Signature Mentai Tartar by Hakata Mentai Yamaya Kitchen - Replicable Simple Recipe for Home

A gourmet mentaiko maker opened its first international branches in Singapore recently, so I tried some of their signature menu items. The Japanese chain is named similarly - Hakata Mentai Yamaya Shokudo (博多明太やまや食堂). The founder first created the signature Yamaya spicy mentaiko and founded facilities in 1974 in Hakata, Kyushu, to mass-produce the cuisine. Since then, the company has exported mentaiko all over the world, created overseas subsidiaries and spun off various restaurant chains and culinary concept brands, including this kitchen/shokudo brand. 

I found the most interesting offering to be their Signature Mentai Tartar, which you can add as a S$2.90 top up to any meal or main. At first, I had no clue what it was supposed to be, as it came presented like this - a spoonful of karashi spicy mentaiko, a pile of onions, a dollop of mayonnaise, a pinch (what looks like) dried parsley and half a hard-boiled egg. But upon reading the instructions, it was suppose to be a "mix it yourself" special tartar sauce that you can slather on your mains. Notably, it is quite distinct from the regular tartare sauce - apart from not having the usual relish, capers or dill, it also has 2 types of egg (mentaiko is pollock roe), and I certainly wasn't expecting a hard-boiled egg.

But wait, there's a hard-boiled half egg in there - how do you make tartare sauce out of that?

It turns out that you basically treat it like you are making egg mayonnaise sandwich filling. It helps to mash the egg first, especially against the corrugated bowl (it's the same bowl used to easily grind toasted sesame seeds into powder), before mixing everything up. You can see how in the video.

And this is the result. It does indeed look more like a tartar sauce once it is mixed up. Except that the green pickles and condiments aren't as prominent, with the chunks of egg replacing the usual chunks of pickles. And it actually has a very nice salmon-pink hue especially where the mentaiko roe appears, but also permeating the whole sauce. (The camera wasn't able to pick up this hue unfortunately.)

It did not really taste like a typical tartar sauce, as you can imagine. It felt to me more like a mix between an egg mayonnaise and a Japanese potato salad (which they often add onions and sometimes tartar-like ingredients such as relish to), and there is the clear spicy umami of the mentaiko mixed throughout. 

I did really like it nonetheless - the onion and parsley sufficed to bring out the herby vegetable component of the tartar, while the mentaiko and egg really enhanced the umami and fullness of the sauce over and above the usual tartar. Furthermore, it was more savoury than a normal tartar, and the spice of the mentaiko also provided that extra pop without the usual acidic sourness of normal tartar. It's a really lovely combination that I would recommend trying. It might also be especially suited to some Asian taste buds that may prefer less sourness and more mellow or umami tastes in our food.

I spread it over my fried items, as I think that's what went best with it. I had deep friend dory chunks and karaage chicken, both of which were done perfectly in terms of crispiness, juiciness and flavour. The chicken also had a very prominent wholesome ginger flavour too, which further complemented the mentaiko tartar. It could presumably go well with the tamagoyaki (to the right in the picture), grilled saba fish or meats in their donburi too, but I still think battered pairings are best.

And if you do buy mentaiko mayonnaise from a Japanese supermart, now you know that you can add in onions, parsley and maybe even hard-boiled egg to enhance it!