How many fried oysters can we pile on top of a bowl of rice? We find out at the Japanese tempura chain Tenya!

If you’re in Japan and craving tempura, one place you can be sure to get your fill of the fried goodness without breaking your wallet is at the Tenya tempura restaurant chain.

Sure, Tenya is considered casual fast food, but the filling and surprisingly tasty tempura fare they serve at a price range of under 1,000 yen (US$8.78), whether it be a typical bowl of tempura on rice (tendon) or something as zany as clam chowder tempura, is pretty hard to beat. You see, we have enormous respect for the Tenya chain, considering that they practically created an entirely new, affordable market for tempura across Japan.

So when we heard that a seasonal oyster tempura rice bowl was being offered at Tenya, we figured it was the perfect opportunity to try something special again — like when we added $80 worth of extra shrimp tempura onto our tendon bowl!

▼ We sent P.K. Sanjun, one of our Japanese-language reporters and self-professed oyster lover, to a nearby Tenya branch on our behalf.

The item that had caught our attention was the “Premium Oyster Tempura Rice Bowl” (Kaki Jo-tendon)), as advertised on the right in the poster below.

The seasonal kaki jo-tendon apparently consists of shrimp tempura (two pieces of shrimp too, yay!) as well as lotus root, pumpkin and okra tempura, in addition to one oyster tempura, all on a bowl  of rice. But wait, only one piece of oyster tempura? That simply wasn’t going to cut it (especially not for P.K., who in the past has consumed as many as 70 pieces of oysters in one sitting),

No, what we were aiming for was an oyster lover’s dream — a tendon bowl piled high with oyster tempura. So, what we decided to do was to order a bowl of rice and 30 pieces of oyster tempura and create our very own mega-oyster tendon. Of course, if after piling the 30 oysters, it looked like there was still room on the rice, we could always order more oyster tempura.

And here’s the oyster tempura that arrived. The large, plump fried oysters definitely looked mouth-watering, but we contained our enthusiasm and proceeded to carefully place the oysters on top of the rice.

Once we had piled on as many oysters as was possible, we poured the sweet tendon sauce over our creation and voilà, we had what we were dreaming of — a veritable mountain of fried oysters on rice!

In the end, we were able to place 23 pieces of oyster tempura on our bowl of rice. Each piece cost 180 yen, which means our original tendon was topped with 4,140 yen wort of oysters. But then, the cost wasn’t an issue here. We simply wanted to create a “seriously hard-core” oyster tempura rice bowl!

With our task completed, we were now finally ready to taste the oysters we had been craving so much. And they definitely didn’t disappoint. Each oyster was huge, and the tempura batter on the outside was crispy while the oyster inside was soft and fluffy. With all that oyster flavor concentrated into each piece, we felt like we could keep eating the tempura forever!

▼ See how big each oyster is!

▼ We had to eat 10 oysters before we could even see the rice underneath!

Okay, so we were able to eat only 20 pieces of the oyster tempura at the restaurant, but we took the rest back with us, and we should mention that the tempura was still darn tasty when we had it at home.

Happily, we ended up totally full and thoroughly satisfied with our original, hard-core oyster tempura rice bowl.

▼ P.K. shares on Instagram how delighted he was with the oyster tendon.

So, if you really want to have your fill of fried oysters, you now know that you can have a whole mountain of them at Tenya for about 4,000 yen. Of course, if you don’t need a whole mountain, you can always add just one, simply because they’re super tasty. The oyster tempura comes highly recommended if you have the chance to visit a Tenya location while it’s still on their menu!

Reference: Tenya website, Tenya locations
Photos ©SoraNews24
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