Eating pasta in Japan is drastically different from eating it in Italy. I think it reflects the differing approaches they have towards marketing and presentation. As per Japanese culture, you are typically greeted with the sight of food replicas vying for your attention from behind a glass window. You stop in your tracks and ponder about the pasta you would like to have:

You can tell that I absolutely adore sea urchin adorning my pasta. Fun fact: did you know that sea urchins don’t have a single bone in their bodies? This might explain the squeamish feeling chewing sea urchin will evoke - but man, I love this feeling.

In the birthplace of pasta, Italians need no such gimmicks as fake food replicas. I could never get tired of looking at the window displays in which a myriad of pasta hold me spellbound. So many choices, what should I choose?!

I don’t have much experience since I only have my honeymoon to go by, but I think that pasta dishes in Italy are ironically simply put together. I remember tucking into a plate of bolognese in which there was no ingredients being paired with the spaghetti, just the tomato sauce itself. But man, it tasted heavenly. I didn’t take many pictures of the pasta dishes but as you can see from my two photos below, they won my heart with their tantalizingly creamy texture: