Tenshin: An Art Mastered

I have a deep fear of deep fat frying and most frying for that matter. A pot of hot fat coupled with my usual sense of clumsiness, are a bad combination together. As a matter of fact, I just managed to land a few splutters of hot oil yesterday and so I’m nursing some burns. And so, with regards to cooking, I love most of it but if someone else could do the frying for me, please be my guest.

Tenshin I would say is a confident restaurant. In this age where we praise super foods and organic, deep fried is generally relegated to bad food; you have to be really confident that what is served is top quality deep fried food that has nothing to do with the greasy tag that can make you feel sick in the stomach.



Here frying is an art form. The work is hot, intense and precise. It starts with a basket of fresh ingredients that are then lightly coated with a barely there tempura batter. Working in pairs behind the copper shield the tempura masters swiftly drop the ingredients into the hot oil and then pulled up at an exact moment and then instantly set in front of you. Each item so perfectly fried. Hot, light and crispy and integrity of the ingredient preserved through the cooking process that allows you to taste its absolute essence - I don’t think I had ever really tasted a matsutake till I ate at Tenshin: I could almost taste and imagine the earth that it grew in.

Seasoning is left up to you. Sea salt or flavoured salts – curry, green tea – or swish your tempura around in tempura sauce with grated daikon. And then wash all the goodness down with hot tea, this helps to aid the digestive process.

Bits and pieces of my lunch:

The mini kaiseki set that consisted of a salad, a sashimi plate, tempura of three types of seafood and three types of vegetables + separate order of uni, scattered tempura rice served with pickles and miso soup and dessert.

Tenshin
1 Cuscaden Road
Regent Hotel #03-01
Tel:6735-4588