April 08

Tags

Pink Food Season Arrives In All Its WTF Splendor

Posted by on April 8, 2017 in Seasonal Goodness, WTF Japan? | 3 Comments

It never fails – every time the big cherry things burst into bloom, I see foods that totally make me want to shout “What the pinkity pink?” I’m not talking about food that should be pink (like sakura ice cream) or is only slightly questionably pink (like strawberry lattes), I’m talking about the HELP EEK WHY IS THAT FOOD PINK specialties that appear every cherry blossom season in Japan. Such as…

Pink sushi rice NO

Lotteria’s famous pink-bunned burger: a deep-fried hockey puck of pink shrimp topped with a non-trivial swadge of tartar sauce, also (supposedly) studded with tiny shrimp far to small to actually see, but which make the sauce suspiciously PINK

Winning in the “how many kinds of pink food can you include in one special,” this sakura-flavored noodle set hits the trifecta with sides of bacon-topped steamed veggies, tuna sashimi, and a pink rice cake wrapped in a pickled cherry leaf

Spaghetti in beet sauce with shrimp? Gee, wonder why I’ve never seen this particular taste combo on any self-respecting restaurant’s menu…

And finally, although this actually is a dessert, it gets ick points for being slices of gooey sweet rice cakes stuck in a bun to (ha ha ha UGH) resemble a hot dog

•

Jonelle Patrick writes mysteries set in Tokyo. Nightshade is the first one…

Yumi Hata knows her best friend wouldn’t have been caught dead dressed in black, and the more she learns about Rika’s death, the more she’s convinced it was murder…read more