For Ricky Cheng, paying HK$430,000 for a single fish is money well spent.

OK, maybe just when it's a rare 2.5-meter bluefin tuna - which he won at an action in Tokyo.

Part of Ricky Cheng's newly purchased HK$430,000 Bluefin tuna fish is cut up in Hong Kong on January 6. Cheng, manager of the Itamae Sushi restaurant, outbid others in a Japanese auction a day earlier to claim the 2.5-meter tuna. Wen Wei Po

A deep love and admiration for Japanese culture has led Cheng, 40, to spend half of his life exploring the country's cuisine.

But even his January 5 tuna purchase at a special auction in the Tsukiji fish market was a big deal by Cheng's standards.

Of course, he said that just makes it an experience he'll remember for the rest of his life.

Some of the fish was immediately flown to Cheng's Hong Kong restaurant, Itamae Sushi, and the rest was left at a Tokyo sushi restaurant he co-owns.

Cheng spent two months preparing for the bidding, hiring a Japanese agent to represent him.

"We needed to hide our Hong Kong background," he explained. "Otherwise, the other Japanese restaurants participating in the auction would have made every attempt to bar us from bidding on the fish."

Cheng was still excited when recalling the auction.

"I was very tense. I was expressionless even when I had successfully bid on the fish," he said.

The restaurant owner's dream of bidding on a top fish goes back more than two decades, when he first became fond of Japanese culture.

Cheng began working for a sushi restaurant when he graduated from secondary school.

The Japanese master in the restaurant appreciated his hard work. He spent 12 hours in the restaurant every day. The master persuaded him to learn how to cook in Japan.

So, he traveled to Japan in 1986. But he quickly found that finding work was no easy task. Restaurants simply weren't willing to hire Cheng because he couldn't speak Japanese.

And when Cheng finally found a job, he still had to spend four hours in language class and nine hours working every day. He managed to get just five hours of sleep a night.

Cheng returned to Hong Kong after three years. But he had to work as a tour guide until he saved enough money to open a pancake shop in 1992.

Business at his new shop was good, so Cheng decided to introduce a Japan-noodle restaurant called Ajisen Ramen to Hong Kong in 1996.

The noodle restaurant began expanding, there are now 19 locations in the city.

But Cheng believes his roots are still in sushi. With 12 years of business experience under his belt, he decided to open Itamae Sushi in 2004.

But operating the restaurant was very tough. It stressed the direct-importing of ingredients from Japan.

"Of course, business was not good during the first three months," he said. "The initial period was spent on tackling all kinds of difficulties. I couldn't even have dinner with my family one month."

He later opened Itamae Sushi in Tokyo in 2006.

"I am not Japanese, and it takes much effort to become familiar with how business is operated in the country," he explained. "I spent the first six months building the restaurant's reputation and testing the market."

To continue expanding his business, Cheng capitalized on the growth of the mainland economy and set up a restaurant in Shanghai.

He had to fly between Hong Kong, the mainland and Japan. The hectic business life was at the expense of time with wife and four children.

"You can't plan your holidays if you are in the catering business. There is no such thing as planning a trip in the coming months," he said.

(HK Edition 01/19/2008 page1)