Originally Posted by
MikeFromTokyo
If by vegetarian you mean you also do not eat seafood, I rather do not see the point of tempura. It is basically a counterpart to sushi, with the best restaurants using the same quality of ingredients. There are of course many vegetables, but those are an accompaniment to the seafood highlights - not the other way around. You of course may still want to experience it, but I would caution against paying the full omakase dinner price to only eat vegetables fried in tempura batter.
If you are lucky enough to be there during the season for wild mountain vegetables, or when othere vegetables such as lotus root are at their best, that is really something special however. It’s just a shame to also miss out on the main seafood highlights.
Certainly I'd be disappointed paying a full edomae tempura price for only the vegetable courses, but I disagree that there's no point to tempura for vegetarians. Tempura is probably the only style in which I enjoy the vegetables as much as the meat, and perhaps that's a big reason I've become such an edomae tempura junkie. IMO, vegetarians are always going to 'miss out' a bit (I even regretted the one time I opted for Grace's famed "Flora" menu rather than the regular one), but with edomae tempura, I feel like vegetarians can still get the full essence of the cooking style and enjoyment of the resultant product /
umami / etc. and that's not something I can say for most cooking techniques.
I will mention that I have tried Tempura
Kyoboshi (the one in Kyoto - assume that's the one on newfrequent's FS Kyoto list), and I wasn't super impressed as I found it hit-or-miss. Still good, though.