#and saw all these 1 star reviews that just said “no english on menus only spanish”

[pancakeke]

why do so many people in amazon reviews want product instructions spelled out with words. most of the time when I see these complaints, adding text to the illustrated instructions wouldn't add any additional clarity.

I get that some people might process information better in the form of text but there comes a point when a matter is so simple that reading any amount of words is more complicated than seeing a visual. like if a coffee table arrives as a tabletop with four pre-drilled holes and four screw on legs what the fuck are these people doing leaving a review saying "garbage instructions don't explain anything". like how did they even figure out how to buy things online.

though I guess these are probably just shit-stirring "this is america and everything should be written in american" types.

[zerochanges]

2020 Favorite Video Games

I don’t know if I am an outlier or if this is the same for everyone else but I really did not play a lot of games this year. 2020 was a very harsh year for all of us, especially for me for some personal reasons. So to get to the chase, I am just gonna say it left me not doing much in what little free time I did have, and I didn’t play much either. Usually I try to keep my lists for ‘favorite of the year’ to only titles released that year but since I played so little this year, screw it. I am gonna include any game I played this year regardless of release date.

Collection of SaGa

By far a flawed rerelease. It’s bare bones: there are no advance features you would usually expect out of these kinds of emulated rereleases like save states, fast forward, or rewind, and there was no real effort made to touch up almost 30 year old localizations that had to meet Nintendo of America’s then harsh standards. This really is just 3 roms slapped into a nice looking interface with an option to increase the game speed (which by the way you better use, the characters walk very slow in these old games). 

I am bit harsh here, but only because I thought the Romancing SaGa remasters and the upcoming SaGa Frontier remaster all looked like they got a great budget and a lot of love while this is just another Collection of Mana situation (moreso specifically talking about Seiken Densetsu 1/Final Fantasy Adventure/Adventures of Mana part of that collection). I would have loved to see Square Enix do a bit more for these older games. Or at least include the remakes. Seiken Densetsu 1 had two great remakes, both unused in Collection of Mana, and all three of these original SaGa titles have remakes that have never seen the light of day outside of Japan. How great would it have been to get the Wonderswan remake of SaGa 1, as well as the Nintendo DS remakes of Saga 2 and SaGa 3? 

But my gripes aside, these games are still fun as they ever were. Replaying SaGa 1 specifically during the holiday season really helped calm me down and made me feel at ease. It’s easy to forget but even in their Gameboy roots there are a lot of funky and weird experimental choices being made in these games. They aren’t your run-of-the-mil dragon quest (or considering the gameboy, maybe pokemon would be more apt) clones. 

Raging Loop

Perhaps my favorite game of the year, Raging Loop is one of the best visual novels I have ever played hands down. The level of creativity and splitting story paths that went into it is simply mind blowing. The basic premise is both a wonderful throwback to the old days of Chunsoft sound novels while still modern and somewhat reminiscent of both Higurashi and Danganronpa. Essentially you play as Haruaki, a poor slub that got lost in the mountains with no clue where to go until you stumble upon an old rural village with a strange history and even stranger superstitions. Before you know it there has been a murder and the Feast is now afoot.

The less said about Raging Loop the better, although I do want to say a lot about it one day if I ever can write a proper review of it. This is a gripping game that will take hold of you once you get into it though and never let go. I actually 100%-ed this and I very rarely do that. I got every ending, every bonus hidden ending, played the entire game twice to hear all the hidden details it purposely hides on your first play through, played all the bonus epilogue chapters, unlocked all the hidden voice actor interviews, collected all the art work, etc, etc. I was just obsessed with this game, it’s that damn good! And the main character is maybe the best troll in all of video games, god bless Haruaki. 

Root Double

From Takumi Nakazawa, long time contributor to Kotaro Uchikoshi’s work comes a game any fan of Zero Escape or Uchikoshi in general will probably enjoy. Root Double, like its name suggests is a visual novel with two different routes, hence Root Double. The first route stars Watase Kasasagi, the leader of an elite rescue team in the midst of their greatest crisis yet that could lead to nuclear devastation as they try to evacuate a nuclear research facility that has gone awry. 

The other route stars Natsuhiko Tenkawa, an everyday high schooler whose peaceful life is thrown into turmoil when he stumbles upon a terrorist plot to destroy the nuclear facility in the city and his attempts to stop them. Together the two separate plots weave into one and creates a really crazy ride. Part Chernobyl, part science fiction, any fan of the genre will easily enjoy it. And hey it’s kind of relevant to include on this list too since it just got a Switch port this year (I played it on steam though).  

Snack World

I was shocked upon starting Snack World as it is instantly incredibly charming, witty, and downright hilarious at times yet I heard almost zero people talk about it. EVER. This game is Dragon Quest levels of quirky though, and the localization is incredible. The game has such an oddball sense of humor that works really well with its presentation right down to the anime opening video that sings about the most bizarre things. Instead of the usual pump up song about the cool adventure ahead we get stuff like wanting to go out to a restaurant and eat pork chops. 

The self aware/fourth wall breaking humor is just enough to be really funny, but doesn't overstay its welcome and always makes it work right in the context of the dialogue. And finally, just everything; with the menus, the name of side quests and missions, and the character dialogue -- are all just so witty and full of quirky humor. This is one hell of a charming and funny game and addictive to boot.

Trials of Mana

Trials of Mana has gone from one of those legendary unlocalized games, to one of the first major breakthroughs in fan translation, to finally getting an official English release complete with a fully 3D remake. In a lot of ways from a western perspective this game has had an incredible journey. As for this remake itself, I really found myself having tons of fun with it. I loved the graphics, and the voice acting while a bit on the cheaper side almost kind of adds to the charm since both the graphics and acting really give it an old PS2 vibe. I know that is probably just more me being weird but yeah, I had to say it. 

I really hope Square Enix sticks to this style of remake more often, instead of just doing Final Fantasy VII Remakes that break the bank and involve extensive tweaking to both plot and game play. I’ll take smaller budget projects that play more like the original game any day personally. I wouldn’t mind if they also deliver a brand new Mana game all together in this engine either. 

Utawarerumono Trilogy

This year saw the release of the first entry in the series, Utawarerumono: Prelude to the Fallen--and thus finally after three years since the sequels Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception and Utawarerumono: Mask of Truth came out in 2017 the trilogy is now complete in English. I ended up binging through Prelude to the Fallen very fast shortly after it came out and immediately jumped on to the sequels. Perhaps the best part of 2020 was that I finally played all three of these fantastic games, and did so back-to-back-to-back. Playing the first Utawarerumono was an experience I will never forget, it was like visiting old friends again that I haven’t seen in ages, by and large thanks to the fact that I saw the anime adaption of the game when I was much younger, nearly a decade ago. Back then I would have never of dreamed that I would get to play the actual game and get the real experience. 

And it only got better from here, as all three games are such wonderful experiences from start to finish. The stories are all so deep, and by the time you get to the third entry, Mask of Truth, it’s crazy to see how they all connected over so many years and weaved together into a plot much bigger than they ever were. What carries it beyond all that though has to be the fun and addicting strategy role playing game aspect, which while a bit on the easy side, is still so much fun and helps make the game feel better paced since you get to play the conquests your characters go on and not just read about all the battles they fight. Beyond that the games are packed full of awesome characters, and I know I’ll never forget the amazing leads in all of them. Hakuowlo, Haku, and Oshtor will all go down as some of the greats to me. 

Ys: Memories of Celceta

Ys: Memories of Celceta is a full 3D remake of Ys IV, a rather infamous game in Falcom’s Ys series. Not to get bogged down too much into the history of Falcom but by this point they were facing a lot of hardship and had to outsource this entry to other developers, and thus passed it on to two particular developers they had a business relationship with, creating two unique versions of Ys IV. Tonkin House who had worked on Super Famicom port of Ys III with Falcom ended up creating their own YS IV entry, Mask of the Sun for the very same system, where Hudson soft who had produced the much beloved Ys Books I & II remakes for the Turbografix (PC Engine) CD add-on created their own Ys IV entry Dawn of Ys for that console. Both games followed guidelines and ideas outlined from Falcom themselves but both radically diverged from each other and turned into completely different games. 

Falcom finally putting an end to this debate on which version of Ys IV you should play have gone and created their own definitive Ys IV in 2012 for the Playstation Vita. I played the 2020 remastered version of this remake on my PS4. I even bought this on the Vita when it first came out but I am horrible and only horde games, never play them. So it was a lot of fun to finally play this. 

Memories of Celceta is probably one of the best starting points for anyone looking to get into Ys, especially if you only want to stay with the 3D titles as out of all the 3D entries this explains the most about the world and series protagonist Adol Christian. Beyond that it’s just another fantastic entry in a wonderful series that has a few good twists hidden behind it, especially for long time fans of the series. 

Random Video Game Console Stuff

Xbox Has Blue Dragon: I actually got an Xbox One this year for free from my brother. Because of that I started to play Blue Dragon again and there’s a lot I would love to say about this game. I don’t know if I am fully committed to replaying it all the way through however but I find myself putting in a couple hours every few days and enjoying myself again. Does anyone else remember Blue Dragon? I feel like it really missed its audience and had it come out nowadays and probably for the Switch it would have really resonated with the Dragon Quest fandom a lot more instead of being thrown out to die on Xbox and constantly compared to Final Fantasy VII and the like which it had nothing at all similar with. 

The Turbografx 16 Mini: This was probably one of the best mini consoles that have come out and I feel like thanks to the whole 2020 pandemic thing it was largely forgotten about. That’s a shame, it has a wonderful variety of great games, especially if you count the Japanese ones (god I wish I could play the Japanese version of Snatcher included), and a wonderful interface with fantastic music. One of these days I would really like to be able to play around with the console more seriously than I have already. 

Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon Never Existed: So Nintendo localized the first ever Fire Emblem game on Nintendo Switch which is awesome to see them touching Famicom games again--I haven’t seen Nintendo of America rerelease old Famicom titles since Mysterious Murasame Castle on the 3DS, but their trailer hilariously made it seem like this is the first time ever they released Fire Emblem when in fact they had already localized the remake Shadow Dragon on the Nintendo DS nearly 10 or 11 years ago. I and many other fans I talked to all found this really hilarious, probably solely because of how much they kept repeating the fact that this is the first time you will ever be able to experience Marth’s story.

All that aside though I have to say the collector edition for this newly localized Famicom game is probably the most gorgeous retro reproduction I have seen in a long time, and I really spent many many hours just staring at the all clear glass mock cartridge. I have found myself really obsessing over retro reproductions during 2020, and obtained quite a few this year. I really hope this trend continues to go on in 2021 as recreating classic console packaging and cartridges is a lot of fun. 

[thisiswherewestart]

I Remember (1/?)

Today had started out like any other Tuesday. I had woken up, logged in to work remotely for a few hours and then moved to a café for a change of scenery and to grab some lunch.

I usually frequented cafés close by my apartment, but my friend had highly recommended this quaint, newly opened one with an extensive pasta menu that was a half-hour train ride away. Anyone who knows me knows I'm a sucker for good pasta, and her rave review of their squid ink spaghetti had haunted me for the past week.

And so there I was on a Tuesday afternoon, after checking that they welcomed lingering customers. My laptop sat open across from me so I could monitor my inbox and I surveyed the simple decorations that created a homely ambiance. The fact that I was the only customer helped complete the serene scene. If this café were within walking distance, I would come again just for the atmosphere.

Ten minutes after giving my order to the waiter, my food finally arrived. The dark sauce coated the noodles beautifully, the seafood peeking out between the long strands making my mouth salivate in anticipation. As I picked up my fork, a tinkle of a bell sounded from the café entrance.

"Hello," a soft but confident voice greeted the approaching waiter. "One salmon aglio olio to go please. Thanks."

My fork stopped halfway to my mouth. My back was to the entrance but I would recognise that voice even in a noisy room.

"Tasha?"

And that confirmed it. It was him.

"Dongyoung," I greeted, standing and turning around to face the man. "It's been a while."

"When did you come back to Korea?" His tone was accusing now.

"How are you? How's Taeyong? How are the kids?" I shot out question after question, hoping he would forget the one he had asked.

"We're all fine. When did you come back?"

So much for that.

"Oppa…"

"Don't you 'oppa' me. We're basically the same age."

I sighed, dropping onto my seat and turning away from him. "I've been back for a year now."

He took the seat opposite me. Uninvited, but not unexpected.

"One year." The hurt in his voice made me wince. "A whole year and you didn't bother to call."

"Dongyoung, please."

His laugh was void of mirth. "So we're back to this, huh? The last time I saw you, you exclusively called me Doie."

I looked up at him.

"I guess that's what four years of silence does between friends."

*~*

"Five, six, seven, eight…"

The 7th Sense NCT U unit was made up of my favourite fellow trainees. 

Mark, who was the same age as my little brother whom I dearly missed. His naive sense of humour and bright eyed wonder had me growing fond of him in no time at all. Our shared love of story writing also brought us closer, as we encouraged each other to keep up with writing even as we were busy with idol training. He was my happy pill during our years as trainees together.

Ten, my fellow international school kid. We were different in that he came from money while I was the daughter of a diplomat. PSA: not all diplomats are wealthy! They are still government officers and don't earn nearly as much as you think they do. One of the perks was getting subsidised education, which made it possible for my siblings and I to attend international schools in non-English speaking countries we lived in. Ten and I hadn't known each other prior to becoming trainees, but he and I found that we just clicked. We even found several mutual friends in our international school networks.

Jaehyun and I took a little longer to warm up to each other. I was a fairly quiet person, only talkative around people I was comfortable with, so I was never one to initiate conversation. Jaehyun never approached me to start talking either, so a few months after we first met, our relationship had not progressed beyond a polite greeting when we bumped into each other. It took Taeyong to help us break the ice, but once we got to talking we found that our interests overlapped and they were the foundation to our pretty solid friendship.

Taeyong is the one trainee to whom I’m most grateful. I entered the company shortly after he did, and he seemed to decide to take me under his wing upon our first meeting. It didn’t matter that our training schedules didn’t overlap; he would always check in on me and help me when I struggled with getting dance moves memorised. In time, as Taeyong started writing and producing more songs, he would include me in his process and get me to record demos with him and Dongyoung.

Dongyoung was an enigma to me. I knew he had a kind heart because he would do things like invite foreign trainees home during holidays so they would have somewhere to go. I could see the warmth in his interactions with other trainees but he was only ever cordial to me, so I always thought he did not like me very much. It was, once again, thanks to Taeyong that we got closer. Dongyoung and I were both vocalists, but I dabbled in some rapping and Taeyong seemed to enjoy writing songs that featured the three of us. Studio sessions with the two of them became some of my favourite memories of my time as a trainee.

I was looking through the lyrics of the latest song Taeyong had written when the group finished their practice run and paused for a water break.

“Tash,” Taeyong greeted as he flopped down next to me, leaning his back on the cool mirror.

“You guys are looking really good,” I praised, handing him a water bottle. “The modifications you guys made last week improved the overall performance a lot.”

“Right? I’m so glad the choreographer let us do that.”

Dongyoung approached us, sitting on my other side. I passed him the last of my stock of water bottles. “Hey.”

“I’m beat,” he sighed. “But we look good right?”

“Yeah I was just saying that.”

The three of us sat in amicable silence for a few moments, the two of them gulping down the cool water as I finished perusing Taeyong’s lyrics. I shut my eyes as my thoughts turned to my own debut, or lack thereof, and my family’s increasing worries. 

“Hey, you okay?” I opened my eyes to find Dongyoung peering at me in concern.

I gave him a half smile. “I guess.”

“You’ll debut soon,” Taeyong assured me, guessing the subject of my thoughts correctly. I appreciated his vote of confidence, but we all knew that was a lie, at least if I stayed at SM. Having debuted Red Velvet two years ago, it was highly improbable that they would debut another girl group so soon. And besides, they were all tied up in NCT’s official debut, with two U units, 127 and Dream all training hard to perfect their debut performances.

“We should probably get back to training,” Taeyong said apologetically. His eyes were kind as he briefly grasped my shoulder with a comforting hand before standing up. “Tell me what you think of that song later,” he nodded at the printed lyrics in my hand. “I want your verse by the end of the week!”

Dongyoung sat studying my expression for a bit longer.

“I’m fine, Doie. Really.” I pushed his shoulder gently. “Go. They’re waiting for you.”

“We’ll go out to eat after this, okay?” he offered, standing. “We can get pasta. My treat.”

“Man after my own heart,” I proclaimed, clutching my chest in jest.

He grinned as he walked to his starting position. 

I watched as Taeyong counted the boys into yet another rehearsal. Meeting Dongyoung's eyes in the practice room mirror, I could see the nerves he increasingly felt but rarely showed for their debut performance, only seven days from now. I smiled as brightly as I could, hoping he couldn't tell my heart was breaking knowing I would be leaving in five.

*~*

The Doyoung that sat before me today was a fully fledged kpop star, hair perfectly coiffed and clothes fitting his comfortable but stylish lookbook. He had truly grown into his looks, and seeing him was making my heart ache. With pride? With longing? I didn't even know myself. I had just started developing maybe-more-than-friends feelings towards him when I had found myself back with my family.

"You look good. Healthy."

"Where have you been for the last four years, Natasha?"

His use of my entire first name hurt more than I expected. Was this how he felt when I called him Dongyoung?

"I went back home."

"As in back to your home country?" he asked, incredulous.

"Yes."

"Why? And don't tell me it's because you didn't debut with Red Velvet."

"You're kidding, right?" It was my turn to laugh humourlessly. "Has SM debuted another girl group since then?"

"Well no, but-"

"Don't say they might have added me to the group like they did Yeri. When I left, it had been one year since that happened and two years since they debuted!"

"But why did you have to leave?" Doyoung's voice was rising. "You could have moved to another company. You know you had the skills to debut."

"I just… had to, okay?" 

I guess he heard the pleading in my voice because he switched to another line of questioning after studying me for a minute.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” His voice was quiet. “Taeyong and me, especially,” he sighed. “We missed you. We still miss you.”

“I’m sorry. I know it was shitty of me but I just didn’t want to make a big deal out of me leaving.” I did not want to give you guys the chance to persuade me to stay.

There was a pause. “Did you miss us?”

Tears I thought had dried up years ago threatened to fall. “You have no idea how much,” I whispered, willing myself not to cry.

“Oh I think I do-”

“At least you guys had each other,” I blurted. 

“Excuse me?” Doyoung narrowed his eyes at me. “We were not the ones who stopped talking to you! I called until your number went out of service! And then we looked for you online but there was absolutely nothing. Why did you fall off the grid completely?”

I opened my mouth to respond but was interrupted by the waiter bringing Doyoung his food. Doyoung thanked him and handed him a card. “I’ll take care of her bill as well.”

“Don’t,” I protested. We were in the middle of an argument and he still wanted to take care of me. “Just charge him for his food, please,” I asked the waiter.

“I’ll pay for her,” Doyoung insisted. “Thank you.”

The waiter left, an awkward smile on his face as he retreated.

“I have to go now, so we’ll put a pin in this conversation.” Doyoung stared hard at me until I nodded my assent. "Does anyone know you're back?"

I shook my head. "I work in software now. I don't run in the same circles anymore."

"You know we have these things called phones, right?" He gestured at his Samsung with exaggerated motions. "They're amazing. You can connect with anyone, anywhere. Even if they're in a different country." He looked at me pointedly.

"I'm sorry, okay? I know I could have, should have, kept in touch but I just… I couldn't."

"Why?"

A million reasons. "I don't want to get into it right now."

"Fine. But you know I'll keep asking until I get answers."

I smiled, thinking about his habit of persistently badgering us until he got what he wanted. "I know."

"In fact," he grabbed my phone, which had been lying next to my rapidly cooling plate of pasta. "I'm going to call myself so I have your number."

Before I could protest, he had held my phone up to unlock it with my face and was dialling.

"Wait, I-"

He clicked the dial button and automatically put the phone up to his ear, before slowly lowering it again, staring at the screen in disbelief.

"So you kept my number. This whole time. And you still never called."

I didn’t know what to say to that. All I could do was apologise again. “I-”

“Just save it, Tash.” He put my phone back on the table. “I’m going now. Pick up when I call, okay?”

“I don’t like talking on the phone. Can you text me instead?” I joked, trying to keep my tone light.

“Do not test me,” Doyoung glowered. “Answer when I call.”

“Okay,” I murmured, but he was already walking to the counter to pick up his card.

He left without looking back.

[cucinacarmela-blog]

Batter Up: Finding a Tempura Spot to Call My Own

New Post has been published on https://cucinacarmela.com/batter-up-finding-a-tempura-spot-to-call-my-own/

Batter Up: Finding a Tempura Spot to Call My Own

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[Illustrations: Jessie Kanelos Weiner]

It took me until I was in my 30s to understand that restaurants are like pets. They have a shorter lifespan than humans, and it’s our responsibility to take good care of them, enjoy their company, mourn their passing, and move on.

And usually, I’m capable of following my own advice. But Tenta was different: We never got to say good-bye.

One summer night in Tokyo, I went out for a walk and passed this sliver of a restaurant, barely wider than the sliding door at its entrance. Actually, it wasn’t clear that the place was a restaurant, since the only seating was at a bar, and the patrons—a mix of female and male, young and old—were smoking, drinking beers and whiskey highballs, and eating…something I couldn’t quite make out in the dim space. I squinted at the menu, the print fuzzy from being repeatedly photocopied: TEMPURA.

It was 2012, and my wife and daughter and I were living in a 260-square-foot apartment in the Nakano neighborhood while I was writing a book about Japanese food. “I think I found a tempura place,” I told Laurie and Iris. We went for dinner the next day. It’s unusual to take an eight-year-old to a bar in Japan, but it’s not illegal, and Japan is very tolerant of children. I didn’t speak much Japanese then, and there was no English menu, so I read what I could and guessed at the rest. We ordered à la carte: shrimp, eggplant, onion, green pepper, sea eel. At some point the cook/bartender, a chubby guy in his 30s with a kind smile and a black bandana, held up a hand. Enough. You can order more later!

Tempura batter has to be used quickly after it’s made, or the coating becomes tough instead of light and tender. So periodically, the cook would pour more low-protein flour into a mixing bowl, add egg and water, and mix gently with chopsticks. Then he’d pull the ingredient we’d ordered out of the fridge, dunk it in batter, and toss it into the deep fryer. At any given time, the fryer held half a dozen hunks of breaded vegetables and seafood, each destined for a different customer and in a different stage of cooking, yet the cook managed to simultaneously chat with customers and serve drinks without letting anything overcook or mixing up the green pepper order with the jumbo shrimp.

He gave us each a ceramic plate lined with paper and topped with a metal rack to keep the underside of the tempura crispy during the 10 seconds or so before we devoured it. We dipped each piece alternately in gray sea salt and tentsuyu—light and sweet from soy sauce and mirin, with an umami flavor from dashi and a cleansing bitterness from the mound of grated daikon that rose from the middle of the dish like an iceberg.

The best item we ordered was the eel. It didn’t come from the fridge. The cook pulled it live and wriggling from a tank next to the front door, slaughtered and filleted it in seconds, and served it two minutes later. Best of all, he tied the eel’s slender backbone into an overhand knot; tossed it, un-battered, into the fryer; and presented it to Iris, who to this day goes around telling children and adults alike that they really need to try crispy eel backbone.

Over time, Tenta became our symbol of everything great about Japanese food culture. Going to Tokyo without spending an evening or two at Tenta, bantering with the chef and ordering just one more shrimp, was unthinkable.

In the summer of 2016, I looked at Tabelog, the Japanese equivalent of Yelp, and found that Tenta had moved a couple blocks north. The new space wasn’t great—it had less foot traffic, was larger and less cozy, and the bar was tucked awkwardly into one corner. But the food was as good as ever. We ordered a vegetable-tempura assortment that included fried shiso leaves, battered on one side, as thin and delicate as a sheet of phyllo dough. They were so delicious that we asked for an extra plate of leaves alone.

Last year, I wanted to include Tenta in an article I was writing about Tokyo travel. When I called to confirm its hours and location, however, there was no answer. I texted a friend living in the neighborhood, who walked past the restaurant and reported what I already suspected: Tenta was no more. I thanked her in polite Japanese, relieved that the impersonal Facebook window couldn’t betray how crushed I was.

Theoretically, finding another restaurant I liked as much as Tenta should have been relatively simple. Sure, it was one of the most spectacular eating experiences of my life, but the bar for food is set so high in Japan that finding amazing food in an unassuming neighborhood restaurant is a common experience. The restaurant’s entry on Tabelog confirmed that it was nothing special, with an average rating of barely over three stars out of five (which is pretty good, actually—Japanese reviewers are tough!).

I grumbled about this a bit. How could people not recognize the greatness of this perfect little restaurant? But really, this was a good thing. Maybe Tenta was like a baby, or a house cat—we love our own and celebrate its quirks, but to a disinterested third party, it’s barely different from hundreds of millions of others. Maybe there was another hole-in-the-wall tempura bar in my neighborhood where we could become regulars—if you can use the word to describe a family that comes in once or twice a year.

Back in Seattle, Laurie and I often get pizza and beer at the Hopvine, a bar three blocks from our apartment. I like the Hopvine so much, I requested it for my birthday dinner last year, despite these facts:

It’s not the best pizza in town, or even the best pizza in the neighborhood.

Nor is it especially cheap.

It takes at least 20 minutes for them to make your pizza.

But I keep going back to the Hopvine because it’s cozy, friendly, and nearby, and the food is pretty good. This, I realized, is all I ask of a tempura bar. For that matter, it’s all I ask of my friends: Be around when I need you, and don’t be objectionable in any important way.

So I set out on an on-again, off-again quest to find the new Tenta. How hard could it be? There are over a thousand tempura restaurants in Tokyo, including at least a dozen within a mile of our apartment. And I knew exactly what I wanted: really good food (obviously), ordered à la carte and served by a friendly chef at a comfortable, well-worn bar. In other words, I was like a newly single person looking for someone a lot like my ex. Great plan, right?

Candidate #1: Tensuke

My friend Michael had sent me a photo of a batter-crusted egg oozing golden yolk onto a bowl of rice—a flash-fried egg tempura, he explained, calling it “the single best, yet simplest, dish we had during our trip.” It came from a tempura restaurant called Tensuke, in the Koenji neighborhood. I decided to check it out on my next trip to Tokyo, with my friend Molly, in October.

After our initial attempt was thwarted by a long line of diners, I made sure to arrive at Tensuke 20 minutes before it opened. A few minutes after noon, the door slid open and everyone took seats at the counter (all of Tensuke’s 12 seats are at the counter). The restaurant is so slim that my butt was practically against the wall.

Everyone ordered the Egg Lunch (JPY 1,300) that Michael had described in such glowing terms. As at Tenta, the wall above the kitchen at Tensuke is lined with vertical slats of wood hanging from hooks, each advertising a particular piece of tempura available that day. I was looking forward to supplementing the lunch set with some à la carte extras.

The chef at Tensuke is a real ham. To make their signature dish, he cracks an egg into a copper cauldron of bubbling sesame oil, tosses the shell over his shoulder into the trash, points directly at a customer, and flashes a cocky half-smile, as if to say, “This one’s for you, chief.” As the egg cooks, he sprinkles it with crispy bits skimmed from previous batches of tempura, somehow convincing them to adhere to the egg.

I had no idea it was possible to cook an egg in a deep fryer until I saw it done. I’m sure the chef ruined 10 dozen eggs before he got it right. But once he did, jackpot: Each bite delivered tender whites, runny yolk, and crispy crags of batter, all moistened with a sauce balanced right on the line between salty and sweet.

Molly and I got only a few bites into the egg and rice before the counterman started delivering the rest of the lunch-set items to a paper-lined plate set on the ledge behind the egg bowl. Whiting. Shrimp. Eggplant. The most tender and sweet piece of green pepper. Compared with Tenta, the tempura at Tensuke has a lightness and an almost smoky perfume of sesame oil. The lunch set marched on and on. I hid a piece of squid underneath some rice. We did not order any extras.

In December, I was back in Tokyo with my family and took them to Tensuke for lunch. The egg came first, and Iris dug in. “This is one of the best things I’ve ever eaten,” she said. As more tempura pieces arrived, we passed them around, like kids furtively trading the contents of their sack lunches.

Tensuke is a fantastic restaurant. But it’s not going to be our new regular tempura spot. It’s just too good. A place that draws customers from all over town and always has a line out the door isn’t a neighborhood hangout, even if it looks like one on the inside.

Candidate #2: Tenya

If you’re from the United States, Tenya is a difficult restaurant to understand. It’s a national chain with about 200 locations throughout Japan. As is true of fast food places everywhere, it has zero atmosphere, and it’s easy to get out for under $6.

Unlike with fast food chains in most places, however, the food quality at Tenya is superb. Last time I was there, I had the tendon (sauced tempura on rice) with shrimp, maitake mushroom, sweet potato, squash, lotus root, and green bean. It cost $5.50, came with miso soup, and made a hearty dinner. Their recent fall seasonal specials included a duck tempura bowl and one made with fresh oysters and red rockfish. They also serve draft beer.

This isn’t so outlandish by Japanese standards: Many fast food places in Japan have bizarrely good food (hello, CoCo Ichibanya). But the dishware at Tenya is also superb. Seriously, look at this photo. I’ve had worse food and worse presentation than Tenya at a supposedly high-end tempura place.

Tenya is probably capitalism’s greatest achievement. But it’s not going to be our neighborhood hangout, because it’s just not designed for hanging out. The lighting is institutional, the seats are uncomfortable, no one is going to hail you as a regular, and it’s hard to imagine striking up a conversation with other diners. (Imagine approaching another table at Wendy’s.) How does Tenya serve such great food for $6? Partly by making sure you don’t sit around wasting their real estate.

Candidate #3: Kiyoshi

I began wandering the neighborhood, peering into the windows of tempura places to see if their ambience sparked any Tenta nostalgia. That’s how I came across Kiyoshi, a little mom-and-pop tempura place on Waseda Street, about halfway between our apartment and the neighborhood temple, Arai Yakushi. It has a weathered wooden bar at the front and a small tatami-floored dining room, which is where we sat one Wednesday night in December. We ordered seafood- and vegetable-tempura assortments and the pickle plate. It’s never a bad idea to order pickles (oshinko) at any restaurant in Japan, but these were particularly good—especially the tart apples pickled in rice bran.

The tempura was excellent. It featured almost everything we would have ordered at Tenta, including a crispy kakiage patty of seafood and onions. Our server, the mom of the mom-and-pop team, was delightful. The menu listed only tempura sets, but Mom assured us we could also order à la carte, and I requested a couple extra pieces of the tender, creamy kabocha squash. Everything was delicious, and with each bite, I dwelled on how this place was different from Tenta. The chef was older, and skinnier. They didn’t have menu items listed on vertical wooden slats on the wall. No eel bones.

Kiyoshi is a terrific neighborhood tempura bar, and I know that each time we go back, it will feel a little more like mine. It is everything I’m looking for in a new Tenta—but it’s simply not Tenta. Just because all cats are cats doesn’t mean I’d be satisfied if someone swapped my cat out for a similar model.

The Tempura of the Mind

A couple days after visiting Kiyoshi, we went out for Christmas dinner to Penguin Village, an okonomiyaki restaurant run by the Oda brothers, two ruggedly handsome Japanese professional-wrestling fans. Their restaurant is open most nights from 5 p.m. to 5 a.m., and the facade features an absurdist pirate-penguin mural.

Okonomiyaki are Japanese pancakes. They’re drinking food, and at most Tokyo okonomiyaki places, you cook them yourself. The waiter brings you a bowl of sticky batter full of cabbage, mountain yam, pickled ginger, and whatever custom ingredients you ordered, and you stir it up and cook it on a griddle built into your table. I cooked my lumpy first okonomiyaki at Penguin Village, in 2012.

As at Kiyoshi, you take your shoes off and sit on the floor. We ordered Iris’s favorite, the Niku Niku Niku (“meat meat meat,” although it actually includes four meats, if you count pork belly and ground pork as two meats), and waited the agonizingly long 15 minutes it takes to cook an okonomiyaki.

While our food cooked, we chatted with the brothers, who mentioned that we’d come in on the restaurant’s 11th birthday. After dinner, they brought us free ice cream in heart-shaped dishes—whether for the restaurant’s anniversary or because they hadn’t seen us for over a year, I’m not sure.

Okonomiyaki is not my favorite food. Penguin Village is surely not the best okonomiyaki restaurant in Tokyo. But the stomach wants what it wants. With my most analytical hat on, I went looking for a new tempura place—emphasis on the tempura—when what I really wanted was a new place.

So I guess a restaurant that doesn’t serve tempura is my new favorite tempura place. In any case, it’s never allowed to close.

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Batter Up: Finding a Tempura Spot to Call My Own

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Batter Up: Finding a Tempura Spot to Call My Own

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[Illustrations: Jessie Kanelos Weiner]

It took me until I was in my 30s to understand that restaurants are like pets. They have a shorter lifespan than humans, and it’s our responsibility to take good care of them, enjoy their company, mourn their passing, and move on.

And usually, I’m capable of following my own advice. But Tenta was different: We never got to say good-bye.

One summer night in Tokyo, I went out for a walk and passed this sliver of a restaurant, barely wider than the sliding door at its entrance. Actually, it wasn’t clear that the place was a restaurant, since the only seating was at a bar, and the patrons—a mix of female and male, young and old—were smoking, drinking beers and whiskey highballs, and eating…something I couldn’t quite make out in the dim space. I squinted at the menu, the print fuzzy from being repeatedly photocopied: TEMPURA.

It was 2012, and my wife and daughter and I were living in a 260-square-foot apartment in the Nakano neighborhood while I was writing a book about Japanese food. “I think I found a tempura place,” I told Laurie and Iris. We went for dinner the next day. It’s unusual to take an eight-year-old to a bar in Japan, but it’s not illegal, and Japan is very tolerant of children. I didn’t speak much Japanese then, and there was no English menu, so I read what I could and guessed at the rest. We ordered à la carte: shrimp, eggplant, onion, green pepper, sea eel. At some point the cook/bartender, a chubby guy in his 30s with a kind smile and a black bandana, held up a hand. Enough. You can order more later!

Tempura batter has to be used quickly after it’s made, or the coating becomes tough instead of light and tender. So periodically, the cook would pour more low-protein flour into a mixing bowl, add egg and water, and mix gently with chopsticks. Then he’d pull the ingredient we’d ordered out of the fridge, dunk it in batter, and toss it into the deep fryer. At any given time, the fryer held half a dozen hunks of breaded vegetables and seafood, each destined for a different customer and in a different stage of cooking, yet the cook managed to simultaneously chat with customers and serve drinks without letting anything overcook or mixing up the green pepper order with the jumbo shrimp.

He gave us each a ceramic plate lined with paper and topped with a metal rack to keep the underside of the tempura crispy during the 10 seconds or so before we devoured it. We dipped each piece alternately in gray sea salt and tentsuyu—light and sweet from soy sauce and mirin, with an umami flavor from dashi and a cleansing bitterness from the mound of grated daikon that rose from the middle of the dish like an iceberg.

The best item we ordered was the eel. It didn’t come from the fridge. The cook pulled it live and wriggling from a tank next to the front door, slaughtered and filleted it in seconds, and served it two minutes later. Best of all, he tied the eel’s slender backbone into an overhand knot; tossed it, un-battered, into the fryer; and presented it to Iris, who to this day goes around telling children and adults alike that they really need to try crispy eel backbone.

Over time, Tenta became our symbol of everything great about Japanese food culture. Going to Tokyo without spending an evening or two at Tenta, bantering with the chef and ordering just one more shrimp, was unthinkable.

In the summer of 2016, I looked at Tabelog, the Japanese equivalent of Yelp, and found that Tenta had moved a couple blocks north. The new space wasn’t great—it had less foot traffic, was larger and less cozy, and the bar was tucked awkwardly into one corner. But the food was as good as ever. We ordered a vegetable-tempura assortment that included fried shiso leaves, battered on one side, as thin and delicate as a sheet of phyllo dough. They were so delicious that we asked for an extra plate of leaves alone.

Last year, I wanted to include Tenta in an article I was writing about Tokyo travel. When I called to confirm its hours and location, however, there was no answer. I texted a friend living in the neighborhood, who walked past the restaurant and reported what I already suspected: Tenta was no more. I thanked her in polite Japanese, relieved that the impersonal Facebook window couldn’t betray how crushed I was.

Theoretically, finding another restaurant I liked as much as Tenta should have been relatively simple. Sure, it was one of the most spectacular eating experiences of my life, but the bar for food is set so high in Japan that finding amazing food in an unassuming neighborhood restaurant is a common experience. The restaurant’s entry on Tabelog confirmed that it was nothing special, with an average rating of barely over three stars out of five (which is pretty good, actually—Japanese reviewers are tough!).

I grumbled about this a bit. How could people not recognize the greatness of this perfect little restaurant? But really, this was a good thing. Maybe Tenta was like a baby, or a house cat—we love our own and celebrate its quirks, but to a disinterested third party, it’s barely different from hundreds of millions of others. Maybe there was another hole-in-the-wall tempura bar in my neighborhood where we could become regulars—if you can use the word to describe a family that comes in once or twice a year.

Back in Seattle, Laurie and I often get pizza and beer at the Hopvine, a bar three blocks from our apartment. I like the Hopvine so much, I requested it for my birthday dinner last year, despite these facts:

It’s not the best pizza in town, or even the best pizza in the neighborhood.

Nor is it especially cheap.

It takes at least 20 minutes for them to make your pizza.

But I keep going back to the Hopvine because it’s cozy, friendly, and nearby, and the food is pretty good. This, I realized, is all I ask of a tempura bar. For that matter, it’s all I ask of my friends: Be around when I need you, and don’t be objectionable in any important way.

So I set out on an on-again, off-again quest to find the new Tenta. How hard could it be? There are over a thousand tempura restaurants in Tokyo, including at least a dozen within a mile of our apartment. And I knew exactly what I wanted: really good food (obviously), ordered à la carte and served by a friendly chef at a comfortable, well-worn bar. In other words, I was like a newly single person looking for someone a lot like my ex. Great plan, right?

Candidate #1: Tensuke

My friend Michael had sent me a photo of a batter-crusted egg oozing golden yolk onto a bowl of rice—a flash-fried egg tempura, he explained, calling it “the single best, yet simplest, dish we had during our trip.” It came from a tempura restaurant called Tensuke, in the Koenji neighborhood. I decided to check it out on my next trip to Tokyo, with my friend Molly, in October.

After our initial attempt was thwarted by a long line of diners, I made sure to arrive at Tensuke 20 minutes before it opened. A few minutes after noon, the door slid open and everyone took seats at the counter (all of Tensuke’s 12 seats are at the counter). The restaurant is so slim that my butt was practically against the wall.

Everyone ordered the Egg Lunch (JPY 1,300) that Michael had described in such glowing terms. As at Tenta, the wall above the kitchen at Tensuke is lined with vertical slats of wood hanging from hooks, each advertising a particular piece of tempura available that day. I was looking forward to supplementing the lunch set with some à la carte extras.

The chef at Tensuke is a real ham. To make their signature dish, he cracks an egg into a copper cauldron of bubbling sesame oil, tosses the shell over his shoulder into the trash, points directly at a customer, and flashes a cocky half-smile, as if to say, “This one’s for you, chief.” As the egg cooks, he sprinkles it with crispy bits skimmed from previous batches of tempura, somehow convincing them to adhere to the egg.

I had no idea it was possible to cook an egg in a deep fryer until I saw it done. I’m sure the chef ruined 10 dozen eggs before he got it right. But once he did, jackpot: Each bite delivered tender whites, runny yolk, and crispy crags of batter, all moistened with a sauce balanced right on the line between salty and sweet.

Molly and I got only a few bites into the egg and rice before the counterman started delivering the rest of the lunch-set items to a paper-lined plate set on the ledge behind the egg bowl. Whiting. Shrimp. Eggplant. The most tender and sweet piece of green pepper. Compared with Tenta, the tempura at Tensuke has a lightness and an almost smoky perfume of sesame oil. The lunch set marched on and on. I hid a piece of squid underneath some rice. We did not order any extras.

In December, I was back in Tokyo with my family and took them to Tensuke for lunch. The egg came first, and Iris dug in. “This is one of the best things I’ve ever eaten,” she said. As more tempura pieces arrived, we passed them around, like kids furtively trading the contents of their sack lunches.

Tensuke is a fantastic restaurant. But it’s not going to be our new regular tempura spot. It’s just too good. A place that draws customers from all over town and always has a line out the door isn’t a neighborhood hangout, even if it looks like one on the inside.

Candidate #2: Tenya

If you’re from the United States, Tenya is a difficult restaurant to understand. It’s a national chain with about 200 locations throughout Japan. As is true of fast food places everywhere, it has zero atmosphere, and it’s easy to get out for under $6.

Unlike with fast food chains in most places, however, the food quality at Tenya is superb. Last time I was there, I had the tendon (sauced tempura on rice) with shrimp, maitake mushroom, sweet potato, squash, lotus root, and green bean. It cost $5.50, came with miso soup, and made a hearty dinner. Their recent fall seasonal specials included a duck tempura bowl and one made with fresh oysters and red rockfish. They also serve draft beer.

This isn’t so outlandish by Japanese standards: Many fast food places in Japan have bizarrely good food (hello, CoCo Ichibanya). But the dishware at Tenya is also superb. Seriously, look at this photo. I’ve had worse food and worse presentation than Tenya at a supposedly high-end tempura place.

Tenya is probably capitalism’s greatest achievement. But it’s not going to be our neighborhood hangout, because it’s just not designed for hanging out. The lighting is institutional, the seats are uncomfortable, no one is going to hail you as a regular, and it’s hard to imagine striking up a conversation with other diners. (Imagine approaching another table at Wendy’s.) How does Tenya serve such great food for $6? Partly by making sure you don’t sit around wasting their real estate.

Candidate #3: Kiyoshi

I began wandering the neighborhood, peering into the windows of tempura places to see if their ambience sparked any Tenta nostalgia. That’s how I came across Kiyoshi, a little mom-and-pop tempura place on Waseda Street, about halfway between our apartment and the neighborhood temple, Arai Yakushi. It has a weathered wooden bar at the front and a small tatami-floored dining room, which is where we sat one Wednesday night in December. We ordered seafood- and vegetable-tempura assortments and the pickle plate. It’s never a bad idea to order pickles (oshinko) at any restaurant in Japan, but these were particularly good—especially the tart apples pickled in rice bran.

The tempura was excellent. It featured almost everything we would have ordered at Tenta, including a crispy kakiage patty of seafood and onions. Our server, the mom of the mom-and-pop team, was delightful. The menu listed only tempura sets, but Mom assured us we could also order à la carte, and I requested a couple extra pieces of the tender, creamy kabocha squash. Everything was delicious, and with each bite, I dwelled on how this place was different from Tenta. The chef was older, and skinnier. They didn’t have menu items listed on vertical wooden slats on the wall. No eel bones.

Kiyoshi is a terrific neighborhood tempura bar, and I know that each time we go back, it will feel a little more like mine. It is everything I’m looking for in a new Tenta—but it’s simply not Tenta. Just because all cats are cats doesn’t mean I’d be satisfied if someone swapped my cat out for a similar model.

The Tempura of the Mind

A couple days after visiting Kiyoshi, we went out for Christmas dinner to Penguin Village, an okonomiyaki restaurant run by the Oda brothers, two ruggedly handsome Japanese professional-wrestling fans. Their restaurant is open most nights from 5 p.m. to 5 a.m., and the facade features an absurdist pirate-penguin mural.

Okonomiyaki are Japanese pancakes. They’re drinking food, and at most Tokyo okonomiyaki places, you cook them yourself. The waiter brings you a bowl of sticky batter full of cabbage, mountain yam, pickled ginger, and whatever custom ingredients you ordered, and you stir it up and cook it on a griddle built into your table. I cooked my lumpy first okonomiyaki at Penguin Village, in 2012.

As at Kiyoshi, you take your shoes off and sit on the floor. We ordered Iris’s favorite, the Niku Niku Niku (“meat meat meat,” although it actually includes four meats, if you count pork belly and ground pork as two meats), and waited the agonizingly long 15 minutes it takes to cook an okonomiyaki.

While our food cooked, we chatted with the brothers, who mentioned that we’d come in on the restaurant’s 11th birthday. After dinner, they brought us free ice cream in heart-shaped dishes—whether for the restaurant’s anniversary or because they hadn’t seen us for over a year, I’m not sure.

Okonomiyaki is not my favorite food. Penguin Village is surely not the best okonomiyaki restaurant in Tokyo. But the stomach wants what it wants. With my most analytical hat on, I went looking for a new tempura place—emphasis on the tempura—when what I really wanted was a new place.

So I guess a restaurant that doesn’t serve tempura is my new favorite tempura place. In any case, it’s never allowed to close.

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