All You Can Eat Mentaiko & Takana

Last Monday, my friend, my husband and I went to a Japanese restaurant, Hakata Yamaya, in Torrance for lunch. We had known that the restaurant serves mentaiko, which is seasoned cod roe, and takana, which is leaf mustard, for free as much as you want during lunch time on weekdays.

My home town is Fukuoka, which is famous for mentaiko in Japan. Therefore, I am pretty picky about mentaiko. You can also buy mentaiko in the U.S., but I have never found delicious mentaiko at Japanese supermarket in the U.S., and it is always as expensive as the ones in Japan.  I know that Yamaya is high-end mentaiko brand in Japan. Their mentaiko is usually three times more expensive than the ones Japanese supermarket sells. I was wondering how they can serve mentaiko for free.
By the way, Fukuoka is also famous for takana as well.

When we got to the restaurant at 12 p.m., some customers were waiting at the entrance of the restaurant. We waited for about five minutes or so. Most customers seemed like Japanese business people.

Soon after we ordered our lunch, a waitress brought mentaiko and takana. I tasted mentaiko before my meal arrived. I was really surprised that the taste of mentaiko was as same as high-end one which Yamaya sells. I love mentaiko, so I was really excited to eat their mentaiko! I thought the price of this one bowl of mentaiko was usually $15 more. I felt like that it's an incredible bargain.

Takana was also as good as I thought.

We ordered fried chicken combos. The fried chicken was also good!

We were really satisfied with their all you can eat mentaiko and their delicious menu. What I liked the most about the restaurant was that their foods were not Americanized at all. :)  If I have a chance, I'd like to go there again. However, you shouldn't eat mentaiko too often because mentaiko has high cholesterol. I need to keep up my exercise and eat many vegetables now.




Hakata Yamaya
2529 Pacific Coast Hwy
Torrance, CA 90505