Japanese-style pasta

Ponto Iru in the basement of Tokyu Plaza serves up some pretty good Japanese-style pasta. Italian food here is extremely popular, with pasta restaurants almost as frequent as Japanese noodle shops!  Anyway, we didn't really want to try Italian pasta here in Japan (so much other good Japanese food to try!), but when my friend suggested Japanese-style pasta, who were we to refuse?

Japanese-style pasta has a good fusion of both East and West.  They use many Japanese ingredients, like vegetables and even fish eggs, but they also use Western cream sauces and cheese, etc.  The combination turns out very well!

Here is a sampling of our pastas:

Lotus root, tomato, eggplant, soy-sauce beef: so good, they used a ton of olive oil so it was nice and creamy.

Karasumi pasta: Karasumi is salted and dried mullet roe.  Apparently it's a great delicacy of Japan and is quite pricey.  That's why there is only a sprinkling on this pasta.  :P

Pasta in minestrone soup!

Mushroom, meatball, etc. in a soymilk broth