Sunday, February 18, 2007

Tempura Sam


There are only three Japanese restaurants near the vicinity of Gateway Business Park in Cavite. These are Ippon Yari inside First Cavite Industrial Estate (FCIE), the restaurant in Aoki Clubhouse (one of the clubhouses of Eagle Ridge Golf and Country Club) and Tempura Sam in front of Walter Mart, General Trias.

Last week went to Tempura Sam before doing our weekend grocery shopping. Hannah is now big enough to start learning how to use chopsticks so we asked her to practice by eating the appetizer while we wait for our order.

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I like this appetizer made of sweet, spicy dried dilis with bean sprouts on the side. It influenced the way we fry dilis at home. Hannah ended up eating it using her fingers and me finishing most of it.

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I love okonomiyaki. Their version (PhP 80) is ok but lacks the variety of ingredients usually found in authentic Hiroshima-style or Osaka-style okonomiyaki that I tried in Japan. In Japanese okonomiyaki bars you select what ingredients you like to add into the basic ingredients of flour, egg and cabbage. You can ask them to add beef strips, pork, chicken, shrimp, squid, octopus, and other stuffs. It is then topped with mayonnaise, okonomiyaki sause or tongkatsu sauce and dancing fish flakes (dried bonito fish flakes). Hannah saw how the dancing fish flakes moved on top of the okonomiyaki. I scared her that it is still alive and she looked in awe when I picked and ate some. Hehe, I told her the truth afterwards. I have to continue searching for the best okonomiyaki in the Philippines.

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My wife had her beef gyudon (beef rice bowl, PhP 155) personalized - she asked to have a cooked egg topping instead of the usual raw egg topping. The thin beef slices were tender and yummy.

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I tried one of their specialty, stuffed shimp tempura with gyoza (PhP 315). It was good but the shrimp tempura stuffed with tuna and crab meat "disintegrates" when dipped in tempura sauce. Pretty difficult to eat bite by bite. The gyoza was good. Too bad only two pieces on this set meal.

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Miso soup is already included in the rice meals above. For our little lady we ordered mango tempura topped with vanilla ice cream, strawberry syrup and chocolate syrup (PhP 95).

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Yummy!

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8 comments:

L.A said...

Wow Mango Tempura! Ang sarap naman ata nun! Ang saya pede pala pati friut gawing tempura kala ko shrimp at veggie lang.

Haha sabagay masmasarap naman ata yung fried egg kaysa raw egg. Naku andami nung order mo ha hehehe!

Waaaaaaah! Grabe naman kayo??? Hindi nga??? Super tatag nyo kuya hermie! e eh alm ko almost 30hrs. yun kasi 30 ep. grabe tinapos nyo 2 days lang halos! waaah grabe kau! haha ang cute ng ending noh sexy nung guy sa ending hehehe..

Noh naman kaya next korenovela marathon nyo?

tina said...

Yummmehhh... HUNGRYRYYY NA AKO!!! di pa ako nag lunch

Anonymous said...

Nice pics! I like okonomiyaki, too...it's the one thing that I always buy at the stalls during matsuri. When I went to Hiroshima I made sure I tried their version. Yummy! One time I also brought home (Pinas) some ingredients so we could cook okonomiyaki. It's actually quite easy to prepare, isn't it?
That mango tempura is a nice fusion of Pinoy ingredient and Japanese style of cooking!

Anonymous said...

Buon Giorno! Sei in italia?

wow...your pics made me drool :)

Good thing I'm going home on April!

~angel~ said...

Hi! I am Felize Mendoza, a 2nd year student from Philippine Science High School. I just want to show you our project in Social Science (Pisay Meets World), We Hold the Future. It shows how students like us can make a difference.

Please click the link below (my teacher's blog) and please also click the video frame which links to YouTube, please leave a comment there, you need an account to comment (in YouTube). We need comments.

The video will take only about 5-6 minutes of your time.

Would you mind putting our video on our site? It would be very much appreciated.

Thank you very much. Ü

http://sirmartin.wordpress.com/2007/03/12/pisay-meets-world-featured-project-5-we-hold-the-future/

Joe said...

Enough with the holidays, Hermie, get back to work. :-)

Watergirl said...

Hi, were you able to find a good okonomiyaki? I only knew of one place in Manila, at Jipan stores (Glorietta, SM Megamall), but I'd like to find a more authentic version.

grant said...

try OCTOBOY 670 banawe cor. retiro.q.c. they specialize in okonomiyaki, takoyaki and yakiudon