Tendon Kohaku - Brentwood — Restaurant in Burnaby

This place just recently opened at Madisson Centre in Burnaby. Funny story, at first I thought the place is inside The Amazing Brentwood then I walked around the mall, but couldn't find it. Then I opened my google map since I was so desperate lol .. after a while.. yeah finally I was there! Arrived around 5pm no line-up but busy.

So, I ordered the combo kohaku tendon (spicy) and Hokkaido Milk Tea. By ordering combo you can save $1 compare to if you order them separately. If you want to get the crispyness just ask the sauce on the side. Oh every bowl you order, you will get miso soup and ginger pickle as well!

My PERSONAL opinion about the food Kohaku Tendon Spicy Love their sauce sooo much!!! It's not spicy at all for me. Rice is too little but the tempura is a lot! It still come crispy. The small plate is just to make your life easier to put the tempura so you can spoon the rice. The thing that I don't like is the squid! It's so chewy like ribbon. In addition to that, for the price that we pay, they use frozen ingredients(?) like.... taste still good tho. Chicken needs more marination!

Hokkaido Milk Tea Light (but not watery) and refreshing. Cannot adjust the sweetness, but you can adjust the ice. Just okay so cannot really commen this. However the melon one is little bit heavy in my opinion.

Sevice was like idk how to say. The front lady who help me in the front was saying that they are busy, so she asked me if it's okay or not to sit in the bar since they are busy. Well, since I was so tired after work ofc I want to sit on the "sofa" rather than chair. So I told her "how long I should wait if I want to sit in the table?" and then she said "let me check".. One or two minutes after, she said "okay you can come in". When I came in, like I saw there's 3-4 empty tables, why she didn't check first if there's table available. Well, I can understand maybe she just saw the bar empty and just offer that to me right away. Anyway my server is really nice tho, but then the cashier was kind of rude in my opinion. Like when I just finished tap my card on the machine for payment, she just grab the machine from my hand right away and just go... didn't even ask if i want the receipt or not, or wait until I hand the machine to her. Like zzzzz.

Overall I will say it's okay to come once in a while lol due to the value on what you get and...

From the moment you walk in, you’re amazed at the elegance and simplicity of the restaurant. The music and the vibe is very serene, however the service we received today was HIGHLY disorganized and inefficient. To set the tone for the rest of our service, we asked for 2 waters and 1 tea. We received the opposite (2 teas and 1 water) . All given to the wrong people at the table. Fine. Then, we ordered our food and milk tea to which we once again received the wrong order. I ordered my drink with less ice, and my friend with no ice and she received hers with ice and mine without. We were quick to mention this to our server and she remedied the situation by giving us new drinks which was nice of her. There were so many servers just walking around confused to where they should be, food that wasn’t ours came to our table a few times and our drinks almost went to another table. My friend also ordered food for take out in advance and made it clear it was to go, then they brought it to our table for here and brought it back to the kitchen to give it to us again but with a to go container on the side for her to pack up herself. Ugh. There were so many little mistakes i won’t bother mentioning; and I know this place is still new but there is definitely A LOT more improvement needed in terms of communication between your staff members and the kitchen. Disappointing, because I had a high hopes coming in here after reading all the good reviews. The food, was tasty but I wouldn’t say worth the price. The sashimi tendon was served on hot rice which made the fish quite warm by the time you ate it and the overall fish quality across the board tasted like it was pre frozen. Emma, our server definitely tried her best despite our many requests but her peers, however, could definitely use more training. Unfortunately this entire experience has made us not want to return...

This place has a nice ambiance but still feels casual. The space is also quite large. It's narrow but deep and wraps around to the back. We showed up at 2PM on a Saturday long weekend and there's plenty of empty tables. I'm guessing because it's located inside an office tower that they're a lot more busy on weekdays.

The price for the combo that includes a Tendon bowl and 1 side dish is actually not bad, just slightly over $18 or so. The combo comes with a bowl of miso soup as well and a small plate of ginger. The tempura themselves are done nicely. They didn't come too burning hot, crunchy and yet tender, and that fried soft yolk is amazing when you mix it into the rice!

You can choose a side of drink if you want, but if you picked something else for your combo and then order the drink separately on top, they're too pricey imo. 700ml of milk tea for basically $8. If you chose either the banana milk or the melon milk, they taste exactly like the Melona ice cream bars!

I went with Chawanmushi for my side dish for the combo since I don't see it often at ither places. It's silky smooth and so airy! If you don't like seafood, I suggest not to get the Chawanmushi as it does have quite a strong fishy taste. The Nagoya chicken wings come in 4 pcs for $12. They're juicy and fried enough that the skin gets crispy. You can order between regular or spicy. We chose the spicy option and it's got a nice does of heat.

All and all, nice venue with quick service. Just that the drinks are overpriced so either get it as part of your combo or not at all. They serve you either water or hot tea anyway already and I find that the tea is a much better option to cut through all...