The feast inside this fish’s belly is just as surprising as its pie-crust casing.

In Japan, ordering a pizza can be a mind-bending experience. With delivery drivers turning up on reindeer bikes and offering romantic kabe-don wall pounds at your door, the pizza world can be a topsy-turvy one over here, and one company that really likes to drive that point home is Japan’s home-grown “Aoki’s Pizza” chain.

Aoki’s is the company that gave us delights like Ramen Noodle and Natto Okonomiyaki pizzas, and the eyeball-topped Bloody Zombinio for Halloween, and now they’re back with another unique special that’s making  headlines around Japan.

Not only is this new menu item shaped like a fish, but it’s got a special name too, called the “Swim!! Mackerel Pizza Kun“. According to Japanese naming conventions, adding the informal “kun” male suffix at the end of the title personifies the pizza in a cute and friendly way. You might want to hold back on getting too fond of the little guy, though, because he comes filled with a whole host of tasty ingredients that are meant to be devoured.

▼ The 23-centimetre (9-inch) long pizza retails for 2,280 yen (US$20.32).

 

Produced in collaboration with the popular Yokkaichi Himono Shokudo restaurant in Mie Prefecture, which specialises in high-quality dried mackerel, this limited-time pizza contains vegetables, mozarella cheese, and a tasty barbecue mustard sauce, along with the star ingredient of dried mackerel.

For those after something slightly more conventional, although still out-of-the-box in terms of pizza creations, Aoki’s also has a “Nearly Drowning! Cheese Dak-galbi” on the menu, which is based on the popular Dak-galbi Korean dish, which contains spicy stir-fried chicken in a gochujang-based sauce with ingredients like cabbage and scallions. In the centre of the pizza is an edible dipping bowl filled with melted cheese.

▼ The medium-sized pizza comes with a fork and two 350-millilitre (11.8-ounce) bottles of Coca-Cola for 2,480 yen.

▼ There’s also a spicier Red version available with the same deal, for 2,580 yen.

The pizzas will be on sale at Aoki’s Pizza outlets around Japan from 19 April to 11 July. After that, we’re sure the pizza chain will have some more surprises in store for us, although we’re quietly hoping they bring back their Kit Kat pizzas for another limited-time run.

Related: Aoki’s Pizza Store List (Japanese)
Images: Value Press
[ Read in Japanese ]