By the way, the best tempura I ever tasted was over 40 years ago, at a Japanese restaurant in St. Louis called the Mikado. You did have to take off your shoes, no forks were provided unless you asked, the waitresses wore beautiful Kimonos along with the rest of the Geisha formalities, and they had to speak fluent Japanese to work there, which sort of limited them to all Japanese.
We were seated in lowered little cubicles, and the servers walked around behind us in their sock feet.
I ordered sweet/sour shrimp, and they came with a variety of vegetables...carrots, peppers, broccoli and more, all fried in a wonderful, light tempura batter, and pieces of fresh pineapple. I remember it was served with plain white rice, but I don't know what else we had.
We went to several bars after that, and I ended up by myself, at the El Rancho Bar, having a great time with a bunch of bikers and listening to Hotel California, while my then husband and his friends hung out at a preppy bar up the street.
I made some good friends there, who took good care of me until the rest of the gang came to get me.
It was a good night in south St. Louis...lots of memories there.