Executive Chef Shinya Hongo, born in Tokyo, has seen a lot of the world, having travelled with his father to the US mainland, India and the US State of Hawaii. He arrived in Dubai some six years ago, seemingly on a mission.
“Japanese restaurants are very expensve or high-end,” Chef Shinya tells Dubai Vibes Magazine. “You need to pay a lot of money for Japanese food. My owner said he wanted it to be more like good-priced street food and so we opened this restaurant,” he added, referring to Maru Udon Restaurant.
“Udon means Japanese streetfood noodle. Maru means circle,” Chef Shinya said.
Authentic, affordable and fresh, Maru Udon brings an extensive menu of both traditional, Udon dishes and ramen-style dishes with full topping where customers can experience an explosion of taste and texture in a cosy, welcoming ambience.
“We imported an udon machine,” Chef Shinya said, to ensure fresh noodles every day. “We have two branches – one in Business Bay and the other in Ghurair Mall – and we are planning to open one more. We are also going to expand to other Middle East countries,” the chef added.
Chef Shinya said they decided to open their kind of Japanese restaurant in Dubai because “there is a lot of different nationalities here and they all need to experience new food.”
