Menya Mappen, Town Hall
When I first read about Mappen, I wasn’t interested in going. I like tempura, but I don’t love it. And this place seemed to be solely focused on tempura.
Months later and it’s a cold/rainy Friday night. Mobblees, Rehactor and I were meeting up for dinner and Mobblees loudly proclaimed that she felt like noodles. Well whatever Mobblees wants, Mobblees gets!
I suggested Mappen, a place that I vaguely knew was somewhere near the George St cinemas, where you could pick your own tempura buffet style. We agreed to check it out and trudged down George St, easily lead to the right building by the smell of deep fried batter wafting out onto the street.
There was a long line inside winding between the tables where diners sat with their noodles. A stern sign warns you to not mind seats until you have your food (which is valid enough since the seating is limited). Yessir!
After about a ten minute wait, it was our turn to order.
I ordered the ontama udon, which had little soup but a nice egg on top.
From the tempura buffet, I chose the giant kakiage, which claimed to have chicken and prawns but I neither see nor taste either of these. It was huge and I would recommend sharing this with someone rather than getting a whole one for yourself. I also chose a prawn tempura and a chicken tempura. The chicken tempura was delicious! It reminded me of a KFC crispy strip, and gave me some much needed protein that was missing from my kakiage…
The tempura cost about $2 or so each, and the meal in total came to about $11 or $12.
Next time, I would get the udon with more soup and add an egg, and some chicken tempura. Yum!
