Copycat Inquiry - Sauce - Koi Restaurant

[NoraC]

My grandsons adore the spicy fried rice at the Koi Hibachi Restaurant chain. but for the life of me I cannot get the sauce that the restaurant adds right. I am pretty sure from the look and the taste that it is one of the bean sauces, but there are a bunch o' oriental bean sauces. I keep guessing wrong. Does anybody know this dish and have a hint about the magic ingredient? The basic fried rice is easy, but the sauce eludes me. Thanks!

 

[Damien]

Can you describe the sauce? Is it creamy? nutty? sweet? citrusy? oily? Spicy? what color?, thin like soy sauce or thick like sweet and sour?

-Damien

 

[NoraC]

Can you describe the sauce? Is it creamy? nutty? sweet? citrusy? oily? Spicy? what color?, thin like soy sauce or thick like sweet and sour?

-Damien

The sauce is an ingredient in a dish, so I have not been able to get a taste of it separately. That said, it is a medium brown, appears to be about the consistency of ketchup (it is squeezed from a bottle onto fried rice, so the consistency could be off a little), and adds a nice rounded heat and slightly red/brown color to the rice when added at a rate of about - eyeballing - a teaspoon per half cup of rice.

The grandboys asked me to try so I tell them how to make it. Initially, I was sure that it was one of the eleventy dozen oriental bean sauces, but I am not arriving at enough spice without adding way too much of the sauce. Mixing the obvious suspects (like rooster sauce, chilies in oil etc) into a couple of brown bean pastes doesn't give the right heat. Szechuan peppercorns are not involved.

Koi is not a "fine dining" experience; it is good solid hibachi cooking, so the answer is not going to be too exotic, but it is eluding me.

All help appreciated!

 

[Zhizara]

Did you ask them at the restaurant, Nora?

 

[NoraC]

Did you ask them at the restaurant, Nora?

Oh yes, ! Got the "sekert sauce, velly good" response that they affect there, though the same folks ordering at Zaxby's sound like they ARE from around here.

 

[Damien]

Is there any chance that it may not be a bean sauce at all but maybe something like a Tonkatsu sauce blended with Sriracha or maybe a different kind of sauce?

-Damien

 

[NoraC]

Damien, I hadn't thought about tonkatsu; you may be right. The heat isn't from sriracha - it is a more rounded, mellow heat, but I will try working from a tonkatsu base. Good idea! Thanks.

 

[Damien]

A couple other options to consider may be Okonomiyaki or Yakisoba sauce... Hope it helps!

-Damien

 

[Andy M.]

Aside from the heat, how does it compare to traditional Chinese fried rice? Sweeter? More tart?

 

[NoraC]

Andy,sweeter, but hot. I am sure the sauce isn't exotic, just not one I can spot.

Damien, it isn't yakisoba, which I know well, but I am not familiar with okonomiyaki; I will pick some up if tonkatsu doean't do the trick. The more I think about it, the morelike the tonkatsu seems likely. Thanks!