Sakuraya is only a mochi store in Gardena, if you happen to take heed to homeowners Mas and Yuki Fujita inform it.
They don’t do something that totally different from any of the opposite retailers, insists Mas, 74. There’s no particular sauce or secret ingredient hidden within the kitchen of the tiny, one-room storefront the place the rice desserts and filling are made. There’s no grasp textual content of Japanese confectionery they seek the advice of to create their manju. Since 1960, the brothers have carried out what their father, Masayasu, taught them and nothing extra.
However Sakuraya is particular, if you happen to take heed to longtime Gardena residents reminiscent of Stony Furutani. For 64 years, Sakuraya’s sweets have been a primary draw at weddings, funerals and child showers, a taste that marks moments as price remembering. Getting mochi or the wheat flour-based variant manju is one factor, however going to Sakuraya is a method to present one other stage of care, Furutani stated.
Mas makes all the store’s mochi and bean mixtures by hand. On the busiest days, he would possibly begin at 4 a.m. and create a thousand items.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Instances)
“To me, it’s a style of dwelling. It’s custom. It’s tradition. The truth that you went to that little store, talked to Mas, it exhibits additional effort,” stated Furutani, who created a brief movie in regards to the store for a category.
“It’s undoubtedly the factor you wish to carry to the potluck,” stated Emily Furutani, his daughter. “The care and a focus they create to mochi and manju, there’s actually only a handful of locations like that as of late.”
Sakuraya is the one enterprise that sees foot site visitors in its low-slung strip mall in a quiet a part of city. The home windows are coated, and if the door wasn’t open, the place would look as if it’s been closed for many years. Inside, collectible figurines of woodland animals sit on cabinets that after held regionally made Japanese rice crackers on the market (the corporate closed a long time in the past). A small glass show case holds the mochi and manju, with all the indicators and costs handwritten in black marker.
There’s by no means a line, however they nearly at all times promote out. They’ve by no means carried out promoting, not even the free sort. They even turned down a spot on Huell Howser’s tv present, “California’s Gold,” a number of a long time in the past. Extra consideration means extra clients, which suggests extra work, and extra pressure on Mas’ again and Yuki’s hip.
Sakuraya’s sweets have a mushy, velvety texture with mellow, candy bean fillings. Each bit is neatly rounded however barely irregular, and no two are the identical. Mas makes all the store’s mochi and bean mixtures by hand — on the busiest days, he would possibly begin at 4 a.m. and make a thousand items in a shift. It’s the beans that take probably the most time, simmering for hours, then taking even longer to chill.
Mas and Yuki use the identical instruments, methods and components as their father, Masayasu. The principle aim is for his or her sweets to style like clients’ recollections.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Instances)
Mochi is usually made by pounding rice, which creates pastries that harden after a day or so. However Sakuraya makes use of a mix of rice flours and different starches to create a rice cake that yields simply to a chew. The ensuing mochi retains its mushy texture for days, which fits their clients, who typically take them on lengthy aircraft journeys as items for household out of city.
The brothers’ one departure from custom is their very own model of maruyaki, a baked bun with purple bean filling that’s usually studded with peanuts. Yuki, who handles the baking, changed the peanuts with chocolate chips, to higher cater to sugar-loving American palates.
Final weekend, at a competition fundraiser organized by the Gardena Valley Japanese Cultural Institute, everybody I spoke appeared to have sentimental recollections of Sakuraya.
I polled people on the bingo tables, the beer backyard and the lunch tables, and the consensus favourite was the pink lima bean mochi.
Alvin Takamori, a designer working the money register for the plant sale, remembers Sakuraya as a particular deal with eaten with household. However because the youngest boy within the household, he at all times appeared to overlook out on the pink ones. Now he’s 62 and delights in shopping for as many pink mochi as he needs.
Sakuraya is a conventional manju store, however genuine isn’t actually what they’re going for. The final time Mas went to Japan was within the Nineteen Eighties, and he’s unsure what methods are fashionable there in the mean time. Mas and Yuki use the identical instruments, methods and components their father used. The principle aim is for his or her sweets to style like their clients’ recollections.
“It’s undoubtedly the factor you wish to carry to the potluck,” one buyer stated. “The care and a focus they create to mochi and manju, there’s actually only a handful of locations like that as of late.”
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Instances)
We would by no means see locations like Sakuraya open on this metropolis once more, stubbornly human and low tech, made particular by lavish investments of time and care. The economics of the strip mall are altering too quick for a enterprise funded by a single individual or household’s revenue. In a fiercely aggressive market, there’s no room for the inefficiencies and the idiosyncrasies that create locations like Sakuraya.
However that’s how their father taught them to do enterprise, Mas stated. Again within the Fifties, when Masayasu completed his coaching at a mochi store in San José, he determined to maneuver the household to Gardena in order that the store proprietor who skilled him wouldn’t lose enterprise.
Chikara Mochi, one other venerable Gardena establishment, is simply down the road from Sakuraya. The Fujitas have been shut pals with the homeowners, Mas stated, and so they mentioned easy methods to keep away from sapping the opposite‘s enterprise.
Mas and Yuki haven’t any plans to stop or retire, however there is no such thing as a succession plan. The aim was by no means to get wealthy, final endlessly or increase.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Instances)
Mas has labored on the retailer ever since he graduated from faculty. Yuki joined after working as a police officer, limousine driver and supervisor for the U.S. Postal Service, on the lookout for a greater work-life stability.
Each brothers have lived in Gardena their whole lives. Neither has plans to stop or retire, however there is no such thing as a succession plan. The aim was by no means to get wealthy, final endlessly or increase. Solely to honor their father, a Hiroshima survivor and conflict prisoner who rebuilt his life in America.
And in addition to, in the event that they closed, too a lot of their loyal clients can be disenchanted.
In order that they’ll proceed so long as their our bodies final, quiet stewards of flavors endlessly related to recollections of pleased childhoods in Gardena.
