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mckib•in•nihon

Monday, December 06, 2004

Definitely NOT the original Ray's...

Japanese Pizza

So like most dishes brought in from abroad (curry filled donut anyone? quite tasty actually), even the venerable slice gets a radical makeover in Japan. This is definitely not about playing that favorite NYC game of "who makes the best pie" (although, clearly it's Grimaldi's in Brooklyn). These entries redefine the category.

In NYC, you can get a little daring and ask for a pie with anchovies and garlic, here you can get it topped with mochi (a kind of soft, gummy rice cake), bacon and nori (seaweed). That's on the pie (above) on the left, bottom half; on the top half is kalbi (Korean style meat), onion and mayonnaise. The pie on the right has on the left hand side mentaiko (fish eggs) and a potato filling, and on the right hand side is tomatoes, pepperoni, corn, onion and pepper. We got them delivered from an outfit calling itself, Pizza California. You can see the rest of their menu here.

This is pizza that has been cut entirely loose from any mooring post in old Italy. This pizza make a "Hawaiian Special" look vanilla by comparison... ham? pineapples? big deal, here you can get a "German Special" with bacon and potato:



Top that, Original Ray's.