Review: Kikkoman Ponzu Lime

One of the best parts of being part of Foodbuzz’s Tastemaker Program is that you get to try all kinds of stuff for free. The latest item is a sauce, so this review is sponsored by Foodbuzz and my favorite brand of shoyu, Kikkoman. New to the Kikkoman family of products is their Ponzu Lime Sauce. Funnily enough, I found a bottle of their Ponzu Soy Sauce in my pantry last night, which looks like it’s made with lemon instead of lime.

The bottle unfortunately leaked during shipping, which was kinda gross on bubble wrap and a bummer since I like to keep bubble warp. This doesn’t really bode well for buying a bottle of it online, as they did wrap and pack it rather nicely. The letter and literature that came with it said that it goes great with sashimi and the brochure included a recipe for Shrimp Fajitas.

Being someone who doesn’t need an excuse to buy sashimi, you can guess what I chose to test it on.

I went to Foodland and bought a really sexy block of ahi. I’d been to Don Quijote first, but was disappointed to find that they had some seriously crappy fish selection. Instead, I bought a couple of nice white plates to take photos on.

OH……………! I already ate the whole block and yet my mouth still waters at the sight of such pretty sashimi. It had no tsuji, which made it that much more awesome. Anyway, time to pour the sauce on!

Looks good, right? I dipped a fingertip in and took a taste. It was… interesting. Reminded me of my lime bathroom cleaner… :( I took photos under my hot lamp for so long that the bottom of the sashimi was starting to cook. Crazy, huh?

Before I go on, I should state that I’m a shoyu snob and very picky about what goes on my sashimi. I refuse to eat wasabi and pouring cheap shoyu over it is a crime. I might even go so far as to say that you shouldn’t put a light soy sauce like Aloha Shoyu on it. It will taste good, just not how it should. Kikkoman and Yamasa are the only brands I consider worthy of sashimi. I tried Sempio and though it has a really great taste, I think it’s more suited for sushi than sashimi.

That being said, I was not a fan of this Ponzu Lime sauce on my sashimi. I ate it all, but I ate it because it’s sashimi and not to be wasted. I think this might have worked nicely with the regular ponzu sauce, since I love salmon with lemon and shoyu, but the lime just didn’t do it for me.

I made more of the eggplant that I gave the recipe for the other day. I really wasn’t a fan of the sauce at this point, so I actually didn’t even try it with the eggplant. I suspect that this sauce will probably taste a lot better if I try the shrimp fajitas recipe I mentioned earlier. The brochure has a photo of a Mexican family making fajitas, so I guess it’s probably supposed to go more with Latin cuisine or, as I mentioned earlier, maybe I’m just too snobby with my shoyu. I’m not going to be using it on fish again.

I made some pork gyoza for lunch today and thought I should give the sauce another try.

I have to admit, it tasted way better with gyoza. I tried it with the regular ponzu as well, but thought that didn’t taste that good. I tried it with the Ajinomoto Gyoza Dipping Sauce I have, but ended up going back to regular Kikkoman shoyu in the end.

I’ll definitely have to try doing this with beef, as I think soy and lime would probably taste way better on a steak. I’ll update when I find out more!