Tokyo has a well-deserved reputation for high-end dining but one restaurant is making headlines for a menu that's less hoity-toity and more down and dirty.
A French establishment named Ne Quittez Pas (“Please don’t leave”) is serving a ‘dirt course’, according to Japanese Rocket News, a website that sampled the menu. For $110 you can eat the stuff you scrub off your sneakers and pry from your kid's mouth on the playground. Ne Quittez Pas' menu includes a potato starch and dirt soup, salad with dirt dressing, aspic made with oriental clams and a top layer of sediment, a dirt risotto with sauteed sea bass, dirt gratin, and dirt ice cream. According to the Rocket News investigation, despite appearing, well, dirty, none of the dishes actually tasted like dirt and were described as "delicious" and "divine." They also reported that the dirt contains coffee grinds and palm fiber.
"The dirt is called Kuro Tsuchi and it's volcanic ashes mixed with soil and plants from the Kanto District in Japan," Saeko Torii, a rep from the dirt manufacture Protoleaf told SHINE. "It has good bacteria, healthy minerals, and is natural and pure."