Mentatz

Mentatz

28 Lorne Street, Auckland City

ph: (09) 357 0960

I have heard many great things about Mentatz; a Japanese noodle bar with a reputation of serving authentic, heartwarming Japanese ramen dishes at an affordable price. I first heard about Mentatz when an old friend of mine highly recommended me to dine there and that I would find Mentatz to be “flawless and perfect in every way.”

The fame of Mentatz’s dishes spread through word of mouth like a virus as friends and family continued to talk about Mentatz as if it were the best thing there ever was, is and always will be. The University of Auckland restaurant reviewer for Craccum (May-Lee Wong) gave Mentatz an admirable overall score of 4/5. To see what all the hype was all about, I decided to go there with a friend and find out for myself whether Mentatz really is as good as people say it is.

At first glance, we could not find the food hygiene grade. When we asked the waitress, she did not seem to understand what we were asking. After asking several times, we gave up and we had to call for another waiter. Mentatz should employ people that have a strong command of the English language even at a basic level, so this was downright disappointing. Thankfully we found the food hygiene grade and it was a B.

The interior of Mentatz itself was dark, dim and ugly, my friend and I decided to sit at the front where it is closer to the windows and much brighter. The walls inside were badly decorated as if primary school kids had been hired to decorate it for them. They might as well had no bothered as it just makes the place look ugly and cold, a good restaurant should feel warm and inviting.

There was music playing the whole time, this created a relaxing vibe about the place amongst other diners and it dulled down the constant noise coming from the restaurant kitchen. However Western music actually killed the authenticity of Mentatz being a Japanese restaurant, they should have instead played traditional Japanese music to give an authentic feel to the place as well as creating a relaxing atmosphere.

The menu was extensive and besides ramen dishes there was also other dishes too choose from such as gyoza and donburi. The Craccum restaurant reviewer (May-Lee Wong) talked up the famous Tonkotsu ramen ($9.00), so I decided that I would also try to see if it really did live up to my expectations, my friend had ordered the spicy dry ramen ($9.00). The Tonkotsu ramen is a type of ramen that has a thick broth made from boiling crushed pork bones for several hours with springy Chinese style wheat noodles bathed in the thick broth. Once the order was taken we started the stop watch. I saw that we had received disposable wooden chopsticks. This seemed unfitting for a restaurant with a great reputation and would expect nothing less than quality eating utensils, not cheap, disposable chopsticks.

As we looked around there were only a handful of diners, it was almost an empty house. To our shock, people that came in after us were served before were. This is just purely bad etiquette as the first ones in should be the first ones served. To add salt to our wound, we received our dishes 18 unacceptable minutes later; given that there were only a handful of diners and that the broth and noodles were presumably pre-prepared, 18 minutes just to get one dish out is absurdly unacceptable. If the entire place was packed with diners then 18 minutes is fair enough. I had received my dish first while my friend got his only minutes later. This is also bad etiquette as we should have both been served at the same time or at least in quick succession. Putting aside the service and the venue, it is the food that made Mentatz famous for dishing out bowl after bowl of hearty, soul-soothing ramen, and for $9.00 the Tonkotsu ramen was a generous looking dish.

 Accompanying the Tonkotsu ramen were black fungus, nori (a type of seaweed), cabbage, fried shallots, a sliced half of a hard boiled egg, a slice of broiled pork and bamboo shoots finally topped off with freshly diced spring onion. One slurp told me that the noodles were old, pre-prepared, low quality noodles. They weren’t springy or elastic; it should have had somewhat a stretch to it rather than just break off and fall apart. The noodles also did not have that freshness to it and a batch of noodles was clumped up at the bottom showing that they were stored for a while. The broiled pork was not at all tender or succulent; it was dry and chewy even though it was coated in the ramen broth. The black fungus was not as crunchy as I had hoped it would be, but the bamboo shoots and the cabbage was cooked well. The ramen broth was absolutely rich and thick, the broth ran down my throat smoothly.

The ramen broth had some lovely flavours going on; the shallots, spring onion and the garlic all gave the broth that rich, strong flavour that May-Lee Wong was hyped up about. However, there was so much garlic in there that it actually overpowered the ramen broth making it too strong. The chefs and/or cooks should definitely ease up on the amount of garlic that they put into the broths. Also, the broth itself was far too greasy; every spoon I had felt like it was bringing me closer to a heart attack.

There was also an ingredient in there that gave the dish an unpleasant bitterness to it that I could not pick out. As I drank the broth, the initial taste would be smooth, rich and soothing and then I would bite down on something turning my whole mouth bitter, leaving a horrid aftertaste and a negative last impression.

My friend said that his spicy dry ramen was okay; the flavours were good, but the noodles let him down, it was far too salty, the fresh vegetables were soggy. So it was not bad, but not good either.

For a ramen dish to be successful both the broth and the noodles must be perfect in every way, otherwise the whole dish will be soiled in terms of flavour and texture. In this case, the ramen wheat noodles were a right, real screw up, and the ramen broth had some good flavours going on, but the broth was overpowered by the excessive amount of garlic in the dish. The dish as a whole was less than perfect making the whole dish unsatisfactory.

Does Mentatz live up to its hype? From what I have tasted: No. Mentatz seriously needs to improve its service and its dishes. I do not know why May-Lee Wong has such high praises for this particular dish and restaurant, but to me it sounds like she knows nothing about food with the exception of eating it.

Don’t get me wrong, it was a generous, hearty meal for $9.00, but for a place with a great reputation I expected better. And from what I’ve tasted so far... Mentatz is overrated, but it only just passes to get my approval.

Rating: 2.5/5