Toyotsune Beppu Station お食事処 とよ常 別府駅前店 (Beppu, JAPAN) ★★★☆☆

Everyone was feeling a little down today knowing that we will be leaving Fukuoka early tomorrow afternoon. But we all agreed to just enjoy the rest of our time in Beppu together and not (over-)think too much about our impending departure.

I have nothing planned for tonight’s dinner (nor have any ideas). Just when we started driving towards the heart of Beppu’s town centre, I started asking little nugget what he wanted for dinner. I gave him two options, tempura or sushi. and not surprisingly, he chose the former over latter as his eyes began to glow thinking about those golden colored deep-fried shrimps!

It was then that I started looking up Google Map for a tempura restaurant in Beppu and finally pulled this one, Toyotsune Beppu Station Branch (お食事処 とよ常 別府駅前店) out of the hat.

Just a stone’s throw from Beppu Station, Toyotsune is a neighborhood tempura bar doubling as a Japanese izakaya.

Sashimi platter – The purple colored tuna was pretty nice and sweet without much tendon. Not bad. I thought even better were the octopus with some nice natural sweetness and sea water flavors. The sea bream was okay.

Tempura set – This was what we came here for. Check that, this was what little one picked tempura for, his beloved shrimp tempura.

Appetizers – We were first started off with an array of small bites highlighted by the marinated tuna.

I thought the way they made their shrimp tempura was kind of interesting. It’s almost like a deep-fried wonton (錦鹵雲吞??) raviolo style. 

Seasonal vegetables from Fukuoka were always one of the favorite and they certainly didn’t disappoint. The pumpkin and eggplant easily stood out.

After dinner, we got our car from the garage and drove to the supermarket one last time to stock up with snacks for the remainder of July and early August, with Jelloman reminding me that we will be in Japan again sometime in late August. Yeah, that’s right. Another trip to Japan. Everyone’s thrilled.

Earlier the day, we visited Kijima Kogen Park (城島高原パーク), the storied theme park with Japan's wooden roller coaster. But lightning struck (literally) and there was some serious power outage going on in the park resulting in many rides being suspended. We ended up visiting just one or two sites in the process. Little nugget was happy that at least he got to see his favorite insects.

 

Food Rating: 5.5/10
Price: ￥￥￥
Address: 1/F Beppu Ekimae Building, 5-30 Ekimae Honmachi, Beppu, Oita, 874-0934 Japan
Tel: +81 (0)977-23-7487

Closest Train Station: Beppu
Website: www.toyotsune.com
Opening Hours: 11:00am - 2:00pm, 5:00pm - 9:00pm (Fri - Wed)