Can Japanese people handle Bangladeshi spices? Halal Hub thinks so

Whenever travelling abroad with family, my father would search for a hole-in-the-wall Bangali restaurant, instead of exploring local cuisine. Even if it was just for one meal, he had to have rice. Travellers and migrants alike will be able to relate to this urge. 

After all, it doesn't really feel like you've eaten anything if you haven't had your fill of rice. 

However, what do you do, when these small eateries that remind us of home are non-existent, and especially, as a Muslim, when halal options are far too few? This was the case for Abdullah Al Mamun who went to Sendai in Japan from Cumilla as a student in 2012.

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"In the beginning, I always saw that local restaurants [in Sendai] didn't have Halal menus. The locals do not know much about halal [food]. I felt, why can't we have a place where everyone can eat together?"

This sparked an idea, which led Mamun into the food industry as an entrepreneur in 2020. Earlier, he changed his student visa to a work visa and worked at Toyota. 

In the pandemic year, he opened an Indian restaurant due to Japan's preexisting love for Indian dishes. They served dishes such as butter chicken and naan. 

However, Mamun closed the restaurant within a few months despite its popularity. He did not feel quite right about it. "It felt like I was trying to pretend, and it was not me," recounted Mamun. 

In the same year (2020), Mamun decided to switch to Bangladeshi cuisine. He started with a small investment of around 567,000 yen (around four lakh takas). Mamun re-opened Halal Hub, but this time using Bangladesh's flag, and according to him, it was one of the first restaurants to use the flag in Sendai, Japan. 

Unlike Tokyo, in the Japanese city of Sendai – which is over 300 kilometres away from Japan's capital – Bangladeshi restaurants are virtually non-existent.

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A key part of opening any restaurant is deciding on the menu, the flavour profile, and most importantly, learning how to cook the items. "I called my mom asking for recipes," he continued. "I started cooking chicken, mutton and daal with basmati rice – all the recipes came from asking my mom and sister."

Even on their menu, some footnotes mention "taste of Mamun's family," which is an ode to their family recipes. Their menu includes a wide variety of dishes that are often seen at the table in Bangali homes. 

While their selections often rotate, one of their staples and bestsellers includes the hearty spicy chicken curry made with traditional Bangali spices. Other staples include the mutton curry and daal. You can also devour chapati with these staples. And what better way is to top off such a hearty meal than with a cup of lassi or masala chai.

One of the dishes his customers cannot get enough of is their Bangladeshi-style, mouthwatering biriyani. 

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A road less travelled? 

It is fairly common for foreign cuisine restaurants to alter their flavours to suit the local palate. However, Halal Hub took an unconventional route and stuck to recipes authentic to Bangali food  — not a watered-down version of it.

Japanese cuisine relies mostly on bringing the natural flavours of the ingredients forward. Though they are not unfamiliar with spices, it is mostly used to enhance natural flavours. This means the local population is not accustomed to the rich Bangladeshi flavour profile. 

"One thing that should be clear about my food, is that it is spicy. It's not like the food you find in traditional Japanese restaurants. When they come and eat here, they sweat and say 'spicy, spicy!'," explained Mamun.  

His target customers are people who are open to different experiences. Since the launch of Halal Hub, "a lot of people told me to try and use the Indian flag or Pakistani flag and to make my curry less spicy for the locals. If I do that, I will break [away from] the whole point of our brand," shared Mamun. 

Opening a Bangladeshi food restaurant in Japan did not pose too many challenges for Mamun. "Registering restaurants is a common practice and I did not face any difficulty. Officials come and visit to inspect the condition of the space - such as air circulation, water supply system and gas. For the registration you have to pay around 30,000 yen," said Mamun.

But as the restaurant had opened during the pandemic, Mamun faced challenges right off the bat. In a country where people take their health and safety very seriously, very few were ready to venture out to eat.

"It was hard but the government gave a lot of [financial] support," said Mamun. He was, however, not satisfied with just recouping his losses. Mamun wanted people to try out what he had to offer. 

"If you don't have customers, you don't have motivation. So, I made a webpage myself and I started to focus on Uber Eats and other online apps," shared Mamun. It paid off as his restaurant was among the top Uber shops during the pandemic.

Halal Hub's immersive dining experience does not stop at its food. The eight-person team (five Bangladeshis and three Japanese) have paid a lot of attention to detail in presentation and interior. Some of the food is served in thali-style dishes or on banana leaves. 

One of the walls in the restaurant holds a picture of Bangladesh's greenery and banana trees, reminiscent of the owner's roots, Cumilla. There are also arches as windows that are a nod to the Islamic culture Halal Hub pays tribute to. 

So how have the diners responded to all this? With a capacity of 30 seats, the restaurant fills up at least three times on an easy weekday, with 90-150 customers on average. On a busy weekend, they serve around 200 to 250 customers on average.

Some of their growth is owed to Japan's own influencer culture. Some of these niche local influencers include food reviewers who wanted to try Halal Hub's curry. 

"I didn't know anything about this. After I opened they [influencers in Sendai] visited as customers and left good reviews, and slowly my restaurant got more attention and filled up," recounted Mamun. 

Today, reviewers who have visited the restaurant applaud Halal Hub for their warm hospitality – reflected on Google reviews – and some visitors even referred to it as, "the taste of home."

Currently, Mamun resides in Japan on a dependent visa courtesy of his Japanese wife.