Thank you, Catherine Tate.
Battered veg. With spicy jam. That works for me. I love anything fried.
Thai tempura, or Hoi Tot, is a style of deep fat frying similar to that of the Japanese but suited of course to the climate, palates and product availability of the Thai people. Food from Thailand.
The Japanese themselves learned to batter and fry food from Portuguese missionaries who arrived on the shores of Japan in the mid 16th century-- just enough time for the trend to take hold, via street vendors, before the country turned its back on the rest of the world for the next 250 years. Before the arrival of the Portuguese, the Japanese had apparently no knowledge of deep frying and only limited understanding of the frying process in general. But, as with so many other things, the Japanese turned an inherently foreign concept into something very much their own. Like the automobile, imperialism, or anything cute.