One of our interests in visiting Japan is its careful and meticulous approach to agriculture, which sees the country producing some of the highest quality food ingredients in the world. There’s often news about Japanese peaches being sold individually, or fruit baskets being given as elaborate gifts. Already we’ve outlined our experience with picking strawberries in Fukuoka, where the fruit is prized for its large, red appearance and its sweetness, but we wanted to taste more delicacies that are much more specific to Japan.

Our start in Fukuoka gave a perfect opportunity to do this – one of Fukuoka’s local specialties is mentaiko (明太子), or salted Alaskan pollock roe. Mentaiko has Korean origin, introduced to Japan by a Korean-born Japanese businessman Toshi Kawahara, who went on to establish the mentaiko store Aji no Mentaiko Fukuya (味の明太子ふくや), and is also enjoyed in Russia.

The roe consists of thousands of tiny fish eggs packed in a thin membrane, all of which is marinated with chilli pepper (karashi mentaiko; 辛子明太子), or in salt (tarako; 鱈子). Mentaiko can vary in flavour, but is typically salty with a delicate seafood or fish flavour. It can be eaten alone as a side dish, but also has many culinary uses thanks to its savoury, salty flavour, such as in rice balls, omelettes, or in pasta.

As is the case with any delicacy, going to a restaurant to eat it in a dish is much more expensive than if you were to pop into a store and purchase the raw ingredient for yourself. While we were perfectly fine with the idea of eating mentaiko straight from a punnet, we figured that we could make full use of the kitchen in our Airbnb to whip up a few dishes of our own. That way, we could not only sample one of Fukuoka’s most popular souvenirs, but also taste it in multiple applications, too.

The Mentaiko

Japan is a country which thrives from tourism, so it’s no surprise that sourcing good mentaiko in Hakata is almost as easy as finding a joint for ramen. Only 10 minutes’ walk from the main Hakata Station is the main branch of the afore-mentioned Aji no Fukuya. Like many souvenir stores in Japan, the space is exceptionally neat, with cabinets and display cases similarly to how you might find jewellery, displaying a variety of mentaiko products in several forms.

Besides typical raw mentaiko, Fukuya also produces canned and jarred products that people can easily take home to enjoy, mentaiko mixed with seafood, and mentaiko condiments such as mentaiko butter to spread on your toast or dried in a seasoning powder. There are also samples for the fresh mentaiko. Though the staff may not speak perfect English, they are prepared for foreign tourists and display a large number of signage in Japanese, English, Chinese, and Korean, and also have catalogues with more product information in these languages, too. If you aren’t sure what you’re looking for, don’t be afraid to ask!

The mentaiko we ended up choosing was a mixed mentaiko (あえもの三明太子) with cod, squid, jellyfish roe, and seasoned with yuzu citrus. This is a milder variety of mentaiko, which we thought would be suitable for use in multiple dishes. The eggs are so fine it can almost be described as smooth, and the additions add a nice jelly-like crunch. The 140g (5oz) punnet set us back only ¥756 including tax (US$7.10), which we thought was very reasonable.

This particular mentaiko product was lighter than the original, the combination of three different roe produced a depth of flavour and texture exceeding that of the pure pollack roe. The touch of yuzu is subtle, the slight bitterness of the rind bringing forth a surprisingly sweet element. The mentaiko finishes with a slight tingle, though not overwhelmingly spicy, is enough to just be noticeable if tasted pure.

All the remaining ingredients we purchased in a nearby supermarket and drugstore, totalling ¥1653 (US$15.60), which we used for all of our meals during the next 24 hours.

Breakfast – Inkigayo Sandwiches

If one is familiar with K-pop in 2018-2019, they may also be familiar with the concept of inkigayo sandwiches (인기가요 샌드위치). This was a product sold in the cafeteria of the Korean broadcasting station SBS, which airs the music show Inkigayo, where music artists promote their latest releases. The inkigayo sandwich became a trending topic of interest amongst followers of Korean pop culture after K-idols mentioned this elusive sandwich, such that many convenience stores came to sell a version of the product so that average individuals could try it for themselves.

We aren’t sure whether this sandwich is still being sold in convenience stores, though there are plenty of recipes online. This three-layered sandwich consists of egg and potato salad, fruit jam, and cabbage salad between four slices of pillow-soft bread. Crustless, of course. This combination of ingredients may seem strange to most people, but Korean palates enjoy a mix of sweet and savoury flavours. In any case, we thought that the salty, savoury flavour of the mentaiko might pair well with our other Fukuoka product – handmade strawberry jam. The rough recipe of our sandwich is described below.

Egg Salad
8-minute boiled eggs mashed with Japanese Kewpie mayonnaise, salt, black pepper, and a dollop of mentaiko.
Strawberry Jam
The original Inkigayo sandwiches use strawberry, though replica convenience store versions deviate. In this case, we’re in Fukuoka, and we had handmade strawberry jam.
Cabbage Salad
Thinly-sliced cabbage with Kewpie mayonnaise and Kewpie sesame dressing. Sesame is said to go very well with mentaiko.

This was all slapped between four slices of bread, though we highly recommend sticking with just three or even two – the bread ended up being monstrously disproportionate to the rest of the filling, making for a ridiculously thick sandwich. The combination of ingredients went surprisingly well together. Besides the overwhelming quantity of bread (Jos’ fault), the salty, savoury mentaiko paired well with the sweet strawberry jam, the mild, creamy mayonnaise and nutty sesame dressing. It was very tasty overall, and something we’d be totally happy to make again even without the mentaiko, though of course with far less bread.

Lunch – Kimbap Rolls

Kimbap (김밥) is also known as Korean-style sushi rolls, which typically has more ingredients and slightly different seasonings to the Japanese version. In ours, we used pre-made steamed rice seasoned with sesame oil, egg omelette, takuan (沢庵, a sweet pickled yellow daikon radish also known in Korean as danmuji 단무지), raw red capsicum, fried onions, Kewpie mayonnaise, and of course some mentaiko. The natural sweetness of most of the ingredients complemented the salty mentaiko very well.

Fish roe is already a common ingredient for sushi, so this was not a particularly innovative dish, but it was great to see how it paired with rice compared to the bread of the morning’s breakfast.

Dinner – Carbonara

Mentaiko carbonara pasta is perhaps the tamest dish we came up with, because it’s already very commonly cooked and eaten not just in Japan but wherever Japanese food and mentaiko is popular. Though mentaiko carbonara is typically made with cream, we opted for the more traditional version of carbonara by mixing the hot boiled pasta with seasoned raw eggs and allowing the residual heat to cook it through into a creamy sauce. We also fried the capsicum and onion beforehand to mix in, and topped the dish with shredded nori toasted seaweed, leftover from the kimbap.

Besides the culinary faux pas of over-salting everything, it’s easy to see why this dish is so popular. The salty, fresh flavour of the sea is delicious with the creamy sauce and al dente pasta. We suspect that the sweetness of cream is meant to offset the salty mentaiko, but it’s equally delicious with an egg carbonara.

Dessert – Hotcakes

If we were to eat mentaiko dishes for 24 hours, there’s no way we couldn’t try making a dessert, too! We opted to make hotcakes, as hotcake mixes are very popular in Japan and doesn’t require oven-baking, and we could also incorporate some of the delicious fresh strawberries we’d picked. For the hotcakes, we followed the instructions on the packet, whipping the egg whites for a fluffier texture, then topped the hotcakes with mentaiko, whipped cream, and some sliced fresh strawberries.

The mentaiko was, perhaps almost disappointingly, lost amongst the rest of the ingredients because we were running low by the end of the day. What we could taste of it, however, was nothing all too bizarre, the texture similar to strawberry seeds and the mild, salty flavour pairing well with the sweet-sour strawberries and fresh whipped cream.

We’re pretty firm believers in the idea that any ingredient be incorporated in most dishes as long as it’s applied correctly, and mentaiko is not an exception. Though the dishes we made are suited more for Asian palates, the fresh, salty flavour of the sea could easily be incorporated in a lot of cuisines around the world who favour seafood. Even if you can’t take fresh mentaiko home with you, we still highly recommended tasting some fresh Fukuoka mentaiko.

Mentaiko Fukuya Head Store 味の明太子ふくや 中洲本店
2 Chome-6-10 Nakasu, Hakata Ward, Fukuoka, 810-8629, Japan
Mon-Fri 12.00pm-9.00pm (Closed weekends)
Website (Japanese)
English website (Limited products and information)

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