By Sean Coombs
Expo Reporter
OSAKA, Japan – On a rainy Osaka afternoon, it’s the calm before the storm at Slices, a small pizza restaurant and bar located in the heart of Osaka’s popular Shinsaibashi district.
While the restaurant and bar seem a bit quiet, by nightfall the business will be busy with customers both local and foreign descending for midnight munchies.
Pizza is a food that some might not consider to be distinctly Canadian, but Slices owner and founder Seng Manichanh is out to prove with her restaurant that Canadian pizza brings authentic flavours and a distinct Canadian style.
When she started her business 20 years ago after initially moving to Japan to be an English teacher, Seng saw that restaurants in Japan delivered pizza that most people couldn’t access.
Pizza in Japan back then and still partially today was seen as an exotic dish that wasn’t an everyday meal.
This was in contrast with the pizza that Manichanh grew up with in Toronto, which she grew to love during her university days, getting slices of pizza late at night.
“Slices of pizza were not a thing at the time,” she said. “So I thought, well I miss it, I want to do something, and I studied business, so I thought let’s combine the two and see where we go from there.”
Like a conventional pizzeria in Canada, Slices offers affordable pizza by the slice with Canadian flavours like meat lovers and Hawaiian inspired by pizzerias in Toronto.
Manichanh says that people ask her all the time what Canadian pizza specifically is, which she thinks is best described as the Toronto pizza she distinctly remembers.
“Growing up I ate a lot of this pizza and we mimicked what we knew from a shop back home and replicated it here as best as we could.”
Since there aren’t many Canadian businesses in the Osaka area, Slices is a part of a tight-knit Canadian community in which supporting one another is important.
Manichanh credits this community as being the main reason her business has survived the pandemic and other tough economic times.
“When they’re homesick they come back here,” she said. “They come here to feel that sense of home and familiarity.”
In fact, Manichanh is partially responsible for the founding of Osaka’s second Canadian restaurant, LiNGUA World Cafe.
The owner of LiNGUA started out as a regular customer of Slices, and that’s how Seng gave him advice about starting his own Canadian-inspired business.
“I gave him the information I could and I’m happy to have him on board,” she said. “I was happy to help with the bureaucracy.”
Like LiNGUA, Slices also celebrated Canada Day, with Canadian cocktails like Caesars and a limited edition Halifax Donair-style pizza available.
Manichanh is proud to tout the Canadian spirit of her place, and she thinks that representing the diverse face of Canada is the way forward.
“It’s a part of the Canada I love and the one I really want to promote,” she said. “Not all Canadians look the same, and we represent that here.”
“We welcome everyone here, no matter if they’re Japanese or Canadian.”
