Rarely am I in the deep south of the city, but a birthday celebration brought us out to Izakaya Tenkuu, a small and intimate Japanese restaurant in Ellerslie. Tenkuu also has locations in Leduc and Wetaskiwin.
The restaurant is a bit hidden, nestled in a strip mall facing inside from the main road. There's a fair number of restaurants within this plaza, including Korean, Chinese, Indian, pizza, and bubble tea.
Walking in, the restaurant is quite small, the focal point being an L-shaped bar where you can watch chefs preparing sushi or grilling on the teppan. I would say they were short-staffed on this particular day since there was only one server for the entire restaurant. He also seemed to be multitasking between kitchen and front of house duties.
We were seated in the corner of the restaurant, which got pretty cramped when other tables filled up. At the end of our meal, our server couldn't even reach our table since chairs were blocking the path. It was a very awkward scoot trying to leave the restaurant without bumping into other patrons.
Despite some hiccups at the end, our food came out pretty fast considering. The first item to arrive was the prawn tempura ($12.45). One order comes with six pieces and although it didn't look like anything special, the tempura was really good. Hot, light, tender, and crispy.
Our next appetizer was ika ($16.45), a whole BBQ squid. Whenever I see grilled squid on a menu, I have to order it. We enjoyed the chewy (but not too chewy) squid, with just a kiss of char from the grill. My only complaint was that it needed just a little more sauce to amp up the flavour.
We also got the deluxe sashimi ($50.45) which comes with 18 pieces of fish. On our platter, we got salmon, tuna, bluefin tuna, red tuna, and hamachi. The sashimi is generously portioned with super thick slices. The fish was fresh and buttery, but I did wish there was a bit more variety than the 3 different types of tuna.
Onto the rolls! We ordered a bunch because the variety of rolls was extensive. They're split into raw and fully cooked categories which is a smart way to help customers decide what to order.
Our first roll was the chop chop extravaganza ($18.45). This had double prawn tempura with crab meat inside, topped with chopped scallop, tobiko, and a wasabi mayo drizzle. You definitely get a little kick from the wasabi mayo.
The dragon roll ($16.45) is an example of a fully cooked roll, with double prawn tempura and yam tempura, topped with BBQ eel and BBQ sauce. Well-constructed, solid.
The salmon inferno roll ($16.45) was an avocado, salmon, and cucumber roll, topped with aburi (torched) salmon, BBQ sauce, spicy mayo, and tempura crumbs. This roll could've used a little more sear from the blowtorch, but it was pretty good overall.
Our last item was the dragon eyes roll ($13.45), an extra large salmon maki that is coated in tempura batter, deep fried and topped with a drizzle of spicy mayo and BBQ sauce. This was pretty good with a generous portion of salmon inside.
If you're in the deep south, Izakaya Tenkuu is a pretty good option for Japanese food. I would just rethink the table arrangements a bit.
Izakaya Tenkuu
2980 Ellwood Dr SW Unit 20
Edmonton, AB
(780) 334-1700
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