Your resident foodie’s love affair with Japanese food is beyond this world and so, when I found out about this Instagram store serving Mentai Rice, that certainly made me intrigued. Especially when the dish was first discovered in Indonesia.
With a fairly affordable price, Kuidaore by Miraish offers several variations of the dish which are Kani Tuna, Kani Salmon, Marinated Chicken Mentai and Chuka Idako, making foodies curious more to try it.
Amirah had taken the initiative to start up her own business due to the pandemic and that’s how Kuidaore by Miraish came to the picture. Only a few months in and she is already working on coming up with a new Mentai rice dish. She shares, “Our Mentai rice is slightly different ’cause we choose to bake it as that will help enhance the flavour and make the dish last longer.
That said, your resident foodie had the chance to try out their bestsellers, the Kani Salmon Mentai Rice and Chuka Idako Mentai Rice.
Kani Salmon Mentai Rice (RM19)
No doubt, Salmon Mentai is a definite crowd favourite and it usually consists of rice, salmon, and torched mentai sauce topping. Just a whiff of its smoky aroma will get you starving in no time.
The first mouthful felt like eating sushi but in a bowl. And trust me, it may seem like a small portion, to begin with, but the more you dig in, you’d actually find the dish quite filling.
Served in an aluminium foil, the layers of the dish consist of the seasoned Calrose rice that is seasoned with ao nori ko on the bottom with some crabsticks and salmon slices on the top. It is then covered with Kuidaore by Miraish’s homemade mentai sauce and sprinkled with a dash of ebiko.
However, a little too much of something can actually make you feel jelak. After all, the mentai sauce is quite creamy and personally, I’m not a fan of crab sticks.
Chuka Idako Mentai Rice (RM23)
Nevertheless, when I tried the seasoned baby octopus version, I honestly savoured it wholeheartedly. Just like the previous dish, it was seasoned to perfection. Though I did enjoy how the protein had a subtlety of sweetness to it and provided some texture that was needed in the dish.
In comparison to the Kani Salmon Mentai Rice, the mentai sauce for this one wasn’t as overpowering and I devoured it within one sitting.
So if you’re asking me which are my favourite amongst the two, hands down it has to be the latter.