ottawa foodies

The Shrimp Tempura appetizer was average. Not bad but it tasted as though it might have sat for a few minutes before being served. You get 3 shrimp and a few pieces of vegetable tempura, rather than the more common 5 shrimp and no vegetables. Whether this is good or bad depends on your preference. :-)

Wifey ordered the Ika-no Tempura, which is squid tempura. This was fantastic! The pieces of squid were incredibly tender and tasty.

Served piping hot and crispy, this tempura is all about texture and mouth-feel. The reasonably priced ($6) appetizer includes 3 long shrimp and 3 vegetables. It isn't very big on flavour, but it has a nice low grease factor!

Not cheap and not amazing but certainly tasty enough. The batter isn't the really light Japanese kind and is a tiny bit sweet. Shrimp had good flavour. Not sure if we'd order this again, since there's better tempura to be had in this city.

Mushroom tempura.
Hot and fresh!

Very fresh, crisp, and hot.
There was more batter than shrimp, but it was still really nice.

Our table ordered the tempura. A very tiny amount for the price and it wasn't even hot. Seems like it popped out of the fryer 20 minutes earlier.

I had the tempura here and wasn't a fan. I found it limp and soggy. Not crispy at all.

The photo doesn't quite do this platter justice. It's part of the "Joy Family Dinner" for two and is quite huge! Four shrimp and a whole host of veggies, arranged in an impressive pyramid structure and served piping hot. The shrimp, onion ring, and zucchini were particularly amazing. Not all of the veggies came in pairs so we had to fight over a few of them. ;-)

We told the waitress that this was the best tempura we've had (and we've had plenty). She nodded and said she's tried other ones in the city and she agrees. Then she went on to tell us that there are restaurants in Japan that serve nothing but tempura, and they take incredible to another level!

This is the first time I see a tempura made like this! Obviously not the Japanese batter.

Look at this measly thing! Makes you want to cheer it up or something. I had a cold and couldn't taste much but wifey confirmed that there wasn't much flavour here.

We had the vegetable tempura as shown here. Not too bad, the veg was fresh but the tempura batter I didn't find too flavourful. I've had better tempura elsewhere.

I like the shrimp tempura here because the shrimp have good flavour. Also, the mixed tempura comes with really nice whitefish tidbits.

This is the shrimp & vegetable tempura (part of Set Dinner A). Two shrimps, one slice of sweet potato, one slice of zucchini and one slice of eggplant. Very cripy batter! However, after the sweet potato sushi and this dish of tempura, my stomach was already full at this point.

The vegetable tempura here was among the better I've had. The batter was really light and crispy, the vegetables were great; all around thoroughly tasty. It came with a good whack of enoki mushrooms, which turn out to be delicious tempura-ed. Notably un-greasy. I was very happy to find it still quite crisp and, well, tasty when I was nearing the end of the plate and it wasn't quite so hot.

Not the cheapest, at about $16, but that was a full dinner with rice, salad, and soup, too. I wish they had a little appetizer plate, but, then, their salad and soups were excellent -- genuine appetizers, nothing like the big plates of heavy blah found under "appetizers" on a lot of menus these days.

The most succulent and moist shrimp tempura I've had. Not quite as flavourful as some (e.g. Takara) but so juicy I didn't mind.