To garlic, or not to garlic? That is (part of) the question.

Recently, our Japanese-language reporter Ikuna Kamezawa came across a yakiniku sauce called, “Watashi no Tare Onna Datte Ninniku”, made by Kagoshima-based food company Hinatayama Mukushokudo. Even if you speak Japanese, that’s a confusing name. It translates loosely to “My Sauce: Even Women Garlic”, but it was the word “datte” that had even our native speaker confused, because without anything after “ninniku” (which means “garlic”) it could mean “even”, but it could mean “also”, “but” or “because”. Are they trying to say women also like garlic? Even women like garlic? Or garlic, but for women?

Ikuna supposed it was a short way to say that “even women want to eat garlic so here’s a garlic-flavored yakiniku sauce that’s great for women”. The reason why women supposedly wouldn’t want to eat garlicky yakiniku sauce is, Ikuna guessed, because of the smell that can remain on your breath afterward. But Ikuna–who has absolutely no reservations when it comes to eating rich and flavorful foods–still couldn’t fathom what that meant for the sauce.

There was no such thing as “garlic made for women” after all. So is it a sauce with less garlic than others? But in that case, wouldn’t they not advertise it as a garlic-flavored product? Hinatayama Mukushokudo’s website didn’t supply any answers either, which was even more perplexing. Puzzled, Ikuna couldn’t help but buy it and recruit a fellow female writer to taste it with her.

Since our SoraNews24 reporters in office at the time were all men, Ikuna had to request help from one of the writers from our sister site, Pouch. An Suzu is of like mind with Ikuna. She doesn’t particularly feel like garlic isn’t a food for women.

Before tasting, Ikuna decided to open the lid and give it the old sniff test. It did smell pretty garlicky, but she felt like it was no different from any ordinary yakiniku sauce.

It did have a pretty strong soy sauce aroma, which gave it a distinctly Japanese feel that she could sense even before tasting it. Still, it looked really delicious, filled with sesame seeds as it was.

So what about it is “garlic for women”? They’d have to eat it to find out.

▼ Itadakimasu!

Ikuna: “It’s good! But…”

An: “It’s not telling us anything!”

It was a rich and deep yakiniku sauce, but as yet, Ikuna and An could not tell what was especially “even women garlic” about it. In fact, taste-testing it just added another layer to the mystery.

Regardless, it was a perfectly good sauce, so the two of them enjoyed their yakiniku party until their meat ran out.

It wasn’t until later that Ikuna encountered a major development…her breath smelled really bad!

Of course, you’re going to have some degree of bad breath if you eat yakiniku with a sauce flavored with garlic. But this incident had resulted in a smelliness well beyond “some degree”. When Ikuna investigated, she found a piece of garlic lodged in the tiniest of spaces between her teeth that was the culprit.

▼ The sauce truly is garlicky.

As it turns out, the Onna Datte Ninniku actually has more garlic than the average yakiniku sauce. Ikuna conjectured that the name of the product is a little cheeky, an homage to the women who buck social pressures and want to eat all the garlic they like.

From the very beginning, it would seem that Onna Datte Ninniku had no intention of providing a low-garlic yakiniku sauce for those who hate garlic. Luckily, our two reporters have no concern at all about the way their breath smells after eating garlic, so when all was said and done, they made plans to have another yakiniku party with this sauce sometime soon.

If you’re a fan of at-home yakiniku parties and you don’t mind a little garlic in your sauce, then why not give this Onna Datte Ninniku a try? And if you’re not a fan of garlic, here are our top three yakiniku sauces from the supermarket, each with a unique twist.

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