Tempura

Recently we headed to Shinjuku to run a few errands to run at Isetan, one of Tokyo's largest department stores. There are a number of restaurants located within the huge shopping complex, but Sarah's mom took us to one specializing in tempura - classic Japanese deep fried batter-dipped seafood and vegetables.




We all ordered lunch sets, which included deep fried items like shrimp, squash, and okra along with rice, miso soup, salad, and pickled vegetables. I found everything quite delicious, and the tempura was some of the best I've had. The tempura batter was light but crunchy, and the dipping sauce consisting of mirin, dashi, and shoyu was a nice accompaniment. The only lowlight was the salad, which was just so-so but refreshing nonetheless.

While I'm in the States, I don't eat a whole lot of tempura so this was a nice treat. I think the main reason why I don't is that the tempura is pretty mediocre at the places I go to. They're usually cooked in huge bashes and left sitting under a heat lamp until some poor fool orders a batch. With any kind of fried food I suppose, the key is eating it fresh.