Japanese Seafood Supplier To Michelin-Starred Restaurants Offers Build-Your-Own Katte Don

Most Japanese restaurants in Singapore offer chirashi don — a selection of sashimi on rice. Katte don, however, is less common. Originating from Kushiro, a port city in Hokkaido, the dish is similar to chirashi don, except you can choose your own raw seafood toppings.

One unexpected place that sells katte don here is Araya Shouten, a seafood supplier with its own shop at a quiet corner in Tanglin Mall’s basement. It’s opened by Hokkaido native Yuichiro Araya, 42, together with “three other investors” under a company called Goodvibes Intl.

Yuichiro is based at the shop along with his wife Seiko Araya, 37. Speaking to 8days.sg, he explains that he had set up his own seafood import business after noticing that smaller fisheries in Japan pay a high premium to supply their wares to famous markets like Tokyo’s Toyosu Market (formerly known as Tsukiji Market before it moved to its current Toyosu site).

“The smaller [companies], they don’t earn so much. So I want to buy from them to give them more business,” says Yuichiro, who sources his seafood from various suppliers throughout Japan.

Supplier to Michelin-starred restaurants

Other than his own shop, Yuichiro’s main business is supplying seafood to restaurants in Singapore. And his client list is long: It includes three-Michelin-starred Odette and its sister restaurant Claudine, two-Michelin-starred Waku Ghin, and one-Michelin-starred Corner House, Nouri, Esora, Sushi Kimura and Terra.

There are also other notable F&B establishments that get their seafood from Yuichiro, like Akira Back, The Naked Finn, Sushi Sato, Standing Sushi Bar and even hawker stall-turned-restaurant Reiwa Soba.

Takeaway katte don

If dining at Michelin-starred restaurants is too prohibitively pricey for you, Yuichiro and Seiko offer a relatively more wallet-friendly katte don. As there’s no dine-in space at their sparse seafood shop (which is ostensibly for people to buy fresh seafood and go), the katte don is only for takeaway. It’s packed in a plastic bowl container, the way it’s typically served at fish markets in its native Kushiro, though you can probably at least grab a seat there to savour your spoils on the spot.

Wednesday is the best day to drop by

As its name suggests, you can choose your own seafood for your katte don at Araya Shouten. But only on Wednesdays — that’s when Yuichiro displays a selection of freshly delivered-and-sliced catches for his customers.

How much your katte don costs would depend on what you pick, so go wild ordering only if you’re willing to splurge. Yuichiro has a whiteboard menu displayed at his seafood counter that’s updated daily with availability and prices. You can get fish like wild-caught bluefin tuna from Chiba (from $30/100g for the most common akami cut to $40/100g for otoro, the fattiest part of the tuna’s belly).

For the katte don, you can also order tuna by the slice: Akami ($6/slice), Chutoro ($7/slice) and Otoro ($8/slice).

Omakase Don, $35

Unfortunately for us, we ambled into Araya Shouten on a Tuesday, where we encountered Yuichiro’s savvy Japanese taitai customers collecting their pre-orders at his shop. There was no katte don for the day, he informed us politely, but he could still serve us an “omakase don” with his own pick of seafood for a flat $35.

We agreed and he got to work assembling the bowl, slicing cuts off whole fishes and laying them on top of a dainty scoop of rice, all decorated with a single shiso leaf and its flowers, and a pristine head of (real) chrysanthemum.

It was the most expensive takeaway donburi we have ever bought. We felt like we should be primly eating it on the manicured lawn at The Istana. Seiko merrily sent us on our way with the bowl in a plastic bag together with a (premium quality) pair of wooden chopsticks and two sachets of soy sauce (the standard kind that's packed with supermarket sushi).

But what it lacked in fancy presentation, the omakase don made up with taste. The extremely fresh, melt-in-our-mouth sashimi in our bowl weren’t even chilled. Each piece (some judiciously torched) is sliced just thick enough for us to taste its texture and flavour, but not become too jelak.

You can add uni too

Yuichiro also sells uni, which you can add to your katte don. By the box, a premium 250g box of Narabi Bafun uni costs $230, while the Bara Bafun uni is $88 for 100g. There is ready-to-eat marinated seafood for takeaway too, like Spicy Clam ($8), Mix Nitsuke (soy-simmered fish, $8), Soy Sauce Scallop ($10/piece) and Hokkaido Trout Roe ($18).

Sushi day

Other than katte don, Yuichiro’s company Goodvibes also has its own in-house sushi chef Takeshi, who makes an occasional appearance at the store for a “make sushi for you party”. This does not appear to be a regular thing, so you should check Araya Shouten's social media for its party announcements.

Freshly-made sushi

That’s when you can buy sushi made on the spot ($35 for seven pieces).

Address and opening hours

Address: #B1-115 Tanglin Mall, 163 Tanglin Rd, S247933

Opening hours: Open daily except Mon, 11am-7pm.

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Photos: Yip Jieying/ Araya Shouten