Tanioka's Spicy Ahi

This is the mini spicy ahi from Tanioka's. It's basically spicy maguro tataki with onions over a bed of furikake sushi rice. It is fantastic. This is the mini and it a good size--as Steff suggested, about the size of those Japanese instant microwave rice packs you can buy at the 100 yen shop or at the convenience store. It's slightly smaller than the length of a chopstick and the width is about one-third the length of a chopstick. It comes out to about $4 with the tax, but it is delicious. I would have to say easily one of the best recipes on the island. You cannot beat Tanioka's. It's always fresh and delicious. There are so many flavors going on when you take a bite of this mini bento. The sharp bite of the onions, the spicy kick of the sauce, the subtle saltiness of the fish melding with the large flakes of furikake, and the sweet and sourness of the sushi rice. I like comfort food, but I also appreciate the complex flavors of a simple dish like Spicy Ahi.

I think the Honolulu Star Bulletin ran a Spicy Ahi recipe awhile back, let's just google him and see....Found him:

So mix together:
1 c. mayonnaise
1/4 c. chile pepper sauce
1/4 c. Kochujan miso sauce
1 T. sesame oil
1 T. shoyu

My coworker also told me that her cousin adds tobiko and chili sesame oil (I think that is la yu...but don't hold me to it.) You can mix it with maguro tataki to get something like Tanioka's or take a carrot stick sized log and make a temaki out of him. Spicy ahi is similar, but not poke. Poke is usually cut into cubes, whereas spicy ahi is usually in tataki form. I suppose you could have cubes, but I think the tataki is better. I would say poke is usually more shoyu-salty, whereas spicy ahi, although it has the spicy kick, is more creamy and sweet in flavor--probably from the Kochujan sauce, which people tell me is the key to making good kim chee soup.

Now that I think about it, this may have been the sauce that I always drowned my ishiyaki bi bim bap (I just learned it is called dol sot bi bim bap, as I read it on the menu at the Korean restaurant down the hill from my house) in when the Hibun gang used to frequent the Nobune restaurant by Nihon Terebi in Ichigaya. Hmmm.... Steff, I think I may have found our mystery sauce!