A 29-year-old office worker’s story about being scolded by a fellow regular customer — “That’s rude to the restaurant” — after dipping her tempura shrimp in tentsuyu sauce at the counter of an upscale tempura restaurant was published in FORZA STYLE’s serial column “Women’s Case Files,” and picked up by a thread on 5ch’s News Express+ board. The article wraps up with the shop owner ultimately saying, “It’s fine for customers to eat however they like.” On the thread, alongside the classic debate over whether tempura should be eaten with salt or tentsuyu, much of the pushback targeted the article itself — the “sounds made-up” quality typical of these first-person essays, and skepticism that a course under 10,000 yen counts as “upscale.”
“Eating shrimp tempura with tentsuyu sauce is rude to the restaurant” — At an upscale tempura restaurant’s counter, a regular customer turns into a “manners police.” What did the 29-year-old office worker do first? [Expert Advice] | FORZA STYLE
2026.9.8
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Source: forzastyle.com / Original article here
90% fabricated (this reads like a made-up story).
This is probably fiction, but there really are boomers (老害, "geezer menace") out there who'd actually say this lol
Also — "I was relieved the course was just under 10,000 yen"? And that's supposed to be an upscale restaurant??
Whoever wrote this has a warped idea of what "upscale" means lol
It's basically a hangout for gangsters — mob food (´・ω・`)
I mean, it's more expensive than Tenya! (a cheap tempura chain)
Probably somewhere like Tsunahachi
Eating face-down like a dog is normal now, and cupping your hand under food has somehow become "proper etiquette" — even foreigners are copying it.
Just eat however you want at this point.
Even going to the original article, I couldn't figure out where the rest of the story was
It's hard to notice because the continuation is listed under "Related Articles."
https://forzastyle.com/articles/-/79573
Not just tempura — for yakiniku, yakitori, etc., sauce-based condiments (tentsuyu for tempura) are overwhelmingly tastier.
Lately some people eat tonkatsu with salt, but tonkatsu should be tonkatsu sauce with mayo, or grated daikon with ponzu.
And vinegar-pepper dip for gyoza makes no sense to me.
Depends on the restaurant.
Pushing sauce even at a place where the sauce is bad means you've got a dull palate
Exactly.
They should've just said, "That's way too creepy, you're banned from now on"
It's actually really good. Salt is for suckers
It's generally considered unorthodox, but "sauce plus mayo" is actually pretty great
This explains why Osaka's food reputation keeps dropping.
Their taste buds are just broken at this point lol.
Go eat some kushikatsu in Shinsekai and call it a day
Sushi, tempura — this was street-stall food. People act way too precious about it now
Next thing you know they'll escalate to putting ketchup on it
Spoken like a true connoisseur lol
It's fine as long as you just mutter it to yourself
It almost never misses.
When in doubt, mayo it.
I hear mayo is great on sashimi too.
Whoever invented mayonnaise is a genius — Nobel Prize material
Since when is this print media?
If she'd brought her own bottle of tentsuyu from home and poured it on the tempura at an upscale shop, sure, that'd be different.
But if the upscale shop itself serves salt and tentsuyu alongside the tempura, then how the customer eats it is entirely their own business
"This place's dipping sauce is terrible, did an amateur make it?"
I want to FIRE and build up enough investment income that I can eat tonkatsu whenever I want
Background and Talking Points
There’s no single “correct” way to eat tempura — whether you use salt (or matcha salt) or tentsuyu really comes down to the restaurant’s style, regional custom, and personal preference, and even this article ultimately resolves with the shop owner saying “it’s fine for customers to eat however they like.” Despite that, the story caught on because first-person, drama-style web articles — like FORZA STYLE’s “Women’s Case Files” — have long been viewed with suspicion on 5ch as “too polished to be a real personal account,” i.e., made up. Much of the thread’s energy went not toward the manners debate itself but toward criticizing the article’s construction — the oddity of calling a course under 10,000 yen “upscale,” or how hard it was to find the link to the continuation. Readers are probably better served taking in the thread’s skepticism toward the article’s framing, rather than taking the “manners police” headline at face value.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Express+) thread ““Rude to the restaurant to eat shrimp with tentsuyu” — At an upscale tempura restaurant’s counter, a regular customer turns into a manners police. What did the 29-year-old office worker do first.”
