Halal-certified restaurant in Nagoya, Happy Karaage 178!

Actually, my daughter and the son-in-law are Muslims.  I did not even know the word “Halal” until they got married.

Our restaurant only sells Karaage, but the meat that we were using already had a Halal certificate, which has motivated us to be a complete Halal restaurant.  If our meat is already Halal, then we wanted to obtain an official Halal certificate by changing the seasoning and the facilities of the restaurant.

All the ingredients that we use in our food, a soy sauce for example, we had to submit a paper that explains how the item is produced.  This is to eliminate the possibility of contamination* in their production procedure.

After completely eliminating these possibilities, then we are entitled to call our food as Halal finally, however, I was about to lose my heart because of all small steps.

*Contamination means the possibility of handling pork, non-halal meat or alcoholic items in the same kitchen or machineries.

We could not avoid changing the taste of our Karaage when we had to change the soy sauce that we had used.

It was so easy to just switch to the Halal-certified soy sauce if we only aimed to get Halal certificate, however, then the taste of our Karaage was not satisfactory.  Also, Sake alcohol, a must-use seasoning that removes the smell of the meat, is totally haram.

Pursuing our ideal Karaage while keeping Halal standards was challenging, but we were beyond words when we have finally succeeded in making Karaage which is better in taste.

The reaction is totally different.

One day, there was an ambassador of one country came to our restaurant suddenly, and he asked me if I want to export my Karaage to his country.

Also, my restaurant delivers meals to customers, but more than 20% of their names sound like Muslims.  There is even a customer who has ordered few hundred times, maybe he lives in Japan.

We sell our Karaage in a kitchen-car, just like a hot dog in New York city.

We have some chances to sell in universities, but what we have found was that there are a lot of Muslims because they are coming from all over the world.  Sometimes, there is a request from them to sell our Karaage in some particular places.

It is Halal Karaage, but we stick to the taste that our Japanese customers would get satisfied.

We are proud of our Karaage, because it was cooked only in a special occasion by my wife for celebration.    I would be very happy if as many more customers try the taste as possible.

I will keep on serving Karaage which I can proudly call them “This is Karaage”.