As a storyteller, Hak Lonh looks to food as a way to share the rich history of Cambodia and its complex cuisine. Hak is Cambodian-Chinese-American. He was born in a refugee camp on the border of Thailand and Cambodia. His family immigrated to the US when he was a toddler. They fled, fought and eventually escaped the horrors of “The Killing Fields”, landing in Pennsylvania. Gamboge is a Cambodian inspired deli, café, and marketplace. Offering Cambodian comfort classics, coffee, beer and natural wines. Founded by chef and filmmaker, Hak Lonh and his wife Jane Oh. Gamboge’s mission is to bring together the stories and memories that make up modern day Cambodian cuisine, while honoring it’s past. His father, Kim, was able to secure a job due in part to his ability to speak French fluently. This skill and his natural talent eventually lead him to become a classically trained chef. Hak’s mom, Bun, a phenomenal home chef in her own right, was also working and preparing meals to feed the family. Because of the historical challenges to Cambodia, Cambodians have had to rely on recipes and culinary traditions as one of the few ways to preserve their heritage. Hak’s mother, in particular, faithfully goes to great lengths to prepare home cooked meals as a way to keep that heritage alive. In this way, food has always been an integral part of Hak’s life.
As a storyteller, Hak Lonh looks to food as a way to share the rich history of Cambodia and its complex cuisine. Hak is Cambodian-Chinese-American. He was born in a refugee camp on the border of Thailand and Cambodia. His family immigrated to the US when he was a toddler. They fled, fought and eventually escaped the horrors of “The Killing Fields”, landing in Pennsylvania.
His father, Kim, was able to secure a job due in part to his ability to speak French fluently. This skill and his natural talent eventually lead him to become a classically trained chef. Hak’s mom, Bun, a phenomenal home chef in her own right, was also working and preparing meals to feed the family. Because of the historical challenges to Cambodia, Cambodians have had to rely on recipes and culinary traditions as one of the few ways to preserve their heritage. Hak’s mother, in particular, faithfully goes to great lengths to prepare home cooked meals as a way to keep that heritage alive. In this way, food has always been an integral part of Hak’s life.
Gamboge is a Cambodian inspired deli, café, and marketplace. Offering Cambodian comfort classics, coffee, beer and natural wines. Founded by chef and filmmaker, Hak Lonh and his wife Jane Oh. Gamboge’s mission is to bring together the stories and memories that make up modern day Cambodian cuisine, while honoring it’s past.
LINKS:
[00:00:00] Hak: Like when I am able to take a step back, which is very, very limited, like and get out of my head or just take a minute and look around the kitchen and like, look around the space when I get a chance to walk into the patio and like, see a bunch of strangers sitting in this patio that you've built with your wife and like just your friends and seeing them enjoying food. And it's like, the vibe is right. And I'm like, oh man, this [00:00:30] is pretty cool. You know, like it's pretty cool. Like we built something, like we built a restaurant and we built a restaurant during a pandemic and we built, and it's a Cambodian restaurant; it's unrepresented food. It's like, there's things stacked on stacked on stacked. So it's like, it's a lot, it's a lot, I think like when I really get a chance to process it, I think I'll just, I don't know if I'll be able to contain myself because it's like joy one minute and it's complete, like, [00:01:00] "I want to give up." I think, I think that's really why, like, I kind of took sort of like a detour from the film industry just to sort of get into this industry and be like, "Hey look, you know, you're like, let me be part of this narrative that you eventually want to take back to the other side again." I think food, it's really tied to culture, good stories. And like, I think it was just a quicker way of getting represented or like, or representing what we're doing. Um, especially [00:01:30] with where we are right now. And like a lot of like, you know, POC's are getting like a little bit more recognized, it's like it's time. And, you know, it was just like, I think we were in the right place at the right time, but the conversation is only starting
[00:01:54] Jordan: Welcome to the Prix Fixe Podcast, where the new voices in the culinary world share their stories in their own [00:02:00] words. The show is produced and edited by me, Jordan Haro in Los Angeles, California. Ultimately I will remove my side of the conversation to let the guests tell their story in their own words.
In the summer of 2020, I noticed a new Cambodian restaurant opening up near where I live in East Los Angeles. If I was looking for something positive amidst these turbulent days, I found it here in Gamboge, a word for the yellow to orange pigmentation coming from the gum resin in [00:02:30] Southeast Asian trees. That yellow is present here; vibrantly coating the walls of this little haunt tucked beside a busy Lincoln Heights intersection, disguising an airy patio filled with R&B music or golden age indie hip hop, and a natural wine bar. Chef Hak Lonh's journey in opening Gamboge began as an infant in the killing fields of the Cambodian genocide, a part of history, not often talked about. His family, narrowly escaped, allowing [00:03:00] him to grow up in America. His story is one of ingenuity, self-determination, and persistence. It's a privilege to be able to share it here, because it is clear to me that Hak's M.O. is sharing his story, which he does through a menu inspired by his family's heritage. But before Gamboge, for nearly two decades, he was a working film director and editor in hopes of sharing his unique perspective and cultural background with the world, through movie movie-making. Let's listen in.[00:03:30]
[00:03:31] Hak: My name is Hak Lonh and I am chef owner of Gamboge. So my story starts in Cambodia. Um, my parents fled from the Khmer Rouge and, um, I was born in a refugee camp and we immigrated to Pennsylvania in around 1981. But, uh, I guess. That's where it starts. During, I would say like 1975, [00:04:00] Cambodia was going through a civil war and they were, it was like Cambodians versus the Khmer Rouge. And the Khmer Rouge was a communist regime that had overtaken Cambodia and like had overthrown the Cambodian government. They, when they overtook the city, they declared, uh, it to be Year Zero, and they turned back the clock to zero. And, um, they were telling people in the city that, um, [00:04:30] they're basically going to do some cleaning and they had a, like, they pushed a lot of the civilians out towards the wilderness, like into the jungles and into the rice fields. And, um, they were like, 'well, it's okay. You can like, come back in a week. Your house will be fine.' They basically wiped out a whole entire city. Like not wiped out but moved a whole city in five days into these work camps. And a lot of [00:05:00] people didn't know what was going on. It was a bit hysteria, but like they came to find out like they were being put into work camps. And so my parents were living at the time in the city of Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia, and, uh, as they were being, um, pushed out of their homes, uh, they were like grabbing whatever they could. Uh, I wasn't born yet. Um, I had three or four older sisters at the time and we basically were pushed to a [00:05:30] camp and then my parents spent two years in this work camp. And, uh, somehow they were able to survive like these like atrocities. It was like, I don't know, many people don't know about what happened in Cambodia during this time, but there was a genocide that basically killed around 1.2 to 1.5 million people. And not a lot of people talk about that. I'm a product of that basically. [00:06:00] So towards the end of like this time, uh, this dark time, which, which, uh, they call 'year zero', uh, and it was, um, ruled by this communist leader. His name was Pol Pot. My parents somehow made it through, they survived these like awful conditions. Like a lot of people were being, a lot of people died from starvation. Um, and they were also like, sort of taken away, like to these, what they were called the killing [00:06:30] fields. If you were an artist, if you had, like, if you wear glasses, if basically an intellectual, they would, they would take you and execute you. And the way they found this out was after a couple of years in this camp, people started getting desperate and they're like, 'okay, it's time to like repopulate the city,' is what they would tell when the Khmer Rouge would tell, um, the, the people that were staying in the camp, like 'we need an, we kind of need to know who you, who you are, what your story is.' [00:07:00] So a lot of people were desperate and they started writing like, 'oh, I'm a doctor, I'm a lawyer. I'm this and that,' basically they would get escorted into a truck, like one of those big military looking trucks and taken up to the mountains and just executed. And this was happening for years and systematically. Not a lot of people knew what was going on. Uh, so there's a lot of paranoia going on going on at the time. Um, so there is one instance where my dad, this was [00:07:30] interesting where he was in the same camp as his nephew. And, um, my, my dad's nephew recognized my dad who was like, 'Hey,' like, he called to him, but in the, uh, Cambodian word, uh, it's called 'choum'. And 'choum' is like, sounds very close to teacher. And teacher is 'lo krou'. And when the Khmer Rouge cadre heard this, he was like, 'oh, are you a teacher?' And, uh, my dad's like, 'no, no, no, I'm not a teacher.' Like [00:08:00] he played really dumb and he's like, 'no, I'm just, I just sell ice cream on the streets. I'm stupid. I'm just like a lowly worker,' and he's like, 'no, I think you're a teacher,' and the cadre brought over two more cadres and it was like, 'Hey, read this paper.' And like, it was a newspaper and they handed it to my dad, but my dad grabbed it upside down and he was trying really hard to read it upside down, but he just started crying because it's like, 'I'm just [00:08:30] sort of embarrassed. I can't read,' he played them. But like, he was just like, he, he knew right away what to do. And that was this kind of like one of many instances of like survival, like just sort of like these like things that my parents had to do, like to sort of get through this. And I'm like, my mom was like a rice dealer, which was kind of crazy. Like at night they would go steal rice and hide it underneath their hut and like deal out rice. So like all the other people that were hungry, [00:09:00] things like, like these are just some of the stories that like I hear from my parents after like all these years of like, just sort of interviewing them for this documentary that I'll probably never finish. It's likemy 'Heart of Darkness' I guess, I'd had been working on it for like, maybe like seven or eight years now. But like each time I go back on my interview them I get these stories. But a lot of these stories and a lot of like this culture, like sort of inspired Gamboge and what, what [00:09:30] was the sort of the inspiration to start Gamboge was to sort of help bring Cambodian food to, to the masses, but to also sort of tell our story of the food and anything that was Imperial was destroyed or anything that was like a book or art was destroyed and recip, basically recipes were destroyed. Any kind of written word or whatever was destroyed. Cookbooks were destroyed. And, [00:10:00] um, a lot of these Cambodian chefs that are starting to come up right now are sort of doing their best to sort of write it down because a lot of Cambodians when they learn how to cook, they don't, we don't write anything down. It's just, it's almost like Joseph Campbell where you're, you know, it's like folklore, right. But it's a recipe that gets passed on and it's your interpretation. And so what I like to think is like Cambodian food is just memories and it's memories of like how our aunts [00:10:30] or moms or dads like cooked a certain dish. And like, there's so many different dishes that I just remember my mom cooking. And whenever I ask for a recipe or something, she's like, 'I don't, I don't know. I can't tell you, but what it is, but I can just tell you over the phone, what it, what it should taste like or how much you use of how much garlic you need, or how much lemon grass you need or something like that.' but. The inspiration really just came from like this idea of, or the [00:11:00] inspiration of Gamboge really came from this idea of just trying to tell stories in a different way, because I used to, you know, before this, I was a filmmaker and I kind of got burnt out with that part of my career. And so I was like, well, food is like, sort of my second love, so let me see if I can tell stories through food and like, through this space that we built here in Lincoln Heights. And so it was inspired by my parents and just like learning about my culture as, [00:11:30] uh, as I got older, like I went to Cambodia for the first time with my mom back in like 2006. And that was her first time back. That was an interesting experience because I kind of feel like an outsider here in America. But also when I went back, I felt like an outsider there as well. And, but that experience was just really interesting because we went back to shoot a documentary together. And that that's sort of like the genesis of the documentary is to go back [00:12:00] and find her brother. And when we were escaping her and her brother, like they basically split up. And cause when my, when my parents were escaping from these camps, like my mom and my dad and three of my sisters, um, decided to go to one part of the country and my mom's brother had to go to another part of the country to find my grandmother. And my mom was pregnant with me at the time. And so they were planning this escape and like my mom and my [00:12:30] uncle were like, 'okay, we're going to try to meet up.' And that was the last time she's ever seen. Cut to 27 years later, you know, like living in Pennsylvania, that's, I'm kind of jumping around here, but that's where we ended up immigrating to. Um, she decided she wants to go back because she's been having these reoccurring dreams and these reoccuring dreams are her brother comes up to her and, and basically leaves these two [00:13:00] daughters with my mom and goes away and like, doesn't say anything. And so this dream has been kind of haunting her and, uh, she's like, 'I feel like I need to go back.' and so she like sought out like these different, like psychic monks to kind of like, you know, give her some sort of like inspiration or just, just kind of, you know, she's kind of superstitious in that way. Or like kind of witchy in that way where she believes like in those things. Do I? [00:13:30] Yeah. To a certain extent, you know, like there's something there I feel, but a lot of these different monks told her that he's still alive, but like, there's something wrong with him. Like he stepped on a landmine or something like that. And so she was like, 'well, I need to go. I want to go.' And none of my sisters were available. So she reached out to me. And at the time I was working at like his ad agency and like doing like working on like editing, like PlayStation commercials. And it's kinda like, [00:14:00] again, sick of it, I guess it's this commercial type of like work that I was getting like sort of sort of burnt out by, I decided to leave that job. I bought like a DVX 100 at the time. It was like this like pretty, pretty we shot on tape basically. Like it was in HD and, uh, it was just me and my mom and a camera. And like we decided just to go back and try to search for her brother without any sort of clue on where to start. We just went and [00:14:30] we were there for like three months and we ended up sort of retracing his path and figuring out where he was, but we never found him. And so it kind of put a hold on my documentary because it was like, I felt like there was no end. But with that, I feel like I'm only like scratching the surface. Like that was my mom's story that I got to capture now, like the second chapter, it's like, I'm learning about my dad's story.[00:15:00]
So how we got to Pennsylvania was, um, once we left Cambodia, we went to the Thai border and I was born in the refugee camp in Thailand. And we spent about a month, not a month, about six months there. And we fled to the Philippines. Once we got to the Philippines, my dad was like, okay, we got to get to America. We got to figure out how to do [00:15:30] this. He ended up finding, meeting a guy who had these papers, that they were sponsoring a family with and the family, well, this family is going to get sponsored to Pennsylvania. There was like this like program that was, uh, a lot of sponsors were sponsoring Cambodian refugees at the time. It was in the eighties but this family that was being sponsored didn't make it. So their papers were [00:16:00] leftover. And it was the same amount of people in the family that was with, uh, like three girls and, you know, husband and wife, but they didn't have like a baby boy, which was me. I was just born. So they're like 'this paperwork kind of lines up, you guys kind of look like each other.' my dad's like, 'okay, well I'll buy it.' It was all that he had, like, he basically like put all like everything on black and we bought, we bought this like paperwork and then that's how we [00:16:30] got in to the states. And then the person who was sponsoring us was living. It's funny. They were living in Switzerland at the time and we were originally supposed to go to Switzerland. But right at the last minute he his work transferred him to Pennsylvania. And, uh, so we ended up coming to Pennsylvania in 1981 in the middle of winter in January. And as the plane was descending, my mom was looking out the window of the plane. And she was like, 'why does this country have [00:17:00] so much salt?' she didn't know it was snow. She's never seen snow in her life. And so like, basically my parents ended up in Hershey, Pennsylvania, um, like one suitcase, three kids, you know, four kids. And like, basically that was it. And the people who were sponsoring us, they were also Cambodian. And they knew, you know, like when they looked at the picture and they looked at us, they were like, 'oh, that's not quite the right, but you know,' but at that time, like, they were like, 'we'll take you.' [00:17:30] and so, you know, we, we were able to become like U.S. Citizens over time and like, you know, we did all the paperwork. I've been living with this last name Lonh, which was on the paperwork. And so it's not my real last name, but I've kind of adopted it. And like, it's been my last name for the last 41 years. But our real last name like is more Chinese and Cambodian, which is Hang. So, yeah, that's how we ended up in Pennsylvania. My parents like [00:18:00] started from zero all over again in Pennsylvania. And like, but this is where I, I guess I, I started learning how to cook because my dad got a job at the Hotel Hershey and he got a job there as like a dishwasher. And he was just working as a dishwasher there, but he, he could speak French. And that executive chef, the head chef of that kitchen was Swiss and French. And so sometimes he would just talk shit [00:18:30] underneath his breath, to the other, you know, to other cooks or to other people in the kitchen. And no one would understand, but my dad would understand. And like one day he said something and my dad like responded back to him, was like, 'oh, you speak French?' And my dad's like, 'yeah,' he really liked my dad's like work ethic. So he was like, 'all right, I'm going to put you in the apprenticeship program.' And so that's when he took my dad from dishwashing and put him through this like crazy apprenticeship program to like become a chef. And [00:19:00] so my dad learned how to like, you know, do everything like he was classically trained as a French chef, but the thing was, he sucked at doing the tests, like the written test because of like English as a second language, but he knew all the techniques he could just do. And so the chef like is like, 'it's okay. You know what you're doing? It's fine. If you don't know how to do the written test, but like, I can see that you can do it.' And so, yeah, they used to do these like charcuterie like competitions and like, you know, my [00:19:30] dad would work an omelet station for brunch. Like doing like 200 omelets himself kind of thing. And like became really good at flambéing. And it was like the eighties. And so like, everyone really loved the way he flambéd bananas. And so he became like the flambé master over there, but, um, yeah, like, so my dad was classically trained as a French chef. And then from there he decided to open up his own restaurant. He's always been an entrepreneur. And so he's like, well, he learned what he [00:20:00] needed to learn in this kitchen. And he opened up two failing Chinese restaurants. And before he decided to open up a beer tavern and serve Chinese food deli, subs, and cheese steaks. And like that was, I guess, the winning combination. And I spent most of my years working for my parents. Like my first, I would say my first real restaurant job was probably at age five or six, I guess five, six you're in kindergarten, [00:20:30] right? Yeah. Every day after school would have to go to the restaurant and help pump up ducks for the Peking duck. And like, my parents were a little too cheap to get a real air compressor. So they got a bike pump. And basically what you do is you, you have to. Uh, inflate the duck to where you separate the skin from the meat, so it can get crispy. And that was my job every day after school was like to [00:21:00] pump up, like, I can't remember how many ducks, but there are a lot of ducks. I learned how to like work in a kitchen at a very young age. And then like when he decided to get that the third restaurant and like, I was there like every day after school, like working the line at age 12, like learning how to like really like use a wok, you know, and like flat tops and just learning how to run the run a business. And it was always in my blood[00:21:30]
when you turn 17 to 18, like, or like, you know, you have bigger dreams. Right. And so. I left. I left home at like 17, uh, ended up going to art school for a little while in Philly. And then I decided to transfer to San Francisco to another art school to start to pursue film. Um, originally I was going to school for painting and sculpture and, but I decided like to switch majors and [00:22:00] decide to get into filmmaking. And that's how I got into filmmaking was basically, I just always had a love for it. And I was like, you know, I just gotta, I gotta do what I love and you know, painting, sculpture was, was cool. I learned a lot about like how, you know, just like the, how to see like an artist. So I feel like applying that to like my filmmaking, um, has really benefited me, but, um, it's just been sort of all over the place. I guess it's like New York or [00:22:30] like Philadelphia, San Francisco, and then lived in New York for a little while and then found myself in LA in like 2003. So I've been here ever since. As a filmmaker in San Francisco I was trying to make, like, I guess, art house films, but like, there was really no market for that. And I decided I ended up getting into music videos and commercials and doing that kind of stuff just to like, I was like, 'well, I'm going to [00:23:00] need to make a living somehow.' Like, 'I don't think I can be a director right out of school. And like I'm a director, you know, get a feature. Right. I don't think I'm that lucky.' some people can do it. I didn't think I could do it. So I focused on, um, short form kind of things that wouldn't like make sense in a commercial world. So, um, I focused on music videos and commercials, and then I moved to New York to do music videos for a while, but [00:23:30] it didn't really work out in New York. And then I got a job offer back in LA to like edit my really shitty reality TV show, you know, but, uh, you know, you gotta get your foot in somewhere. Right. Um, but basically put down the directing hat because I was like, well, this isn't practical. So I focused on editing for awhile and I was like, 'well, editing all made me a better director. It'll it'll allow me to make good [00:24:00] decisions.' And so I spent most of my years editing. It's funny to see how filmmaking lends itself to also being in the kitchen. You know, like I think about workflow. And I also think about kitchen workflow or like, you know, how a team, when there's a film crew. Like you have like your, your crew that does specific things. And I see that in the kitchen as well. And it's like to be able to lead a team and sort of use the same sort [00:24:30] of, um, what's the word I'm looking for? Mentality, I guess. Um, Yeah, I just, I just thought like filmmaking and food was one-to-one like, it could be one-to-one like the skills could transfer or the, the mindset. Yes.
I guess where things just [00:25:00] started to like, taper out with like, um, the film stuff was, I would say maybe the last five years of my career: I was trying to get out of commercial and get into narrative and scripted and things like that. Um, for television and for theatrical and I was working with a friend of mine and her name is Christina Lee. She's a writer and, uh, she's pretty successful now. Um, and at the time was as well. Um, she's also [00:25:30] Asian-American. We decided to write this show called 'Bamboo Ceiling.' This was sort of like the kicker for me was we were pitching this TV show around town to these different networks and we had a full Asian cast, you know, and it was, it was funny. It was like the Asian workaholics is kind of like if I was going to describe it really quick, but we were told time and time again that we couldn't have a full Asian cast. [00:26:00] Like, like, no, one's going to pick up this show. We're not, networks aren't ready for it. Audience weren't ready for it. And that was always seems to be the case with myself, these concepts or these things that we would be like developing. We're always just a little bit ahead; and I'm not trying to like, 'oh, I'm always ahead of the curve,' but. I feel like, you know, I am a little bit forward thinking and when hearing that time and time again, it just started to deflate. I'm like, if I can't get this show, like [00:26:30] something as easy as this type of show, that's digestible, how am I going to do anything else? Like, these are the type of stories I want to tell. And these are the things I want to feature. And like, I just couldn't be real. Let me just put this down. You know, maybe this is my Daniel Day Lewis moment where you go and cobble shoes and come back and you do 'there will be blood.' I'll go start a restaurant during a pandemic and maybe I'll come back and make something that's, now that I have something to say. And part of it was like leaving the film [00:27:00] business. Like I kind of felt like, I didn't know what I wanted to say anymore. And, you know, as like, as an artist, it's like, that's what we're doing, right. We're, we're trying to say something through our art or communicate something and just doing commercial work for the last like 18 years and just seeing other people like making other people's ideas come to life, uh, has been very rewarding and it's been awesome and a challenge. And I loved every minute of it, but there came a point where [00:27:30] it was just like the same thing over and over again. I mean, you can hear it now. I don't mean to sound bitter, but those branded content pieces that are quote unquote documentary, you hear like that same tone. You know, we were doing that like in like 2005, 2006, like, you know, it was like the cinematic documentary. Those were the things that we were doing. And like that wasn't catching on back then. But now you're seeing catch on now and that's like the format and like, [00:28:00] it just became repetitive for me, like trying to push ideas out there that were a little bit more forward and then getting them rejected or just like, you're getting pandered. And it's like, 'oh, that's great. But can we change all this stuff up?' And like, it sort of deflates, like, 'no, that's like the purpose, like, this is why we're doing it. You're taking out all the good parts.' And it's like, when someone orders food, right. And they're like, they have all these modifications on it that they want. I was like, that's not what I really, what I [00:28:30] intended. You know, you still get that now. It's kind of funny, but you could be like, 'I'm sorry. No mods,' you know, I can't do that with the clients, you know, like, or I would lose a job. There was a time where I did use this analogy. That was kind of interesting where, uh, I was directing this branded content series. And it was, it was kind of like, sort of perfect. My bosses liked it and like everyone liked it. And then we're on this conference call where this one guy was, was basically [00:29:00] like trying to change it up. I'm like, 'you love Japanese food. Right.' And like, he, he was, he loved Japanese food. I'm like, 'yeah.' He's like, 'yeah,' like 'you've, you've had it omekase, right.' And he's like, 'yes.' And then I'm like, 'why the hell are you putting soy sauce on my, on my sushi right now when there's no soy sauce.' And he was like, 'yeah, that's what you're doing. Like, you're, you're taking out all the soul. You're doing all this.' I just like, I lost it on this conference call, but like, I was very firm. I didn't curse once, but I was just like using an example. It's like, look [00:29:30] like it's meant to be this way. Th as a director, these are the choices that I've made based on the brief it's within the realm and it's pushing you guys forward. Man, that call did not end well. I basically lost my job that day, but I delivered like a four-part series that won them awards and like increased their business by 12%. And like, it was crazy, you know, it just, and like they didn't make a single change. The fact that you can't speak your mind [00:30:00] in these like sort of corporate environments. And it was just, I couldn't do that anymore. I couldn't stomach anymore. You know, for me, it was like for the last 18 years, it was like, it felt like golden handcuffs. Like you do something, you go through the motions, but you're not fulfilled at work. You start losing purpose, you know, 'like what the hell am I doing anymore?' and so. Food has always been like one of those things. That's like, I feel like I'm free to express myself. I can do what I want with it. [00:30:30] Like, I love the reaction, you know, when like people are eating, like the food that you cook or just coming together, it's like, it's amazing. Right. But there's also like the shitty side to it, which is like running a business, running a business during a pandemic, like on a skeleton crew is like, when you watch your team, like pushing really hard and like cooking the food that you've come up with and like, they've give a shit, it's worth it. You know, that's what I'm going through now. It's like, you have costumers come in. [00:31:00] Likethe other day I got, when we got, uh, this was funny, we got an order. And like on the mods, it's like, 'can you make the chicken wings, skin a little tighter?' And it was like, basically I felt like somebody was telling me how to cook my food the way they were like telling me how to grill it, all this stuff. I'm like, 'What do I do? Like, what should I do the situation I do? I do I make it the way he wants it? Then if I do that and I execute it then he's going to want it that every time, or do I just [00:31:30] stick to my guns?' You know? And so I met him in the middle, like, so I was like, oh, he wants a crispier skin. Fine. We won't sauce it. But like, it's supposed to have like a certain stickiness and gelatinous kind of skin texture, like mouth feel to it. But, uh, yeah, it's, it's funny. Like there's always going to be a critic, you know, when you're an artist or you're a chef or whatever you do, like you put yourself out there, expect criticism, you know, whether good, bad, whatever, but I mean, you got to [00:32:00] take it all, like the good and the bad, because sometimes the bad, like it's, it's like honest and it, and like that honesty, sometimes it's like hard to swallow. You know, but like you try to take it with grace, you know, I guess, yeah, grace is like a big, big thing I learned this year. It's like, to have a lot of it. I guess grace has allowed me to like, sort of ease my role a little bit. Like you got [00:32:30] to be a little bit more forgiving because like sometimes grace basically, I feel like you give it to people that don't deserve it. That's grace. Like when someone does something wrong, like one of my, one of my cooks or one of my teammates, you know, and they're just like, totally fuck it up. Like, it takes every sort of muscle inside me to not like freak out on them, but just be like, 'it's okay. We make mistakes, but please. correct it.' You know, and like, you [00:33:00] have to let them make mistakes and like, you have to like, go let, let them learn from it. And I think it's sort of preparing me like to become a dad because you know, your kid's always going to think that they are smarter than you, because it's what you did with your parents. But like, you have to still love them and like have this grace upon them. That's like, it's okay. Like I'm just going to take the low road, you know? And like, the path of least resistance. And like, grace has allowed me to do [00:33:30] that. And like, that's something that's part of my mantra every day. It's like, just let me have grace on, on whatever situation it is today. Like, whether it's a bad customer, you know, something goes wrong or whatever. Like if I were to freak out at every single little thing I would have a heart attack every single day, it's hard. It's, it's, it's, you know, people don't talk about this part of the industry. I don't think, you know, all you hear is like the success stories. You should do one on failures to see what [00:34:00] [laughing] but yeah, it's like grace really just, I think is a key to like get through some of the hard stuff because it's like, it sort of humbles you and, and it, it allows growth. I think.[00:34:30]
Food was sort of my outlet for exploration. Like whether it would be driving to San Gabriel Valley to go explore a restaurants with my friends or just like a distraction, really, you know, um, food was the excuse to like get my friends together and barbecue on a weekend and try something else out, try [00:35:00] something out that I've never cooked before, but it was all about experimentation and exploration and discovery. So I think that's the role food played during like, um, you know, during the film film part of my career. Gamboge has been sort of building for the last, I would say the idea for get something like Gamboge maybe the last decade, the idea of it. And the idea came from just having this building, that I was able to have my production company [00:35:30] upstairs and then a restaurant downstairs. So this building just sort of was put in front of me by a friend. And he was like, 'yo, you gotta check this out. This is like this idea that you've been talking about forever.' Um, it's like that sort of shop house vibe where you can like live upstairs and you can work downstairs. And that's sort of like the vibe you see in Cambodia and Asia. And so when I explored this building, I'm like, 'oh my gosh,' I fell in love with it. And like, I was like, 'all right, maybe this is time'. And [00:36:00] that was in 2018. And so I decided to, again, put all my chips in and I was like, 'I'm going to buy it.' And I was deciding, deciding whether or not to go forth and open up a restaurant. That decision basically sort of happened when I had lost my job. Um, I'm working at this agency and, um, I was a little bit more serious about, okay, what am I going to do? I can't do this anymore. I can't, you know, [00:36:30] let me, let me put the film thing down. And so I decided to figure out how to start a restaurant. And the first thing I did was I hired an expediter. This guy, his name was Fast Eddie, and he helps a lot of restaurants, sort of, that helps them navigate the red tape that is LA and the city, and like getting a restaurant started. So before I made that decision, the final decision, this is what I'm going to do. I had him come to the space. I'm like, [00:37:00] can we permit this? Can we go from zero to one and turn this into a restaurant? Because at the time there was a barbershop there, there was like, it wasn't built for a restaurant. And so this guy does all this permitting and kitchen design and things like that. So I was like, 'okay, I'm going to come there and break your dreams Hak because it's like, just, I'm going to be dead honest, whether or not this is worth it or not.' and so I met with him and like, he saw this space and he was just like, 'whoa, this is really interesting. It's kind of special.' And like, 'yeah, right. You feel the vibe?' [00:37:30] And he's like, 'well, let me, let me get back to you in a week. Let me just dig dig deeper about the spot.' And so, yeah, this is after I bought it and I didn't know what I was going to do. God, I was so stupid. My wife had actually, after I bought it, my wife didn't see the building until I got the keys. That's how much she trusts me. She's crazy. But so he got back to me, Fast Eddie, you know, did some research on the building, did some research in the area and like, he was like, 'yeah, this can be permitted into the [00:38:00] restaurant. It used to be a bar back in the day called El Chavito.' And it's really interesting to see like a building's history, you know? And so he's was like, 'you can do it. Um, so what are you going to do here?' And so I was like, 'all right,' I had to go to the drawing board and I was like, 'I'm going to turn it into this sort of Cambodian cafe.' And like the idea was to create this thing that was going to be ever evolving. And so I had to come up with a menu. I had to come up with all of these things, a [00:38:30] business plan and put that all together. And I hired Eddie to like, help me design the kitchen and basically get all the permits. And so that was about an 18 month process, like to get through the city cause like, you know, we had to do our ABC license, which is like for alcohol and then our CUP, which is our certificate of use permit. And those things take a long time and it costs a lot of money. And I was like, 'oh my God, [00:39:00] this is crazy.' um, so I didn't have an architect. So I ended up doing all of the design myself. I was working with Eddie. He's just basically lined up where all the mechanical, electrical and plumbing was supposed to be and like built it to city code. Like he did all the, he had engineers come in and like, basically this is what's going to pass. So we built these blueprints. Um, this is all before we hired a contractor and we got all of that [00:39:30] stuff approved and I created these renderings and things like that in SketchUp. I learned how to use SketchUp, just so I could like take this to a contractor and be like, all right, I got these plans. I have this rendering. Here's the model. This is what I want to do. He's like, 'these permits are already to go?' 'Yeah, they have stamps. They have everything, just build this.' And like, so I negotiated with this builder to do it. I, you know I triple bid it, like, this is what you [00:40:00] would do in like a commercial film or whatever. You could find vendors, you get multiple estimates and they were all over the place, but there was this one contractor, he builds a lot of restaurants here and he's, he's more about the restaurant than it is, and the client then like trying to make money, which I thought was really cool. He was solution-based and that's what I was looking for. I was like, 'look, I'm not your typical client. I know what I want. And like, I'm going to make it as easy as possible for you. So here are my [00:40:30] blueprints that are already to issue. All you need to do is build this. And like, everything has been approved,' and he's like, 'okay.' And like, so they started construction. And, uh, I was already actually building upstairs. So I learned a lot about like doing a residential build and I designed that as well. And like I was learning on that project as well as trying to like, manage the build of the commercial project downstairs. So it took about two years to find a [00:41:00] contractor to build out the restaurant. And, you know, during that two years, it was like a lot of red tape that we had to figure out and like fundraise. And so once a contractor, we got the contractor on board, it was about six to eight, another six to seven months in terms of the build. And as we were building it, the pandemic hit, like we were supposed to open Cinco de Mayo, I think 2020. And that was what our, our, our target date was. [00:41:30] Um, when the pandemic hit all the jobs that the contractor had just like went away and we had this big meeting, like every Wednesday we had this agenda meeting to go through the agenda on what, what are we accomplishing this week? And we're like, we had, we had the meeting with the contractor and all the department heads. It was like, 'all right, are we going to keep going, Hak like, what are you going to do? Cause we basically lost all our other jobs. Like everything's on hold. And like, this is [00:42:00] sort of like affecting us and like, so like, do you want to keep going or do you want to stop? And leading up to this conversation? I was talking to my parents and my dad's kind of a gambler too. So he's like, well, my parents are like, they're crazy. They're so crazy. But I'm like, 'what do I do? And they're like, 'you're almost done. Right?' They're all like, I'm like, 'yeah,' like, 'then finish it.' 'and like but there's a pandemic happening,' and they're like, ' whatever we survived the genocide, this we'll we'll survive this too. Just, [00:42:30] just keep going, just push forward. Like you, you can survive this, like just headstrong. So when I had that meeting with the contractor, I was like, 'Okay, we're going to do this. We're we're, we're, we're gonna, we're going to keep pushing forward, but does that mean I get the A-Team, like, do I get all your best players right now? And can we crunch this into like two months instead of dragging it out? Like, can we get everyone in here working seven days a week and pushing to get it done by July, August?' [00:43:00] and like, it was like 'sure thing.' And so I was basically, cause you know, in construction, like it's hard to keep the same team in there and they're rotating out a lot. And like, there were certain people that I really liked working with and they were like getting pulled on to other jobs. I'm like, 'let's bring those guys back. Let's let's like tighten up the team a little bit and then like let's, let's push and finish.' And it was like, 'you got it.' And like, so I kept them busy. I kept this little, I mean, this is construction company busy for like the next three months. And we [00:43:30] finished, I remember we finished in June, but we didn't really open. We soft open in last week of July and our, and our real open was August 6th. And so that was, that was interesting. I didn't, it was so hard cause it was like, I didn't, I I'm not from this industry. So like a lot of my connections were just through friends and whatnot, but learning where to source different things, learning, you know, just like how to hire a [00:44:00] team, like putting, putting stuff up, people weren't really coming to work or wanting to work. And so I basically started it with my friends just showed up out of the blue and like just helped me open up shop. Nobody had experience. It was just like me. Like, it was like the bad news bears and they, they worked for me, you know, for the first three, four months, like just cause they believed in me. And that was, yeah, that was really touching. And it was awesome actually. [00:44:30] Like I wanted to pay them and they were like, 'no. Don't. Like just let's, let's just, let's just get you up.' And I'm like, all right. And like, that was, that was, that was really cool. Like they just showed up out of nowhere and just like help get Gamboge, you know, like on it, like on its feet. And that was, that was really, that was really, that was, that was really cool. But we had no idea what we're doing. Like our POS wasn't working like, like 24 hours before [00:45:00] we were going to open. And like, I got a call from the company at like 5:00 AM, cause they're in a different time zone. And they're like, 'you're online, you're online.' like we basically had a rush to the shop and like figure it out as me and my front of house, Nikki, who, um, my wife used to work with in production as well. She came from production. So a lot of us came from production, but the thing that, um, helped us was, you know, working in production, like you become resourceful. Like every [00:45:30] day is like a different set of problems that you need to figure out very quickly. And so we were just sort of built to do this and like between my wife, Jane and, um, her former assistant, Nikki, like we were able to figure it out. Like me and Nikki never opened up a restaurant and we did it together. My wife wasn't even here. She was up in Seattle, like the whole time, because like she was taking care of her parents cause they're immuno-compromised. And so we didn't know what was going to happen. Like [00:46:00] this was, it was crazy. I mean, do you remember washing your groceries? That's this was during that time and like, I'm like, 'are people going to come out or this and that?' and like, so actually we had to pivot our whole entire menu. The menu that we have going now was designed based on, uh, the pandemic, like it's all supposed to be able to, you know, work to go and like to deliver. But, uh, we wanted like full [00:46:30] service. We wanted like a different type of menu, like, but we're like, we're not going to be able to achieve this with our skeleton crew with like no dine-in and like working at 30%, like we're still feeling the effects of all of that. Like operating at 30% for the first year, almost eight months. Like, how do you operate at 30% as a restaurant when like that's how much your labor is or [00:47:00] your food costs, you know, it's just like, we just did the numbers. We were like, oh, we're not really profiting right now because of all of like that big hit, like the business plan we came up with was based on volume and we're not hitting that volume. So we had to like, again, make some maneuvers, do some changes just to sort of like level out, but I feel that's like every week we're just like figuring out like how to stay, you know, afloat. Like we built this airplane and somehow it got off the . [00:47:30] Ground. Now we know how to fly it. But like, it's falling apart as you're flying it. Or, you know, you got to find pieces to like, keep it in the air, but it feels like we're going somewhere now. So.[00:48:00]
When we opened up Gamboge, like we were, I think the first Cambodian restaurant to open in like the last 30 years outside of Long Beach. Um, granted there are other Cambodian restaurants within like Chinatown area, but they've been open for awhile, you know, like, but like for new Cambodian [00:48:30] restaurant, like we're sort of, um, pioneering that, that little bit. Um, but yeah, most Cambodian food is found in Long Beach and Little Phnom Penh. And what we're doing is, you know, we're, we're, we're sort of a take on Cambodian food in LA in 2021. And it's, and I don't want to say it's in our interpretation, but it's, um, the flavors are there, but it's just sort of like, you're finding it in [00:49:00] different formats. We decided to launch with the num pang which is, uh, a Cambodian sandwich. Um, it's like a close cousin of the banh mi. It's kinda like one of those things that, uh, it's like a good product of a cultural appropriation because the F the French brought over the baguette and they brought pate' to Southeast Asia. And since Cambodia was a French colony, we adopted that. And so [00:49:30] I thought the bunk out of the, the num pang would be a perfect vehicle to introduce Cambodian flavors, to a lot of people that haven't had Cambodian food. And from there, I would slowly, uh, introduce different things. And so Cambodian food, it's what makes it different from Thai and Vietnamese is the fact that it's a little bit more complex and a little bit more sour and spicy. And what makes it complex is our use of, um, [00:50:00] uh, a lemongrass paste called Kroeung and Kroeung is comprised of lemongrass, galangal, shallots, garlic, tumeric, and micro lime leaves. And that's all muddled together into this really aromatic paste. And you can take this pace in a couple of different directions. You can make it sour, you can make it more spicy, and it's like the base of curries. It can be the base of stir fry. It can be the base to marinades. And so this [00:50:30] is sort of where I feel Cambodian food starts. That's sort of a big component of what we use in our food. Like all our marinates have Kroeung in it, but we just take it different ways. And, you know, we introduce the sandwich and then from the sandwich where we went into like these different rice plates and hopefully we could get to continue to evolve until like the next chapter, which for us, I hope to do soups. Cause a lot of Cambodian soups like are sort of also inspired by China and like [00:51:00] I'm this being half Cambodian, half Chinese, there's a certain cuisine called like, um, Chinese. Cho Cho or Teochew. And a lot of Cambodians that are Cambodian Chinese are Teochew, and you see this hybrid of like Cambodian Chinese food that's like sorta clean with like sort of funk at the same time, if that makes any sense. And so it sort of all plays into our narrative too. Cause we were, we also have natural wines [00:51:30] and we've got funk in the natural wines and there's funk in our food. There is so much funk happening that it's like, it's, it's just like, why is this good? What is in this flavor? And like, a lot of people are like, what is this? Like when they taste it, they there's some familiar, familiar familiarity to it, but also this newness to it and that's, I think what's so amazing about Cambodian food and that, it's one, it's like [00:52:00] a perfect bite. It's you're hitting all the different notes in one bite, you know, like you get your sour your spicy your savory, your sweet, you know, your acid, like every bite is like that sort of that's like our spices come from India. Our, um, I would say our produce and like our use of vegetables come from China. And like just sort of our flavor profile, uh, is inspired by like, cause we're we're, um, [00:52:30] we have Thailand and Vietnam bordering us and also Lao is, are not Laos, but like Thailand and Vietnam. So having a little bit of Indian, a little bit of Chinese, a little bit of Thai, a little bit of Vietnamese and not to mention Europe, there's like also like Portuguese influence. Like there's a dish that I do that is, um, a tomato and sardine dish. And this dish is a play on those [00:53:00] Goya sardines that you find in tomato sauce. I don't know if you've ever seen it, but like it's like tomatoes with, or sardines in a tomato sauce that you eat with a baguette. And so the dish that I have, uh, at Gamboge is a play on that. It's like braised tomatoes with sardines, with fish sauce and oyster sauce, and has like, all these umami hits with like a lot of acid. But that type of cuisine is, came from Portugal. You [00:53:30] know, as I was doing my research, I was like, oh, this is interesting. We have a lot of European influence with, you know, you've got Southeast Asia and then you have, but within from India, it's like, it's, it makes it very complex. And that's what makes I feel Cambodian food different from Thai, from, from Vietnam and from Laos, like Thai, I feel is like sweet and spicy; Vietnamese, Vietnamese is very clean. [00:54:00] It's very herby at the same time. In Laos, I feel Laos is the most close to Cambodia and actually like a lot of their soups, a lot of their just sort of flavor profiles, like are pretty close to Cambodian. Um, I only discovered that because, uh, you know, in the last decade I became friends with someone who was Laos and I would see on his Instagram, these noodles that his mom would cook every time he would go back to Minnesota, like, 'yo, those would look exactly like the same noodles as what my mom cooks.' And when we would [00:54:30] talk about it, it was like, basically the ingredients are the same and the flavors are the same, but what makes Cambodian food unique from all these other Southeast Asian countries is just sort of like the specific countries that sort of made their way through Cambodia and just sort of been like left there, I guess, you know, like Cambodian food is almost like survival food and like, like you make things tasty with just the ingredients that you have available. And [00:55:00] I think that's what makes Cambodian food also interesting is a lot of our food that, well, a lot of like Cambodian food that you see out there, I feel isn't really Cambodian food. It's just sort of like these hybrids, but real traditional Cambodian food are like our soups. Like there's this one soup called samlor koko and, um, or no, sorry, samlor machu kroeung and samlor machu kroeung [00:55:30] translates to samlor, a word for soup. Machu is like, like sour and kroeung is a kroeung is a lemongrass paste. And so the soup basically is I feel the closest thing to original Cambodian, uh, what you would think of Cambodian food. Cause it's, it's meaty, it's funky, it's savory and it's refreshing. It's it's, it's all these things in a soup and like Cambodians, sorta love [00:56:00] I don't want to say flavor bombs, but we love flavor bombs. I hate using that word, but it's just like flavor bombs in your mouth where it's, you have to have all these different things happening at the same time for it to be satisfying. You know, you can usually tell if something's going to be good by just the aromatics, when you're cooking Cambodian food, like it's all very nuance. Um, my mom's always like saying like when you're cooking, you have to like smell and if it starts smelling funky and it starts to smell developed, [00:56:30] that's, you know, it's going to taste good because it's like, it's something smells good is going to taste good. And like, you have to use your nose a lot when you're cooking. Like when I'm, when I'm like teaching my other cooks, how to like cook Cambodian food, they want to follow recipes. And it's really frustrating for them to like, like follow the recipe and it doesn't taste the same as how, when I'm doing it. And I'm like, look, you have to sort of use instinct and you have to use, you understand nuance, but when you start smelling the aromatics, [00:57:00] there's this term in Cambodian called chinuy. And when something's chinuy, that means like, it smells good. It's like, I don't know if you ever put fish sauce in a hot pan when it's sizzling? It's like it's like, whoa. Right. It just bursts that smell, that burst of smell is what you're looking for when you're like opening up like herbs and things in a pan, like when you're cooking Cambodian food, when you, when you're smelling that like funk or you're smelling, [00:57:30] um, all the aromatics open up that sort of building the complexity that you're looking for in Cambodian food. I know like Thai food does that when you're doing curries, and I know that Vietnamese, like it's all sort of the same, but we just like to take it in this other direction of funkiness, you know, like a big component as, as well as to kroeung is fermented fish paste. No, one's really talking about this fermented fish paste, like right now, like, uh, [00:58:00] fish sauce has become, like, you're seeing it like, sort of in a lot of cuisines that outside of Asian food. Right. But fermented fish paste, you're not really seeing, cause it's, it's awful. Like, we always used to joke about it, like as kids, like, man, like we don't want it in our food because it just, it just smells like death. It smells like something died in a bottle and like, you're going to eat that. Like, but like, this is awful. It's like fermented it's like this whole fish has been fermented and it was like in this [00:58:30] jar and like, it's like a whole process when you're like cooking it. But man, it adds so much complexity to your dish. Um, that like is unexplainable. Like when someone's like, what is this? And you tell him what it is or like they're, you know, they're going to cringe a little bit, but it's, it's, it's like fish sauce times infinity, you know? And like, it'd be kinda interesting to see this fish paste that we call prahok like make it into the mainstream. When I told my [00:59:00] parents I'm opening up a Cambodian restaurant, they're like, 'no one's gonna eat your food. Nobody knows Cambodian food. Like, why do you think Cambodian food is going to be successful?' I'm like, 'well, cause there's no competition, you know?' And like, if you look at it, it's just like, if, if you own this, not saying I'm owning this, this, this, the sector here, but I think there's room, you know, to like open it up a little bit. Like, there's all these Cambodian chefs coming up right now that like we're sort of cheering for each other. [00:59:30] And like, it'd be awesome to see like Cambodian food being talked about more and like these ingredients being talked about more so.[01:00:00]
Where I'd like to see Gamboge evolve to is like, it's like a full on Cambodian restaurant where it's a la carte, it's family style. And you get to experience a lot of small plates, like a real Cambodian table. And that's, that was its original concept, you know? Um, right now we're experiencing experimenting with sandwiches and we kind of got pigeonholed to do sandwiches and bowls and to be like a [01:00:30] fast casual Cambodian establishment. But what I'd like to see it develop to, is. dinner service with all an a la carte menu and to serve things family style, where you get to really experience what it can take, Cambodian table would look like where you have a soup, you have a grilled meat, you have some pickled vegetables. You have sort of all these little dishes. It's like you ever see like a Korean table, like [01:01:00] where there's all these little plates, Cambodians, like to have this, something similar to that. So that's where I'd like to see it go. Um, right now I'm hosting, um, another Cambodian chef and her name is Phert Em and she does this thing called Khemla. And I'm letting her sort of take over dinner service right now on Thursdays and Fridays just so people get to experience that type of food in the space, you know, and like sort of sharing that with [01:01:30] her. It's been, it's been interesting to see how another chef would handle the same sort of thing that I want to do. And so I'm learning from her and it's, it's, it's cool to see that. I'd really love to see if I could maybe do that one day myself. Um, but right now it's just like the bandwidth of like shifting my menu and retraining and redeveloping, all that I know is possible, but it's a lot of work and like, it would take a lot of R and [01:02:00] D time and that's something right now that's hard to do is like R and D all that, you know, so, and with the baby coming, it's, you know, there's not just even less time, but I think you just have to make the time. But, uh, yeah, I think hopefully in the new year, you'll see a new menu and you'll see sort of Gamboge 2.0. Even though our menu seems simple, it's like sorta designed to have something for everyone and like their fans [01:02:30] of different ones. And like, I want to cut things off the menu, like every day, but it's really hard to, you know, like there's the sardines. There's like what? We have like four different sandwiches, like the beef, the chicken. And the chicken is like a favorite of some people. And like, it it's, it's literally poached chicken, but we poach the chicken with like ginger, garlic scallion is almost like a Hunan style where you cook it that way and then you pull it and then you like mix it together with like some like [01:03:00] Japanese Mayo, some black pepper and like golden mountain seasoning, which is like our version of like Maggi and like, uh, that sandwich is like so satisfying, like Bill Addison got that sandwich and he wrote about it. And like only of all things to eat, you choose a sandwich, the chicken sandwich, the one that I want to take off the menu and like. There's people that are fans of the sardines. And like, when I decided to put the sardines on the menu, it was like, [01:03:30] why are you putting this on the menu? I'm like, well, because it's, it's a story. There's a story behind every little dish there. The sardines is, you know, a play on like that, uh, sardines that you'd find in a can with tomato sauce that you eat with a baguette. That's what my dad would eat. Like he would just literally open up the can put it on a stove, warm it up and just like dip his bread in it. You know, it's like peasant food, but there's a story behind that. Right. And so when you're eating this, I was like, w w [01:04:00] w w like, why is this so good? I'm like, well, this is a story behind it. And like, so, and then porridge, you got to come on Saturdays for the porridge, the chicken porridge. Like, that's something that's just, there's fans of that too. Like, I think because everyone's hung over on Saturday and they're like, it's a perfect hangover cure. That's the fun part, I guess, of this, of this job. Um, seeing like what people like, and just like the like different fans of the different dishes. Like [01:04:30] some people just come for the beef, like that's all they want, or like the pork sandwich or like the short rib bowl or our shredded chicken salad that. It's like just shredded cabbage, but like the way it's all put together, it's like you have all of that funk. You have like the savory, you have the crunch, you have the texture, and so that's what they're coming for. It's like, you know, I don't know. I try to edit, I try to cut the fat as an editor. Like you're like, I'm not about stone carving right now, I'm about being a [01:05:00] butcher and just like cut the fat, get it to like where, you know, my team can like execute this and that's where we are right now. So hopefully we can push the envelope more and like come up with some new dishes, be inspired for the new year.
I'm [01:05:30] teaching my cooks, how to cook Cambodian food is, it's like interpretive dance or it's like, it's something that's, it's really gestural. And how do you teach someone to these gestures when they've never seen these gestures? And, um, when I say gestural, the way I learned how to cook Cambodian food was just basically watching my mom and her telling me how to do [01:06:00] it, how she learned was also from her mom and how to do it. And like, so it's sort of passed down. So like Cambodian food is like, just sort of like a series of memories from like the person who passed it down to you. What I remember from cooking with my mom, how she . Held the knife or like how much you put of this thing. It's just like really eyeballing it. Like she's never really gave me any real like measurements. And so [01:06:30] I would take all of that and try to write a recipe and teach my cooks how to do that. And while we get the recipe as like sort of our starting block, it sort of helps like establish like the flavor profile, but what I sort of have to teach them when I'm teaching them how to cook Cambodian foods. Like you have to taste, taste, constantly tasting. Like for instance, when we're making our dressing for our, um, shredded [01:07:00] cabbage salad, the dressing is really simple. It's like maybe four ingredients, like fish sauce, sugar, lime, garlic, and shallot. But it's like, how much do you put in anything? Right. So. As you're making this thing, you, you start with like the lime juice, then you add the fish sauce, but then you keep adding sugar to like, sort of balance out the saltiness of the fish sauce, but you don't want to muddle that with the lime. And so you have to like, basically get [01:07:30] it to a point where it's like, you can taste the lime, you can taste the savoriness of the fish sauce and you still get the sweetness to balance the salt, but then you have like the alliums like the garlic and then the shallots to sort of round out the other notes. And so we've basically have it down now. It's almost like we have an in court size is like, after tasting it, like for months, like it took, it took my one cook to figure out how to do it for months where I was tasting it every time. Like 'no, more sugar, [01:08:00] no more of this, more of that.' But every time I taste I'm like, 'this is it, this is it. This is exactly it.' And like, she was like, 'what?' I'm like, 'stop. you have to come back and this is, you know, why this is it?' And I make her taste it over and over again with me, 'are you tasting this note? Are you tasting that note? Are you tasting this note?' And she's like, 'yeah.' 'You have to remember this because I need you to understand this is what it is for this particular dressing and why Cambodian food tastes a certain way. You have [01:08:30] to look for these things.' She's Guatemalan. That's what I think is awesome is like, there's like, this Guatemalan woman who is learning how to cook Cambodian food, but like she's learning the gesture. She's learning the nuance. And like when I'm teaching her how to marinate the pork shoulder, like, you know, it has to be a little bit savory. It has to be a little spicy. And like, it just has to, you have to taste all these little elements that can't get muddy because once you start [01:09:00] combining six, seven ingredients, it's easy to like really have something overpower another thing. And I, I, I've seen a lot of cooks fail in my kitchen, like trying to nail this because they want to cut corners or they want to like, well, 'we'll just put, dump it in a bowl and mix it all together.' I'm like, 'yeah, you could do that. It would be faster. But like, you sort of have to build it a little bit.' You know, when we're marinating meats, we, you know, we do our dry ingredients first and followed by the [01:09:30] wet ingredients. And like, you have to massage it a certain way. It's. I don't know if it does anything, but I personally feel it tastes better. Maybe that's just because my mom does it that way. And I've gotten into arguments with like other cooks that have come through that have worked at like very established restaurants. And they're like, you know, 'tradition is one thing authentic,' or like we get into this like, um, debate about tradition and about, uh, authenticity. I'm not trying to push [01:10:00] so much for authenticity, but like there's a certain tradition or there's a certain thing that like being Cambodian and cooking as a Cambodian chef that you learned from like your mom or your dad that like, you can not let go of. There's just something there it's like the w like it's so it's so stupid. Like if I make my cooks, do these little things and they're like, this is so much work. Why are we doing it this way? And like, if we did it any other way, it wouldn't taste the same. You [01:10:30] know, it's like we hand shred our papaya that goes into our papaya law that goes on our sandwiches and it sucks. It takes so much time. I mean, I could, I could put it through a robokoo and like, have it shredded perfectly for me, but it's just, there's something it's, it's too small. Like the, the, the, the papaya is a little too small, right? So there's these little things like that I will learn from just watching my mom [01:11:00] and like her friends do while they would cook at her house. It was like, oh, this is, this is how you do that. You know, it's just, it's just sort of burned into my memory and like, this is the way to do it. I guess what's next is like, what I would really would like to do is nail her curry. Like my mom's curry, like Cambodian curry's like sort of like a Massaman style Curry. It's like a yellow Curry, but there's 28 steps that you have to do. Like, I remember doing the Curry and I think I only did like 15 of them because I forgot the other 15. [01:11:30] Now that's 30, but like, I'm sure there's 30 steps, but, uh, it's 20 to 30 steps, I know that for sure. And like, when I was comparing notes with my mom, she's like, 'did you do this? Did you do this? You do this.' I'm like, 'no, no, no.' She's like, that's why it wasn't tasting exactly the way she did it. So hopefully one day I can like, get that, that recipe down and like put it into you know, maybe a cookbook or something, or like one for the [01:12:00] vault.
We've only been open, I would say a year and maybe five months. And we haven't had really much time to like step back and reflect, you know, like to answer as a question like where we are [01:12:30] now, emotionally and just with everything it's, it's, it's overwhelming, like every day. Um, it's like you built something that won't stop. You can't stop. It's and it's a crazy thing to be responsible for it. Like you own a restaurant. And with that, you have people that depend on you for like their livelihood. You have people that actually like your food and they're coming back and [01:13:00] they want it. And like, there's like this, like constant, like, um, sort of pace that you have to keep up with. Um, where I'm, I guess I feel like an athlete, where every morning I have to get up and train. And like, if I want to be the best, like I have to get up, whether it's like a 5:00 AM, I just got to get up and do those reps. And that's where I'm at right now is just sort of in like doing the reps every day. It's just like in there, and in the kitchen, like every day we're gonna make this [01:13:30] a better pork sandwich. Every day we're gonna make this a better rice bowl. Like, how are we going to do that? And that's, that's sort of where we're at right now. We're just sort of like head down, get past it, get past like, sort of like this hard phase, and hopefully it can like level out, but where I'm at emotionally is like up and down, man. It's like some days are better than others. Like S you know, when, when last week was the hardest week, because I had, I lost a line cook. [01:14:00] I had to fire a dishwasher, and like, so I'm working with it's just me and a line cook; two people running this, this thing, and then I have two front of house. So it's a really small team. When we were in the weeds and you have like, everybody they're like busting their ass to like, see your sorta dream come, you know, like maintain your dream it's like, 'wow.' Either this dream is amazing or this is a [01:14:30] dumb dream. Like, what is it? Or is it a nightmare? I don't know. But like, like when I am able to take a step back, which is very, very limited, like, and get out of my head or just take a minute and look around the kitchen and like look around the space and seeing people like owning it and like doing their thing, it's like, that's awesome. Or like when I get a chance to walk into the patio and like see a bunch of strangers [01:15:00] sitting in this patio that you've built with your wife and like just your friends and seeing them enjoying food. And it's like, the vibe is right. And I'm like, oh man, this is pretty cool. You know, like, it's pretty cool. Like we built something like we built a restaurant and we built a restaurant during a pandemic and we built and it's a Cambodian restaurant; it's unrepresented food. It's like there's things stacked on stacked on stacks. So it's like, it's a lot. It's a lot, I think like when I [01:15:30] really get a chance to process it, I think I'll just, I don't know if I'll be able to contain myself because it's like joy one minute and it's complete. Like I want to give up. I just want to give up it's too hard. Like this is too much. It's too much responsibility. Too much heartache. It's like, it's physically exhausting. It's like mentally exhausting and it's emotionally exhausting. You know, like [01:16:00] the mental part is like, it's hard to, it's hard to stay positive all the time. And like, for me, you know, like being an owner operator is really hard because like, when you're operating, you're in there, like it's hard to like remove yourself from your employees. And like you're such close quarters, you know, and you're working and it's like some days it's good, some days it's bad, but it's up to me to like, sort of set that tone for the day. Like if I'm feeling shitty that day or I'm having a bad day and I'm quiet, [01:16:30] it's, it's it, you know? And like it affects the affects, my, my teammates and like, they get sort of quiet and they get sort of like pensive and like, I don't like that. That I like have so much sort of influence on that. I wish I w I wish I could just be like, even keel, but like, you know, you're like making art every day basically, but it's food, right? Like, it sounds corny to say you're making art every day, but in a way you are, you know, it's like [01:17:00] what you do, it's, it's crazy. It's like you do all this work to like, get all your mise en place in place. Like you do everything to make everything pristine. And like, it starts at, in, you know, we get through two hours before service, we get everything perfect and it's nice and neat. And then the rush hits and we destroy it all. And then like, at the end of the day, the kitchen's all fucked up. Everything's messed up and, uh, you do it again the next day you put it back together. You do it the next day. It's like [01:17:30] over and over again. It's like something that, you know, this food lasts for what, a minute after it's out. Like, you know, like people like scarf it down and, and you, you do that every single day. Like you build something and then it gets destroyed, but the destruction is the best part of it. Like eating it, turn your point. You know, like it's, it's the only industry that I think that does that because it's interesting coming [01:18:00] from, from film where like being Asian-American and not had, or Cambodian American and not having that type of representation in that industry to going to the culinary industry and like representing Cambodia and American cuisine is it's interesting because I felt that we were a little bit, like I got validation a lot quicker in the food industry and like, not that's what I was going for, [01:18:30] but what I was really going for, it was just to sort of start a conversation. About Cambodian food and just to see where it would go as a sort of an experiment and what we did in the last year and a half, like has been pretty awesome, like really, really blessed to get all the press that we've been getting and to get all the like sort of shout outs and accolades. Like, it's pretty awesome. Did that in a year and a half versus like [01:19:00] 18 years of my career to barely get noticed in, in these different rooms at networks, you know? And like, I think, I think that's really why, like, I kind of took sort of like a detour from the film industry just to sort of get into this industry and be like, 'Hey look, you know, you're like, let me be part of this narrative that you'll eventually want to take back to the other side again.' I think food is really tied to culture, good stories. And like, I think it was just a quicker [01:19:30] way of getting represented or like, or representing what we're doing, um, especially with where we are right now. And like a lot of like, you know, POC's are getting like a little bit more recognized because like it's time. And, you know, it was just like, I think we were in the right place at the right time, but the conversation is only starting and like, especially with Cambodian food and I love would love to see where it goes. And part of Gamboge is like, we'd love to be [01:20:00] part of that megaphone that helps sorta echo a lot of these other stories. And like, you know, that's part of something, part of our values here at Gamboge, which is like to help amplify other Cambodian chef's stories and like to do pop-ups with them and collaborations. And so that would be the future of Gamboge is to be able to help build that, that voice, you know, to be a part of it. And so that's why we're doing stuff with Khemla and like, hopefully in the new year, we're [01:20:30] supposed to maybe, I don't know if I can say this yet, but like, well, we might be doing something with Nyum Bai, like this other Cambodian restaurant in Oakland with this chef Nite. She's awesome. She's she was the first, you know, I looked at her and I'm like, oh my God, you're doing it. That's awesome. A little jealous, but you're doing it. You know? Cause she's crushing it. She came from nursing, you know, like an industry and just decided to do Cambodian food and like really, really pushed, you know? And like, it wasn't easy for her yet anyway, [01:21:00] like as well, but we share similar stories. And so seeing all these different or hearing all these different stories of all these different, um, Cambodian chefs and being able to relate to that has been, it's been really therapeutic. And I think that's what I was lacking in the film world was relatability to like you know, community. I couldn't find that community, but I feel like with food, I've been able to find that community with, with Cambodian chefs and it feels really good. [01:21:30]
Thank you for listening everyone for links and resources about everything discussed today, please visit the show notes in the episode, if you want to support the podcast, the most effective way to do so would be to hit the subscribe button on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other platform that you're listening in from sharing the show with your friends on social media is always appreciated. Shout out to Shawn Myers for creating the original music and to Jason Cryer for [01:22:00] creating the graphics. Show is produced by me, Jordan Haro with help from Homecourt Pictures. You can always reach out to me at Jordan H-A-R-0 on Instagram and Twitter. Follow the show @prixfixepod on Instagram or email us at prixfixepodcast@gmail.com. Visit www.prefixpodcast.com for show notes and more detailed descriptions for this and every previous episode in our archive. [01:22:30] I appreciate every second of your attention and support and don't take it for granted. See you on the next one.