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Like a Rolling Stone · Joined: 27 Mar 2006 Posts: 872

Japan has lots of strange food. Shocked

Sushi's thread was aboiut horse meat and that's not your average food!!! Some people eat whale in Japan and wild bore. I tried raw duck and raw chicken before and they were quite nice but some people think that is strange too. Mr. Green

So how about you guys and girls? What did you eat and was it strange? Wink

Squire22 · Joined: 06 Jul 2005 Posts: 68 Location: Shizuoka, Japan

My neighbour very kindly offered me dolphin, I in turn very kindly declined. It looked weird enough for me to pass up the opportunity, I later heard from my neighbour that it wasn't all they had hoped for....I believe that may have been a secret code...

Every lunchtime at school they serve something that I would consider weird so....for me, octopus tentacles with the sucking things still on was a fair experience, not bad though.

Like a Rolling Stone · Joined: 27 Mar 2006 Posts: 872

campestre · Joined: 16 Sep 2004 Posts: 46 Location: Japan

chicken sashimi which I found deeply disturbing....

Dipso · Joined: 28 Apr 2004 Posts: 194 Location: England

I accidentally bought a bag of curry-flavoured popcorn in Muji today. Not traditional Japanese cuisine obviously, but very very strange regardless.

Like a Rolling Stone · Joined: 27 Mar 2006 Posts: 872

Perpetual Traveller · Joined: 29 Aug 2005 Posts: 651 Location: In the Kak, Japan

One of the teachers I trained with swore up and down that she had had a curry flavoured DOUGHNUT!!! Shocked

That's just sacrilegeous. Evil or Very Mad

PT

Dipso · Joined: 28 Apr 2004 Posts: 194 Location: England

Yep, you have to be very careful in Mr Donut here!

Glad to see you have made it to Japan, PT. I hope Aeon are treating you well. Very Happy

Hoekk · Joined: 18 Jul 2006 Posts: 18

hey pal!
well, I tried a living (kicking?) tentacle of an octopus. You have 3 Choices.

1)You swallow that,,, and it will ticke your insides then you will regurgitate and vomit rainbows.

2) you chew that. I did that and I do not see why they like it. it sucks!!!!!!!!!!!

3) Run.

They have the same in Seoul, but little octopus + steaming hot (HORRRIBLE !!!!!!!!!!!!)
I did not try eating a dog though..... has Anyone eaten korean dog?????
I'd like to know what it is like, and why they like that.... and why?

See you all!

Crab · Joined: 19 Apr 2005 Posts: 40 Location: Canada

I have 3 contributions:

An entire barbecued sparrow on a stick.

A bowl of grasshoppers (fried, I think).

The reproductive organs of a male tuna in miso soup.

Speed · Joined: 04 Jul 2003 Posts: 152 Location: Shikoku Land

I think poster Crab has me beat but mine are:

Baby bees - fried in a pan with some butter

Sparrow on a stick (can be found in an occassional izakaya)

Habu shu - a live Okinawan poisonous snake is kept alive in a bottle of water for about 6 months. Then the water is thrown out and then sake is poured in killing the snake. Let sit for a few weeks and enjoy some sake!

JimDunlop2 · Joined: 31 Jan 2003 Posts: 2286 Location: Japan

kinshachi · Joined: 06 Sep 2006 Posts: 50 Location: Sydney

Hi everyone!

Two years of lurking and I've finally decided to weigh in on this topic! Rolling Eyes

I've tried the whale sushi, and must admit the rice it was on had more flavour. I can't see why anyone would be so keen to keep it on the menu...

I can't really top some of the previous contributions, but I think sea urchin is generally pretty high on the gross-out factor. I'll have to keep my eye out for the sparrow-on-a-stick - that actually sounds good, apart from all those tiny bones...

It's all relative, I think. I love octopus sashimi, but am repulsed by the idea of chicken sashimi (in large part because of too many bad experiences with the improperly cooked variety). A friend of mine was exactly the opposite, she enjoyed the raw chicken hearts and compared takowasabi rather unfavourably to snot. And nothing I've found is more revolting than that stinky, sticky, rotten mess of soybeans, but I've known far more people revolted by good old Vegemite!

azarashi sushi · Joined: 23 Jan 2003 Posts: 562 Location: Shinjuku

Food that once seemed weird seems very normal after a few years of living in Japan! Whale, sea urchin and horse doesn't seem particulalry weird anymore... I tried them a couple of times but didn't especially like them. I haven't tried crickets or grasshoppers yet.

I often buy ice cream at the ice cream shop in the food hall of Takashimaya in Shinjuku. It seems like every week they have a new weird flavoured ice cream... Over the years I have tried parmesan ice cream, blue cheese ice cream, tomato and basil ice cream, curry flavoured ice cream, goya ice cream and pumpkin flavoured. I was curious to see what they tatsed like but in my opinion they all just tasted wrong! To me they tasted like someone had accidentally dropped cheese or whatever into the ice cream.

womblingfree · Joined: 04 Mar 2006 Posts: 826

I tried alligator in Ginza once, quite plain. Had whale at a yakitori shop and probably from Seiyu by accident in one of those sashimi boxes.

The weirdest things I ate which I got used to after a while were those baby octopus where the brains pop out when you bite into them. Also those chicken cartillidge bits, I really got into those.