19 Jul 2017
Interview: A Mix & Match of Singaporean Flavours In Japanese Pastry

Question (Q): Is there any specific reason why your company chose to sell Japanese pastries?
Answer (A):Having visited Japan and staying there for a period of time over two years, we realised that there is an increasing trend in Japanese people consuming pastries. During that same period, we also happen to stumble upon the automated technology the Japanese are well-known for. Therefore, with an engineering background, we decided that this technology could save a lot of labour and at the same time, be able to bring back to Singapore a taste of Japan’s trending pastries.
Q: Besides Japanese “O” Cakes, what other products does your company offer?
A: Besides ‘Japanese “O” Cakes’, Sin-Nagoyaki also offer our consumers other kinds of Japanese pastries such as ‘Momiji Manju’, ‘Taiyo Manju’ and many more, which both consists of unique paste imported straight from Japan. We also recently launched our drinks menu starting with ‘Japanese Green Tea’ which is freshly brewed here at our kitchen using authentic Japanese Green Tea Leaves, which are also imported from Japan.
Q: What gave you the idea to infuse local ingredients (i.e. Chempadek and Durian) with the Japanese pastries?
A: As the recipe that we use for our original Japanese pastry has been imparted to us from a Japanese baker in Japan, we felt the need to infuse local tastes into the recipe. Since young, we have developed a strong love for Singapore’s famous local fruits such as Durian and Chempadek. We decided that it would be a really cool idea to mix these fruits and flavours into our pastries and that’s exactly what we did.
Q: How was the response from the public when you first introduced the mentioned products to the market in Singapore?
A: As many Singaporeans have visited Japan at least once in their lifetime, during the initial phase of introduction, many were sceptical about our then newly introduced pastries. We were often told by our customers that there was no such thing as Durian or Chempadek in Japan. But nevertheless, we took the time to slowly educate our precious consumers on how these products and its unique flavours and fillings came about. We were able to retain our customers after they had their first bites of these new inventions.
Q: Once a customer confirms their order, will they have to self-collect the order or will it be delivered?
A: Usually, our customers will do a self-collection but orders above a certain amount will be delivered upon request. However, we always encourage our customers to head down to our branch so that they can get a first-hand experience of Singapore’s first fully automated baking machinery.
Q: Will there be any new Japanese pastries to look forward to in the future?
A: We are already in the midst of creating more exciting and unique Japanese pastries, desserts and drinks for our consumers, so be sure not to miss them when we launch them in the near future.
Q: Will there be any Japanese-local fusions to look forward to?
A: We are always experimenting with Japanese-local fusion as we believe that our pastries must be suited to local taste to be able to capture our local’s attention and for them to embrace it.
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