Today we’d like to introduce you to Daisuke Mori.
Hi Daisuke, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
“APPRECIATION” is my keyword in U.S.
My story in U.S. starts from Honolulu, Hawaii.
I moved to Honolulu from Tokyo in 2011 because I had a dream to do business in U.S.
Since I had been young, I had watched a lot of Hollywood movies and dreamed to be in part of that scene.
At almost same time when I moved to U.S., there was a biggest earthquake in north part of Japan.
We, Japanese, lost a lot then. Home, Business, Life, and Hope.
But all over the world helped us, especially U.S. people donated a lot, cheered us up, prayed for us, and U.S. Army went rescued us; it is called Operation Tomodachi (Friendship).” I’ll never forget that appreciation and decided to make U.S. happy from then.
In Honolulu, I was working in a company what owned Japanese-style department store and some other retails in Ala Moana Shopping center.
In beginning, my position was a General Manager of a super high-end French restaurant which membership fee was $50,000.
There, I could study a lot of food and wine and meet incredible celebrities.
It was very exciting experience.
After that, I was promoted to department store section for a new project. We were going to open 50,000 square feet of Japanese court. For this project, I had tripped to all around Japan to bring 50 Japanese food vendors.
Everything I’d experienced in Honolulu was great and valuable. And I had known I could make people happy to introduce Japanese culture.
But the more I had experienced and loved U.S., I became thinking that “I’d like to do in mainland!!!” and decided to move.
To decide where to move, I went to see San Francisco 5 days, Los Angels 3 days, and Dallas only 1 day.
But finally, I decided to move to Dallas because the people I met were very nice and the city was beautiful even I stayed only 1 day.
January on 2018, I opened a small cafe in Lakewood, Dallas. The name was “THE CREEK CAFE”.
In there, we had some Japanese popular foods like Fluffy pancakes, Omu-rice (rice in omelets), Omu-soba (stir-fried noodle in omelets). This business was not bad, but I thought I would like to make the food what I want to eat 365 days. It is Ramen!
I had already tried making ramen and also had a confidence to make everybody happy with my ramen.
Therefore, I remodeled there to ramen restaurant and opened it. It is WAYA Japanese Izakaya started business on November 2019.
WAYA Japanese Izakaya
The word “WAYA” is used in the Western part of Japan, and meaning “exciting,” “crazy,” “clouded,” and “uncontrollable.”
I hope a lot of people gather in here and become “WAYA.”
Also, WA means “Japanese”, and YA means “House”. So, it is “Japanese House.”
We already had regular customers since THE CREEK CAFE; therefore, the starting business was very good.
But after a couple of months, long nightmare, corona pandemic, started.
Honestly, ramen is not so strong for to-go comparing with other items like tacos, hamburger, and pizza.
After closing dine-in, cash went so fast, and I thought to give up the business a lot of times.
But then, there were many people came to say, leave letter, send email, saying, “Thank you for still doing the business.”
Some people bought a plenty of food at one time, and some other people left big tips.
Because of their warmest supports, we are still alive. And now it’s our turn to make them happy.
Only we can do is to make nice ramen and do good service. But it is my showing APPRECIATION to them.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar, what can you tell them about what you do?
To make the BEST ramen, I studied not only ramen but also Texas local foods.
Our ramen, it supposed to be authentic Japanese style as much as possible, but on the other hands, I had been thinking to adjust the flavor and taste for Texas people.
If we serve completely Japanese authentic ramen without thinking of local appetite, it is self-satisfaction.
I don’t want to one-up them saying “Don’t you know real Japanese food?” It makes no one happy.
Therefore, I went to taste a lot of local beloved restaurants.
And I checked more than 10 points in those restaurants like “rich”, “sweet”, “salty”, “spicy”, “sour”, “deep”, “cheese”, “oily”, “portion”, “texture”, “temperature” and so on. And I adjusted and secretly added those essences.
But it should not be gaming food, it should keep authentic Japanese food absolutely.
This is WAYA’s ramen.
So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
Just enjoy our foods!
And if you, customers, feel bad with our food or service. Please do not hesitate to let us know.
We know we still need to study more.
Pricing:
- Ramen $15-
- Appetizers $5-
Contact Info:
- Website: www.wayadallas.com
- Instagram: @waya_dallas
- Other: https://maps.app.goo.gl/fANjdz1YQx3g3Maj9
