The English-language internet has just discovered the hottest birthday tradition sweeping Japan: the meat cake. We have a feeling Google searches for how to obtain Japanese citizenship are about to spike.If you're picturing stupid dowdy little meat pies you have this thing all wrong. These are proper meat cakes, and they are glorious.
The meat cake first got started as something of a gimmick at the country's yakiniku restaurants: eateries specializing in grilled meat where many Japanese go to celebrate special occasions like, you guessed it, birthdays.
Advertisement
Yakiniku joints garnered internet-notoriety by presenting more and more elaborate birthday cakes made of raw meat that were presented to the birthday boy or girl, then deconstructed and put on the grill. They even have a cute Japanese name for the fleshy confections: niku keeki (肉ケーキ).Over time, the cakes have become more and more involved, boasting sparklers, meat rosettes, and multiple tiers using all kinds of different meats including seafood. Now, some exceptionally awesome significant others are even assembling their own meat cakes at home.Twitter and Instagram have blown up with photos of the cakes under the hashtag #肉ケーキ, and a few sites like Kotaku have pulled together galleries of some of the more impressive meat creations.
If anyone out there has Japanese meat cake connects, my birthday is April 19. Get at me. Now, I need to go update my wedding Pinterest and shop for plane tickets to Tokyo.