In general, food in Japan is amazing. Sometimes the amazing food gets topped with what seem like random other things to foreign people. Corn, mayonnaise, miso, and cheese all seem to make their way into normal things and make them... Japanese-y.
Eggs get thrown into just about everything. Raw and whisked, soft-boiled, hard-boiled, patty-shaped and slipping out of your burger. Something makes Japanese eggs so magical that I've yet to get sick from eating an under-cooked one.
Pizza is often strange. I don't know if he was trolling me, but my dear Twitter friend Chef once mentioned he couldn't imagine pizza without tuna and mayonnaise. Marissa and I got adventurous one weekend and ordered a pizza from Domino's with as many non-traditional toppings as we could handle. Apologies to Chef, tuna and mayo did not make the cut.
The DVDs came out or something.
Chunks of butter are also completely normal toppings or sides. Butter ramen is fairly common and I even had an egg and butter gyuudon a few days ago. It was delicious and probably took a whole 15 minutes off my lifespan. This butter came already in the gyudon, but there was a button on the shop's vending machine that had extra butter for 50 yen.
Butter AND an under-cooked egg!
Things I Won't Miss About Japan #5: The Exclusion of Ketchup as an Acceptable Topping
What did ketchup ever do to Japanese people? Every time I've ever asked for more than one ketchup tray at McDonald's or some other restaurant where the ketchup isn't self-serve, the employees look at me like I'm insane. They won't even give you more than one at Mos Burger!
Public food enemy #1
My boyfriend explained to me that ketchup is seen as a fatty food, and it doesn't help that the gaijin love it. YOU KNOW HOW MANY MORE CALORIES ARE IN THAT BOTTLE OF KEWPIE??? Mayonnaise is traditionally made from oil and eggs, at least ketchup has some tomatoes going on in there.
hahaha,
ReplyDeletewhat?? ketchup is fatty? eh?? from people
who put mayo on everything???
lol. i also love ketchup so i totally understand where you're coming from. the other day, i was having lunch at wolfgang puck with a friend and we both had burgers & fries. i asked for ketchup and the girl came back with one little packet each. seriously, woman??? then i asked if we could get more, she came back with an extra packet for each person... and then she finally understood my dumbfounded look, accompanied by a very classical "anoooooooooo...." and came back with a handful of them. but still. i mean, not only is it more "eco" to just put a damn bottle on the table, it's more economical too.
Ketchup is not the gaijin soy sauce in regard to how much we use at one time. Geez.
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