Sizzling Missiles of Meat

The title sounds severe but it really is a bit of a milestone for a small izakaya. It has been a pretty rough start with many issues that has been dealt with or needs further fine tuning.

If anyone reading this wishes to try their hand in kushiyaki or sumibiyaki, our advise is don't. Don't even think about it. If you are dead set on it, then go see a psychiatrist because you are clinically insane or just jump off a roof and save the trouble. It really is that bad. The grill and the logistic for the grill is no end of pain. The amount of labour involved in the preparation of the skewers, the cost of the specialist chef, ingredients, storage and the low selling price, almost means that we are making a lost for every skewer sold. That's not including all the time, money and effort spent on oversizing the exhaust system solely for the charcoal grill.

We faced excessive smoke from the grill when we first tried the grill out and have since gone for a larger fan. In fact, we run two fans. A dedicated fan just for the grill. That helped but didn't solve the problem when we fired it up again, so we added glass surround for the exhaust hood to concentrate the suction. That again helped but didn't totally solve the problem. We and the engineers were perplexed because on paper, that would have been more than sufficient. After much head scratching, we figured there must be some kind of obstruction in the common exhaust ducting that we share with the other restaurants. Being the last on the grid, it's kinda shitty, because our exhaust gases face more resistance and travel further before being discharged. It turns out that our 'friendly' neighbour restaurant has made some of their own well-hidden modification to their duct, basically occluding it to such a point leaving us only about 15% of the duct cross section. This is so that they can get better flow for their exhaust but selfish behavior. At that point, we had a atherosclerotic duct-esclerotic plaque on our hands. If left untreated, it will lead to unstable fangina or even congestive fan failure. We had to act fast. The skilled engineers pulled out the obstruction, stented the duct and flow was restored. No more smoke in the shop! Day saved and beer was passed round. Tenza 1; Neighbour 0. They were not happy campers and now have a smokey kitchen but couldn't do much. We think they should stop being cheap and get a proper exhaust fan like everyone else.

Still on the charcoal grill, we won't be able to start serving grilled items and probably won't be until well into next month. Reason being, labour shortage. We just can't get enough Singaporeans or PRs to work in this industry but we are not able to employ foreign workers yet. Same problem with service side of things, so we are making do with part-timers but that is a compromise in service quality that we are unhappy about. Having said that, the part-timers we get, all from Ngee Ann Polytechnic, are a young and cheerful lot. They are eager to learn and willing to work hard. Great attitude. We just wished that we had more time to train them. In the mean time, we are sitting this out and trying our best to hire.

The fish display cabinet, being a custom design, also went through some trial and error. If we had a chance to do it again, we wouldn't have gone for a top opening design. It takes up too much valuable space in a small izakaya and is not the must practical thing for the chef also. This is not a big issue but it bugs us a little. Maybe we'll change it out next year.

Mostly friends dropping by for meals for now but we have quite a decent walk-in crowd too. We even have repeats! We've sold about 20 bottles of sake so far. We are not complaining. Obviously the daily sales is no where near the daily margin for break even but it's been less than a month and we haven't done much marketing.

We still need to get past the human resource hurdle before we are free to sprint on. Things are more or less on track except for the grill. We can only seek your understanding as to why we really are not able to serve grilled items even until now.

It's been nearly two weekends since the opening of the our izakaya last tuesday on the 11th May. We have sold a bit of sake but didn't realise that we have a nice spot above the mirror where we can keep the empty bottles as decoration until a week ago. Unfortunately, because of our lack of experience, we have discarded about half of what we had.

Spring is also Sansai (山菜) season. Sansai can be literally translated as mountain vegetables. It's not necessarily wild as most of it are farmed but they usually have different requirements from other table vegetables and more often than not tend to be seasonal. What sets sansai apart from yasai is the taste. Sansai should taste like spring; clean and fresh. When you enjoy a piece of sansai, it should feel like taking a deep breathe of clear, spring mountain air. 


Sansai is not one plant but a collection of seasonal plants. Currently we have fuki no to, taro no me, kogomi and fuki in the restaurant, with more varieties to come soon. Sansai was once exclusive to high end japanese establishments but we are now bringing it to you at an accessible price and location.

We first tried out the POS, kitchen and charcoal grill last saturday amongst some 'guinea friends' to do a full shake down of the restaurant. The goal from the onset was less about the food but more about checking the water-tightness of our systems, processes and equipment. We can proudly declare that saturday was a successful failure. Everything was a mess and that was good. Through that night of severe beating we managed to find many faults that must be rectified before the restaurant can be better.

Some of the things we discovered:

1. Kitchen exhaust was not strong enough for the charcoal grill.
2. Charcoal grill design flaw resulting in warp and difficulty in controlling heat.
3. POS bugs and errors.
4. Kitchen needs more storage space.
5. Work flow issues.
6. Restaurant layout needs improvement.
7. Counter seating problems.

Phone line and fax line are not working. Phone in shop rings but can't pick up the call. No dial tone either. Strange. No DSL signal too. How can a restaurant function without a phone?

We are working late into the night to get the pricing of the items spot on. It's real easy to set a highly profitable price but we believe in giving our customers value for money, so we are putting in more effort in this area.

TIP: Don't just look at the price or slices of the fish/meat you get. Check out the total weight on your plate. Avoid being mislead!

We need approval and license from the NEA to start operating as a restaurant. In order to do so, we need the shop to be ready for inspection and also submit supporting documents. Liquor license was more straightforward and done online. 
Today was also the first day that the restaurant saw it's full crew in action. Previously we were operating on a skeleton force of MD, Ops Manager and Head Chef. Everyone was at the shop today to receive goods and to pack things up. We have helluva lot more cleaning to do for the rest of the week. Surfaces need to be wiped, a few times, tableware need to be washed and don't forget the kitchen equipment that must be prepped for use. We need to decide where to keep everything and label the cabinets clearly. Everybody's morale was high and excited to setup a restaurant. People were eager to get things done and enthusiastic in helping one and other. Also, it's a good break from the monotony of working in an established establishment.

Japanese Cherries or Sakuranbo (桜ん坊 | さくらんぼ) are just coming into season and will last through to end of June. Sakuranbo is what the Japanese call their own variety of cherry whereas they will refer to imported cherries as cherry. The appearance of Sakuranbo on market shelves herald the arrival of summer. What we are getting now are ones grown in greenhouses and the sun ripe ones start in June proper. These cherries are obviously smaller than most cherries and of a cheerful blush red. Small fruits means more skin, therefore more flavour.


So what do they taste like? The answer is simple: Like Cherries! But with differences, of course. Sakuranbo is not the least bit tannic or bitter compared to the darker skin USA variety we might be more used to. The skin is firm but breaks apart when bitten into yielding a thin layer of konnyaku jelly like texture. The flavour lies mostly in the skin. The flesh is soft and sweet with a mildly alcoholic tinge yet has little acidity. We have no idea what the pit/seed tastes like. The pleasant floral cherry aroma lingers in your breath but doesn't taste like cough syrup which some of the dark skin cherry might.