Super Terrific Japanese Thing: Eel Juice
I love eel sushi. I love unadon, which is just eel on rice. Can’t get enough of it. So I imagine I’m probably more open-minded than most Americans about the following product, and yet even thinking about it makes me want to vomit profusely.
Eel Juice. An eel-flavored soft drink. Incidentally, BLLEEEAAAARGGHGH. Sez TokyoMango:
Cold beer on a hot day is so last century. Japanese people are drinking Eel Juice to survive the drenching summer heat of Tokyo. Unagi Nobori is a fizzy yellow drink distributed by Japan Tobacco, but it’s actually healthy for you?it has vitamins A, B, D, and E, plus eel head and bone extract.
I know it sounds a little weird, but it is totally normal to put fish products in other foods in Japan. Shrimp crackers! Eel biscuits!
I have nothing but admiration for TokyoMango’s Lisa Katayama, but I must respectfully disagree here?there is a world of difference between eel-flavored crackers and an eel-flavored beverage. Incidentally, that world is composed entirely of my vomit. Bleagh.
About The Author
Robert Bricken is one of the original co-founders of the site formerly known as Topless Robot, and its first editor-in-chief, serving from 2008-12. He brought the site to prominence with “nerd news, humor and self-loathing” as its motto, raising it from total internet obscurity to a readership in the millions, with help from his savage “FAQ” movie reviews and Fan Fiction Fridays. Under his tenure Topless Robot was covered by Gawker, Wired, Defamer, New York magazine, ABC News, and others, and his articles have been praised by Roger Ebert, Avengers actor Clark Gregg, comedian and The Daily Show correspondent John Hodgman, the stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftrax, and others. He is currently the managing editor of io9.com. Despite decades as both an amateur and professional nerd, he continues to be completely unprepared for either the zombie apocalypse or the robot uprising.