Hana Japanese & Chinese Cuisine in Missouri City is not the first restaurant venture for business partners and owners Mia Ham and Jessica Li. It is, however, the first restaurant the pair has opened that fuses together two cuisines. The idea behind opening a restaurant that offers Japanese and Chinese cuisines, Ham said, was to provide customers with an array of options. “When you open a new restaurant, you want to be unique because you don’t want to have just one type of food,” Ham said. “One family member may want Japanese [cuisine]but the rest of the family might want Chinese, so Hana is the place where they can find both.” Before opening Hana in July 2014, Li and Ham owned and operated a restaurant in downtown Houston and one in Pearland. The pair sold the two restaurants and took some time off before deciding to delve back into restaurant ownership, Ham said. “Sometimes when you work in the restaurant business it is so much work and so stressful that you get to a point where you don’t want to do it anymore and want to sell,” Ham said. “But after a while you realize having a restaurant is your passion and a field you have experience [in], so that’s why we decided to open Hana.” With more than 20 years of restaurant experience between the business partners, Ham and Li joined forces again and used their collective experience to create the concept for Hana. The pair then chose to open the restaurant in Missouri City because of the diverse population and rapid growth in the area. Ham and Li also drew on their experiences and research to create the menu for Hana. “After you open many restaurants you begin to learn what people like and want,” Ham said. “We try our best to fit everybody’s interests and created the menu through a lot of research and past experiences.” The restaurant’s menu is extensive and all menu items at the restaurant are fresh and made from scratch. Ham said the restaurant uses high-quality meats and seafood for its dishes and sushi. The menu at Hana is also constantly evolving. “Our menu is changing all the time,” Ham said. “We are always looking at what dishes are doing well and the dishes that are not. We remove items that are not so popular and will add new items.” Hana offers a daily lunch special and a sushi happy hour. The restaurant also sells beer and wine. In addition to providing fresh and homemade dishes to customers whether they dine-in, take home or have Hana delivered or catered, Ham said she takes pride in providing quality customer service to her patrons. “We are a family-based business and we really put our hands on it,” she said. “We care about our customers a lot and we provide great customer service.”