VanFoodies.com

Recently, a famous Japanese tendon franchise — Kaneko Hannosuke — opened its first Canadian location in Vancouver. Tendon is the Japanese name for tempura rice bowl.

Their menu is simple: Premium, Special or Regular Tempura Bowl. All three bowls come with the following tempura — shrimp, kakiage (mixed seafood), soft boiled egg, seaweed and green bean. Premium includes a big piece of conger eel; Special with white fish; and Regular has mushroom. They have a Kid size for good measure, with tempura shrimp, pumpkin, soft boiled egg, seaweed and green bean.

I took Mama Lam and Papa Lam there on a Monday morning. It was one of the 3 spots I had planned for the day. It opened at 11:30am and we arrived at 11:28am. The door was unlocked so we walked inside, only to be told that they couldn’t seat us right away (cue my widened eyes scanning the empty restaurant) and we had to wait outside till 11:30am, with menus in our hands. Err…okay…we did that, but we were already invited back in almost immediately after, without even finishing studying the menu.

After we placed the order, I walked over to check out the kitchen. There’s a big window where you can watch the cooks deep-fry each bowl to order.

Food

Food arrived within 10 minutes. At each table, there are instructions on how to tackle the rice bowl. First, you sample the tempura, which is already brushed with their house special sauce. Then, you taste the rice, which sits at the bottom of the bowl, soaking in all the juice and sauces. Next, you break the egg and mix the ooey egg yolk with the rice. Lastly, enjoy your every last bite and lick the bowl clean (ok, the licking part is not mandatory).

Premium Tempura Bowl

And we followed the instructions, with the additional sprinkling of the chili powder onto the egg and rice.

Our fried goods remained crispy until the last bite, but it did feel a bit greasy towards the end as the food cooled down. The sauce was flavourful, a good mix of umami and sweetness, and went especially well with the rice. The kakiage was a mix of scallop and squid pieces. The fried egg was cooked perfectly with plenty of yolk oozing out.

For Premium, Special and Regular, the bowl may be shallower than it seems (the bottom is actually raised) but it’s plenty of food for me. And I actually thought the addition of chili powder made it even better.

Honestly, I’m not sure if I would pay $3 extra for the Premium bowl to get the conger eel. True it was a much bigger piece of fish but the white fish was equally tasty and the Special bowl was enough food for me. I also don’t know why you would order the Regular bowl when it’s the same price as Special and you get only mushroom instead of fried white fish.

Special Tempura Bowl

The Kid bowl was actually a good size, for those with a smaller appetite or looking for a smaller dose of fried goodness.

Tempura Bowl for Kid

Final Thoughts

Practically no line up at opening time, we were in and out of the restaurant within 40 minutes. By then, which was around 12:15pm, the restaurant was full and there were a few waiting at the door. For us, food arrived promptly, almost at the same time, and service was as expected. Is it just hype? I’m not so sure. I actually enjoyed my rice bowl and if there’s no line up (I’m not usually one to line up for food), I would go back again.

Kaneko Hannosuke Vancouver
1725 Robson Street, Vancouver
604-423-4020
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