The Easter holiday in Hong Kong is a 4-day weekend. As a result, it’s a very, very popular time during which Hong Kongers flock to neighboring countries for vacation. We like traveling to places like Japan (or even Mainland China) during that time because we can take advantage of shorter lines and smaller crowds during this holiday that many surrounding countries do not celebrate.
Hong Kongers LOVE traveling to Japan.
Right now, with the yen at an all time low, everything feels particularly cheap. As a result, Tokyo was FULL of tourists during this cherry blossom viewing holiday weekend.
Under this backdrop, I found out last minute that one of my closest friends from college was visiting Tokyo the SAME WEEKEND!
We made tentative plans to get together the day she arrived – Friday night.
Imagine trying to book a good restaurant for a party of 6 at the last minute in Tokyo during Easter Weekend on the first day that the cherry blossoms started to bloom.
As fate would have it, her train had issues and ended up being stopped for almost 2 hours. We had to cancel our dinner for 6 and make plans to meet another time.
All of a sudden, Bryan and I were stuck without a restaurant reservation on a Friday night during the busiest weekend in Tokyo.
Concierge to the Rescue
Amazingly, the very patient and persistent concierge staff at the Westin called place after place after place. She finally found 2 counter seats at the Shinjuku outpost of a well-known Michelin starred tempura restaurant in Ginza.
Tempura at Ten Yokota Tempura Restaurant Tokyo
Ten Yokota has several outposts across the city. We found it interesting that our concierge sent us to a further location that had counter seating, rather than a closer location that only had table seating.
Tempura at higher-end establishments is usually a course-by-course affair. It’s important to enjoy the tempura ASAP after the tempura master hands you your piece, which is fried one piece at at time behind the counter. This is likely why our concierge thought that sitting at the counter is much preferable to sitting at a table.
The tempura at Ten Yokota was very good. It showcased a nice variety of fresh seafood, seasonal vegetables, and the restaurant’s signature prawn.
The prawn is served in two pieces, the “head” (which includes the legs) and the “tail”. The head was extremely flavorful, crispy, and light (not at all greasy). The “tail” was juicy and sweet.
My personal highlights included the signature prawn, uni topped “tempura-battered” seaweed sheet, anago (sea eel), and the lovely hand-whisked matcha tea at the end.
This shrimp hand-roll was pretty awesome as well.
Tempura + Soupy Rice
Near the end, we had a love bowl of “rice soup”. The server poured a flavorful clam broth into a bowl of rice, seaweed, and kakiage tempura (baby shrimp).
Dessert: Ice Cream + Matcha
Dessert was light and refreshing, with a lovely hand-whisked matcha to finish it all off.
Counter Seating
At the 8-person counter, a majority were visitors from Hong Kong, with a few Japanese customers scattered here and there. It really felt like Hong Kongers had invaded Tokyo for this cherry blossom Easter weekend!
So thankful to get a last minute reservation at a quality tempura place during such a busy weekend.
Ten Yokota Tempura Restaurant2F, 3-10-5 Motoazabu, Minato-ku, Tokyo, 106-0046, Japan
〒160-0023 Tokyo, Shinjuku City, Nishishinjuku, 1 Chome−19−13, Seilei Building, 3F
The top location of this restaurant has 1 Michelin star. We visited the one in Shinjuku (bottom).