Soy Sauce and Butter Spaghetti?

"There are some ingredients that just work naturally together. Olive oil and balsamic. Milk and eggs. Peanut butter and jelly," says elmomonster. "But soy sauce and butter? On pasta? Believe it or not, it's a pairing short of heaven sent."

You'll have to thank the insane imagination of the Japanese for this combination. You can get it at Japonaise Bakery & Cafe, which has recently been transformed into a donburi, pasta, and curry joint.

Japanese experimentation has brought us such standard classics as uni spaghetti. But this is the first time elmomonster has ever heard soy sauce and butter uttered in the same breath. "Together they amount to a pasta sauce that has a surplus of umami… The butter rounds out the soy sauce's saltiness; and the soy keeps the butter from becoming too rich. And then there are the sautéed mushrooms, which soak up and marry the two flavors in an even more concentrated form inside themselves."

Japonaise Bakery & Cafe [Orange County]
600 El Camino Real, Tustin
714-665-8239

Discuss: Soy Sauce & Butter Spaghetti at Japonaise Bakery in Tustin with PHOTOS