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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

Yummy!