#150: TenTen

The Bar

TenTen. 506 W 6th St, Austin, TX 78701

Visited 1/31/20 @ 9:30pm.

The Drink

Yuzu picante. Tequila reposado, sake, yuzu, grilled pineapple, serrano. $13.

Now this is a great craft cocktail, named after its star ingredient. The citrus family never ceases to impress with its diversity. The yuzu is a Chinese (by way of Japan) variety of citrus that brings a much more noticeably tart and floral scent to a drink than the more familiar citrus varieties like lemon/lime/orange/etc, although there are enough ingredients that it doesn't overwhelm everything else (you can't really see the dried yuzu slice in the picture but it's there). I foolishly did not ask for the exact brand of tequila that they used, but according to this guide on how to replicate the drink that I found, they infused the tequila with pineapple as well as having additional pineapple flavoring, so it would make sense to just use any reposado ("mildly aged") tequila as a base. You probably wouldn't normally expect a tequila drink to be Japanese-themed, but in a world where Beam Suntory moves over a hundred thousand cases of tequila a year, anything's possible. This is TenTen's most famous cocktail and it deserves its renown.

On another note, that drink guide also describes the serrano as being included in the form of a "tincture", a word I always associated with Final Fantasy 6, but to my surprise is actually the correct word to use in this instance:

A tincture is typically an extract of plant or animal material dissolved in ethanol (ethyl alcohol). Solvent concentrations of 25–60% are common, but may run as high as 90%.

Yet another educational trip to the bar!

The Crew

Sonali, Karen, Kathryn, Aaron, Neil, Ryan.

Notes

After the first phase of birthday celebrations at Buford's, we significantly classed it up by moving to TenTen, a modern sushi restaurant that's a much more high-end joint all around. Traditionally there has been a big divergence in the marketing of Japanese cuisine as high-end compared to the lower-end presentation of other Asian cuisines, but the interior of this place was just fantastic, even in the gloom of nighttime cocktails. Since we had just gorged ourselves on pizza we didn't eat, but I can attest that the food looked top notch; evidently the guy who developed the menu has also been doing the same for some other nicer newer places. I can say that even though all we did was stand at the bar and order rounds, the atmosphere was never less than inviting. After enjoying ourselves immensely here, it was almost with regret that we retired to Garage Bar, which is sadly not on Sixth Street so I can't review it here, for copious servings of Austin's official cocktail.