Dinner With Endo Squared

Lucy Munene

This month, Lucy Munene talks culture, stereotypes and tea with the stunning Endo sisters, owners of Endo Squared at the newly opened Blue Door Restaurant.

Brian Siambi (UrbanSkript)

What comes to my mind when I hear the word melting pot is a literal pot, filled with all kinds of delicacies all heftily mixed together forming a medley of everything that’s good in each of them. As I walked into this interview with the staggering Endo sisters, this is what I had in mind.

Brian Siambi (UrbanSkript)

You may have encountered the Endo sisters in one way or another but I am here to present them to you in the capacity that I met them after years of fawning over their aesthetically pleasing brand Endo Squared. As a lover of all things coloured in crisp white and vibrant minimalist VSCO presets, and a fan of the two, the nerves were there and the questions did not seem like they were enough but I managed to cheerfully greet my interviewees who breezed into the newly opened Blue Door comfortably dressed in t-shirts and jeans. We started off with the age-old question of what culture and roots mean. “The first thing I think of is home and where I’m from,” Yvonne stated simply as Patti nodded in agreement.

Brian Siambi (UrbanSkript)

In the way that sisters talk fondly in unison then over each other correcting mistakes and filling in gaps, they explained: “We have more Japanese influences in our life but one thing we did discover that is a Kenyan thing/ habit is taking warm milk with everything like cereal or even on its own.” This threw me off because, until this interview, I did not realise that my love for warm milk in cereal was something national.

Brian Siambi (UrbanSkript)

As with most people, our habits are a representation of our upbringing, good or bad. Patti considered this, and shares her story of how they picked up a number of Japanese habits from their mother such as saying the phrases “itadakimasu” and “gochisousama” which can be roughly translated to “let’s eat” and “thank you for the delicious meal”.

Eventually, the conversation steered towards one of my least favourite topics: stereotypes. We all know that every countries’ citizens are associated with certain characteristics and here, the Endo sisters are no exception. “I was a good student but I was terrible at math which was strange because the assumption is all Asians are good at math,” Patti reflected, followed by Yvonne chiming in: “We get mistaken for Chinese and Koreans as well! No one ever guesses that we’re half Japanese. On the other hand, Patti is great at bargaining.” This little teaser does little justice to the rest of the interview but, fear not, you can read the rest of the interview on Yummy.co.ke