Tempura is seafood and vegetables coated in a light wheat-flour batter and deep-fried. The batter is deliberately thin and lacy — not thick like Western fried food — and pieces are dipped in tentsuyu (dashi-based sauce) before eating.

Tendon (天丼) is tempura served over rice in a bowl with a sweet-savory sauce drizzled on top. It's the budget-friendly way to eat tempura — often under ¥1,000.

Tempura — shrimp and vegetable tempura with tentsuyu dipping sauce

天ぷら

Tempura · tem-poo-rah

What is tempura?

Seafood and vegetables in an impossibly light, lacy batter — deep-fried so it shatters rather than crunches. Nothing like thick Western batter; good tempura barely feels fried at all.

What's inside

🦐 Shrimp, fish, veg

Raw / cooked

🔥 Fried

Spicy?

Typical price

¥1,000–3,000

How to eat it

Dip lightly in tentsuyu （天つゆ) — a dashi-soy dipping sauce. Grated daikon is often floating in it; that's intentional.
Eat each piece immediately — tempura waits for no one. Steam makes it soggy within minutes.
A pinch of salt instead of sauce works beautifully on shrimp — many shops offer both.

Tendon vs tempura-mori

天丼 Tendon — tempura over rice in a bowl, drizzled with sweet sauce. Often ¥800–1,000. The budget king.
天ぷら盛り合わせ Tempura moriawase — assorted tempura on a plate with dipping sauce. More refined, pricier.
天ぷら定食 Teishoku — tempura set with rice, miso soup, pickles.

What you'll find inside

えび ebi (shrimp) is the star. Also common: きす kisu (whiting fish), なす nasu (eggplant), かぼちゃ kabocha (pumpkin), ししとう shishito (mild peppers), れんこん renkon (lotus root).

Common questions

Is tempura greasy?

Good tempura isn't. The batter is thin and the oil is very hot, so pieces come out crisp and light. If it's greasy, the oil wasn't hot enough.

What's the white stuff in the dipping sauce?

Grated daikon radish — it cuts the richness. Stir it in.