The story
Nagoya's famous fried wings trace back to Furaibo, a restaurant-bar founded in 1963 in the city's Atsuta ward. Its founder had been frying whole young chickens with a secret sauce. As the story goes, an ordering mix-up in the 1960s left him without the usual birds, so he fried chicken wings, until then mostly used for stock, and brushed them with the same sweet, savoury sauce and plenty of pepper. Cheap, crisp and ideal with beer, they were a hit. Chains such as Sekai no Yamachan later spread tebasaki across Japan, and the wings are now a pillar of Nagoya's local food culture.
Also known as 手羽先, tebasaki karaage, 手羽先唐揚げ, Nagoya chicken wings.
On the Meridish menu
Tebasaki was the starter course on menu No. 19 on October 19, 2026. Its clue in the game, which hints at the place without naming it:
Crisp fried chicken wings in a sweet, peppery glaze, made for drinking with beer. In the 1960s an ordering mix-up left a bar here short of chicken, so it fried the wings instead.
In Meridish, every dish is pinned to the town or city most widely credited with creating it. A guess within 25 km scores all 100 points. How scoring works.
Sources
- ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%89%8B%E7%BE%BD%E5%85%88%E5%94%90%E6%8F%9A%E3%81%92
- nagoya-meshi.jp/cms/wp-content/themes/nagoyameshi/nagoyameshi/en/item04.html
Food history is often disputed. Think we've pinned it in the wrong place? Tell us at hello@meridish.com, ideally with a source.
