Pasta Ceppo — Italian-English-Japanese Fusion

Pasta Ceppo in downtown Hiroshima has a uniquely Japanese take on Western food—mix it all together. Pasta Ceppo specializes in beef steaks, English roast beef and Italian pasta and pizza.  And their menu sometimes crosses the boundaries between culinary worlds. A great example is the ¥980 “Roast Beef Don” set sold only at lunchtime.  Despite the restaurant styling itself as Italian, this dish, found on the lunch menu next to Vongole Blanco and Peperoncino, is really a fusion of English and Japanese cuisine.  This dish mixes the Japanese concept of a donburi, a bowl of rice topped with meat and vegetables, with English style roast beef. The house made, red-wine and onion sauce poured over the dish might be Italian in inspiration, but what is definitely clear is that this is a very Japanese dish topped with a very English meat—which happens to be brilliantly red, extremely tender and topped with a rich egg yolk. It also comes with a chunky tomato soup and a simple salad of fresh mizuna greens and lettuce topped with splinters of carrot, onion and purple daikon. At lunch time you can even get a free hot coffee. All of that for just 980 yen— a real bargain in Japan where roast beef is considered a refined, foreign, luxury food.