On top of spaghetti, all covered with…seaweed?

Yes, the dark shreds atop those spaghetti noodles are the kind of seaweed usually found wrapped around your sushi order, and what you might have assumed was a nice fresh tomato sauce tossed with parmesan is actually…fish eggs! Spaghetti with spicy cod roe (known as mentaiko) is as much of a beloved childhood classic in Japan as spaghetti and meatballs is in the US, and no “Italian” restaurant dares print a menu without it.

But that’s not the weirdest kind of pasta you might encounter in Japan! By far. All foreign food gets bent toward local tastes over time with amusing (and sometimes horrifying) results, so eating “Italian” food in Japan may just be the most revealing Japanese experience you’ll have while you’re here.

Fish eggs in all their glory appear in many forms—here the noods are crowned with the entire sack o’ salted cod eggs known as tarako…

and here the tarako is paired with that other Japanese favorite, the raw egg, for a dubiously creative tofu skin and mozzarella cheese “carbonara.”

Don’t breathe a sigh of relief at the sight of chicken breast on this one, unless your go-to on pasta night also features pickled plums, shiso and kelp…

and if you thought you were safe from tentacles, think again. At least this spaghetti served with whole, mouth-searingly hot togarashi peppers is also up front about the octopus component…

unlike its compadre here, where zucchini and tentacles are all cloaked in pesto sauce.

And if you think Japanese spaghetti is weird, wait til you see the pizza…

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And if you know someone who’s planning a Japan trip, here are all the places I take my friends when they come to town…

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Jonelle Patrick writes novels set in Japan, produces the monthly e-magazine Japanagram, and blogs at Only In Japan and The Tokyo Guide I Wish I’d Had