Japanese pizza

Japanese pizza is an interesting thing. The basic ingredients are the same for making dough, tomato sauce etc and yet it tastes radically different. Even a pizza made with "normal" ingredients like ham, pepperoni, mushrooms etc still doesn't taste like ours do in North America. I have to say that while I have eaten my fair share of pizzas over the last 10 years I would never have said that I LOVED them....until last night!! (now for those who read that I don't eat wheat/gluten....that is true for 99.9% of the time but occasionally due to lack of choices and whatnot, I breakdown and eat something with wheat).

In the picture above is the pizza I ate last night. The bottom half has chicken, red peppers, mushrooms, onion, nori (seaweed), mayo and mustard sauce. It was good BUT the top half was divine and totally weird in terms of what we are used to in North America. It has "mentaiko" which is spicy fish eggs (the red stripes) , "mochi" (chewy rice cakes)(the white lumps) , corn and nori (seaweed). I love all those items but I wasn't sure about it on a pizza but OMG!!! It was sooooo good. The mochi was chewy and I don't know how to explain it but it just worked!!

Things you probably didn't know about pizza in Japan:

Pizza in Japan is expensive. Forget 2-for-1 deals etc. The biggest pizza is 35 cm or 14 inches and can cost up to $38!! Needless to say the average family doesn't eat pizza for dinner often!

These ingredients are common on pizza:
mayo
potato chunks
ketchup
pasta
seaweed
sausage-not like ours but like long sausages kids would eat
squid
tuna
scallops
crab
And even though Japanese love fish....I can't find anchovies!!

So, if you ever come to Japan...I highly suggest you try some Japanese pizza!!