When I first wrote about Ah Hong and his new Japanese set meal hawker stall in Beach Road last year, I was inundated with calls and requests. They all wanted to know where this very private Japan trained chef who was also then operating an equally private 14 seater omakase (no menu) eatery in Orchard was located. His little restaurant was always packed with Japanese sipping sake and wolfing down whatever he served, over manga, including chunky sashimi platters, freshly fried before your eyes white bait and nagaimo (wild yam )chips. He also churn out good-for-shock-TV seafood like stewed tuna eyeballs in sake and mirin plus stun with an all consuming toro (tuna belly), uni (sea urchin) and fish roe sushi and then let you wash it down with a fresh clams miso soup, which Ah Hong says “must blanch the clams in hot water to remove the smell and you cannot over cook in the stock or it gets salty.”. You can understand why the door to that little 14 seater restaurant was always closed and you had to know the boss to get in. I had a pact with him then not to reveal the place as he could not handle the crowd and attention.

I can now tell you his little Marui restaurant, is located on the fourth floor of Cuppage Plaza but, here’s the kicker, he no longer helms that place, nor that hawker stall. On the Cuppage outlet he says “ my regular Japanese clients have served me well all these years but I needed to spread that clientele and have a bigger space” and on the Beach Road hawker stall, “ hours are too long and too many restrictions in the kitchen plus it’s very quiet in the evenings.”

The shy “don’t take my photo” Ah Hong pottering in his new glassed and subtlety exposed restaurant

He went on a self imposed hiatus last year, or in politically correct vernacular “a nice break” and made me miss his grilled fish head, sashimi octopus in wasabi, sake and soy sauce plus his sea urchin sushi. Then he buzzed me earlier this year to declare “I’m back”, this time in a more, literally, transparent and humbler outlet in town. The whole HDB retail space frontage is glassed and you can see Ah Hong in action behind the sushi counter, although he carefully lowers the roller blinds to expose just enough to ensure modesty and privacy. He tends to a wider audience now and he used to have a phobia of entry level Japanese food fans ‘the type asking for Set A or B menu, California maki and tempura”. But not anymore. In this new 20 plus seater set up, he now offer $50 set seasonal meal that has 7 items including the usual sahimi, salad and sushi with seasonal gems like oysters in miso sauce or a hameguri (a seasonal shellfish like a gong-gong) with sakemushi sauce, plus tempura. If a CBD power lunch in style is your thing, then his 5 piece set lunch at $20 should appeal.

The always exciting to see and devour slices of chunky toro never failed me

But if you’ve had the fortune of having dined at his “closed door” Marui restaurant before, then just holler for an Omakase meal, like I did, and leave it to providence and his mood. It can set you back by about $100 each and he may dish out, just by having a chat with you about fish head curry, a snapper head stewed in sweet mirin sake. And his sashimi platters is what I’ve always remembered, chunky, supremely fresh and highlighted by exquisitely sliced toro, flashing its Omega 3 fats. I fell over his uni sushi- two big sweet blobs of it sitting over too little sushi rice held by a crispy seaweed roll. It was almost dangerous but he told us that few sweet slices of translucent sashimi was the feared puffer fish, AFTER we’ve had. It is really my eat-first, ask later habit at fault, but I also know the Japanese are now breeding poison-less Fugu (puffer) fish for mass export. His slice of plain looking cod sitting over a sake mirin sauce was no big deal, if it was not unforgivingly fresh and perfectly cooked.

On a whim, Ah Hong will whip up a snapper fish head stewed in sake and mirin for his omakase meals

When I asked about his fear for serving cheesy Japanese items like tempura, he quietly admits “ no problem, if that’s what the customer wants, I will do a good job of it, but..” and he pause before he offered a fateful smile, “ I don’t know what to do if they keep asking for Spider Maki (soft shell crab sushi), I still cannot get over that one.” created, he believes, by Spiderman fans.