Tempura Abe Honten — Restaurant in Tokyo

The food here is phenomenal and priced very fairly, which is reflected in the extremely long line. The chefs care a lot about the art, and when they serve each piece (assuming you don’t get the rice bowls / dons), it’s done like a performance. I highly recommend against getting the dons, not only because the experience of being served by chefs is better, but also because it’s easier to get a seat.

And that leads to my criticism: about dealing with the crowds.

It’s a very small place (about 10 counter seats and a single shared table for 4 dedicated for dons) that is on B1. The elevator opens right into the restaurant and there’s room for about 6 people to wait indoors. That typically means there’s a line outdoors… except the elevator is a public one that services 4 other stores on floors 2-5. So you get this really awkward situation where you’re lined up outside, and you have to regularly go into the elevator hoping you can get indoors. Folks will walk by and enter the elevator, and it feels like they’re skipping the queue. There are no waitstaff outdoors to handle the crowd, and they don’t bother attempting to advise people that they will close long before the line is finished. It’s a real mess.

As well, they take reservations, so often a group of 4 will cut in line. If you can make a reservation, I would recommend it. I’m not sure how it’s done, I just saw people cut in line and get escorted to counter seating. It’s an awful feeling to be waiting in line for 90 minutes and watch others cut ahead.

I think they could do a lot better handling the crowd. Whether that’s adopting a ticket system (with an online component), or just sending someone to the outdoors to handle the queue outside. I went for lunch on a Saturday and when I departed at 2, I could tell that there were at least 20 people that wouldn’t be served when the restaurant closed at 3 (they reopen later for dinner). Yet they were still...

Visited for lunch on a weekend. While it was a little busy considering the place is not very big, we didn’t have to wait too long to get seated.

The restaurant has quite a long history, located in the basement floor of a building not far from Ginza Mitsukoshi. Location-wise, it’s quite easy to access and sees a lot of tourists - both local and foreign, as guests. The price was a bit high but not too extravagant for a place one corner away from the Ginza strip.

We ordered both the lunch tempura set and lunch tendon. Some of the tempura in my set felt a little overcooked. The sauce for the tendon also wasn’t among my favorites of the many bowls of tendon I’ve had living in Japan.

Service was otherwise very courteous and fast enough. The miso soup and pickles that came with the food were very good though. If you’re strapped of time, craving for tempura, but have a somewhat limited budget while in Ginza, perhaps you could try the place. Otherwise, there are many other places (even some chain stores) while could give this place a run for their money.

Mid-sized bottled beer (中瓶) are also availanle for ¥900 each. Credit cards are accepted, but only if your bill is...

This is a Michelin Bib Gourmand rated tempura spot located on small street in the luxurious district of Ginza. It’s quite popular so expect a line for their amazing set lunch course.

This place is very small and it’s down in the basement of a tiny building. The lunch courses here are such a great value with the most expensive course being about $30 USD and the cheapest at $10 USD.

This is a true Japanese style tempura bar where each piece is served fresh directly from the fryer. Unfortunately I was seated at a table instead so all the tempura came out on a plate at once. The tempura was still delicious….light and not oily at all.

The set I had today was 3300 yen and includes- 2 tiger shrimp, 2 fish, 4 vegetables, Kyoto style pickles, choice is Kami- tempura zen or a kamiten-don (bowl of rice with tempura on top with sweet sauce) plus a dessert which was fried taiyaki with red bean inside.

I hear that dinner is much pricier and might require a reservation. I will definitely be back again to

Delicious spot for tempura in the...