Ro's Recz

Address: 〒111-0055 Tokyo, Taito City, Misuji, 1 Chome−11−13 1F

Since I have been pretty busy recently, I have not had as much time to write new blog posts. While I am still constantly finding new things I love to recommend, I wanted to share some of my previous favorite recommendations. Over the course of this blog, I have now written over a year’s worth of posts (367 and counting), so you may have missed some of these along the way!

I recently went to a Michelin-starred tempura restaurant in Taito City called Tempura Shimomura twice in one week. While it is normally difficult to get in without reservations (seating is only a counter with 10 or so seats), it has been a lot easier to get into even the most popular restaurants in Tokyo because of the coronavirus.

While my previous favorite tempura restaurant was Tsunahachi (the location in Shinagawa is the best in my opinion), Tempura Shimomura is now my new favorite tempura restaurant. While it is more expensive than Tsunahachi, the quality more than makes up for it. I would recommend going to Tempura Shimomura for lunch, as it has some great lunch special deals. Dinner can go above 10,000 yen for the more expensive courses. For lunch sets though, Shimomura has kakiage and ten-dons for about 2000 yen, and 10-12 piece tempura sets for anywhere between 4500-6000 yen. Furthermore, Shimomura also has ala-carte options if the sets are too extravagant.

I am a big fan of the owner of Tempura Shimomura. While he does not speak much English, he is a very nice man, and obviously highly qualified as a chef. It is only him and his wife working at the restaurant, so it has the feel of a small, family-run restaurant. After talking to the chef for a bit, I found out that Tempura Shimomura has only been open for 2.5 years (he previously worked at a hotel restaurant in Tokyo); however, Tempura Shimomura was awarded its Michelin star after only 1 year of business, which is an incredible achievement. This demonstrates the consistent quality of the ingredients and the preparation.

Although Tempura Shimomura is a little difficult to get to because it is not located that close to any train stations, it is well worth the effort getting there. If you are ever in Tokyo, this would be the first tempura restaurant that you should try and hit!

Tempura Shimomura Recommendation Rating: 5

This post has now been updated to reflect a new ratings system that I have implemented, which is scored as follows:

1: Something worth checking out if you have time

2: Something that is a hit for some people, but not a must for everyone

3: Something worth prioritizing if interested

4: Something worth making time to check out

5: An absolute home run, worth going out of your way for