The Station Shiumai Made to Taste Good ColdA Yokohama specialty born from a Chinatown appetizer

The classic souvenir from Yokohama Station is Kiyoken’s Shiumai. A dim sum chef from Chinatown played a part in its creation.

It began as a station kiosk

Kiyoken started in 1908 as a kiosk at Yokohama Station selling drinks, rice cakes and sushi.

Kiyo (崎陽) is an old name for Nagasaki, meaning “cape where the sun rises.” One of the founders was from Nagasaki, so it was chosen as an auspicious name.

“We want to create a Yokohama specialty”

Shiumai was born from a goal: to create a specialty for Yokohama.

Founding president Nonami Mokichi focused on the shumai served as an appetizer in Nankinmachi, today’s Chinatown. He recruited Wu Yusun (Go Guson), a dim sum chef from Nankinmachi, to develop it.

Engineered to taste good cold

Food sold at a station is eaten on the train or back home. So the team worked by trial and error, determined that it should taste good cold and be easy to eat in one bite.

The answer was a blend of pork and dried scallop. After research that began following the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, the Shiumai that tastes good even cold was completed in 1928.

Why “Shiumai,” not “shumai”?

Nonami, from Tochigi, pronounced shumai as “shiimai” because of his accent. Wu told him that the pronunciation was close to the Chinese, and this is said to have led to the spelling “Shiumai.”

Kiyoken’s president has explained that it was not simply a mispronunciation that became a brand name, but a decision that “Shiumai” was the most faithful way to write the Chinese pronunciation in katakana.

This article is an English edition of the Japanese original.