Overall Rating: 🌕🌕🌗🌑🌑
Dixon's Fooday Mouthpiece Food Review #259

This time we visited a Japanese restaurant with many chain outlets. I believe many people know that Tenjiya has branches in many department stores or malls. Their main offerings are also Japanese cuisine, including set meals or tempura, focusing on dishes with fried shrimp and more.

From the menu, you can see that many of their set meals are related to fried shrimp or tempura. Because many of their stores are located within popular department stores, dining times on weekends are often quite crowded. So if you want to specifically come here to eat, you might need to wait a bit before getting a seat. We ate at the branch in Ginza, but the wait wasn't too long — about 20 minutes to get in!

Regarding food flavor, although the restaurant offers a variety of Japanese dishes, focusing mainly on fried shrimp and tempura, I wasn't very satisfied with what I ate that day. It felt like typical Taiwanese-style Japanese food, akin to the food court level in a department store. (Or maybe it really is 😂😂😂) It felt like I spent the money but only got a filling meal.

It's a bit of a pity. I consider this place more like a dining option during mealtime when you can't find anything else in the department store — just something to pass by. I'm sure there are better choices around 😂😂

If you're in the department store, you can also look around for other Japanese cuisine options!

Food: 🌕🌕🌘🌑🌑
Drinks: 🌕🌕🌗🌑🌑
Atmosphere: 🌕🌕🌖🌑🌑
Service: 🌕🌕🌗🌑🌑
Price: 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑

⭐️ Food Section
👉 Extremely Tender Seared Beef Tempura Set Meal $550
On the menu, their top-tier option is the so-called "御膳" (Goshoku). This particular set meal, which includes extremely tender seared beef, is probably the most expensive on the menu.

But since we were there, we had to try their top-tier meal! This set meal features seared beef and tempura as its highlights. But when it arrived, I was really not satisfied! Firstly, the portion of beef wasn’t much, and the taste was just so-so 😩😩.

Where is the promised tender seared beef? It feels just like ordinary grilled beef 🥺🥺🥺. The side of tempura shrimp was just average, and the whole set meal was essentially like that: seared beef, tempura shrimp, some vegetables, and a bit of rice.

It felt like eating a Japanese bento, but of course, a more upscale one. The beef quality was fine, though it didn't feel like the char-grilled American natural beef they claim. But it was just average beef, in my opinion.

Overall, I was quite disappointed with the meal. Even after ordering the most top-tier set meal, I could not experience the enjoyment I expected 😩.

⭐️ Drinks Section
They provide barley tea for unlimited self-service. If you need other soft drinks or teas, you can order them additionally. The drinks here didn't seem to offer any special features to me; just the usual soft drinks like Calpis, or some barley and green teas that you would find in other restaurants.

Nothing particular to highlight here.

⭐️ Atmosphere Section
Although the store space is not small, the planning fills the space with dining areas and tables. Overall, it doesn't feel overly crowded but is typical of the Japanese restaurants you see at department stores filled with people during mealtime. The space and lighting are bright and tidy, but it follows a department store food court style.

So, it doesn't add any extra points in terms of a romantic or date atmosphere. It feels like we are here to quickly dine and continue shopping.

⭐️ Service Section
Basically, there's nothing special about the service here. It's just your standard order-and-deliver service.

⭐️ Price Section
Although the pricing isn't exceptionally expensive, it reflects a typical department store food court meal price. Still, considering the overall experience and food flavors, I'm perplexed because I spent so much on the top-tier set meal, and yet the experience wasn’t great.

But realistically looking at the price, it's just the normal price for a standard Japanese set meal. So, this part feels just okay.

⭐️ Overall
I think its positioning, as mentioned before, is as a quick meal set in the department store food court. There’s no need to have too high expectations to eat here.

If you happen to be in the department store during mealtime when it's not crowded, you might try it. But I wouldn't recommend going out of your way just to eat here or queuing for a long time!

There are definitely many good Japanese restaurants out there, right? 😂😂😂