tempura sprouts! Suffolk's answer to haute cuisine

Only in deepest Suffolk would you get a tempura sprout and a battered tempura parsnip!  Grandpa and I arrived for a couple of days in Suffolk but the food we had packed got stuck at Addenbrookes so we took the torch and walked across the dark and misty churchyard to the recently refurbished village pub.  I wondered as we walked across it if any old friends buried here would be making a misty appearance but they didn't and anyway, those good souls buried here would only make a  benevolent and kindly mist.  I wondered what they would make of the renewed village pub which looks as good as the best of gastropubs all painted with Farrow and Ball and lovely wood burning stoves and exposed beams.  It being Monday, the landlord wasn't expecting any hungry gastronomes let alone any foodless friends.  He was only expecting the Parish Council to call for a beer after their meeting.   But not phased at all, he handed us the menu which is quite an ambitious foodie one.  I picked the tempura vegetables, Grandpa the soup and fish and chips.  The dear battered vegetables arrived looking as Japanese as can be with a proper little bowl of soy sauce.  However their shapes were a bit of a giveaway, three round slightly green ones on a stick particularly un Japanese.  You will be longing to know what they all were.  Well, first there were the three sprouts which had already been cooked and then tempuraed.  Then a ready cooked carrot and a parsnip,  and finally two little cloud shaped babes which were cooked cauliflower and broccoli in white sauce which had also been tempuraed.  I ate them all up basically because I like batter and soy sauce and the landlord was such a cheerful hopeful person.  I don't think that the Japanese will be wanting to copy this very English version of their delicate dish do you?

We watched the documentary of Prince Phillip and felt a swelling of national pride.  I expect he would have laughed at the modest country sprout being elevated to gastropub starter.  We slept like babies in the most comfortable bed we have ever owned and then take the dogs out over the sandy Suffolk soil to see what there is to be seen! and maybe chased!