As people become more and more health and budget-conscious, balancing nutrition, money, and time seems a challenging task – at least when it comes to food.

Tonkatsu Bento Box

"Foremost in our minds is to serve healthy food and provide fast service and affordable meals," Chuachiaco and Cukingnan said.

But with fast-food restaurants making up for almost 40 percent of all eating places in Metro Manila today, many have formed a habit of having fastfood meals, Chuachiaco and Cukingnan noted.

She said fast-food restaurants usually serve fatty food, such as burgers, pizzas, French fries, fried chicken, and potato fries, that are lacking in key vitamins and minerals.

"A steady diet of fast food can be hazardous. The excess of saturated fat, sodium, and sugar contents add to the problem of typical meal which is already heavy in calories," they lamented.

"Individuals who even select fish sandwich thinking it’s healthier are in for a surprise – processing, breading, deep-fat frying turn the wholesome lowfat fish into high fat food," the two sisters said.

"Health is not a matter of chance, it’s a matter of choice. We need to eat more fish, vegetables and fruits. We need to return to valuable food staples. That’s why we offer Japanese food which is mainly fish and vegetables. We thought we have to return to simple but valuable food staples."

They noted that before, the average age among those with heart disease was from 50 to 60 years. Now, heart disease is prevalent even among young people ages 20 to 30. The food that they eat has something to do with this, Chuachiaco declared.

It’s no wonder why Chuachiaco and Cukingan advocate healthy food. They are married to doctors. Chuachiaco’s husband, Dr. Manuel Chuachiaco, is a heart surgeon, while Cukungnan’s partner, Dr. Alex Cukingnan, is a neck and throat surgeon.

Seventeen years ago, the sisters owned the New Tokyo Restaurant on Makati Avenue. But with their growing kids (Chuachiaco has four, Cukingnan has three), they found themselves tangled with work at home. In the late 80s, they sold New Tokyo to a Japanese friend.

In the early 1999, with just P100, 000 capital, the duo decided to open a 36square-meter Japanese food stall in White Plains, Quezon City, with a concept of delivering sushi and sashimi around the area. They named their stall Kitaro.

"At first, we came up with a party tray, sushi and sashimi only for delivery in their neighborhood." But their tray, composed of sushi (raw salmon, eel), California maki (fish or vegetable rolled in rice), and vegetables became the best seller among old and young diners.

After six months, their business grew and they found themselves serving even residents of other villages.

Within a span of three years, the sisters succeeded in adding three Kitaro branches in Metro Manila. Later on, they also included other popular Japanese food on the menu.

"Japanese cuisine offers a very large variety of dishes. Some of the most common ones are prepared with tuna, eel, shrimp, squid, octopus, and even fried egg and mushrooms," they said.

Donburi, for example, is a bowl of cooked rice with some toppings like cucumber and egg, onions and beef, eel, seafood and vegetables, dipped into a soya-based sauce; while ramen is a noodle dish about as thin as spaghetti and served on a soup with various toppings such as pork and vegetables.

"Our mixed tempura is made up of shrimps and vegetables, while our tofu steku, a delightfully healthy breaded Japanese tofu, has a sauce of mixed vegetables. Chicken teriyaki is also marinated and cooked with smoked hickory flavor," Cukingnan and Chuachiaco said.

"Popular Japanese cuisine includes hijiki which contains 14 times the calcium of glasses of milk, wakame which provides 1, 300 milligrams of calcium in less than half a teaspoon, and kombu which provides 800 milligrams of calcium for healthy bones."

"We also use imported dishes and condiments such as Kikoman soy sauce, mitsuka vinegar, etc," Chuachiaco said.