Photograph by Michael Donahue
The team behind Nagasake Inn (L-R): Tony Do, Eggroll Smith, Harold Do, Kim Do, and Charlie Do.
If you’ve been going to Nagasaki Inn for some time, you know to ask Harold Do to cook your hibachi meal at your table. “About 90 percent of my customers know me,” says Do, adding, “All the kids love to come see me.”
They enjoy watching Do toss noodles in the air with his spatula, a trick he calls “Japanese fireworks.” They get a kick out of watching him create a “Japanese bunny rabbit” out of a single shrimp. But his biggest attraction is when he pours what he calls “Japanese gasoline” (it’s actually cooking wine) over the mushrooms and flames shoot up from the hot table.
Photograph by Michael Donahue
Harold Do prepares mushrooms with flare and flames.
Diners applaud both during the meal and when his “show” is over. “I love all my customers. They call me ‘Uncle Mike’,’’ Do says. “They say, ‘Oh, he does magic.’”
Many of those children become life-long customers. “They grow up. They marry. They have kids. They still see me.” Do remembers his customers’ names and what they typically order.
Do and his brother, Hung “Eggroll” Smith are co-owners of Nagasaki Inn. Smith greets the customers and shows them to their table. Do wears the chef’s hat and cooks.
Born in Vietnam, Do and other family members left their country in early 1980. While living temporarily in Thailand, they got a sponsor, which enabled them to move to Memphis. He remembers they arrived here on Thanksgiving weekend 1980. “It was very, very cold,” he says. “When we came here, we had nothing. Only one coat. We don’t have money.”
Fishermen in Thailand stole all their belongings, Do says. So, he and Smith went to work painting houses and doing yard work. In 1981, they went to work at Nagasaki. One of the previous owners “wanted someone to help clean up the restaurant before they opened. They hired me and another brother.”
The restaurant originally opened in 1980. Do and his brother bought it in 1999. Do learned Japanese cooking by watching one of the Nagasaki cooks. “He taught me how to cook,” he says, but it only took him one week to learn. He now works seven days a week, serving “each night, about 30 to 40 customers.”
photograph by alice kerley
Michael Donahue, along with his great-niece Annie Kerley and great-nephew Bennett Michael Kerley, enjoy hibachi dinners at one of their favorite family eating spots, Nagasaki Inn.
People usually think of hibachi when they think of the Nagasaki Inn, but the restaurant offers more than that. Customers don’t have to order a complete meal. “You can order chicken, fried rice, steak. We have sushi, soup, salad. You can sit at the bar.”
The Nagasaki Inn newspaper coupons bearing the photo of Do are legendary. They began using them in 1984, but stopped about a year after Covid hit. Grocery prices got too high, Do says, and he couldn’t afford to offer the discounts, but hopes to resume the coupons soon.
Asked what he does to relax after working his usual 10-hour days, Do says, “I don’t have time to relax. When I get home it’s 2 in the morning. I just go to bed. Daytime, I’m working.”
He buys the groceries for Nagasaki Inn himself. “I want everything fresh.”
Do, who looks trim at age 64, says, “I exercise in the morning. I run every day. I get up when my wife, Kim, goes to work. I run maybe a mile and come home. On Sunday morning I play soccer with my son, Charlie, and kick the ball around. He plays with a team. He turns 21 next month.”
Vacations are unheard of for Do. “I never have vacation.” Even so, he’d like to take a trip to Vietnam with his wife. “I want to see my wife’s family,” he says. “I’ve never seen all her brothers and sisters in my life because they live so far away. I never get a chance to go anywhere more than two days.”
Do has no interest in opening a second location of Nagasaki Inn. “The customers don’t want to come to another restaurant if they don’t have me over there,” he says. “Everybody wants to see me. Sometimes they come looking for me: ‘Is Harold working today?’
“Even if I don’t cook for them, I come over and say, ‘Hi.’”
Nagasaki Inn is at 3951 Summer Avenue.
below left: Michael Donahue, along with his great-niece Annie Kerley and great-nephew Bennett Michael Kerley, enjoy hibachi dinners at one of their favorite family eating spots, Nagasaki Inn.
below right (l to r): Tony Do, Eggroll Smith, Harold Do, Kim Do, and Charlie Do.
inset: Harold Do prepares mushrooms with flare and flames.
photographs by michael donahue; author with niece and nephew photograph by Alice Kerley
