On the way home from watching a recital downtown, mother deer decided that she didn’t feel like cooking dinner so she asked lil’ bun if she wanted some sushi. We were debating where to go, and went with Tentatsu on Nanaimo because we haven’t paid this place a visit in a while.
Tentatsu menu
Usually, we come to Tentatsu when we feel like having their inexpensive lunch and dinner combos. The menu at Tentatsu is affordable and portions are just as hefty but the service can be hit and miss
Appetizer
To start we got an order of one of their combos which came with a salad and an ebi sunomono. They weren’t anything special, just your typical vinegary noodles and salad with sesame carrot ginger dressing
Dynamite roll
The dynamite roll and beef udon was part of the lunch combo. All this food for $9? Talk about a steal! The dynamite roll was okay. It would have been better if the tempura was crispy but we get what we pay for.
Beef udon
The udon had seaweed, naruto, and nappa cabbage. There wasn’t much flavor to the broth besides a hint of bonito.
Heart roll
We decided to give this a try because we wanted to see how their special rolls fared. This roll was wrapped with pink soy bean paper in lieu of seaweed and stuffed with salmon tempura, avocado, cucumber, and masago. It reminded us of a cooked version of an alaska roll. We’re not huge fans of cooked salmon in sushi to begin with so we were apprehensive but it turned out to be pretty tasty.
B + C combo
We chose to get it with a chopped scallop roll and spicy salmon sashimi. We were not impressed with the chopped scallop roll. There was way too much rice around the all too little pieces of scallop. I ended up having to eat all the sashimi because it was too spicy for everyone else to eat because they were heavy handed on the sauce. I thought the sauce on it tasted like a mix between siracha, chiles, and hoisin sweet sauce.
The pieces of salmon weren’t bad, although the taste of the salmon got lost in the sauce. There were also cubes of cucumbers in the mix too to add some crisp freshness. Even though we weren’t impressed with the roll, the amount of sashimi present on the dish made up for it.
Victoria roll
A vegetarian roll with yam tempura, cucumber, and avocado with wakame seaweed on top. As with the chopped scallop, there was way too much rice in the roll and it was lacking in the yam as well. I enjoyed the wakame seaweed on top, it was a nice touch.
Bento box
We ordered this bento box which came with chicken terriyaki, shrimp + vegetable tempura, california roll, udon, miso soup, and ebi sunomono. The terriyaki had lots of flavor and the chicken wasn’t try either. Lil’ bun and brother deer devoured the tempura before I could get my hands on any. So, it was probably crispy fried and delicious.
Assorted combo
Then to round off our meal, we decided to get an assorted combo so we could have a bit of everything. It came with assorted sashimi, nigiri, and california rolls. Nothing really stood out besides the giant portions of rice that lay hidden under the generous pieces of mediocre quality seafood.
Salmon sashimi
And as if we didn’t have enough assorted sashimi already, we ordered a full portion of it! The salmon didn’t really taste like anything which means it’s not fresh but at least portions were big?
