Tempura and Tendon Menu Words: How to Order in Japanese

Tendon or teishoku, sauce or salt: the first four words

Tendon (天丼) is short for tempura donburi: several pieces of tempura laid over a bowl of rice and finished with a sweet, salty soy-based sauce. The batter soaks up the sauce, so it is softer and richer than tempura on a plate. It is the quick, filling, everyday option.

Tempura teishoku (天ぷら定食) is the set meal: tempura on its own plate, with rice, miso soup and pickles beside it. Here the batter stays crisp and you season each piece yourself, either by dipping it in tentsuyu (天つゆ), a warm, thin sauce, or with a pinch of shio (塩), salt.

Tentsuyu or salt: how to eat each piece

Tentsuyu is made from dashi stock, soy sauce and mirin. It comes in a small bowl with a mound of grated daikon radish, daikon oroshi (大根おろし), and sometimes grated ginger. Stir the daikon into the sauce, dip the piece briefly and eat. A long soak makes the batter fall off.

Salt is the other route, and many shops suggest it for delicate items so that the taste of the ingredient comes through. You may get plain salt, salt mixed with matcha, or a wedge of lemon. Pinch a little salt onto the piece, or touch the piece lightly to the salt. Do not shake it over the whole plate.

The items on almost every menu

Tempura items are usually written in kana. Seafood tends to come first, then vegetables, then the fritter.

Kakiage (かき揚げ) is the exception to the one-ingredient rule: small shrimp or shredded vegetables such as onion and carrot are mixed in batter and fried as a single thick disc. Shiso is often listed as ōba (大葉), the same leaf under another name. Seasonal items rotate, so expect mountain vegetables in spring and mushrooms in autumn.

Which order suits you

Ordering at an everyday tempura shop

At a casual shop you order once, by the name of the bowl or the set. The lines below cover the order and the two things staff most often say when the food arrives.

Counter tempura: one piece at a time

At a specialist tempura restaurant you sit at a counter facing the chef and a pot of oil. Most guests order a course, kōsu (コース), or leave the choice to the chef with omakase (おまかせ). The chef fries one item, sets it on the paper-lined plate in front of you, names it, and often adds how to season it. Then the next one follows, timed to your pace.

The one rule is to eat each piece as it lands. Tempura is at its best agetate, just fried, and a piece left waiting while you take photographs goes soft. Near the end the chef may ask whether you would like anything more, and the meal usually closes with rice, often a small tendon.

Asking for more and saying what you cannot eat

Say what you cannot eat at the start, when you order, not when the piece arrives. Taberarenai n desu, I can't eat it, is softer than kirai desu, I dislike it, and the n desu ending shows that you are explaining, not complaining. For an allergy, use the word arerugī (アレルギー) so that the kitchen treats it seriously, and remember that most shops fry everything in the same oil.

Where the word tempura comes from

Frying in batter reached Japan with Portuguese traders and missionaries in the sixteenth century, and the word tempura is usually traced to Portuguese, though exactly which Portuguese word it comes from is still argued over. The kanji 天麩羅 were fitted to the sound later, which is why menus today mostly write 天ぷら, with the second half in hiragana.