurant with smoky shirt and hair. On the bright side, it adds to the experience because when I returned home, my family asked where did I go that made me so smoky. -_-

If you ordered the Special Tendon, there is a surprise onsen egg covered by the bowl of prawn and chicken tempura. I am surprised that the chicken breast can still be tender and moist after deep frying. Japanese rice is cooked in small portions and the chawanmushi here is specially silky smooth because Chef added more egg yolks in the recipe. This new offering will add another dimension to its Japanese soul food offering in Singapore.

Tendon Ginza Itsuki

Address: 101 Tanjong Pagar Road Singapore 088522
Tel: 6221 6678
Opening hours: 11:30am – 2:30pm; 5:30pm – 10pm
Website: http://www.tendon-itsuki.sg/

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