Tenhachi Japanese Restaurant

Tenhachi Japanese Restaurant
1125 W 12th Ave
Vancouver, BC

I will be straight to the point: For the third straight post, this dinner has something related to Sherman. “WTF, AGAIN??? What is the deal with you two?”. If you ever get to meet Sherman long enough, you will find out he is a great guy. And because he participates in different sport leagues, as mentioned in yesterday’s Pattaya Thai post, since his team won, it meant they would be playing one extra game, which translates into one extra opportunity to go out to eat. Given that I was with his hockey team the previous night at Pattaya Thai, hey, why not! So he checked with me if I wanted to go to Tenhachi for the after game meal.

Unlike in Pattaya where we decided to share everything, this time, we formed small pockets/mini groups in the large table given to us (once again, I am not going to list names… Too many, too confusing!). It is not that they didn’t want to share; rather, because some of them brought kids. Well, you know at times how finicky they can be… So, here are some of the dishes they ordered.

Fried shrimp appetizer

California Roll

Other various rolls + dynamite roll

Nabeyaki udon

Katsudon

Tempura

Oyakodon

Since I didn’t get to try them, I can’t vouch how good or bad they were. However, since, they looked they enjoyed the food… But, you can’t deny some of the dishes here looks really good – specially the rice bowls (oyakodon and katsudon)!

As for the rest of us who were sharing… Well, here is a kicker: this is not my first time in Tenhachi and I have an idea of what type of dishes we should be ordering. The previous instance I was here, my dinner partners were less than enthusiastic, probably because their were expecting something more “sushi”. Regardless, in this spirit of adventure (and because “it’s in the menu”), Sherman had some odd thoughts, starting with…

Wakame

OK, this still falls in a “safe” category. It was quite crunchy and well seasoned with a strong hint of sesame. I could have eaten several bowls (literally) of these but, alas, this was being shared by three of us so we could on stretch it that much.

Takoyaki

I consider it being an odd selection but, as mentioned, it is in the menu! It was hot, just not piping hot and, at least, you could “feel” the single octopus chunk. The sauce on top is the one you would expect, i.e., that savoury/sweet sauce and with some creaminess from the mayo. It wasn’t anything mind blowing but it accomplished its task as a starter.

Red tuna sashimi

“Special” soy sauce

The truth is that, here being not necessarily a sushi restaurant, I won’t have ordered it; but, as mentioned above… I won’t say it is the most terrible tuna in the world, not the best. Just that it was a bit chewier than what I expected. In fact, I would say it had some bite into it. Also, we were given a different thicker soy sauce to try. The waitress didn’t really describe the difference and we were guessing this might be dark soy sauce. Oh, well.

Mushroom tempura

Not sure what else to say/describe… It is mushroom… It is fried. It was savoury. It was good! OK, I might be exaggerating, hehehehe. There were (at least) three types of mushroom, the main one being shimeji (the other two I could easily identify was matsutake and shiitake. Probably button, as well but, if there was any, a piece at most). But, I got to admit that the frying action gave them some additional earthiness, which I really liked. I wished they had a matsutake only version of the dish but considering the cost of that type of mushroom, it might be a bit more expensive than this combo.

And now, moving the main dishes, I decided to make my own odd move. And that dish started with a Caesar salad.

Caesar salad? In a Japanese restaurant? Well, it sounds strange but we all agreed this one was well executed. Sure, it didn’t have the finest of ingredients (i.e., shaved Parmesan, et al) but the end result was quite edible and, other than some parts that was overdressed, there were no major flaws. So, that begs the question: what dish would come with a Caesar salad? How about… Lasagna?

Yes, lasagna! I won’t say there were any Japanese twist to it but again, this was well executed, something that can’t be said from other restaurants that are supposed to have this as a specialty or something they would do with more frequency. The layers of pasta was sandwiching ground meat sauce and, in the centre layer, some ricotta cheese. There were some things they could have done to kick it up a notch, like adding herbs, but, again, this is a dish most people would eat without much complain (specially picky eaters).

Now, going back to a more Japanese dish, we order one roll: the mango roll. If I had to compare to the one ordered in Azia, the one here was way better executed. The mango was sweeter (riper?) than the one over there. However, that was about it, as the “meat” used was krab. But, for people used to this mushed “meat” or prefer something safe, this one worked quite well.

Finally, some fish in the form of yellowtail (hamachi). For a person used to sashimi, seared tuna or fish and chips, he/she would say this is overcooked. Yes, indeed these two chunks were completely cooked through but, given its oiliness, having it “well done” gave it a different dimension to the fish, almost beef type meaty.

On the same vein as Hi Genki or Vanya, Tenhachi might not be necessarily a sushi restaurant; however, because people have somehow oddly associated sushi automatically to Japanese, I guess that would be the reason they have those sushi/maki/sashimi dishes as well. If we keep that in mind this is more of a yoshoku/home cooked style Japanese food and stick with them, they are pretty good options and you can’t go wrong. Furthermore, those dishes are well priced, which is yet another incentive for me to come back.

Tagged under: Japanese • Vancouver