I have been working in Bangalore for the last four odd years
and been occasionally visiting Chennai, my hometown, once in a month or two. We
had just shifted to Thiruvanmiyur from Korattur (both places within Chennai :)) when I had to leave
for my job to Bangalore. Therefore, I must admit that I had and have been quite
oblivious to the surroundings with respect to Thiruvanmiyur that ways. Sometime
during these four years, my mom had mentioned to me once that she came across a
Japanese restaurant very close to our place.
Now, this is a restaurant that I had heard of, that had
been operating for close to 15 years and served authentic Japanese food, ONLY
dinner, mind you, in between 6 PM and 10 PM. I had wanted to go check it out
sometime but was always “busy” meeting up with my friends whenever I came down
for a weekend.
This past “weekend” (Wednesday night), however, I finally
decided to conquer my laziness for once and with a kind-of-selfish motive (to
start writing this blog for the individual MM project) thought of giving AKA SAKA
a visit.
To my pleasant surprise, I noted that Aka Saka had made a
complete changeover to its operations. It is no longer only a restaurant but
now a retail store cum sushi bar cum restaurant all in the same place. It is
the only one of its kind present in Chennai and is rated very high. The shop
now operates from morning 10 to evening 10 and the restaurant has started
offering lunch as well apart from dinner.
I got talking with one of the staff members working there
and got to know that Aka Saka is the name of a famous place in Japan. The MD of
this restro-retail shop had some kind of emotional attachment to the place and
hence had named the shop after the place, he said.
The renovation work to convert the restaurant into what it
is today had apparently started sometime early February this year. The
restaurant was shut down temporarily and work was completed in lightening
speed. The retail store started operating along with the pre existing
restaurant operations this April. It had been a good two months, the visibly
happy staff member added.
The shop itself has been setup as any other retail store.
They had implemented the straight floor plan, thereby making optimum use of the
limited spacing. The shop is located right in the midst of residential area and
there are a lot of kids who walk right in to buy stuff. Keeping their patience
level in mind, the shop is so set up such that as soon as you enter, you find a
rack of packets of chips to the left and a shelf housing small chocolates
adjacent to it.
There are then two to three rows of Indian products stacked,
with space for a customer to walk in between and pick up products of his/her
choice. At the farthest end of the shop, stacked against the walls, are placed
products, groceries and daily use products of Japanese make.
Consumers are predominantly, the people staying close by.
Occasionally Japanese and Korean people who come for their dinner pick up the
Japanese stuff and go. Also some Japanese products are purchased by Indian
customers as well. Film stars and people who have lived in Japan and returned
base to India constitute the few who purchase the Japanese products from Aka
Saka.
Since the MD was in the premises at the time I had gone there, I was not allowed to take
photographs of the layout of the shop this time around. I have been asked to
come sometime later during the week during which I hope to collect photographs
along with details about the restaurant, the sushi bar and their operations.
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