Japanese food is delicious and, except for an abundance of sweets and salty snacks, healthy, and most of the flavors overall are…subtle. Perhaps my palate needs refinement, but I had a difficult time telling much of a difference between the five regional soy sauces table-side at my first Nagoyajin sushi restaurant. And the different kinds of fish all tasted like one kind of fish, to me at least.

I come from the land of spicy tacos and blackened meats! We have discovered our favorite curry place here, and a brilliant Nepalese restaurant, but I could not help wondering: does Japan have spicy food?

Then I discovered Taiwanese ramen, a regional dish invented in Nagoya by a Taiwanese restaurant owner. So delicious and so flavorful, our European friends who joined us for dinner that night cried tears of spicy joy. It’s a meat ramen broth with ground beef, noodles, scallions and plenty of chili flakes, among other things.

Every region of Japan has its own specialty foods. In Nagoya there’s red miso made from red beans and miso katsu, a breaded and fried pork cutlet covered in a thick miso gravy. I’m excited to try it all!

-Brian