Takano / Tempura in Toyama
Takano is a tempura restaurant. It is waiting to be discovered in the underground food street. It sits in a building called “Urban place”, about a 1-minute walk from the north side of Toyama station.
You have the option of counter or table seating, and if you choose the counter, you can watch the chef fry tempura for you from the comfort of your seat.
You are looking at one of the lunch courses, which mostly includes food from local Toyama vendors. The restaurant relies on these local ingredients because they are the freshest available. You can season your meal with salt or a mix of tempura sauce and grated radish, depending on the contents of the course.
Japanese prawns have a juicy body, but their heads provide a delightfully contrasting crisp.
This fish is called a Japanese Whiting. It’s tender and sweet.
Butterbur Scapes make for an excellent presentation on a plate. They have a perfect balance of bitterness and sweetness in every morsel.
Japanese shitake mushrooms are famous throughout the world. Takano presents them well by coupling a chewy texture with a satisfyingly luscious flavor.
Takano serves a fantastic Brama Japonica. They wrap it with a perilla and fry it, and it has a soft and meaty consistency.
This is more special than a normal sweet potato. It’s the Ishikawa prefecture brand sweet potato, called Goroujima-kintoki. It packs enough sweetness to treat it as a dessert.
You can select from three different traditional Japanese rice cuisines with Kakiage (mixed vegetable and shrimp tempura) as a finisher for your meal. The choices are Tendon (A bowl of rice topped with Kakiage and a sweet seasoning sauce), Tencha (A bowl of rice topped with Kakiage and Japanese tea poured over it), and Tenbara (A bowl of rice seasoned and mixed with Kakiage). The above picture is Tendon . The sweet sauce and vegetable tempura mixed flavorfully with rice
This is Tencha. The mixed vegetables are soaked with Japanese tea and it’s a very refreshing experience. You can definitely find some authentic Japanese Tempura cuisine at Takano.