Here at Watermelon, we love getting to know more about our clients, we enjoy learning about how your business works, what success looks like for our clients and more. Because of this, we decided to start a series called ‘Chef Chats’ where we invite the Head Chef at one of our client’s restaurants to, well.. chat!
To kick-start our series we asked the chef of one of our oldest clients, and one of the best Japanese restaurants in the UAE, Mizu restaurant, to speak with us and share secrets about what makes Mizu’s sushi so delicious.
Chef Aireene has been with Mizu since it opened in 2013, she initially created the menu to stay true to the Japanese palate, but quickly realized that she needed to incorporate some of the local flavor. The menu at Mizu has evolved several times throughout the years and Chef Aireene has been instrumental in creating the Thai-Japanese fusion menu that we know and love today.
Watermelon: Welcome Chef, we are so happy to be doing this with you. Tell us a little bit about yourself and Mizu.
Chef Aireene : I am happy to be here, thank you for having me. Mizu in Japanese means water and like water Mizu had flowed and evolved since we opened our doors here in Dubai. We started off Mizu with a lot of raw Japanese style food, but noticed a lot of our clientele preferred to have cooked sushi. We adapted our menu to suit the taste of our clients, by including new dishes that still had the Japanese foundation but catered to our clients tastes.
I have been a chef for almost 16 years, specializing in Japanese and Thai cuisine. My passion in cooking and making food comes from a very creative place. I enjoy getting flavor inspiration from the people I work with. I have worked with people of many different nationalities and they have all influenced my cooking style.
Watermelon: Tell us a little bit about one of the signature dishes at Mizu and what makes it special.
Chef Aireene: Our best selling dish is the Volcano roll, it is such a flavorful dish. We use cooked shrimp, crab sticks and avocado, what makes it so special is the homemade sauce we make to accompany this dish. That is actually the most important secret about all our dishes, each dish has its own unique special sauce. With the volcano roll, there is a delicate balance we have to maintain in the sauce creation between creamy and spicy. Another signature dish that is my favorite is black cod, it literally melts in your mouth. All our ingredients are carefully selected and in order to maintain the same quality and taste for our clients every time, I make sure that I always order the same brands of ingredients from the same suppliers. Attention to detail is important to me, and that is what makes Mizu the best sushi restaurant in Dubai.
Watermelon: The dishes sound delicious! That is really great to hear about how you ensure the quality of your meals by maintaining the consistency of your suppliers. Could you tell us how the Watermelon procurement solution helps you with that?
Chef Aireene: I have been using Watermelon for just over a year now, and it has been such a huge help to me. I order all the restaurant food supplies myself and the application is so easy to use. If I ever face any issues with suppliers I call my point of contact at Watermelon and they step in to resolve any difficulty I might face. My point of contact at Watermelon will call me to let me know about any system updates, new features and will explain to me how I can use these new features for Mizu. Truly, I have had no more headaches since I started using Watermelon! I can easily order from the same suppliers all the time and I can now create budgets a lot easier for the restaurant, because I know what my costs will be.
Watermelon: Thank you so much Chef! As you know we promise to give our clients peace of mind and it is so great to hear that we have given that to you, with our solution. Thank you for your time Chef Aireene, it was great to have you on Chef Chats.
Chef Aireene: Thank you as well, and I hope to see you at Mizu!
