Setonaikai, Shrewsbury

16th August 2009

This month we are joined by Misako from the treasure trove of Japanese and Far Eastern food that is Setonaikai. Following their recent move from Wyle Cop to the Parade Shopping Centre we asked how business was treating them and about the food they have to offer...

25 The Parade
01743 343517
setonaikai.co.uk

How did you get into and how long have you been selling Japanese and Far Eastern food to the people of Shrewsbury?

Mark originally ran a delicatessen shop in nearby Wellington and back in the mid 1980’s he started to sell Japanese ingredients from this shop to meet the needs of a growing Japanese population in Telford. At this time there were a large number of Japanese companies opening factories in the area. Eventually, a separate shop specialising in Japanese food was opened in 1986. It had always been a dream of ours to expand the range to encompass the whole of Asia and to realise this we felt a larger shop in Shrewsbury would be perfect. Our shop on Wyle Cop opened in November 1994. With great support from our customers over the years we eventually just ran out of space in this shop so hence the move to our current shop at The Parade.


You have moved to larger premises in The Parade Shopping Centre. How is that going?

It’s over two months since we moved to the Parade, and so far, we are very happy. We now have a larger and brighter shop, so nice to see more room for customers to browse comfortably and to have space to develop our product range.


Are people spending more time in your shop now that there is more room and more products on view?

Yes.


Do you think most of your customers are locals, tourists, or a mix of both?

A mix of both.


Do most of your customers seem to know what they want or are they mostly impulse buyers like me?

Since we moved, we might have more ‘impulse buyers’, but I think most of our customers seem to know what they want.


We hear a lot about organic, local and seasonal food. Why should we eat more Japanese and Far Eastern Food?

We are strong supporters of organic, local food and eating seasonally. What we provide in the main are ingredients not possible to be grown locally and difficult to find elsewhere that allow you to add exotic flavours to your cooking. There is now a strong interest in preparing Japanese and Far Eastern food whether it is for taste or health reasons. Our emphasis is on truly authentic ingredients, allowing keen cooks to replicate dishes which may have been tasted on holiday, in restaurants, seen on TV or in a favourite cookbook. Our hope is that our customers can add exotic flavours to local, seasonal ingredients.


What is your best selling item or items?

Any sushi ingredients, such as wasabi, nori seaweed,etc. Curries from various countries (India, Thai, China, Japan and so on). Pocky (chocolate covered stick type biscuits originating from Japan).


You have just launched an online version of your shop too. Can you tell us a bit about that?

As the name suggests www.cookingjapanese.co.uk our online shop specialises in Japanese ingredients which are natural and honestly produced along with a wide selection of Japanese cookware and tableware that we import ourselves.


And finally, we are looking for a recommendation. So if you could take some ingredients from your own shop to make a meal, what would they be and what would you make?



I would take Japanese soy sauce (my dessert island item), mirin (sweet seasoning made from glutinous rice) and goma-abura (Japanese toasted sesame oil), then I may marinade any good looking seafood (prawns, scallops, chunks of fish) in a soy sauce and mirin mixture, and just grill. I would also simply boil seasonal locally grown greens in salted water into which a few drops of sesame oil has been added. Drain, pour soy sauce over and that’s that.

Oh, Japanese seven spice powder called Shichimi Togarashi sprinkled onto grilled seafood is another recommendation.

Could we take this opportunity to say a big thank you to our customers for continuing to support us during the relocation. We are looking forward to many more years of trading here in Shrewsbury.

Thanks Misako and Mark!