Pop Japan

Japan is a country known for having one of the best culinary in the world. It is considered as one of the world’s most diverse because Japanese food has vegetables and all sorts of meats and seafood, both raw, cooked and grilled, which is one of the reasons why people from different countries visit Japan. 

Here are the weirdest Japanese foods that you may want to enjoy when you visit the Land of the Rising Sun. 

Squid- ink Black Ramen

Ramen is one of the most popular food and inexpensive dishes in Japan. It can be seen on almost every street of Japan. Ramen restaurants, or ramen-ya can be found everywhere and they serve countless variations of this noodle dish. 

It’s usually a wheat noodle soup dish made of chicken broth that contains other meats such as pork, beef or fish depending on the region. It commonly has a hard-boiled eg and different vegetables such as onion, mushroom, bean sprouts, seaweed and corn but now there is a different variety of ramen that comes from squid ink, making the broth look like a deep charcoal. It may look kind of gross but it’s surprisingly delicious!

Live Octopus Sashimi (Sannakji)

Sashimi is one of the famous Japanese cuisines because of its thinly sliced raw meat. The word sashimi literally means “pierced body” in Japanese. It is usually fresh raw fish such as salmon or tuna served without rice and eaten with soy sauce. 

Sannakji on the other hand, is a variety of raw dish made with long arm octopus. Eating sannakji is one of the things that excite people in Japan. What made it weird is that its tentacles are still squirming when the octopus is served to the customers.The octopus is bought live before being cut and chopped  into small pieces and served raw on a plate. You’ll see the pieces of octopus giggle when you pour soy sauce over the squid while being served on the plate. 

Raw Horse Meat

Have you imagined eating raw horse meat? It is actually a huge thing and isn’t something new in Japan, especially in the city of Tokyo. It tastes pretty good however, you’ll get tired eating the raw horse meat because it is a little bit tough to chew. 

In Japanese cuisine, raw horse meat is called sakura which means cherry blossom because of its pink color. When it  is served in thin slices dipped in soy sauce with ginger and onion, it is called Basashi. This basashi is often served at izayaka bars. Its fat, the white color on the horse meat is also called basashi.