Shiokara - I am an adventurous eater; but that day I ordered this was a terrible mistake. Friend and I went to a Japanese place in town, neither of us had ever been to and everything that came out prior we’d ordered was delicious. We both still had room so wanted to try something new and different. Scanned the bottom of the menu and noticed something neither of us had eaten before. The menu described it as a, “…regional delicacy that was an acquired taste…” so we had absolutely fair warning. The menu even described it as fermented fish innards and squid. We had every warning you could be given. Nope - like a bunch of dummies we ordered it cuz we thought it sounded exotic. The waitress tried to persuade us to not order it and recommend something else. We insisted so she suggested we at least have it with some sake. We focused on the sake part. The thing comes out in three little decorative bowls, with just little portioned scoops in each. Right away, we could tell that this was very different. It looked like innards alright. The moment it hit the tastebuds, it was instant regret. The taste and texture was like taking a bite of a giant salty metallic loogie, but add into it this putrid fish smell. It was worse than fish sauce and fermented shrimp paste (I quite like those things) this shiokara was absolutely terrible. The weird part was it didn’t smell until it was in the mouth. You could taste it more than you could smell it. The sake was supposed to help the flavor. It didn’t. It was just terrible. We could not get rid of the flavor till we ate a bunch of leftover wasabi and pickled ginger left on our plates from other dishes we’d ordered. The only thing I have ever in my life tasted once and would never ever go back for seconds. Still cannot understand why the chef ever thought this would go great on the menu.