Delicious tempura bowl chain we wish would come back to the Tokyo area is still alive in Kansai

Please come back, Santen. We miss you.

If you were to ask people in Kanto (east Japan) which restaurant chain comes to mind when they hear the words “tempura bowl,” most of them would say Tenya, but you’d probably get a different answer if you asked people who live in Kansai, the part of Japan centered around Osaka. That’s because Kansai has a chain that’s just as good, the amazing Santen!

The other day, our Japanese-language reporter P.K. Sanjun happened to be in Osaka. While he was there he decided to check out some of the local restaurant chains, and that’s when Santen caught his eye.

According to their official website, Santen has more than 30 branches in the Kansai area, with more than half of them in Osaka. If you want to be big in Kansai, you’ve got to be big in Osaka, after all.

At least as late as 2022, Santen also had a branch in Saitama, the prefecture just north of Tokyo. That branch is no longer listed on the company’s official site, though, so it’s safe to say that they really are a local Kansai chain.

The very first item listed on the menu is the standard 490-yen (US$3.35) ebi tendon (shrimp tempura bowl), but P.K. decided instead on the interestingly named Grand Slam Bowl for 890 yen, and added a bowl of miso soup with clams for an extra 200 yen.

The Grand Slam Bowl has a whopping 11 different types of tempura in it, earning it the distinction of Santen’s most famous menu item. It took about five minutes from ordering for the staff to prepare, and when they set it down before P.K., he was excited to see it so stuffed with pieces of tempura that he couldn’t even see the rice underneath them!

Taking stock, P.K. saw that he had pieces of shrimp, chicken, egg, aji (mackerel), chikuwa (fish sausage), kanikama (imitation crab), onion, lotus root, okra, eggplant, and kabocha (Japanese pumpkin), and they were all delicious! They weren’t tiny, either, with the shrimp and kanikama in particular being much bigger than P.K. had expected.

The tempura didn’t have the overly crispy texture of cheap tempura joints that over-fry their food. Instead, it had just the right balance of crispness at the surface but still with moist tenderness underneath, giving it an elegant, premium feel despite Santen’s casual restaurant atmosphere and affordable prices.

Oh, and the clam miso soup turned out to be excellent too, with P.K. completely satisfied with its flavor.

Really, the only thing about the meal that didn’t put a smile on P.K.’s face is knowing that Santen doesn’t currently have any restaurants in the Tokyo area, where SoraNews24 is based. If they ever do make it out here again, though, P.K. will be there to welcome them with open arms/mouth, but until then, he’ll have them in mind whenever he’s in Kansai and looking for something to eat.

Related: Santen location list
Photos ©SoraNews24
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