Chef Precious Pearl Portia Mendoza-Valdez, started her sushi-venture when they were still living in Cebu City, when she was still a full-time house wife, who can’t cook as she would put it, as she is afraid of fire, boiling cooking oil and knives. But she exerted efforts to prepare meals for her family. Luckily, she became friends with their neighbour who happens to be a Japanese sushi master based Ireland, who’s married to a Filipina. He thought her the basics of sushi making.
When they got back to Gensan and settled there, she forgot about the sushi, because Japanese ingredients were not readily available in the malls. But she came across a dilemma with her daughter Priya, who’s devoted into being purely vegan and was a bit of a picky eater. From then she decided to make unique formations out of rice, shaping them into interesting and fun characters to make her eat.
Somtime in 2011, a college friend brought her nori (dried seaweed) as a “pasalubong” from Japan, it got her interest back in sushi. Around this time she also got an opportunity to attend a culinary course at Joji Ilagan IChef for free, as she and her daughter won it in a cooking challenge. This is what had gotten her into the sushi world.
From then she started making suss for her kids birthdays, christmas etc. Then parents from her kids school took notice of her sushi and started requesting orders from me.
Since putting up a restaurant requires a bigger capital investments, Chef Precious, decided to start her business online. March 5, 2012 is the birthday of SUSHIMOTO. The name which started from a joke, as it is roughly translates as “Sushi mo ito” (This is your sushi). They decided to make it Japanese sounding thus, SUSHIMOTO was born.
Sushimoto offers sushi delivery services, Sushi Bar set-ups, Live Sushi Making and Teppanyaki cooking in parties and Sashimi Bar set-ups (whole Tuna/maguro). They customise the sushi into different characters, cartoon characters, anime characters etc. They specialise in custom sushi, If you follow my Instagram you’d see around July, I posted a custom Gundam (anime) bento by Sushimoto. What is really awesome, they could put in your personal specifications in your sushi, thus the tag “Boutique Sushi came into being.
“I don’t simply make sushi, I create.” says Chef Precious
They also accept Japanese cuisine orders such as Chicken Teriyaki, Chicken Karaage, and Tonkatsu. They also offer Korean dishes, limci, bulgogi and sameoyopsal.
With their unique product set-ups, the idea of putting personality into customising, they have the edge compared to others and revolutionised the party scene in Gensan and continue to educate the “eating” public in the process.
When asked whats next for Sushimoto and Chef Precious?
"I can also say because we are an online business, chefs all over the world, especially Japanese sushi masters took notice of my unique operation, another advantage is that I can get advices, lectures and insights from the masters and senseis’ right away. Offers of scholarships, consultancies and work opportunities abroad came flocking in. Thus, I can say, not only I found a very good business, I also found a career!"
For orders and inquiries you can call/text them at 09429189313 or visit their website and Facebook page; sushimotogensan.wordpress.com, facebook.com/
Follow me on Twitter or Instagram, @kyriekoutre for more adventures in and around my wonderland that is Gensan, Tuna Capital of the Philippines.
Chef Precious Pearl Portia Mendoza-Valdez, started her sushi-venture when they were still living in Cebu City, when she was still ...
