Kondo Tempura @ Ginza, Tokyo

I was taken aback when I heard that this humble tempura restaurant was awarded two michelin stars for the year 2012. I was always under the impression that big restaurants with big celebrity chefs serving complex food were perhaps the only eligible awardees. Moreover, how difficult is it to prepare simple tempura dishes and how fantastic can tempura be? Can it be that good for a Michelin star? We made our way here to find out!

We arrived for lunch, but there were already people waiting outside the restaurant. It seems that this restaurant does not seat many people and customers typically make reservations beforehand. The restaurant is of a simple, minimalist setup; it consists of two chambers, each with their own tempura fryer and chefs and a bar like wooden table top for diners that surrounds the fryer. We were extremely fortunate to get seats without reservations and we were promptly showed our seats in the inner chamber.

There is an English menu available, and one of the lady server was able to speak English. For lunch, they serve the basic "Sumire" set which consists of tempura, rice and miso soup for 6300 yen. They also serve another "Tsubaki" set (8400 yen) which includes 1 more tempura item (5 veg, 3 fish and 3 shrimp) and choice of Kakiage rice (more details later!). We were able to observe the chefs at work, cutting up the freshest ingredients and frying various food items to be served out to us.

Tempura items here are literally served piping hot from the frying pan. The chef dunks the raw foods into their secret tempura batter, throws them into the hot oil for an appropriate time and it's served out. The meal started with shrimp head- deep fried. I was amazed by this as it set the standard for the various items to come. I noticed the tempura items weren't overly oily or soggy at all, instead they all had a nice perfect golden brown crispy exterior, and the various flavours from the fresh ingredients really shone through. Back to the shrimp head, it was crunchy and flavourful, a great starter to *munch munch* on. Next came the Ebi which was probably the best ebi tempura I ever had. The shrimps used were very fresh and weren't overcooked at all, so it still had lots of bite. The fried exterior was so perfectly crispy.

Next up, we had fried asparagus and brinjal- the vegetable items were generally very good. The ingredients used were of high quality and you can tell by the great flavours. It was amazed that despite being fried in super hot oil, the vegetables weren't overcooked but still retained great texture and were juicy.

More items: clockwise- Fried fish, lotus root, onion and mushroom. I really loved the fried mushroom! It was incredibly soft, moist and full of mushroom flavour. The lotus root was really crispy and the onion was just so so sweet and juicy!

Here is yet another fried fish item. We were told by a lady server that we should dip vegetables in soy sauce while the sea salt is provided for seafood items. The sea salt definitely enhanced the flavour of the fish, just like how french fries won't taste as good with a sprinkling of salt ya? hurhur.

This was the last fried fish item that was actually wrapped in a leaf before being fried! I think it's to prevent the fish from disintegrating in the oil.

My meal ended with Ten-cha which is essentially kakiage (fried scallop and vegetable tempura) set on top of rice. It is to be served with tea poured over the kakiage and rice, so you get some sort of fragrant tea-rice broth. I thought the tea could be stronger but I guess a stronger tea might overwhelm the flavours of the other ingredients in the bowl. They were also very generous with the scallops- you're practically chewing a few with every mouthful!

Given the right tempura frying skills, combined with the freshest of ingredients, this restaurant offers simple tempura items in a way I have never tasted them before. I regret not trying their sweet potato tempura, which takes almost an hour to fry. So if you are thinking of getting fried sweet potato, make a separate ala carte order with the lunch set so it can be served somewhere towards the end of the meal.

We were also very very touched by the great service provided by the restaurant. As we were leaving the restaurant, the lady server actually offered us an umbrella because it had started raining outside. She was actually fine with us not returning the umbrella another day (since we were tourists with a flight to catch!), and insisted we take the proffered umbrella. It was really nice of her and come to think of it, it's such a rare warm, hospitable gesture that we hardly experience elsewhere. Not sure if anyone will go that extra mile for others anymore. Thumbs up!

Address: Sakaguchi Bldg., 9F, 5-5-13 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo.

Thanks Wise Guy (RERG) for bringing me here!