🍤 Tendon (Tempura Rice Bowl)
Tendon is a bowl of steamed rice topped with shrimp and vegetable tempura and drizzled with tare, a sweet-savory sauce of soy sauce, mirin and sugar. The sauce soaks into the batter and the rice beneath, so every bite is crisp, sticky and glossy at once. It is a hearty, inexpensive lunch served at dedicated tendon shops and tempura restaurants.
Diets
Allergens
Contains (in a typical recipe):
What it is made of
Recipe
Ingredients
- 300 g cooked short-grain rice
- 4 shrimp tempura
- 4 pieces vegetable tempura (pumpkin, eggplant, green pepper)
- For tare: 40 ml soy sauce, 40 ml mirin, 15 g sugar, 40 ml water
Method
- Simmer soy sauce, mirin, sugar and water for 2–3 minutes until slightly thickened.
- Fry or reheat the tempura so it is hot and crisp.
- Divide the hot rice between two bowls and drizzle a spoonful of tare over it.
- Dip each tempura piece briefly in the tare and arrange on the rice.
- Spoon over a little more sauce and serve immediately.
How to make it lighter
- Ask for less tare — the sauce is where most of the sugar and salt sit.
- Make the bowl with more vegetable tempura and less rice, or swap half the rice for steamed greens.
- Share one bowl and add a clear soup or salad on the side.
History
The name is a contraction of tenpura donburi, a tempura rice bowl. Tendon is generally said to have appeared in Tokyo in the 19th century, and today it is sold everywhere from old tempura houses to fast-food tendon chains.
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Values are estimates per 100 g for a typical recipe; home and restaurant versions vary. Diets and allergens are worked out from the ingredients of a typical recipe — always check with whoever cooked the dish. Not medical advice. Nutrition data: Me Nutrition dish database v13. How we count →