A splendidly developed business model for the Chinese restaurant sector

On the third day of my stay during my short trip, I returned to Osaka from Kyoto instead of going back to Tokyo directly from there. The short message from my friend, Kishimoto-san, in Osaka, made me decide this. Her message was like this: There’s a fantastic Chinese restaurant called Chinese Bar Sawada on the alley in Ohatutenjin area, which is more of a bistro than a bar. The business model is completely different from other chinese restaurants, including a fancy kind in terms of food presentation and décor. It’s getting popular, especially for the young women.

This eating place is a sister to Tyugoku-na Esu Sawada （中国菜エスサワダ）owned by a Sawada chef executing work as a Chinese cook in Hongkong for a long time. Meanwhile, this sister restaurant is gaining its reputation by word of mouth among foodies. It has been listed on the Michelin book.

This is an open type restaurant but during winter they put a transparent plastic curtain at the entrance to keep out the cold. Anyway, once you walk into this Chinese Bar, its exciting décor generates a very strong demand to eat their food as soon as possible. I knew then that going back to Osaka to go to this Chinese Bar was a good choice. The layout of Chinese Bar Sawada accommodated an open kitchen on the right side of the bistro, a long counter table next to the kitchen, some tables for four customers on the left side, and some tables outside. We were led to a counter table where we could watched the chef’s performance.

We ordered some dishes which are a kind of quick menu items because I had to get on the Shinkansen in 2hours, at the latest. The items were 焼売（steamed shrimp dumpling）、小籠包（soup dumplings）、麻婆豆腐（ mapo tofu）、からすみを使った冷やし麺（chilled noodles　accompanied with roe）、チキンマヨネーズ（tender chicken seasoned with mayonnaise　sauce), 紹興酒（Shaoxing rice wine, and beer.)

All of them were very tasty based on their sensitive presentation (like a serving spoon on the bottom of soup dumplings to avoid missing the soup from this dumpling). Among such lovely tasting dishes, the chilled noodles with roe and the mapo tofu were the most impressive. The hot spice served with mapo tofu was increasingly mouth-jarring, a great compliment for the mapo tofu.

I paid 12000 Yen for all our items, including 2 glasses of beer and some glasses of Shaoxing rice wine, which means that was a kind of expensive budget for a Chinese food. However, considering the taste and quality, the price was worth paying.
The volume of each food was not lavish、but we got full and were satisfied to have such a happy eating experience! After enjoying the foods from the kitchen, I understood why Kishimoto-san said its business model has a sales edge in terms of marketing strategy.
I wanted to try eating its signature menu—fried chicken in confit—but I will have to do it with some of my food lover friends because its serving size is too much for a solo eater.