Tacos and spaghetti have earned love around the world, but will their meeting in Japan be a tragedy?
spaghetti
After spending decades without ever eating at Goemon, our ace reporter is finally giving the fusion chain a shot.
Part spaghetti, part Asian noodle, all deliciousness…you’ll want to get your hands on some…if you can find them!
We looked at this Shibuya restaurant’s 2.3-kilogram (5.1-pound) spaghetti serving and said, “Naw, that’s not enough.”
For those living outside Japan, a good bowl of ramen is almost impossible to find unless you’re in a big city like New York or London, and even then the options can be a bit of a let-down. And for many, the only ramen available is the dried variety that frankly has made some of our Japanese culinary experts gag.
But all is not lost, dear ramen lovers around the world. We’ve found a kitchen hack to turn ordinary everyday pasta into noodles fit for a delicious bowl of homemade ramen.
Japan sure loves its plastic replica food. It’s a handy way for restaurants to demonstrate the dishes on offer, and it’s an absolute godsend for tourists who don’t read Japanese. Instead of grappling with menus written in complicated characters, they can simply point at the tasty plastic versions. In recent years, however, plastic food has found its way toward decorating all sorts of objects, from phone cases to accessories. We think that things might have gotten a bit out of hand, however, because now you can apparently wear a serving of plastic food around your neck. Join us after the jump to see the whole range!
We don’t know why people always make the same mistakes, and history always repeats itself. In this case we are talking about Lotteria, one of Japan’s largest fast food chains. In the past, it had once made the mistake of selling a ramen burger that sandwiched droopy ramen between buns. It wasn’t well received. And then they brought to us a tsukemen burger, which also didn’t do well. We thought they’d have learned their lesson, but no! Much to our dismay, starting on September 8, they started selling a neapolitan spaghetti burger. We’re not quite sure why they are so insistent on putting noodles between buns, but we do know that the new noodle burgers aren’t impressing diners in Japan.
Although Italian in origin, the words pasta and spaghetti are now everyday words in English. Thanks to the foods’ proliferation around the world these words can also be found in Japanese, pronounced pasuta and supagettī respectively.
But in recent years, it seems as if the word “spaghetti” has been falling out of favor in Japan, being replaced by the word “pasta.” Although in English the distinction between “spaghetti” and “pasta” is pretty clear (pasta being the foodstuff, spaghetti one of its many varieties), it seems there is a whole other world of nuances when the words cross over into Japanese.
Have you taken a look in your freezer lately? Has that carton of ice cream from last summer grown into an ice fortress yet? What about that mean-looking freezer burn on that mystery meat? Maybe it is time to clean out the chiller and fill it up with some surprisingly yummy frozen foods from your local Japanese grocery store.
While this is far from world-class gourmet dining, the following six foods will definitely make your stomach happy on a night when pushing the microwave’s “start” button is all the cooking you want to do. Click below to find out which Japanese frozen foods are worth your hard-earned yen!
I freaking knew it!
Spaghetti and other pasta recipes have repeatedly asked us to “boil with salt” – a rule that has always baffled me. Once, early on in my cooking life, I decided to be a good boy and add the salt as requested only to find that it didn’t make a lick of difference to the end result. I haven’t looked back since.
In an interview with website, President Online, Tokyo Kasei University Graduate School of Home Economics, Keiko Nagao, puts this myth of boiling with salt to rest once and for all, thus saving us from a needless cooking step. Read More
In our continuing endeavor to visit McDonald’s restaurants around the world we sample the unique regional offerings the international chain creates to appease the locals and delight tourists.
This time RocketNews24 sent a reporter to a McDonald’s in the Philippines to sample one of their localized combos centered by a heap of McSpaghetti. The following is their report.
![Taco Spaghetti appears in Japan, and our taco fan rushes to try it[Taste test] Taco Spaghetti appears in Japan, and our taco fan rushes to try it[Taste test]](https://soranews24.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2026/06/2_fd30d3.jpg?w=640)


















Starbucks Japan teams up with Traveler’s Company for new stationery and goods collection
Pokémon Center Online designates first Pokémon items that will require Japanese ID card to buy
Kochia calling: Right now is a great off-season season to visit this beautiful Japanese park
Over 400 titles of free translated manga from publisher Shueisha available for a limited time
Pokémon comes to McDonald’s Japan for new Happy Meals toys, brings every generation’s starters
Akita Kanto Festival, one of Japan’s most spectacular summer festivals, gets an anime twist this year
Resident Evil’s terrifying Licker becomes a bag in Japan that wants to feed you
Japan’s largest online flea market reminds users that selling used school swimsuits is prohibited
Japanese convenience store Lawson now has stir-fried noodle-cooking robot chefs
Starbucks Japan to open Shinkansen platform stores at Kyoto and Nagoya stations
Air-conditioned dress shirts arrive in Japan to save working professionals from sweltering heat
Tokyo’s newest viral dessert is like a Japanese parfait inside a bread bun [Taste test]
Japanese vending machine sells freshly squeezed lemon juice with a futuristic light show
Starbucks Japan releases first-ever gacha capsule toys, featuring iconic menu items as plush coffee charms
7-Eleven Japan adds new chocolate fruit gummies to its sweets range, but are they worth the hype?
7-Eleven Japan now offering baked-in-store pizza by the slice with two very different topping sets
Studio Ghibli’s No Face twirls to sound of Spirited Away’s theme song in beautiful accessory box
Starbucks Japan opens new store inside historic seaside quarantine station near Tokyo
Live-action Princess Mononoke is coming to streaming as a live event, previews look amazing [Video]
Studio Ghibli has a new anime out, and there’s only one place in the world where you can see it
Tokyo subway installing new ticket gates that don’t accept payment through Suica or other IC cards
Japan now has human refrigerators inspired by Japanese vending machines
Hatsune Miku collaborates with Hokusai’s art in new Vocaloid ukiyo-e illustration series [Pics]
New Shinkansen luggage drop-off system begins in Japan, making train travel even easier
Studio Ghibli releases anime T-shirts that pay homage to one of Hayao Miyazaki’s most personal films
Family Mart opens new “Famima” flagship store in Tokyo that’s like a tourist attraction
Uniqlo looks back to the very start of Pokémon with new black-and-white pixel art T-shirts[Pics]
Japanese Shinkansen becomes an overnight hotel for three nights this summer
Japan announces sudden 400-percent increase in visa fees for foreigners entering the country
Japan’s human washing machines will go on sale to general public, demos to be held in Tokyo
Starbucks Japan releases new drinkware and goods for Valentine’s Day
Starbucks Japan releases new sakura goods and drinkware for cherry blossom season 2026
Japan’s newest Shinkansen has no seats…or passengers [Video]
Japanese ninja certification exam attracts 131 candidates from Japan and abroad
Salomon releases Japan-exclusive Mt. Fuji hiking gear that doubles as an amazing souvenir
Put sesame oil in your coffee? Japanese maker says it’s the best way to start your day【Taste test】
Akita Kanto Festival, one of Japan’s most spectacular summer festivals, gets an anime twist this year
Resident Evil’s terrifying Licker becomes a bag in Japan that wants to feed you
Japan’s largest online flea market reminds users that selling used school swimsuits is prohibited
Japanese convenience store Lawson now has stir-fried noodle-cooking robot chefs
Starbucks Japan to open Shinkansen platform stores at Kyoto and Nagoya stations
Yoshinoya gets into fancy fish, but is the cheap beef king reaching too far? [Taste test]
Nendroid Face Maker lets you custom design faces for Japan’s most popular anime figure line
Aichi city throws year-long 20th birthday bash for giant beckoning cat statue, Hello Kitty invited
Air-conditioned dress shirts arrive in Japan to save working professionals from sweltering heat
Coco’s Japan is very confident in their chilled ramen, but should they be? [Taste test]
Studio Ghibli’s No Face twirls to sound of Spirited Away’s theme song in beautiful accessory box
Japan’s favorite popsicles add multilingual packaging to better connect with foreign tourists
Final Fantasy plushie shoulder bags are fuzzy and functional [Photos]
U.S. government reportedly planning to close Nagoya consulate