When you have a favorite restaurant, do you order the same trusty dish every time, or work your way through the menu?
One Japanese X user says he visited the same restaurant for 14 straight years and ordered nothing but tenshinhan every single time. Then, in 2015, the owner told him, "If you get the chance, please try something besides the tenshinhan too." The comment left him feeling so awkward that he stayed away from the restaurant for the next 11 and a half years. Instead, he began perfecting his own tenshinhan at home. He recently shared the results, saying he is now remarkably close to his ideal version, and the story quickly set off a lively debate online.
▼ This was the post from 2015, when the restaurant suggested that he "try something else too."
Looking back, the user recalled one occasion when he deliberately ordered fried rice, only for the restaurant to serve him tenshinhan anyway. He admitted that after years of ordering the same dish, the staff had probably come to associate him entirely with tenshinhan. Still, once the owner suggested trying something else, he felt too embarrassed to return.
In a recent post, he explained, "For the 11 and a half years since that day, I felt a little too awkward to return even once. Instead, I kept researching and making my ideal tenshinhan at home."
Far from ending his devotion to tenshinhan, those years pushed him to keep experimenting in his own kitchen, gradually moving closer to the version he had always imagined. In September 2026, he revealed his latest attempt and wrote, "It feels like I'm finally very close to my goal."
Once the story surfaced, it sparked a flood of discussion across the Japanese internet.
Many commenters believed the owner was simply being friendly and wanted a loyal customer to sample the restaurant's other dishes. Some suggested the intended message was probably, "We're proud of more than just our tenshinhan, so please give something else a try sometime."
Others pointed out that some customers can feel pressured the moment they realize, "They've remembered me this whole time, and they know exactly what I order every visit." Even without any bad intentions from the staff, simply becoming aware that "the restaurant recognizes me as the person who always orders the same thing" can be enough to make someone feel awkward and stop coming back.
Another commenter shared a similar story about her sister, who has severe social anxiety. She used to visit the same café every day until the owner smiled and said, "Don't you come here every day?" Uncomfortable with being noticed, she never returned. That anecdote turned "some regulars actually don't want the staff to recognize them" into another major talking point.
Meanwhile, plenty of users focused on the man's decades-long dedication to tenshinhan. As one person joked, the owner had only wanted him to try another dish, but instead lost a regular customer and accidentally "trained a tenshinhan master."
Another commenter joked that after studying tenshinhan for 25 years, his skills had probably surpassed those of the average Chinese restaurant and he might as well open his own place.
After leaving the restaurant in 2015, the user never gave up on tenshinhan. He simply took his obsession home. He went from being a loyal restaurant regular to an enthusiastic home cook, and now to publicly sharing the results of his work. Altogether, the journey has lasted 25 and a half years.
What began as one offhand suggestion from a restaurant owner ultimately sent him down an 11-and-a-half-year path of tenshinhan training. As one commenter put it, "Who could have guessed that simply eating tenshinhan would turn into an epic 25-and-a-half-year saga?" Best of all, the story still may not be over. He believes his ultimate tenshinhan is not quite finished yet...