Light Snacks Will Be Served

Dancing With Compassion and Good Sense

A few folks have asked me what was the greatest challenge I've faced while opening this joint. I might make a joke about the ghosts in the space or the drunk electrician whose creations are still coming back to haunt me (on Thursday, 45 minutes before service, the circuit breaker caught on fire). There was water. There were smells. Yeah, all that.

But you can control those things. What I can't easily control are the relationships between myself and my staff, and their relationships with each other. To gain the respect of my staff so that they value their work and their own very particular contribution to this restaurant is by far the greatest challenge I've faced. It's not always -- as some would lead me to believe -- about being kind. One also needs to set examples. I'm learning that.

The most difficult thing I've faced personally is how to balance compassion and understanding with good business sense. This is a fascinating and frustrating place to operate a business; maintaining a working relationship with someone can sometimes, at least in my own experience, force you to bend your own boundaries of right and wrong.  

But service and kitchen work are also jobs that demand great professionalism and care and attention to detail and ridiculous hours and for all that rewards people with a pretty crappy salary. So sometimes, to keep everything from falling apart you need to let a few things slip. But in this elaborate dance between figuring out what is right for me and what's going wrong behind my back I've had to trust my instincts most. The thing is, I haven't. I've been conned a little and lied to a bit and accepted far more of that than I ever thought I might. (I do not think this is unique to Thailand, sensitive netizens. I think it is unique to the restaurant business. So please, relax your angry fingers.)

In the end, my gut has always been right. I knew the designers of the restaurant were incompetent fools. I gave them a second chance, and for my generosity they screwed me. I knew that a former staff member was a corrosive force, yet I let him stay and corrupt the culture of my place. And now I wonder when I'll really, truly trust my instincts. Now is a good time to start, I suppose. 

Woke Up, Fell Out Of Bed (a day in the life file)

Hey Everybody. So I'm sitting here at the bar, as the guests chatter. I'm spotlit in the corner by the specials board which makes me feel like a decorative object, and I'm wondering when the heck it'll be late enough to have a beer. I've learned a lot of things in the five weeks that we've been open, and one of the more important things is that just because you feel like you ought to have a beer in your bar doesn't mean you really should. Wait it out. Hold on. Keep an eye on things. Drink some water, fool. 

I thought I'd write a post today about today. Or any other day. Because I have fallen into a routine. 

A few weeks back I was drinking beers and bitching with another restaurant owner/chef (as we are wont to do). That chef has some pretty successful Thai restaurants around the world, and with sharp and cynical insight he said something that perfectly summed up what it's like to run a restaurant. "It's like running on a treadmill, you just keep sweating and running and growling and you never go anywhere but there." He's right. Really. It's all very stationary.

Each morning I wake up and look at my numbers. If I'm feeling brave I break them down and try to figure out what they all mean. Then, there are calls to the accountant. And the lawyer, on occasion. Then I make menus if we're doing a special menu for someone. I cuddle with my dog for awhile, stare into my empty fridge, suck down some coffee and head to the restaurant. Usually won't see my house for another 12+ hours after that.

I'd forgotten how empty empty restaurants feel. It's eerie being downstairs in my dining room so I usually head up two flights of stairs to the kitchen, where I can hear the clop-clop-clop of the stone mortar making paste from herbs and spices. I am met with the smiles of my five cooks - and then I hang with them. Sometimes, I show them tricks, like how to make yogurt for the samosas. Sometimes, they show me tricks, like how to wrap a fish in a banana leaf. 

That's Nym. She makes really good salads, and has an incredibly sweet smile.

Next comes my favorite part of the day -- my trip to the market. I gossip with the fish monger gals at On Nut market, sticking my fingers inside the gills of sea creatures, smelling bags of crabmeat, and still staring with wonder as a coconut husk becomes shreds of coconut, like snow, and then how that becomes the thick, fatty, luxurious cream that drips from the stainless steel press. At the market I wander and wonder about what to cook. Sometimes its a free-range chicken soup with herbs. Today I bought some gelatin and made coconut panna cotta with crispy/sweet/salty candied peanuts. Sometimes I just leave it to my team. They are pretty good now.

Then I return to my shop with seafood and whatever else, peel off my sweaty tee-shirt, put on something with a collar, make a playlist perhaps, feed the ghost outside, look up at King Rama V's photo, and wonder how busy we'll get.

Then, I open the door. Showtime.

I'm Back

Sorry for the sabbatical. I was busy opening a restaurant, as you probably know. That restaurant is about a month old now, and this weekend we were busy. At some points, very busy. And at others, terribly, frighteningly, fuck-everything-up busy. And you would think that that might make a new restaurant owner happy. But really, it makes me worry. Most things do these days.

Another thing that I worry about is how to keep up this blog. The good news is that I have internet in my shop, so when I have downtime I can drop by here and blog about my new life. I'm still considering how I should go about doing that -- and I'm thinking about writing recipes, ideas, and stories about what goes on here at Soul Food Mahanakorn. I might bring you in the kitchen. Or onto the floor. We'll see. But don't go away. I'll be back soon.