After hearing so much about Tenji from friends and other food blogs, Suan, Horng, and I decided to give it a try almost 2 months ago. One of the reasons it took us so long to finally go there was to actually avoid the madness during their half price promotion (which still runs once in a while, check their website).

note: this place is closed and now replaced by Shogun, a Japanese Buffet

Tenji Japanese Buffet
Tenji Japanese Buffet at Solaris

Tenji is often compared with Jogoya, the first premium Japanese buffet restaurant not in a hotel to hit KL in early 2006. Personally I think that the comparison is justified as both Tenji and Jogoya caters for slightly higher end market and offers dishes that are quite similar, and more importantly, they’re priced competitively with each other at full price.

At Tenji, lunch is priced at RM77++ while dinner and supper at RM88++. Jogoya’s buffet is RM78++ for lunch, RM68++ for late lunch, RM88++ for dinner, and RM78++ for late dinner. (Jogoya pricing, Tenji pricing)

fresh oyster at Tenji
ohh, the oysters!

Located at Soho Solaris, Tenji is a much friendlier place for those who drives. Parking is a breeze if you don’t mind paying a couple ringgit for the underground carpark, on the other hand, Jogoya is accessible via public transport since it is located at Bukit Bintang.

As for the restaurant itself, Tenji is huge, with both air conditioned indoor area as well as quite a bit of alfresco dining, especially for those who wish to punctuate an extended buffet session with some nicotine.

KY, Suan, and Horng at Tenji
KY, Suan, and Horng

I started off the late lunch with some oysters, steamed prawns, and sashimi.

The oysters here were pretty big and certainly fresh and juicy, the good thing is that the oyster bar is always being refilled anytime it is less than half filled. I am very very annoyed at places that takes forever to refill their most sought after ingredients/dishes (like Yuen steamboat‘s chicken wings, or Talipon‘s prawns).

sashimi, oysters, at Tenji Japanese Buffet
always start with raw or lightly cooked food

I like their surf clam, scallop (albeit a bit small) and their rather fatty salmon sashimi, the butter fish was pretty decent too but I would stay away from tuna and squid sashimi if you’re particular about quality. As with most buffet places, the tuna served are of pretty inferior quality. This is due to the insanely high price of tuna these days I suppose.

There are also plenty of pre-cooked items on the buffet spread, the Singapore chili crab was actually very delicious, and there’s always the added advantage of choosing only the pincers (who cares about other customers, right? hehe). Other dishes include grilled vegetable, squid with dark sauce, fish, lamb, beef, and dozens more I can’t recall.

buffet spread at Tenji
buffet spread, including drinks and dessert area

Like Jogoya, Tenji also employs the clips system whereby you drop a clip with your table number at the bowl indicating certain dishes, wait for a few minutes, and they will be served freshly cooked. The downside is that you might end up waiting for quite a bit if the restaurant is particularly busy, but since it wasn’t when we were there, we didn’t need to wait for more than a few minutes before our orders were served.

The steamed cod with soya sauce was good, but the serving was rather miserable so it’s best advised that you order 2-3 at one go. Another more memorable freshly prepared dish was the soft shell crab and this vegetable (a type of beans?) with black beans. We also ordered steak, some teriyaki dishes, mushroom, fish filet, and so on. In general they tasted pretty good and very few of them were disappointing (for eg. the soup with razor clam).

Singapore chili crab, soup, steamed cod
Singapore chili crab, soup, steamed cod

In the drinks department, you have fresh brewed coffee, cappuccino, latte, quite a selection of fruit juice, soft drinks, and my favorite – chilled fresh coconut. I think I had about 4 of those.

Haagan Dazs ice cream was what I had for dessert while the huge selection of pastry and other desserts lay sitting in front of me. We were simply full to the brim after spending about 2 hours having the late lunch. If I remember correctly, we skipped dinner.


Tenji is located at SOHO, Solaris Mont Kiara

Compared to my last 2 visits to Jogoya, I would personally prefer Tenji. Although the buffet spread is smaller, the food quality reminds me of the earlier days of Jogoya. Fresh, tasty, and with good service, they just somehow managed to aged in the last 4 years to a point that I stopped going there, hopefully Tenji never follow the same path.

Address:
Tenji Japanese Buffet
Lot L-01-01, Soho KL,
Solaris Mont Kiara,
No.2, Jalan Solaris, KL

GPS: 3.174689, 101.659595
Tel: 1700-80-1818

Tenji Japanese Buffet at Solaris, Mont Kiara [Closed]
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54 thoughts on “Tenji Japanese Buffet at Solaris, Mont Kiara [Closed]

  • July 6, 2009 at 12:54 pm
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    the sashimi slices are too small and thin!

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  • July 6, 2009 at 1:11 pm
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    I went there on Tuesday and Tenji was so damn horrible! the oysters were never refilled at their counter! u gotta go n ask for it personally… and the coconuts were finished so early and they told me non restockable! WTF i didn’t even manage to get one! it took ne 5 visits to the counter to get 1 small pathetic bowl of cold soba too.. I have forever banned Tenji from my list!

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  • July 6, 2009 at 1:17 pm
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    I finally went to Tenji after hearing about it for such a long time too! It’s better than Jogoya, IMHO. Maybe that’s coz we found a cockroach in Jogoya. 😉

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  • July 6, 2009 at 1:34 pm
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    haha, too far and inconvenient for public transport. haven’t been able to try it out yet. plus, no red wine for my alcoholic bf. hahaha

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  • July 6, 2009 at 1:39 pm
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    eiling,
    My dear, it’s a buffet. You’re too accustomed to RM 1000+ dinners. 😛

    Ziling,
    Hahhaha terrible, that’s why we went there like 3pm Saturday. It was good!

    Huai Bin,
    cockroach in Jogoya, @.@ did you get a refund?

    Robb,
    Hahaha I think they have some beer or wine thing going on too, check their blog

    Reply
  • July 6, 2009 at 1:58 pm
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    i have heard so muchy of this tenji…
    will try it next time..
    but it’s not aptly located la…

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  • July 6, 2009 at 2:18 pm
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    theres just so much news abt this place that it probably doesnt deserve..

    looks like got to do a late lunch here if not theres not much point in going eh?

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  • July 6, 2009 at 2:37 pm
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    Tenji is so, so, so good. Seriously. Reminds me of Jogoya’s better days. The thing about the oysters is that there’s too high of a demand for it – people take them before they get a chance to get chilled properly on the ice. Coconuts were lovely and abundant and unlike Jogoya, you’re allowed to take more than one at one go! 🙂

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  • July 6, 2009 at 4:03 pm
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    i personally thinks it is better than Jogoya. however, it seems like the food quality inconsistent from the feedback.

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  • July 6, 2009 at 4:23 pm
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    I went but was kinda disappointed by the quality, I think they have different stuff at different times.

    If you go during a promotion you are actually getting cheaper food, you aren’t paying less for the same stuff.

    Will have to go back again one day during full price session.

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  • July 6, 2009 at 5:02 pm
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    annant,
    Make it happen.

    lotsofcravings,
    Yah, I avoid crowd as much as possible.

    Mellissa,
    That’s why you should go at low period. 😀

    Myhorng,
    Yah I agree.

    ShaolinTiger,
    I think that’s what they do too, plus if you go during busy period it’ll never be as good.

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  • July 6, 2009 at 5:41 pm
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    not a fan of buffet
    in my opinion, buffet food is overall mediocre at best…
    imagine if all the food was yummylicious…
    how do you think they can make money.

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  • July 6, 2009 at 9:02 pm
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    eh KY, how can you managed to call them? I call them like a gazzillion times on the 1700 number but everytime also invalid number until I also sienz already!

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  • July 6, 2009 at 11:16 pm
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    bro, how are you? so long din do posting on your blog liao. Hope everything is ok. Me down with some funny weird illness for past 3 months. Now ok already.

    Thanks for the tenji info. Bravo!

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  • July 7, 2009 at 8:52 am
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    don’t be so terrible. This is not a cheap buffet ok?!!!

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  • July 7, 2009 at 9:33 am
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    lb,
    Fit for those who has big appetite maa 😀

    beccs,
    Slurps!

    JD,
    Ohh, I guess we’ll just have to.. keep trying. :/

    clement,
    I’m good I’m good. 😀

    eiling,
    A portion of salmon sashimi at a decent Japanese place costs RM 30 or so, this is RM77-88, so clearly we can’t really expect the same quality looo..

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  • July 7, 2009 at 10:33 am
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    i can see myself getting chopped on the cutting board bleeding ringgit malaysia…

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  • July 7, 2009 at 11:34 am
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    So many bad reviews abt it recently, luckily I went there when their food still OK, hehe 😛

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  • July 7, 2009 at 2:09 pm
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    I went there once and it was so bad I didn’t even bother to blog about it. Food variety & quality sucks – the steamed fish (by order) was small & tasteless… and even tho the buffet closed at 4pm, by 2.30pm the Haagen-Daz icecream ran out & they REFUSED to replenish! Yeah, i heard the staff telling the customer queing in front of me! Swear I will never go back there again.

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  • July 7, 2009 at 4:16 pm
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    aeroplane1234,
    lol, well but if you eat a lot.

    mimid3vils,
    Luckily my experience was pretty good. But don’t you notice that it’s a sort of a trend with everywhere, a few will blog that it’s good, then a few more, and then inadvertently there’ll be those who said it’s extremely bad.

    Pureglutton,
    Ah, that’s horrible. Our experience was rather good though!

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  • July 7, 2009 at 5:43 pm
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    ya i just went to jogoya last weekend and it was damn bad 🙁 shishamo fish also soggy wan wtf

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  • July 7, 2009 at 9:28 pm
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    Tenji was alright, quite good but just too pricey, at least in my opinion. You just have to find the few things which they do well (the oysters were excellent 🙂

    Would rather go for Kampachi at Equatorial KL or Umai-Ya a la carte buffet at Damansara Uptown. Cheaper and better quality feeds.

    But if someone treated me to Tenji for free I woudln’t complain 🙂

    Reply
  • July 8, 2009 at 12:26 am
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    regarding Jogoya (Jan09), we had a bad experience there too like Huai Bin. little cockroach came out to greet us. we took lotsa pics of tat little cockroach and ask the restaurant manager to come and explain.

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  • July 8, 2009 at 9:25 am
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    aud,
    Yah a bit disappointing these days

    Enoch,
    I’ve heard good things about Umai-Ya, time to head there! 😀

    kit,
    I think you should write about it. hehe.

    Reply
  • July 8, 2009 at 11:42 am
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    Hello KY,
    Re “Singapore” chilli crab. Please do not help perpetuate the myth that chilli crab originated from Singapore. Every crab dish they now have is copied from Malaysia.They do have a superior marketing of Singapore and I do not blame people from believing their claims. It is up to bloggers like yourself to prevent this from happening.Otherwise very soon they will claim that Penang char kuey teow and Laksa is theirs!

    Reply
  • July 8, 2009 at 9:08 pm
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    I guess they bucked up. Heard many of my friends went during promotion and they were disappointed. I was one of the early birds, definitely wasn’t disappointed, other than the fact that they ran out of sushi/oyster/steamed fish and couldnt restock fast enough

    Reply
  • July 8, 2009 at 9:19 pm
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    I went there during the CNY promotion and had a good time, with a big group so it was a pretty happy atmosphere. One thing I remember is that we went CRAZY with the free flow of coconuts. Btw, commenting for the first time! =D

    Reply
  • July 8, 2009 at 11:47 pm
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    Tenji and Jogoya have the same boss. Isn’t it? Still i think i love to visit Saisaki Japanese buffet than Tenji/Jogoya, though it doesn’t have Haagan Dazs. 🙂

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  • July 9, 2009 at 2:41 pm
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    dyson17,
    Well the name of the dish doesn’t exactly reflect the country of origin in my mind. The Singaporeans can claim whatever they want to claim and people who really knows should know better. I was merely following the label at the buffet spread so that people wouldn’t have a problem finding it.

    Kclee2002,
    Yah I suppose they have. 🙂

    Stanley,
    Big group is always fun for buffet! 😀

    Marcus Lee,
    Same boss? That I’m not terribly sure. 🙂

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    • July 28, 2010 at 10:34 am
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      nop actually…seems Jogoya n Tanji dont have a same 1 boss…
      since i’v known my brother 4 so long as Tanji’s current boss,so far never heard about any 2nd 1 restaurant he’d ever run wor…..=.=

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      • July 28, 2010 at 10:45 am
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        hahaha that’s a very good i nfo.

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  • July 9, 2009 at 8:29 pm
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    I’ve been there during the crazy peak hour and the off peak time. The foods are better and abundant during off peak. IMO, this is a place worth trying, especially with the promotion that they currently have.

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  • July 12, 2009 at 6:02 pm
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    DiN,
    Yah as with many places, off peak is usually better. 🙂

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  • July 13, 2009 at 11:09 am
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    ah i always wanted to try it since it opened but havent had the chance yet! i remember there was this promotion, RM29++ for the first hour and additional RM10 for the next each hour. hahaha cant get to book it! 🙁

    Reply
  • July 14, 2009 at 6:37 pm
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    Umai-Ya weekend buffet also has free-flow Tiger beer too, if you’re into that sort of thing. Personally the more beer you drink, the less you can eat so I’ll take the food anytime.

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  • July 15, 2009 at 10:21 am
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    vvens,
    ooo that time it was super packed!

    Enoch,
    Hahah I agree the beer will fill you up pretty fast.

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  • August 16, 2009 at 4:59 pm
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    Wah, so many bad review, better off don’t try tenji.

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  • August 18, 2009 at 11:29 am
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    Boon,
    Well it was good during off peak period though 😉

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  • October 26, 2009 at 11:18 pm
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    how do I go Tenji by bus I start from china town ?

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  • October 27, 2009 at 8:21 am
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    boonya,
    I’m not familiar with the bus system, would probabaly take a cab instead

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  • December 31, 2009 at 3:41 pm
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    TENJI IS SO BAD AND LOUSY FOR A PRICE OF RM67.50 (NETT PER HEAD AFTER DISCOUNT) – THOSE WHO SAY TENJI GOOD WERE LYING !!

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  • January 1, 2010 at 6:01 pm
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    ss,
    oOo your experience was definitely different from mine, perhaps they slacked off lately?

    Reply
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  • November 11, 2010 at 11:13 am
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    I went there yesterday 10/11/2010 for lunch. Am very disappionted with the quality of the dishes and service.

    Only thing good is the Baskin Robin ice creams.

    Pls don’t waste your time & $$$$ on this place.

    Reply
    • November 29, 2010 at 6:17 pm
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      Francis: that bad huh? standard dropped or just a bad day i guess

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  • November 27, 2010 at 5:40 pm
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    is there any public transport to go tenji?

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    • November 29, 2010 at 6:17 pm
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      alex: does taxi count?

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  • December 10, 2010 at 9:22 am
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    Tenji’s standard has dropped tremendously…..avoid it at all costs…..

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  • February 8, 2011 at 5:40 pm
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    😈 Terrible taste, not fresh sashimi, horrible sushi…….if you are too rich to go for lousy food, this restaurant will be a good choice

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    • February 8, 2011 at 8:13 pm
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      Chan: seems like this place’s standard has gone down too.. :S

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  • October 20, 2011 at 2:17 am
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    I need you phone number. Pls give me 03-++++++ I don’t wan 1700+++

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    • October 20, 2011 at 8:58 am
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      Choo: perhaps you can send an email via the contact form?

      Reply
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