Inside View
Inside View- Stories and fun from inside the Fujimamas F&B World / a collection from the everyday and not so everyday world of our Restaurant. A view inside the business.
The Inside View #11 10/17/07
Fujimamas is busy getting ready for Fall! Halloween is coming and we will have a wonderful special drinks menu for the season. Peter- our bar manager has been concocting some frightening brews. We have recently had Beer School, celebrated our lunch manager, Jun’s wedding, and we just had our annual event in Support of Second Harvest Japan- Working toward ending hunger in this country! And guess what?! we are already getting reservations for our enormously popular yearly Thanksgiving Dinner. It is a busy season in the restaurant world. Come by soon and try some new wines, oh- and hot cocktails and drinks will be back on the menu soon too! Spiced wine, Hot Buttered Rum, and our new Luxurious Hot Chocolate. Warm up with us in Harajuku.
Happy Fall!
The Inside View #10 03/21/07
Long time no writing! wow, I hadn’t realized how long I had neglected this page. Lots of happenings in our little company. Here is just a cross view…
today in FUJIMAMAS Wed. march 21st.
In Tokyo it is a busy National Holiday! We will be seeing lots of folks downtown, shopping on their day off.
In Kona- We will be kicking off the annual Kona Chocolate Festival with a special VIP dinner!
And our Chef-owner Mark Vann is in Hong Kong today, starting a week long celebrity chef visit. Cooking for lots of appreciative guests and the Hong Kong Country Club.
I will try to be better at updating the Inside View. thanks for visiting.
The Inside View #9 10/25/06
Big Day here again in Tokyo, tonight we are participating in the Annual Metropolis Magazine “GlitterBall” which is a huge Halloween party. We provide food in the VIP room every year- fun chance to check out the costumes and work with the magazine folks. They help us get the word out about our special events and we try to support their parties! So Ramon is busy on that. (he is our catering manager)
Meanwhile, in house, we are preparing for a big party. The Atlantic Canada tourism Partnership- has reserved the whole restaurant this evening. They will have a custom made menu, and will be hosting a big business and tourism networking event. So Toshi is busy preparing for that… everything from co-ordinating with the kitchen and making buffet cards, and arranging the layout of the restaurant. Hideki and Toshi are working together these days to make each special party perfect for the guests.
All this means that our Kitchen is QUITE busy today!
The Inside View #8 9/07/06
Thurs. Today we are all feeling a bit tired- Post wine dinner. The Sokol-Blosser wine event is behind us now. Came off quite well last night. We had about 40 guests and everyone seemed to have a very nice time. I was impressed with Alex Sokol Blosser- he was charming and friendly and he really made an effort to speak with all the guests at the dinner. He seems very passionate about his family’s wine business.
Our kitchen team worked very hard all week to prepare, and it was visible in every dish. Chef Mark created a gorgeous menu, and the kitchen team worked hard to make sure everything was beautiful as well as delicious. My favorite pairing of the night was a sweet and flavorful scallop dish paired with the Sokol Blosser EVOLUTION.
The servers did very well also, learning to work as a team for an event that was a bit more formal than our regular dinner service. Special thanks go out to ORCA for making this event possible.
The Inside View #7 9/04/06
Monday- not so busy but an interesting day- VIP guests and caterings. A former manager has rejoined the team and everyone is very excited to work with him. He has lots of F&B experience and a passion for service. Welcome back to Hideki! This week as well, Mark will be cooking a special wine dinner- so we are in serious preparation for that. The feeling is that fall is in the air- but we are still having some hot humid days. Last week we started new happy hour, and special menus. So far it has been a lot of fun for the staff to learn about some new food, and I think the kitchen is enjoying trying out some new ideas!
The Inside View #6 6/17
Every year we take one day off in the summer to do some restaurant repairs, and to go have fun and bond together in our fujimamas staff family. We call it “Fujimamas Family Fun Day!” This year thanks to some kind support from our various vendors, and from the owners of Fujimamas we are taking the whole team, and spouses and kids too to Tokyo Disney Sea for the day! Our big day out will be this coming Tuesday! and I have to say- I am really looking forward to it. For all our guests- sorry for the trouble if you were thinking about coming to see us on Tues. We will reopen at 11am wed. morning- with some refreshed spirit! Should be fun! Special thanks go to Yonechiku, Rie Coffee, Orca Wines, Village Cellars Wines, Suntory, for making this possible!
The Inside View #5 5/23
Kind of a slow rainy day here in Tokyo. Tonight we will be preparing for the start of our two week Hawaii Promotion. And tommorrow night we will have a performance of Slack Key Guitar. So hopefully it will be much busier. Tonight’s big job is to set up an art exhibition that will be running for two weeks in the restaurant. Should be fun. But we can’t start till the restaurant closes so it means a bit of a late night.
Our Assitant Director/Party Manager Toshi will be back tommorrow after a week long vacation. We missed him! And Tommorrow we also have another BIG Catering for 500 people so it should be a good day. This is the calm before the storm, so to speak.
The Inside View #4 4/27
On Tuesday, March 28th Fujimamas Kona (our new location on the Big Island in Hawaii) celebrated with close friends and family the blessing of the restaurant. Derrick Napoleon led the afternoon with a special prayer that was said in English and Hawaiian alike. It is said that the blessing of a restaurant will bring good karma and good fortune to all. The afternoon was followed by pupus and cocktails on the lanai for all of our friends and family.
The Hawaiian blessing
When a place of business or a new home opens its doors, it is common to have the location blessed by a Hawaiian kahu (guardian or minister).The blessing ceremony dates back to the early days of Hawaiian culture. Though it has come to incorporate Christian elements since the arrival of missionaries in Hawaii in 1820, the ceremony is based on the traditional Hawaiian belief in kapu (taboos) that can be placed on a physical space. Although some societal kapu were immutable, other kapu, such as curses or negative energy, still linger in modern-day places. During a blessing ceremony, a kahu clears any kapu that might have been placed on a space, so the new occupants may move forward with a “clean slate.�The details of this ceremony can vary depending on the occasion — whether it is a home, office, building or other enterprise being blessed.Three elements are fairly universal to a blessing, however: the asking for blessings from Akua (God), the sprinkling of salt water, and the untying of a maile lei (made from the leaves of a fragrant, native twining shrub) that has been gently draped and tied across a real or virtual threshold.
We would like to thank all who came for their continued support!!!
The Inside View #3 4/21
Nice weather, and a fairly busy day. Thurs. is interview day so I talked to 4 different young people who want to work in Fujimamas. It is always a challenge to find good staff who are a nice match with our goals and professional values.
We had a visitor today Alex Sokol Blosser from the Sokol Blosser winery. Wonderful fellow. He stopped by and had lunch with one of my wine companies we by from (Orca International ) Scott had the curry special and the Banoffee pie- Banana and Toffee - which he Loved! Thanks For coming by Scott. and we hope to see you for that potential wine dinner in September. cool sidenote- SB has a blog too!
The Inside View #2 4/19
Today was a regular Wed. in Fujimamas. A few notable events were- *Toshi had a rare two days off in a row, and we missed him and his cheerful phone voice. *Fumio continues his quest to completely organize and deeply clean the catering storage area… aka “the terrace�. *Also Mariko called us from NYC. She is having a good stay there and having lots of fun in the restaurant world of the big apple. Her expected return date to the big umeboshi is probably late June, we miss her. *And in my little corner of our world, I finally had a chance to replant the big celadon pots on either side of the entrance. It felt good to make the front look a bit more tidy and clean. Also I love to get out and plant stuff once the spring finally hits. We had a visit from old staff- Damion - who is off on a trip to work with an NGO Micro Credit Bank project in India for a few weeks. We are preparing for music events next week, and a big Hawaiian promotion at the end of May.
The Inside View #1
Last night we did a large catering event for The European Union Commission’s Gateway to Japan. A group helping promote EU trade into the Japanese market.
It was a great event to promote 30 new and upcoming fashion designers from across the EU. They do this event yearly- and it is called W E A R E U R O P E !
For the menu- we did a nice selection of canapés, and wines, sparkling and red- plus our popular original juice blend and had lots of fun. As caterings go this one was as smooth as silk. Our catering manager RAMON did an amazing job! The operations were seamless (yes silk, seamless- I am on a fashion theme here!) we had one little hiccup in the cloak room set up. But our cloak team YUKI and FUMIO handled it expertly- and catering life moved on happily.
The room was gorgeous, there were 30 mannequins along the walls – one for each designer featuring a favorite outfit from the collection each person was showcasing. And there were screens to project the WearEurpoe video presentation highlighting all the designers. You can check out the video here.
We did the canapés on classic white ceramic - simple, well prepared, and dramatic looking. This catering was fun, and fashion-filled. Lots of beautiful people- The team at WearEurope was a joy to work for. The layout of the facility at the Ebisu Garden Room was good. And I got a sense from the guests that everyone had a great time!
Thanks to the team- Dany, Shinya, Ramon, Toshi, Yuki, Fumio, Jackie, Michael, Noda, Kumar, Santiago, Akemi, and Cesar!
Our catering site- if you need us for any event- big or small is Here