New form of luxurious poverty arrives at Japanese convenience stores with Tenkasu Gohan

Lawson tempts us with rice topped not with tempura shrimp, but tempura nothing.

With prices for just about everything continuing to rise in Japan, putting together a “one-coin” lunch, i.e. a lunch that costs 500 yen (US$3.40) or less (500 yen being Japan’s largest denomination of coin), at a convenience store is getting harder and harder to do. Sure enough, on our recent trip to a branch of the Lawson chain, the fried chicken bento boxed lunch that caught our eye was 599 yen…but next to it was a much lower-priced option.

Lawson’s Tenkasu Gohan is priced at just 297 yen. Not only is that cheaper than their other bento and rice bowls, it’s no more expensive than some of their premium onigiri rice balls.

So just what’s in the Tenkasu Gohan? Rice, naturally, as that’s what the Japanese word gohan means. Similarly straightforward, the rice is topped with tankasu…or tempura flakes.

Note that we said “tempura flakes” and not “tempura.” That’s because while the word tempura is often used as a catch-all for Japan’s various deep-fried fritters of seafood, chicken, and assorted vegetables, tenkasu is strictly bits of fried batter, with no fancy filling inside. As a matter of fact, tenkasu literally translates to “tempura dregs” or “tempura trash,” as it’s essentially the same as the incidentally formed flakes that get fried when intentionally making tempura shrimp, tempura sweet potatoes, and so on.

That doesn’t mean that tenkasu isn’t loved, though. It shows up most commonly at noodle restaurants, where it’s sprinkled across the top of a bowl of hot soba or udon for one of the least expensive menu items. You don’t usually see tenkasu on rice, though, but then again you also don’t usually see this much of it all in one serving.

Honestly, looking at the Tenkasu Gohan left us with a complex swirl of emotions, in that it’s a luxuriously large portion of a very cheap ingredient. It certainly looked enticing, though, beckoning us not only with its promise of satisfying starchiness but also the scent of the sweet sauce poured over tempura bowls and the dash of aonori (powdered seaweed) that Lawson seasons the Tenkasu Gohan with.

We took our first bite, and quickly discovered that it tasted just as we’d expected, and hoped, that it would. Though regular tempura rice bowls aren’t purposely sprinkled with tenkasu, inevitably some of the batter ends up flaking off the tempura pieces, and the sauce poured over them trickles down to the rice below as well. For more than a few diners, the mixture of rice, sauce, and tenkasu that makes up the last mouthful of their tempura bowl eating session is one of the most enjoyable parts of the experience, and Lawson’s Tenkasu Gohan cuts to the chase and gives you that sensation the whole way through, rather than saving it for just the tail-end of the meal.

That said, we can’t ignore the fact that this is, ultimately, a rice bowl without the traditional toppings of protein and/or vegetables, like you’d get with a tempura bowl, beef bowl, or pork cutlet bowl. As such, it’s a little hard to escape the feeling that something is missing, and you might feel a certain sense of emptiness if this is the sole component of your meal.

▼ Maybe it would help if Lawson renamed it “Tanuki Gohan,” since tanuki soba/udon is what noodles topped with tempura flakes are called.

Still, judged solely on the question of how it tastes, we came away very happy with the Tenkasu Gohan, and even if we’re not quite sure we’d say this is a case where less is more, what it is is enough to satisfy your cravings if you’re after that end-of-tempura bowl deliciousness.

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