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2009-12-19
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Came here during June 2009 - although I tried quite a number of Macanese Restaurants, unfortunately haven't gotten around to posting most of them up except shorter ones, but since the year 2009 is ending soon, I hope to clear some of my Back Issues... What a headache!! 天政 is a very famous Tempura Shop in Japan, mainly in Tokyo. This outlet is the 1st outlet outside of Japan, under the persuasion of Dr. Stanley Ho. It also has an outlet in the Narita Airport too and is very expensive. Dur
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The Japanese Chef's name became in my mind over the months, I swear I used to remember it! A really friendly and professional bloke, unfortunately, he doesn't speak Chinese at all, nor even English so I was surprised he was working in Macau at all - it became a broken conversation mainly commuted in Japanese, since my levels are deteriorating exponentially without much recent usage (well, I have a reason for that, I guess . Take a guess! ) I OPTED for one of their 竹Set - which costs $400 Per Person.
先付け -
Consisting of an entree of Winter Melon with Prawns, as well as some pickled Cucumber and Radish and Hokkaido Salmon Roes, this was a refreshing start to the meal. SCORE: 4.5/5
TEMPURA ASSORTMENT -
- 2 Prawns (まき海老): These are the really narrow and small types, as given in only high-end Japanese Tempura houses. I will admit to you 1stly! - the first time I had a high-end Tempura Course in Japan, I was shocked as to why my prawn as so thin and like a pencil. Eventually, someone corrected me and explained that, this is suppose to be how it is in the higher end shops and differs from the more usual Tempura's, which means the bigger the prawn is better. Weird - I think I prefer bigger sea prawns with more roe and meat and flavour! SCORE: 4.0/5
- 2 Pieces of Seafood: Calamari (イカ) and Whiting (きす): There is a another less common English name for the fish, I'll remember if I hear it again but right now, all I know is that I call this a Japanese Whiting! It was beginning to peak at this time of the year, and has always been one of my favourite for Tempuras anyway. The Calamari was a squid rather than cuttlefish type, it was also nice and had the texture of non-rubbery Squid for once! SCORE: 3.9/5
- 4 Kinds of Vegetables, Asparagus, Japanese Hokkaido Pumpkin, Nasu Eggplant, Maitake: The Pumpkin was under-fried and a bit too hard and powdery, not very good at all and infact missing the Hokkaido pumpkin sweetness I am acquainted with. The Asparagus was slightly bitter but nicely aromatic, but also under-cooked! The Eggplant was great and full of taste. Maitake was somehow a bit too oily but nevertheless, it carried the most Eggy batter taste, thought a bit uneven in batter thickness. SCORE: 3.0/5
TEN BARA -
天政's Signature Dish, even in its Tokyo main stores, is their Ten-Bara Rice. Its actually a piece of very eggy KAKIAGE that is broken up and pre-mixed with the Japanese pearl rice by the chef. I think this was interesting indeed, but read below and you'll understand that this type of Tempura, I still haven't explained, is a very unique style even for Japanese people. SCORE: 4.0/5
TEN CHA -
An Ocha-zuke type of rice, with the same piece of Kakiage but without being broken up into smaller pieces, but soaked into the broth directly as a whole piece. This was quite nice, and came with the usual quite-fresh Wasabi on the side. SCORE: 3.8/5
PICKLES -
An assortment ranging from Cucumbers, Daikon and Seaweed. Goes well with the above rice or ocha-zuke dishes. SCORE: 4.0/5
SESAME ICE CREAM -
Normal Black-Sesame ice cream. Nothing more to add. SCORE: 3.8/5
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The most important point I should stress, about this particular meal, is that none of the Tempura pieces above are actually crispy! NONE! It didn't surprise me because I've always known that this type of Tempura exists in Japan, amongst other styles, which can be divided into 4 Main Categories and a few Minor Sub-Branched Ones. The type of Tempura served here is the 軽い天妇罗 - its designed to be mainly of a dry floury yet simultaneously Eggy 'light' coating without have crisp edges, in fact, some other Japanese shops I've visited before in Japan do sometimes deep-fry their seafood using a similar method using mostly egg yolks, but they call it by another technical name.
The amount of oil left on the piece of Absorbent Paper was ok-acceptable. Although it is often thought that Tempura Quality can be judged on the amount of residual oil on this paper, in reality, it actually depends on the style of Tempura you're eating, out of the various categories available. Certain Tokyo style, harder-crusted heavily battered Tempuras don't leak out much oil, so don't the thinner hard crust types. Some of the softer thin types like the Osaka ones do release a bit more oil onto the parchment paper - but remember that the absorbent paper is put there by the chef for a reason, its to soak up any residual oil rather than having you eat it. Its there for an obvious purpose! - not only for you to take a photos of it then judge how well the tempura was fried, I guess. I think this meal wasn't as impressive as I would have liked, despite having one of the Japanese Chefs straight imported from their Japanese outlets cooking to as exact a formula as it can get. I'll give it a Low to Miid-'4' nonetheless, bearing in mind that one really can't compare this to the normal Crispier Tempura Styles.
张贴
