I've eaten some weird things on the road. Stall noodles in an alley in Hanoi where the cook was grilling something on a stick that I still can't identify. A cheese aged in a cave in southern Spain that smelled like it had opinions about me. Fermented shark in Iceland, which, if you know, you know, and if you don't, count yourself lucky.

But sea squirt stuffed into a shishito pepper? That's a new one even for me.

Chef Greg Galano at Tavolino in Foxborough, Massachusetts, is putting some genuinely creative plates on his menu right now and I respect the ambition. The standout everyone's talking about is shishito peppers stuffed with sea squirt and mushrooms. If you've never had a shishito they're those little wrinkly green peppers that are mostly mild, except for the one in ten that lights you up like a surprise wasabi challenge at a sushi bar. Stuffing them with sea squirt, which is exactly what it sounds like, a marine creature that filters water through its body, and mushrooms is the kind of combination that makes you pause and then lean in.

He's also doing a corkscrew pasta with sausage, grapes, and warm spices. Grapes in pasta sound unusual until you remember that sweet and savory together is one of the oldest tricks in the book. Think of how good a fig and prosciutto pizza is, or how chicken and grapes show up together in old-school salads. The sweetness cuts through the sausage fat and the spice ties it together.

Nation's Restaurant News flagged this as part of their regular roundup of what independent restaurants are putting on their menus, which is a column I basically stalk for trip ideas.

Foxborough is about 40 minutes southwest of Boston, mostly known for being the home of the Patriots' stadium. I wouldn't call it a culinary destination on paper. That's the point though. Every place has something if you look for it, and a chef willing to put sea squirt on the menu in a strip-mall-adjacent New England town is the kind of person I want cooking for me.

Marco would lose his mind over this dish. An unfamiliar protein paired with a familiar cooking method, stuffing something into a pepper, is pure food-trick genius. It takes something strange and makes it approachable.

Would I order it? In a heartbeat. The whole reason I travel is to taste things I didn't know existed. A stuffed shishito feels like the perfect gateway to sea squirt, small enough to commit to without going all in on a full plate of something you've never tried.

Just go. Try the weird thing.