Office Boy Turns Sushi Chef
The story behind home-grown restaurant group The Akashi Group
is, in some ways, a tale of brotherhood.
In 1995, a 'raw as sashimi' Mervin Goh joined his older brothers
Sam and Don to start a Japanese eatery in the basement of Tanglin
Shopping Centre.
Brash and attention-seeking, the then 23-year-old knew nothing
about Japanese cuisine and even less about what he was going to do
with his future. But Sam felt a life in a Japanese kitchen might
help his youngest sibling find his moorings.
Barely months into his job at the newly opened Akashi, the
headstrong young man was ready to call it quits. Yelled at by
co-workers, made to do grunt work such as chopping daikon (Japanese
radish) and suffering cuts from his own clumsy knifework, he hated
being a cook.
'I was so fed up, I threw the knife down and walked out in a
huff. I told Sam I wasn't going to do this anymore and that I was
going home,' recalls MrMervin Goh, now 38.
His elder brother took him aside and talked to him. He asked Mr
Goh if he wanted to 'eat the sweet or the sour part first'.
'You're young and you have the energy. Why don't you take the
sour part first?' Sam reasoned.
With that, the younger Mr Goh calmed down. Suddenly, everything
made a lot of sense.
Looking back on the incident, he says: 'It would have been
easier to have walked away. If he had not made me a chef, I don't
know what else I would have done.'
In the years since, as chef and co-owner of a growing string of
eateries, he has tasted the sour, bitter and spicy tang of life,
and is now starting to savour the sweet.
Growing empire
These days, the chef-restaurateur is the co-director of a
multi-million-dollar business. Running the Akashi Group with his
three older siblings - brothers Sam, 49, and Don, 47; and sister
Eleana, 48 - he is the company's de facto spokesman and possibly
its friendly face.
Each sibling has a 25 per cent stake in the business, which is
expected to have a turnover of at least $50 million next year.
That one Akashi restaurant in Tanglin Shopping Centre has
spawned a mini- empire, which will cover 20 eateries next year.
Two more Akashi Japanese Restaurants have opened in Paragon and
VivoCity. The Tanglin outlet relocated in 2008 to Orchard Parade
Hotel, a stone's throw away.
Other ventures include Japanese grill restaurant Akanoya
Robatayaki in Orchard Parade Hotel; bistro White Dog Cafe in
VivoCity; two shabu shabu outlets Akashabu in Kallang Leisure Park
and Funan Centre; and five branches of Grandma's, which serves
local favourites.
The 'newest baby', Freshness Burger, opened its first outlet
here at nex mall in Serangoon Central last month.
A second outlet of the Japanese made-to-order burger chain
opened at Century Square in Tampines last Friday. A third will open
at The Central in Eu Tong Sen Street next month.
Next year, the group will open another White Dog Cafe at nex,
three more Freshness Burger joints and a second Akanoya Robatayaki
at Marina Bay Sands.
Sitting in Grandma's at Paragon, MrGoh is laidback in a slightly
rumpled way, in a long-sleeve shirt left untucked into blue jeans.
He seems to know all his waitstaff by name, and takes swigs from a
bottle of water, saying that we can do away with glasses.
To say that he is like a big boss would be inaccurate: He is
more like a big brother, at home in his domain.
Married for 10 years to bank relationship
manager-turned-housewife Tan Wee Lynn, 35, he has two sons -
Christian, six, and Zachary, two.
The group's aggressive expansion over the last two years has
left him little time for his family, he says.
His wife says he is 'too lenient' a dad, making her look 'like
the bad guy': He always gives in to the kids, extends their
playtime and lets them play games on his iPhone.
With a guilty-as-charged laugh, he replies: 'I'm always at work
and if I were to get angry with them, I might lose them completely.
We play different roles - one of us has to look bad.'
He drives a four-year-old Audi and goes on holiday with his
extended family at least once a year, usually during Chinese New
Year. Destinations have included Hokkaido, Australia, Bali and
Phuket.
Not bad for a boy who grew up in a one-bedroom HDB flat in Balam
Road in Aljunied, and had his first taste of sushi after he
enlisted for national service.
He did not think the sushi was 'special or delicate' back then,
and treated it like another rice or noodle dish.
His mother, Madam Mary Koh, used to run a canteen stall at Nan
Chiau High School, and his late father Goh Nu Nu did not hold a
stable job.
When he was eight years old, his parents divorced. His mum
remarried in his teenage years, and he is close to his stepfather
Tan Kim Leng, a retired sailor.
Though his family was poor, he says, he never felt deprived.
Being the youngest, his siblings showered him with presents and
protected him from the harshness of a broken home.
He says much of the group's present success can be attributed to
the close relationship shared by the four siblings.
They have few disagreements and there is little rivalry among
them. Differences are always settled by talking things over. Mr Goh
says: 'Our love for one another always prevails.'
The family is so close, they live next door to one another, in
three townhouses in the Bukit Timah area. His mother and stepfather
live with his sister's family.
Mr Goh did not always have his eyes set on carving fish and
shaping sushi.
'I thought about being a professional footballer or joining
Singapore Airlines as a flight steward,' says the avid Tottenham
Hotspur fan, who represented the Singapore Cricket Club in the
National Football League during his late teens.
As a boy in the 1980s, he would head to the National Stadium to
catch football matches. The enterprising kid would get in for free
by offering to help vendors sell drinks and curry puffs. But
reality kicked in after he finished national service.
Graduating from Changkat Changi Secondary School with an O-level
certificate, he was not sure what he wanted to do with his life.
Books was never his forte, though he enjoyed going to school and
joking around.
By then, Sam and Don had already spent a decade working in
well-known Japanese restaurants of the day, such as Unkai at the
former ANA hotel, Keyaki at Pan Pacific Singapore and the then
popular now-defunct teppanyaki restaurant Kuroeka in Liang
Court.
Meanwhile, Mr Goh was still trying to figure out what he wanted
to do.
His first job, at 21, was at brokerage house Phillip Securities
in 1993, which involved menial tasks of clipping documents together
and delivering them to nearby buildings, for $6 an hour.
It was there that he met his future wife. Ms Tan was working
part-time as an administrative assistant while waiting to enter the
Nanyang Technological University of Singapore to study
accountancy.
She says: 'We found that we could communicate. He had only O
levels but he was very sincere and down to earth.'
After a year at the firm, he decided to answer an advertisement
for Vitagen salesmen. But, to his horror, his new job entailed
being a door-to-door salesman in HDB estates.
He says: 'I was thrown into the job and I was shocked.
Door-to-door? So malu (Malay for shameful), leh.'
He took two weeks to sell his first packet of Vitagen. 'I would
count myself lucky if customers slammed their door in my face - at
least I get to see their faces. Others didn't even bother opening
the door,' he recalls with a chuckle.
The tenacious salesman carried a backpack with 30 packets of the
health drink and knocked on an average of 200 doors a day. Although
he earned less than $1,500 a month, he says he was happy then.
More importantly, the job helped build up his confidence level.
'If you can be a door-to-door salesman, you can probably do
anything,' he says.
He persevered for nine months in 1994 before starting Akashi
with his siblings the following year.
Those months of knocking have unconsciously shaped the way he
treats the group's 300 employees.
'It was an honest job that taught me not to look down on anyone.
Everyone is trying to make a living. It doesn't matter what job you
hold.'
From diners to friends
He is no longer a salesman but some of his effortless charm,
likely from those days, has remained.
These days, you can find Mr Goh, dressed in white chef garb,
comfortably stationed behind the sushi bar at Akashi at Orchard
Parade Hotel.
He is usually busy making sushi and is often seen chatting with
diners, many of whom have become his friends over the restaurant's
15-year history.
Mr David Ong, 47, is a regular customer who has been dining at
Akashi since it opened in 1995.
Calling Akashi his 'second home', the executive director of
financial services company AIA eats there two or three times a week
when he is not travelling. His kids, aged 13 and 18, refer to MrGoh
as 'Uncle Mervin'.
The two men have travelled to Japan together four times in the
last four years.
Says Mr Ong: 'Akashi has a family feel to it. It is where you
can be yourself.'
The friendly, unpretentious restaurant chain boasts customers
such as top businessmen and well-groomed bankers.
But things were not always rosy for the Gohs, especially when
they first started out. The first Akashi was set up with a start-up
capital of $150,000 - a gift from their mother and stepfather.
A Japanese restaurant run by Singaporeans was quite the anomaly
back when the Japanese dining scene was dominated by chefs
parachuted in from Japan.
On the perception that Japanese food prepared by local chefs was
not as authentic, Mr Goh says: 'We could not argue that we were
Japanese. People would come in and say, 'Hey, you are not
Japanese', and we accepted that.'
They channelled their energy into preparing quality food and
offering fresh ingredients, and it paid off. But 15 years on, Mr
Goh does not think he is enjoying the proverbial 'sweet life',
yet.
Sweetness, he says, will be when he retires and gets to spend
more time with his mother, wife and kids.
Until then, the tart, vinegary world of sushi and the restaurant
business awaits his attention.