We had dinner tonight at Tempura House. It advertises itself as Japanese and Chinese food but it seems focused on the Japanese side.
The hibachi area has quite a few tables and was busy and noisy. There were many children and seemed a happy crowd.
At one point they created a large table out of two stations and seated a group of about 20 people. That’s a challenge for many restaurants and Tempura House handled it well.
We started with edamame, one of our favorite appetizers because it’s nutritious and our kids eat it. I’m used to it with more salt but it was fine.
Hibachi is a pseudo Japanese style – teppanyaki – that I did not see in my year in Japan. The “chef” puts on a show for the diners.
Here are a couple of short videos from the show:
And really short:
The chef prepares everyone’s food. First he does fried rice. It’s $3 extra and personally I prefer the white rice. But most people get it.
The cooking continued with a vegetable medley, lots of shrimp and some steaks. Diners pick from chicken, steak, shrimp, scallops, fish and perhaps more. The six at our table were somewhat homogenous.
It all looks good together on the plate. My steak came with a few shrimp. And I didn’t order fried rice but he made too much and gave me some anyway.
The food is served with two dipping sauces, what Japanese would call tareh. Tempura House has a ginger sauce (dark) and a mayonnaise like sauce. In the past I’ve seen other places do mustard sauce instead of the mayo. While some real Japanese cuisine uses tareh, I never saw these there.
The staff were obviously rushed and not as attentive as I would expect for the price (the chef was good though). It was very noisy – birthdays are celebrated with a gong and that seemed every ten minutes – so not a good place if you want a quiet meal. And for me personally the flavors were nothing special.
Despite my curmudgeonly attitude, the restaurant was packed with people who obviously like the food. This may be the most successful restaurant in West Boca. Since you the reader have probably never lived in Japan, the odds are you’ll like it too.
If I were picking I’d prefer Saito on Glades. It’s a little quieter and the food is more to my taste.
