JPN: Nihonbashi Karari (日本橋 からり)
Crispy, airy tempura cooked before your eyes!
Prawn, white fish, squid, eggplant, pumpkin, green pepper and maitake mushrooms (known as hen-of-the-wood mushrooms in English) were deep-fried to golden-brown perfection. They were all fresh, covered in light, airy and crispy batter without being overly greasy. The seafood items were sweet, while the mushroom retained their flavour and texture despite being deep-fried. Everything went well with the sauce which was tasty with the right degree of sweetness and saltiness.
Service: 8/10
Overall: 8/10
AEON Mall is one of the leading shopping malls in Japan. One of them is located at Narita city near the airport. While wandering inside, I chanced upon a tempura (Japanese battered and deep-fried assortments) restaurant where customers can directly see how the dishes are being made while waiting for their orders to come. Since there isn't any English menu available, I'll directly translate the name of the dishes I tried as usual.
Karari Tempura Set ¥1,200 (~S$14.90)
Taste: 8.5/10
The actual name of the set is からり膳. Each set includes a variety of tempura with dipping sauce, miso (Japanese fermented rice, barley and/or soybean) soup Japanese rice and green tea. The miso soup was truly robust with quite a generous amount of shimeji mushrooms and a kind of legume. Let's look closer at the variety of tempura.
Prawn and Seasonal Vegetable Tempura Set ¥1,380 (~S$17.15)
Taste: 8.5/10
The actual name of the set is 海老と季節の野菜膳. Let's look at some of the seasonal vegetables in offer.
Apart from the prawns and eggplant which were similar to the ones in the set above, there were snow pea, bamboo shoot, burdock and onion. I have to mention that the onion was lusciously sweet, while the burdock had a very mild pungent flavour and was interestingly fibrous and crunchy.
Ice Cream with Dumplings, Fruits and Red Bean Paste ¥280 (~S$3.50)
Taste: 8/10
The actual name of the dessert is 白玉クリームあんみつ. While the red bean paste was a tad too sweet for my liking, the sweetness was somehow moderated by the slightly acidic peach and orange slices. The rice flour dumplings were enjoyably chewy, and they went really well with the vanilla ice cream.
Melon's Rating
Taste: 8.5/10
Ambience: 8/10Service: 8/10
Overall: 8/10
Pika's advice: The restaurant is having a daily promotion from 11.00am to 3.00pm when the price of ¥200 (~S$2.50) drinks is slashed by half!
Nihonbashi Karari
(日本橋 からり)
24 Wing-Tsuchiya
1/F AEON Mall
Narita, Chiba
Japan
(Daily: 11.00am - 10.00pm)
*Prices quoted are nett prices.
Have a nice meal,
Cliff(y)
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