Tsuruya Japanese Restaurant, I-Avenue, Penang

Tsuruya have opened their doors to jap food fan for a while now and this was my second visit there. They have also opened a new outlet at Penang Time Square around a month back and it seems to be connected to Ajinoren in Prima Tanjung as the menu kind of offer the same identical dishes and set meals!

Anyways, upon entering the outlet, well, it does not have the typical Japanese kinda feel, as the interior has a hint of Zen, Balinese, slight Middle Eastern and Japanese. Well, it’s somehow unique at it’s own way and in fact pretty cozy and has a nice touch. Problem is the air cond is not very cold in there. It was scorching hot outside, and the huge window pane without any curtain allows the sunlight to shine in directly.

And the tatami area we chose has got a faulty aircond.. :( Anyhow, they have quite large selections of set meals and ala carte, so you’ll be spoilt with choices and suffer headache trying to decide what to go with, cause you will want them all… :P

Nice lamp…

Each tatami dining area is separated by these “stringy” curtain dividers

They have bookshelf of comic books too….

Nice interior with mixture of everything… great ambiance..

Table setting….

Gyoza/Chashu Udon Set @ MYR20.00. You can opt to have ramen too… Set comes with the udon in flavoursome soup with some hint of spiciness and has got vegetables (Chinese cabbage) and ebi (prawn) tempura. Sides are 3 pieces of gyoza, salad and watermelon slice. We liked it!

Bento B @ MYR48.00, which I can’t remember the name. It comes with a piece of grilled unagi, which I personally think will taste better with more sauce… accompanied by tempura vegetable and prawns, fresh salmon slices (which is quite thick… I personally prefer thinner slices), miso soup, salad and also watermelon slice.

We also ordered Tsuruya Special Maki @ MYR18.00, with ebi tempura, unagi and cucumber rolled in sushi rice and nori (seaweed) sheet, and coated with fish roe. It was good, but we could not finish it. Our set meals portion was pretty huge….

During my first visit, we actually has few other set meals that are recommendable, like the chicken teriyaki set, the unagi bento set etc… just too bad that I totally forgot my camera that day!

Anyways, worth to make a visit once in a while… I would not say it’s rather cheap, no, but reasonably priced… and the food quality wise and the atmosphere are the main draws for customers to go back. And well, have the aircond fixed please, it’s not nice enjoying a great meal feeling stuffy and have the urge to go back to the office to enjoy the aircond :D

The restaurant it just few doors away from JPJ. And I thought it’s Bukit Jambul, but the address states Relau though.. but well, it’s easy to find..

Tsuruya Japanese Restaurant 鹤屋日本料理
1-1-38/39, I Avenue Medan KPG Relau 1,
Relau, 11900 Bayan Lepas,
Penang.
Contact ☎ 04-641 0828