Japanese cuisine is often described simply as washoku, but alongside sushi and soba, tempura is a standalone cuisine with its own techniques, demanding a highly trained artisan. While Ten Yokota’s cuisine is built on the foundation of Tempura Yokota, the chef’s father’s creation, Chef Yokota’s creed is to evolve and deepen his craft with agility, keeping with the times.

Seasonal ingredients and daily deliveries determine the menu, but one thing is always the same…the tempura starts and ends with prawns. The meal begins with an appetizer, perhaps some clam broth and marinated botan-ebi shrimp, followed by an array of sumptuous tempura pieces, before moving to a bowl of rice topped with a crisp fritter to be eaten as is or topped with piping hot tea to make chazuke. Both contain the chef’s special salty-sweet sauce and are finished with the uplifting aroma and refreshing flavor of yuzu. The final mouthful is a bowl of refreshing, cooling sherbert.

The finer the flour grains, the more exquisitely crisp the tempura result, so Yokota sifts his flour, stores it overnight in the freezer, and then sifts it again as he makes the batter under the watchful eyes of his guests. The sesame and corn oil blend is heated precisely to 170°C for frying vegetables, 175°C for prawns and fish, and 180°C for conger eel. The first tempura prawn is still rare when served to accentuate its sweetness. Guests also enjoy the crispy legs and the crunchy head filled with umami. Later, a prawn is wrapped with its rich, salty, savory innards called ebi-miso.

Key ingredients like these prawns, on this day from Amakusa, Kumamoto Prefecture, and the anago saltwater conger eel arrive at the restaurant live and are prepared just thirty minutes before service for maximum freshness. After the anago is fried, guests will witness the chef cutting it in half. The sound of the knife passing through the crisp texture is incredible, and you will not want to wait another minute to sink your teeth in. Be it an Edomae product or from Tsushima in Kyushu, you can be sure the anago is the top quality you would expect of a product found at high-end sushi restaurants.

One quintessential Edomae tempura ingredient is Japanese whiting or sillago, known as kisu. Yokota’s come from Takeoka, Chiba Prefecture, and here again, he cuts the crispy tempura in half to serve. Some seasonal tempura delicacies include a plant called koshiabura, known as the queen of wild mountain vegetables, tara no me angelica tree shoots, baby corn, asparagus, and leeks. Then come the scallop specialties, featuring plump scallops from the Sanriku region of Iwate Prefecture. Yokota first serves a large scallop cooked perfectly rare, which becomes apparent when he cuts it in half to serve. The first half is to be enjoyed as is. He wraps the second half in roasted seaweed for a luxurious creation reminiscent of Isobe-yaki, typically a square of humble mochi wrapped in seaweed. The way to eat it is the same – dip in soy sauce and indulge! There are many ways to enjoy tempura, a particular favorite being tempura dipping sauce with its rich aroma from bonito flakes. Yokota’s version contains a blend of smooth and coarse grated daikon for a pleasurable texture sensation. Other toppings include seaweed salt, sudachi citrus, soy sauce, and curry salt –a condiment inherited from the elder Yokota.

INGREDIENTS
The trip to the market to gather ingredients is an essential part of Yokota's day. Much of the seafood is sourced at Toyosu market, and with local Edomae seafood stocks declining every year, Yokota carefully selects high-quality alternatives from other regions to cook up in the classic Edomae tempura style. His wheat flour is the Violet brand, and the sesame oil comes from Isomura Masajiro Shoten, which has been operating in Asakusa since 1935. The rice you enjoy toward the end of the meal is glossy, plump grains of blank from Yamagata Prefecture.

Yokota uses a moshio seaweed salt blend combining products from Hokkaido, Nagasaki and Hiroshima that he roasts in-store. Japan is not blessed with any land or rock salt deposits, so in ancient times, people collected seaweed and dried it in the sun until salt crystals formed. The crystals were washed off into seawater to create a concentrated brine that was boiled down to make salt, which has the added benefit of umami from the seaweed.