![]() ![]() Allegations in these reviews include poor service, small portions, and customers falling ill after eating at Mentai-Ya’s outlets. This came after Keat Hwee claimed to have found evidence – which he published on a Facebook post (above) – implicating Ishiro as the alleged perpetrator of a fake negative review campaign against both eateries. Last September, Mentai-Ya Japanese Cuisine made headlines when it, along with woodfire-focused restaurant The Social Outcast, sent letters of demand to fusion donburi hawker chain Ishiro, seeking $70,000 and $50,000 respectively in damages, reported Yahoo News Singapore. Wants to move on from Mentai-Ya/Ishiro incident The towkay shares that Mentai-Ya is making a profit, but declines to go into detail. Despite expanding rapidly, he isn’t afraid of being burned again, as he says he’d “made the correct move in identifying the gap in the market” – with business good enough to draw crowds even at “ulu kopitiams”. The hawker reinvested his earnings and went on to open four more stalls over the course of two years, even weathering an alleged negative review smear campaign by a competitor (more on that later). It turned out to be the right decision - despite the pandemic, Mentai-Ya’s first outlet broke even “in four months”. He invested around $30K back then with another partner, who has since parted with the biz on good terms. Keat Hwee opened Mentai-Ya Japanese Cuisine’s first outlet mid-2020 at a Bukit Panjang kopitiam “which was lacking in Japanese food around the area”. “It was do or die and a leap of faith,” he shares. This included donburi drizzled with mentaiko (spicy cod roe) mayonnaise. So he decided to scale down popular dishes from his now-defunct Japanese restaurant and make them more affordable in a hawker setting. My family just couldn’t afford it,” he shares. “I love Japanese food a lot, but it was always luxury food for me as I came from a low-income household. He saw an opportunity to resume his dream of running a Japanese F&B biz (he had cleared part of his debts by then). Then the pandemic struck, and demand for cab rides plummeted. ![]() ![]() Wanted to sell “affordable Japanese food that you can eat every day” ![]()
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