Tacos and spaghetti have earned love around the world, but will their meeting in Japan be a tragedy?

Japan loves spaghetti, but doesn’t necessarily feel bound to tradition when it comes to the dish, So while you can find authentic Italian-style pasta in Japan, so too can you find things like Napolitan (spaghetti with ketchup sauce, bacon, bell peppers, onion, and mushrooms) and spaghetti with tarako (cod roe) sauce.

And now restaurant chain Spaghetti no Pancho is expanding the concept of spaghetti even further in Japan with its new Tacospa, or Taco Spaghetti.

▼ タコスパ = Tacospa

To be clear, this isn’t a spaghetti taco (that’d be a taco filled with spaghetti). Spaghetti no Pancho’s Tacospa is an attempt to combine the flavors and ingredients of a taco with those of a bowl of spaghetti. For this fusion dish, Spaghetti no Pancho forgoes its flagship Napolitan sauce and instead starts from a ragu-style meat sauce, but adds cumin and “Cajun spices” for a taste inspired by the seasoned ground meat you’d find in a taco. Salsa is then mixed in with the sauce, and shredded lettuce and cracked tortilla chips are sprinkled on.

Placed in front of us, the Tacospa had immediately impactful visual vibes. It reminded us a little of the Okinawan fusion dish taco rice, which is essentially the fillings of a taco on top of white rice. Unlike taco rice, though, Spaghetti no Pancho’s Tacospa has those tortilla chips, and the contrasting colors of the lettuce and vivid sauce help the ingredients really stand out from one another and make you doubly aware of just how unique this dish is.

Taste-testing duties fell to our Japanese-language reporter P.K. Sanjun, one of the more passionate taco enthusiasts in the SoraNews24 office. As captivated as he was by the Tacospa concept, though, his initial impression after taking his first bite was that it tasted like pretty ordinary meat sauce spaghetti, but with a little extra spiciness. That’s not a complaint, as Spaghetti no Pancho’s basic meat sauce is really tasty, but still, if he’d been doing this taste test blindfolded, aside from the texture there wasn’t anything that screamed “Tacos!” to him right away, and instead the Tacospa seemed to be only faintly whispering “…tacos…” to him.

But something unexpected happened as P.K. continued eating. Maybe because of its thinner consistency compared to the meat sauce, it takes a while for the salsa to really start to cling to the noodles. With every twist of his fork and mixing of the pasta, though, the salsa sensation got stronger and stronger. The result is a very enjoyable, momentum-building eating experience that gets increasingly rewarding the more you eat, with your taste buds spurring you on once they realize that each mouthful is going to taste even better than the last.

Spaghetti no Pancho, it just so happens, always has bottles of Tabasco sauce on its tables, since it’s a popular condiment for Napolitan spaghetti. To P.K.’s great joy, Tabasco is also an outstanding accompaniment to the Taco Spaghetti, and pouring some on took it to an even higher level of stimulating spicy deliciousness.

The Tacospa is priced at 1,090 yen (US$6.80) for a small-size order or 1,290 for a large, and is scheduled to be available until the end of July.

Related: Spaghetti no Pancho location list
Top image: PR Times
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