Tempura Nakamura 天婦羅中村 (Matsuyama, JAPAN) ★★★★☆

We spent a lot more time at Dogo Onsen (道後溫泉) than I originally planned so we were a little late for our tempura dinner tonight. Situated on the 3rd floor of a discreet commercial building in the heart of Matsuyama (松山), Tempura Nakamura (天ぷら中村) is one of the few top-rated tempura omakase restaurants in town. 

The kitchen here is helmed by a young owner-chef who has trained at some of the top tempura restaurants in Tokyo and Osaka including Tempura Osakaya Soutetsu (天婦羅 大坂屋草哲), the sister restaurant of my favorite Tempura Shinsaibashi Ittetsu (天婦羅 心齋橋一哲) in Osaka.

We specifically asked for seats at the counter table so little nugget could get a clear view of what’s happening behind the scenes.

As usual, we got a visual tour of the ingredients tonight. And wow — there was definitely a lot of fish on the menu… perhaps a few too many.

Tonight's condiments were simple, just some powdery salt and the usual tentsuyu.

We started with a cold dish — octopus with chilled cucumber, drizzled in a zesty, lemony sauce. Refreshing right off the bat.

Shrimp head — Really nice and flaky just like it always is.

Shrimp 🍤 — The first of the two shrimp tonight.

Not surprisingly, both were incredibly bouncy.

Japanese kiss fish — One of my favorite fish tempura. As usual, it worked really well with the tentsuyu.

Green pepper — Pretty juicy but I always prefer red pepper when it comes to tempura.

Sea bream — We started with a squeeze of lemon juice but this was a tad too soft.

Sweet corn 🌽 — As always, the corn tempura had a great crunch. I love the texture of the light, super crispy batter and how well it held up against the corn.

Eggplant 🍆 — Melt-in-the-mouth good! 👍🏻👍🏻 One of the best item so far…

Pike conger — The pike conger from Nagano Prefecture (長野縣) came topped by a homemade sauce made with okra and plum.

The conger fish itself wasn’t bad but slightly minty and herby sauce was an interesting match.

Ayu — These sweet fish were almost too cute to eat. Of course, there were way too many tiny bones for me, but the preparation was still spot-on.

Baby sardine — Some of us who were counting were surprised to learn this was already our fourth fish dish — and we were only halfway through! To be brutally honest, I didn’t like this item at all. The center of the deep-fried baby sardine ball was just way too raw for me. Even with soy and ginger, it didn’t manage to take away the fishy smell.

Seaweed — I thought we were going to have seaweed tempura, but when the chef asked if we liked sea urchin from Hokkaido, our eyes lit up. This was wonderfully delicious, though I bet it would be even more elevated with a little shiso leaf.

Potato 🥔 — Like the one I had at Tempura Tenon, this took about an hour to cook but yet it stayed wonderfully sweet and satisfying.

Abalone (2,500 yen) — Our only add-on item. The abalone was extremely tender and juicy. 

Enjoying it without a flavorful sauce (abalone liver sauce?) was actually a nice change.

Sea eel — Always a treat for the texture.

Sweet potato 🍠 — Another really nice dish. Very very sweet and just perfectly soft (almost powdery in the middle).

Our rice course was next.

Ochazuke (茶漬け) — We didn't have a choice tonight and there would be no tendon (天丼). Just green tea over rice.

Red miso soup

And a cup of green tea to help with our digestion and we all needed that after the big meal.

Dessert was fresh mango from Taiwan, served with an exotic sauce made with passion fruit. 

This was the first of a trio of big meals planned for this trip. Personally, I enjoyed it immensely even if the pacing was a little rushed (less than an hour from the first to the last item). There were definitely standout hits: the shrimp, eggplant, abalone, and sweet potato. But at the same time, I thought there were just too many fish dishes. Some of us joked that we didn’t want to see another fish course in the next couple of days. I have to say, I tended to agree.

Food Rating: 6.7/10

Price: ￥￥￥￥

Address: 3/F 2-1-2 Nibancho, Matsuyama, Ehime, 790-0002, Japan

Closest Tram Station: Okaido

Tel: +81 (0)89-9393-7785

Website: https://www.hotpepper.jp/strJ003872915/

Opening Hours: 5:30pm - 12:00am daily

SUMIKA 炭火 at OND Hotel (Takeo, JAPAN) ★★★☆☆

We decided to keep things simple by dining at the hotel tonight. Located on the ground floor of OND Hotel, SUMIKA (炭火) specializes in sumiyaki (炭火焼), a traditional cooking technique that utilizes charcoal especially binchotan (備長炭) to create unique smoky notes in the charred dishes.

Instead of sitting at the bar, we were given a table at the corner (perhaps because of little nugget) to enjoy our meal.

Dinner started off with a small nibble, a Japanese rice cracker topped with pickled onion and mackerel. Unfortunately, the cracker was a little too hard for my liking.

Our first starter tonight was lightly cooked fatty tuna served with burdock tempura and burdock slaw, nicely complemented by a sauce that tasted very much like balsamic vinegar. Not bad. 

Next up, pan-fried foie gras, perfectly paired with Jerusalem artichoke chips and artichoke purée. It was incredibly succulent, although the portion could have been a little more generous.

Beef and shiitake mushrooms wrapped in layers of cabbage, were all tied together nicely with a flavorful vegetable gravy.

While I thought the beef could have been a touch more tender, the savory sauce made it a pretty solid dish.

The fish course was beautifully cooked herb-crusted Genkai yellowtail fish, paired with a zesty yuzu butter sauce. The buttery sauce and turnip did well to add wonderful textures to the dish.

And the moment we were all eagerly anticipating, the meat course — a duo of beef and duck from Saga. 

True to its reputation, the wagyu was perfectly chargrilled, brimming with deep flavors and a melt-in-your-mouth texture. The grilled duck, stuffed with chopped liver, was slightly less impressive. In particular, I thought the flesh and skin could have benefited from a bit more char for a crispier finish.

A small pasta dish rounded out the savory portion of the meal. The penne pasta topped with bok choy, was unfortunately a little under-seasoned. 🥬

Dessert was matcha panna cotta and dried persimmon ice-cream that was creamy enough but tasted more like sweet potato to some of us. 🍠 

Well, it was a meal with its hits and misses but at the end of the day, who cares as long as we got to enjoy a cozy Christmas Eve dinner right in the comfort of our hotel!

Food Rating: 6.4/10

Price: ￥￥￥￥

Address: 18091 Nagashima, Takeocho Oaza Takeo, Takeo, Saga, 843-0021, Japan

Tel: +81 (0)954-27-8588

Website: https://www.ondhotel.jp/eat/

Opening Hours: 5:30pm - 9:45pm daily

Restaurant Sola (Fukuoka, JAPAN) ★★★★☆

Restaurant Sola is a highly rated French-Japanese fusion restaurant in Bayside Place Hakata, right next to Fukuoka Tower. The restaurant is helmed by owner-chef Hiroki Yoshitake, who is celebrated for his innovative approach to contemporary French cuisine utilizing Japanese produce.

In 2010, Chef Yoshitake co-founded the original Restaurant Sola in Paris and earned his first Michelin star just 15 months after opening.

When we arrived, we were immediately escorted to the deepest part of the dining room.

I would’ve loved to sit at the counter table to get a close look at the chefs working behind the scenes. 

But with this guy around, it was virtually impossible to enjoy a meal here without disturbing other guests (thus the table furthest away from everyone). 

Restaurant Sola serves only one omakase menu per night. Before we had a chance to take in the restaurant’s surroundings, a beautiful set of amuse-bouches was already set in front of us.

Turnip — (Poached?) Turnip with water squid noodles. Crunchy with clean, bright flavors. Delicious!

Jerusalem artichoke — Jerusalem artichoke espuma with oxtail ragout.

Butternut — butternut squash cream tart with shaved parmesan cheese.

Salmon caviar — Ikura stick with delicate avocado cream finished off with a yuzu dressing.

Salmon — A further amuse bouche of smoked salmon and celery root tart was next. This was

smoked with cherry blossom so the flavors were unsurprisingly fragrant and beautifully smoky.

Yellowtail — Thin slices of slightly cooked yellowtail fillet, decorated with yam (山藥), radish vines, tonburi, and perilla flowers on top. The textures were exciting and well balanced, highlighted by the crunch from the yam alongside the buttery richness of the fish.

We were offered a slice of pumpkin foccacia, with ricotta cheese spread and olive oil served on the side. The foccacia wasn't bad but I thought the ricotta cheese did very little to elevate the flavors of the bread.

Shrimp — A chilled mix of Japanese shrimp, king crab meat and squid, nicely topped with a cloud of seafood consommé jelly flavored with saffron. I thought there was a hint of shiso in play as well.

This was an amazing dish though I couldn’t help thinking that if the seafood were served warm, the contrast in temperature with the ice-cold consommé jelly might have been even more striking.

Scallop — A perfectly seared Hokkaido scallop rests on a velvety potato cream, accompanied by earthy mushrooms and a rich scallop jus, then elegantly crowned with premium French Ossetra caviar. A masterfully balanced symphony of deep umami flavors.

Conger eel — Deep-fried conger eel stuffed with smoked foie gras, with small broccolini on the side. 

There was a hint of ginger for some extra heat, building on the numbing sensation of sancho pepper.

Puffer fish — It was an omakase menu so obviously, we didn't see this coming. What really stood out for me was that it featured two ingredients I generally don’t like: blowfish (河豚) and shirako (白子).

The pan-seared puffer fish was served on a bed of shirako and white onion purée, finished with brown butter sauce and buttery spinach. Despite not being a fan of either component, I thought the puffer fillet was executed reasonably well. Its aromatic finish came through clearly in both aroma and taste. The shirako was less fishy than I expected thanks to the white onion, but it was still a little too rich for the balancing act with the puffer fish.

Beef — The charcoal-grilled Kagoshima brown rice beef (玄米黑牛) was nicely complemented by the sweetness of lily bulb, savory bamboo shoots, subtle spiciness of the egg yolk mustard sauce. My only complaint was the sweet-and-sour sabayon sauce that didn’t match well with the beef.

Pear — Our pre-dessert was pear panna cotta, fresh pear cubes, lemon jelly and verbena sorbet served in a delicate pear soup. Wonderfully refreshing and great as a palate cleanser.

Chestnut — A scoop of milk ice-cream resting on multiple layers of chestnut cream and fresh persimmon compote, separated by coffee tuile.

I was expecting something lighter and refreshing, but it ended up being a bit heavier. 

Some cookies as our lone migrandises tonight but we were stuffed at this point anyways. That was an incredible amount of food in just two hours especially with me having to take the extra beef from mom and little nugget.

The driving part of our trip starts early tomorrow morning so we quickly settled the bill and headed back to the hotel to get our packing done. It was raining a bit, so I wasn’t able to take a photo with Fukuoka Tower before leaving Bayside Place Hakata.

I could clearly see Chef Yoshitake’s talent and creativity in every course tonight. It’s too bad Fukuoka still hasn’t received its Michelin Guide listing yet — otherwise, Restaurant Sola would have a strong chance of earning an easy spot on the list.

Food Rating: 7.6/10

Price: ￥￥￥￥

Address: C-bld-2F, Bayside Place Hakata, 13-6, Chikko-honmachi, Hakata-ku, Fukuoka, 812-0021 Japan

Tel: +81 (0)92-409-0830

Website: https://sola-factory.com/

Opening Hours: 12:00pm - 3:00pm (Sat), 6:00pm - 10:00pm (Mon - Sat)