Tempura Ichidai

We really enjoyed Tempura Ichidai. They were having a soft opening so I expect them to work out their opening glitches (some confusion and a little slow getting our food). However, the tempura was delicious and hot, since it’s basically coming out of the fryer and onto your plate. It’s served to you as its prepared. I like the bar style because it’s easy to catch the attention of the wait staff. The average price for a set lunch was around $ 20…not bad for the quantity! I loved the kale tempura! One item of note – the deep fried smell did waft through the entire restaurant since the fryers are in front of you so you leave smelling like tempura.

Tasty but service needs improvement. They don’t have a sign in sheet so yoy are left to wonder if they are going to remember who came in first. They also don’t communicate when you will be seated or more importantly why awe are not being seated when there are 10 spots open. We were pleasantly surprised when they sat us at a booth as we had our toddler with us. I also didn’t feel confident about if they knew what was remaining to be served on our order so I had to ask. Not a great feeling.

I understand this is a new Tempura place on Oahu, but they need to be more efficient. Do not eat at this place if you are in a HURRY…
We came in when half the place was open and waited for about 10 minutes to be seated, after being seated we ordered sake for the tempura, well that was a mistake.
After 15 minutes of waiting we ask the server to put our sake back in the fridge and order beer in the time. We arrived around 5:15 and didn’t get our tempura until 6:07pm
I highly recommend everyone to wait until they figure it out. Very unorganized.

Ala Moana Center has been evolving from being just a shopping center that focuses on apparel and accessories to a «gathering place» with community driven events. Even the food court (Makai Food Court) has developed into a mini-​dining wonderland. However, the latest mall addition or Ewa Wing has brought newer and more interesting restaurants such as Magnolia Bakery, Ninja Sushi, Café Lani and Tempura Ichidai, a tempura bar. Wow! A TEMPURA bar?! Well, it’ll be a good balance to the other sushi bars in the area.
Tempura Ichidai is the latest restaurant addition from Japan’s restaurant chain, Pierthirty USA, in Hawai’i. It’s located in the new Ewa Wing of Ala Moana Shopping Center up on the 3^rd Floor, facing the mountainside parking structure. The restaurant is sleek, has warm wood furnishings mixed with tile and stainless steel. Right at the entrance, its huge wooden doors welcome you into a slice of Japanese cuisine and culture.
Our dine took place at around 1:00 PM, so it was just after the «usual» lunch rush. The restaurant was relatively empty but maybe it was because Tempura Ichidai has opened for business only a couple of days ago and people haven’t really discovered it, YET. We were immediately greeted by the host, who I recognized from Café Lani, and were seated at one of the tempura bars. Within a few minutes, a soft spoken server with tablet came by to take our beverage order (2 Asahi Draft) while we browsed the menu.
The menu is divided into several sections and includes quite artfully displayed food photographs. You can choose from Teishoku (set menu), Tokusen (special or select) Course and Donburi (rice bowl) menu selections. At first glance, when looking at the menu, you might say it’s expensive. But, rest assured, your experience will change your mind.
We chose the chicken Teishoku ($ 16) and Ichidai Teishoku ($ 19). Included with the Teishoku is tsukemono, 2 appetizers, a bowl of steaming hot miso soup, polished white rice and dipping sauce. From our seats, we could watch the tempura being made and noticed that the ventilation in this restaurant was very good. There was no noticeable smell of frying food and the temperature within the restaurant remained cool. IMPORTANT NOTE: The tempura is served in phases to avoid overcrowding on your plate and allow you time to savor each perfectly battered and fried piece. I don’t know how they did it, but, even though the chicken meat was cut from the breast, the meat was juicy, flavorful and not greasy. The fried batter was light and crisp and held up well to the dipping sauce. Our plates were «refilled» twice with fresh, hot tempura from our set.
Our server brought us a pair of «house» salts — Wasabi and Alaea. A little sprinkle atop the piping hot tempura pieces wasn’t necessary but, the additional seasoning did further enhance the flavors.
At the end of our meal, we decided upon the banana tempura with azuki beans. The banana slices were sweet, good textured (not mushy from frying) and again, a testament to the tempura batter and oil temperature. The azuki beans made a good counterpoint to the sweetness of the banana. This dessert had its own natural sweetness and wasn’t overwhelming at all.
Our server served us hot tea to clear any oil from our palates. Even with all of the fried food that we ate, we didn’t feel as if we’d reach a food coma. Better get yourself down here quickly to feast on one of the BEST tempura you’ve ever tasted in Hawai’i. We can see the popularity of this restaurant rising.
Tempura Ichidai… Welcome to Ala Moana Center and O’ahu!
#526

From the other reviews and seeing what the other diners were eating, Tempura Ichidai looks like it could be a great place to eat with fantastic food. However, I am not sure if it was because the pro-​bowl this weekend, but for what this place wants to accomplish, it cannot with its current resources. I had passed by this place before during off-​peak hours and it looked really exclusive with lovely décor. I managed to grab a seat at around 5:50pm, a small queue had already started to form because, for what I assume were staffing reasons, half of the restaurant’s seating area was blocked off. Then the dinner rush came 10 minutes later and people started stacking up. After a point, the hostess had to decline taking in anymore tables, despite about 8 bar slots total being open behind (5) and in front (3) of me, with the previously blocked off area finally being used for seating. I got to observe all of this because I had placed my order at the time I was seated, I had to leave around 6:30pm for an appointment, and my order either had been buried under the queue of orders or forgotten about. At least that’s the feeling I got after I hailed a server and asked about it. They were very apologetic and nice. I like what this place wants to do, to serve good food, with great service to justify the price that they are asking for. But there are only roughly 30 bar seats in the place, with about 3 party of 4 tables on either side. That is about 50 seats for sit-​down, enjoy-​your-​experience pace. There were only what looked like 2 servers +1 hostess/​server, and about 4 cooks from what I could see. They need more staff and should’ve have made more efficient seating arrangements in order to handle themselves when they become popular (like on a Friday night). I’ll come again some other time, maybe I’ll get to have more than a single cup of tea.

Went back for the chicken teishoku set and it was very good. They serve two pieces of chicken, pumpkin, eggplant, and then two furikake chicken tempura and I was full. Also had the sukui tofu and the Ichidai sashimi which is tataki ahi and salmon (I think) in ponzu sauce. The sauces for the tobu and sashimi are really tasty and full of umami.
The Otokoyama sake as well as the Asahi Draft were great accompaniments. It is starting to fill up at dinner time but no reservations. Service is great and the tempura comes out rather quick since you are being served piping hot tempura.

My first experience here at Tempura Ichidai was a very awesome one! From getting checked in, to the waiting time, and getting seated for our meal was really awesome! It may have been a sorta slow night but it got kinda busy when we sat down to eat. Since it was our first time, we didn’t go to extravagant on the menu. Our server (i forgot her name! Oh crap!) Well anyways, she was very polite and very fast on taking our order. So we ordered the Ichidai Teishoku. It came with shrimp, chicken, fish and veggies. We also ordered kale tempura for the appetizer. And everything on our order came out super delicious! They even serve brown rice! Yaassss! I’m not really a kale person but i’ll eat tempura style. It was really good! They also had this wasabi salt thing that made the kale taste even better to me! Although it seemed like a little, it was just enough for me to feel full! All in all, We definitely will be back again! Outstanding Service, Tempura Ichidai! Thanks for a very awesome first experience!!! Mahalos!!!

There’s tons of places here that you can get tempura at. However I think this is the first actual place that specializes in tempura. Tempura is one of the fried things that I enjoy and to be honest has to be eaten out at restaurants. It’s really messy to make and not the same if you try at home honestly.
The owners are the same as Gokuku Sushi and Café Lani. It’s located on the third floor in the area wing of Ala Moana, on the mauka side (mountain side for those of you who were like me and always got confused with mauka and makai). The restaurant has big glass windows so you can see inside and they also have some menus outside if you want to look before venturing in. It’s bar seating in a U shape with a chef cooking area where you can watch your tempura get freshly made which is the ichidai style as they say in the menu. It’s not a large place, there’s two of these bar setups and the place seats maybe 30 people I would say. You will definitely smell like tempura when you leave but you won’t hear any oil frying or see oil splattering. Everyone was very nice and the service was very good.
So the menu is pretty simple. You can either get a teishoku set or a donburi. All of the teishoku sets come with white rice, miso soup, 2 small appetizers and pickles. You can also choose brown rice. The tempura will come out separately and in three different waves. This way all your tempura will be fresh. All of the donburi come with the same items as the teishoku however the tempura will come on top of the rice in a bowl instead of separately like the teishoku. They do have vegetarian options here and each option has different tempura so you get variety.
The prices range from $ 15-​$ 26. They also have an alcohol and dessert menu. It’s a bit pricey but very high quality ingredients. Also tax is included in the menu prices.
Overall it was very good. The rice was very good quality, although I will say Kimukatsu has some of the best rice I’ve had here. The appetizers were eggplant in a Shoyu sauce and some pickled daikon. It also came with some pickled cabbage and cucumbers. It was lightly pickled and was a nice complement for the tempura.
I got the ichidai teishoku ($ 19). It came with eggplant, kisu (sillago), heart of Palm, snapper, chicken, kabocha (pumpkin) and green bell pepper. This way I got to try a little of everything they offer.
So I got all the sides first and then the first round of tempura that came had the eggplant, kisu and shrimp tempura. The eggplant was good, it wasn’t soggy inside but still moist just like the kisu (which is fish). The shrimp was good, a little over cooked and dry but not by too much. The next round had the snapper, chicken and heart of Palm. The snapper was moist and I was pleasantly surprised that I enjoyed the chicken as well. It was a nice clean white piece of meat (no fat or cartilage) and still moist. And the heart of Palm was nice and crunchy. Lastly I got the kabocha and green bell pepper, both good and crunchy. I liked the tempura batter since it wasn’t heavy or tasted very greasy. And everything overall was fried well.
My dining partner got an anago donburi which had anago (salt water eel), eggplant, kabocha and green bell pepper on top of rice. I’m not a huge fan of anago but this anago was tender and moist.
The anago and chicken are definitely must-​trys here.
The portions are what I would have expected for a Japanese restaurant. When you walk in, you will feel like you’re in a restaurant in Japan.

Tempura Ichidai is the first tempura restaurant in Hawaii. You can enjoy either a Teishoku set or Donburi as your order. The unique thing here is that don’t bring everything out at one time. You get Tempura in courses, so that its fresh and crispy with every bite. Most of the seating is bar style seating where you watch the chefs cook your tempura. There are some tables here as well. The restaurant is located in the Ala Moana Ewa Wing on the 3^rd Level, Mauka side (facing parking garage). Warning: the Tempura comes out really hot! Enjoy!

FINALLY a true tempura restaurant in Hawaii! I’m so happy because tempura is so dangerous/​hambug to make at home. I’m going to leave it up to the professionals to cook me up my tempura. That way I can save myself from potentially putting my house on fire. The best part? It’s actually REALLY good tempura. The quality of the ingredient they use is good and they don’t over batter it. It’s nice and crispy… just the way I like it. Yum!
So, head on down and save yourself from cooking it at home! The hardest part? Finding it! LoL. It’s right above Jamba Juice on the third floor in the New Ewa Wing of Ala Moana!