Bringing you yesterday's news from Japan and Asia, today.
pizza (Page 9)
The English and Japanese-language teams at RocketNews24 have entered into a strange sort of competition, as they try to one-up each other with foods that don’t look anything like they should. The English side fired the opening salvo in this war of the eyes vs. the taste buds with a sneaky pink soy sauce taste test, and now our intrepid Japanese reporter Mr. Sato has decided that revenge is a dish best served sweet with this cake from a Tokyo bakery that looks exactly like a pizza.
Subway is one of the most popular and successful fast food chains from the US to make it here in Japan. While of course you could always load your sub up with things like meatballs and cheese, the company has succeeded here by carving out a niche for itself as the healthy fast food option. Subway’s brand in Japan is now synonymous with fresh vegetables and lean meats, so what happens when a chain with a reputation for offering healthy, light lunches starts selling gooey, cheesy pizza?
These are not just any pizzas, though; they’re Pizza Subs, but not as Americans might know them.
Does anyone out there still adhere to the low-carb diet? You know, the one where you have to give up all sorts of bread-y goodness under the presumption that carbohydrates make you fat, and that upping the protein in your diet would somehow help you to lose weight? Well, if you’re in to that sort of torture, fast food chain KFC may have something for you, as stores worldwide have put out various twists on old favorites by replacing burger and hot dog buns with chicken, and now KFCs in the Philippines are upping the game with their new, extremely limited crustless chicken pizza.
And sorry, low-carbers, we lied. As breaded, deep-fried chicken isn’t exactly a proper alternative, you may want to turn away now to avoid temptation. Everyone else, you may proceed to the wonder that is the “Chizza“.
Our reporter P.K. Sanjun is something of a tom yum goong fan. In fact, P.K. believes this spicy/sour Thai/Lao soup is one of the three great soups of the world (the other two are bouillabaisse and shark fin soup, since you asked).
So when P.K. heard that Domino’s Pizza in Japan was launching a tom yum goong pizza, he was somewhat skeptical. “They don’t even have tom yum pizza in Thailand!” he points out. But in the interests of investigative journalism, P.K. put aside his misgivings and ordered one spicy soup-flavoured pizza. And boy, did he love it.
I’m sure we can all remember those happy childhood days when Mom would go into the kitchen to wrestle a squid. The sound of tentacles swishing through the air and muffled curse words could mean only one thing: Squid Ink Pizza for dinner!
But now, having grown up into the cold world of adulthood, that simple joy of Mom’s homemade squid ink pizza has fallen by the wayside. Luckily, Nippon Ham has stepped in to help take us back to those days with their new Squid Ink Pizza.
Could a toaster oven pizza from the supermarket capture such a familiar taste of home? We bought one to find out!
Aoki’s Pizza, the Japanese pizza chain which brought you last year’s chocolate and pineapple-topped Black Thunder pizza, is teaming up with fellow Nagoya-based Akakara (a popular nabe chain) for another wacky yet oddly appetizing-looking menu item: introducing this year’s “Akakara Cochin [a breed of chicken] meatball pizza.”
Mister Donut stores across Japan have been transporting customers to Brooklyn since the beginning of the year, with a special line-up of hybrid sweets and beverages and even dedicated outlets featuring fittings inspired by the borough’s cool, hip eateries.
Now, a sweet slice of Brooklyn has just landed in stores, in the form of miniature, palm-sized pizzas topped with chocolate, marshmallows and even strawberry sauce. We stopped by for takeout and the results were more delicious than we could have imagined. Check out our photos for the cutest, tiniest slices of pizza you’ve ever seen!
Most of the foods we enjoy today have gone through many stages of evolution, to the point where you almost begin to wonder whether they can ever be improved upon. Yet, so long as cooks maintain their curiosity and enterprising spirit, the foods we know will surely continue to change. We can see the truth of this in creations such as Mokubaza’s cheese keema curry, which we covered in a previous article.
But how can we possibly improve on the wünderfood that is pizza? Well one pizza cafe in Tokyo’s trendy Roppongi district seems to think so…
Valentine’s Day falls on a Saturday this year, which makes it a perfect opportunity for an elegant dinner out with your special someone. Of course, if you’re single, you may want to bypass a meal in a restaurant surrounded by couples making kissy faces at each other and just call Domino’s for a pizza instead.
But even if you’re not headed out, Domino’s understands that maybe you’re in the mood for both pizza and love. That’s why this Valentine’s Day the popular pizza providers are offering a deal that includes a cute heart-shaped pizza, and, if you’d like, a romantic kabe-don wall pound as part of the delivery service.
Japan is known for a lot of things, such as its culture, its safety, and its traditional foods, but it is definitely not known for making delicious pizza. In fact, some of the pizza chains have come out with some really wacky creations over the years.
However, there are quite a few independent pizza places throughout Japan, which can, of course, be found in the cities, but sometimes can even be found in small towns or along mountain roads, yet they will still often be equipped with special pizza ovens. If you want good pizza in Japan, you should search for these places, it will be well worth the trouble!
One such independent place is Amici in Ibaraki Prefecture, where they serve pizza and the lesser known Italian pie, the pizza fritta, or deep-fried pizza. Our reporter visited Amici, but not just to try the delicious fried pizza pockets, he went to experience the cooking process too!
Tirol chocolate has been around in Japan for as long as any of us can remember. Super tasty, available in dozens of flavours, and cheap enough even for elementary school kids to buy with their pocket-money, you’ll find these tiny squares of goodness in pretty much any convenience store or supermarket up and down the country. Occasionally, Tirol (or chiroru as it’s pronounced in Japanese) will release a handful of limited-edition flavours, fusing sweets like custard pudding and tiramisu together with their tasty choco to create unusual, moreish combinations.
But every now and then, they’ll try something really, really strange. Like Cheese & Pizza chocolate.
No one ever said pizza couldn’t be sweet, right? Well, certainly no one in Japan! We’ve already introduced to you the high-sugar Kit Kat pizza and caramel marshmallow pizza, and now we’ve heard that Aoki’s Pizza, a chain based in Japan’s Tokai Region, will soon be offering up a unique creation of its own: the Pizza Black Thunder!
Could this chocolate and cookie laden creation be the ultimate sweet pizza?
Back in August we brought you the news that Pizza Hut in Japan was now under the control of four bossy cats. Along with millions of other pizza and cat fans, we couldn’t get enough of the adorable antics of Tenchō, Hime, Dora and Detch as they manned (catted?) the phones, were startled by the sound of the cash register, and rode a rumba around the store.
This week, the chain announced the emergency closure of its Pizza Cat store, citing the mysterious disappearance of the four plucky feline workers. Where could they have gone? And why? We did some detective work to try and find out.
While it may not have the hippest image in the U.S., Domino’s Pizza has built a fanbase for itself in Japan with a string of unique promotions and weird humor. So we’re sure plenty of people were sad to hear that on October 26, Domino’s Japan is closing down its online store where you can order pizzas for delivery or pickup.
Luckily, this has turned out to be just another one of the chain’s quirky jokes, since it’s also opening a new online store on October 27. In other words, it’s just a website redesign, but in addition to serving up plenty of tongue-in-cheek drama, Domino’s is also offering discounts for customers who play along with the joke and say goodbye in a variety of ways.
This year, one of our favorite Japanese monsters has returned. Gigantic and terrifying, we still can’t help but cheer at its reappearance, even as we realize it’s likely to destroy us.
Are we talking about Godzilla? No, our dark idol is far tastier: the Mega Burger Pizza.
In Japan, there’s the phrase “neko no te mo karitai” (literally “want to borrow even a cat’s hand”), meaning that you’re so busy, you even want the cat to help. Well, Pizza Hut took this idiom to heart in its new campaign, hiring four rough-and-tumble cats to manage a franchise called Pizza Cat! As you’ll see in the dramatic “movie trailer,” these cats are fired up and can’t wait to rescue people who’re too busy to prepare dinner.
Read on to learn more about the comical and kawaii campaign, and to watch a few of the 15-second promotional videos that reveal what would happen if cats really lent a paw. Plus, if you live in Japan you may even have a chance to win a Pizza Hut hat for cats. So are felines one opposable thumb away from world domination, or are we slowly approaching a utopia in which pets will fetch us pizza? And hey, didn’t Samurai Pizza Cats already get started on both?
If you live in the States, you may remember a few years ago when Congress blocked a proposal that aimed to make school lunches for children healthier. One of the provisions which stirred up considerable debate involved increasing the amount of tomato paste necessary to be considered a full serving of fruits and vegetables, but the proposal was eventually nixed, effectively maintaining that the tomato sauce used on pizza could count as a serving of vegetables.
After a Japanese news site broke the story fashionably late last month, Japanese people were incredulous to hear that from a legal standpoint, “pizza is a vegetable” in the U.S. Read on to learn more about the ongoing debate and some reactions of readers.
Japanese candy maker Morinaga’s Milk Caramel line has been around for 100 years, which is essentially an eternity in the fiercely competitive, constantly evolving Japanese snack food arena. To celebrate the milestone, Morinaga is partnering with a number of restaurants to bring caramel to bold, baffling new worlds.
We recently talked about the caramel banana and caramel mayonnaise corn sushi that started the ball rolling, and now Morinaga has teamed up with Pizza Hut to create a caramel pizza. Not unique enough? Don’t worry, it also has marshmallows. Still not weird enough for you? You’ll be happy to know it also comes with chili sauce.
China is going through a pizza renaissance.
Because Chinese consumers see pizza as an iconic part of the American diet, demand for the food is expected to continue surging, writes David Stringer at Bloomberg.
China’s biggest cheese supplier, Fonterra, predicts demand for mozzarella cheese will surge 20% in the next two years because of the trend, according to Bloomberg.
We were already perfectly full and happy having had a chance to try Japan’s new bakeable Kit Kats, and felt that the chocolatey snack had been taken about as far as it ever could. But apparently there’s still more to look forward to from these unique Kit Kats than just the novelty of “toasting” them at home: Kit Kat pizza!
That’s right, several pizza and cafe chains in Japan will be offering special menus for a limited time using the “Bake ‘N Tasty Mini Kit Kats Custard Pudding Flavor” (Kit Kat Mini Yaite Oishi Purin Aji), and we have to say, they look pretty darn sweet.
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[Deleted] Article written for April Fool’s Day 2018
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