Taco rice

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Taco rice (タコライス, takoraisu) is a Japanese dish, a popular example of Okinawan cuisine. It consists of taco meat served on a bed of rice and lettuce, often served together with tomato, cucumber, cheese and topped off with salsa. Occasionally, it might be served in a tortilla roll (with rice, of course). It is a very common meal on Okinawa, and is often served as school lunch.

Occasionally, the ingredients of taco meat, rice, and cheese are combined, dipped in batter, and fried into a "taco rice and cheese" ball, served with plenty of ketchup. This is especially popular at some of the local outlets in Kin, just outside of Camp Hansen in Okinawa.

Kentucky Fried Chicken put taco rice on its menu in all of Japan in 1996, and Yoshinoya (nationwide gyudon restaurant) serves it in the chain's Okinawan restaurants since 2004. It is one of the most well-known dishes of the Okinawan cuisine outside of Okinawa.

Legend has it that the dish was created in the 1960s by a local chef in Kin, Okinawa, home to one of the United States Marine Corps bases, who combined the Tex-Mex dish, which was very popular among the American Marines, with the staple diet of Okinawa, rice.

One peculiarity of the Okinawan taco is how the Tex-Mex–flavour is sometimes emulated through the use of soy sauce, mirin and sake.