elephantwalktalk

Getting an education... on Education!

Like many of you, I recently finished reading the 2006 bestseller Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin - an astonishing and ongoing story of a man [Mortenson] who, climbing down K2 after a failed summitting attempt, stumbled into a Pakistani village and a new life building schools where there aren't any in northern Pakistan and now Afghanistan.

Working similar magic, but from a somewhat different perspective is John Wood, founder of the remarkable foundation Room to Read, which builds libraries, schools and computer labs in Southeast and Central Asia, and now Africa. I also just finished Mr. Wood's book, Leaving Microsoft to Change the World, a no less inspiring story of an overworked corporate executive who stumbled upon a cavernous need for better education in the developing world and dropped everything to commit to help build libraries and schools for people who don't have them. - The Boston Chapter of Room to Read held a sold out findraiser at The Elephant Walk in Cambridge last November in pursuit of their goal of building 10 libraries in Cambodia.

It was Heather Faris, Cambridge resident and mother of two students who educated all of us at The Elephant Walk as to what American journalist Bernie Krisher is doing with his non-profit organization, American Assistance for Cambodia [AAfC}- you guessed it: building schools in Cambodia [more than 400 so far] and more. Ms. Faris brought us up to speed early last year on the Cambridge School for Cambodia [CambCamb] project, a grass roots Cambridge organization she was helping run that included many students and was raising money to fund a school through the AAfC. [We hosted a fundraiser in support of their effort at our Cambridge restaurant last April that raised over $5,000. - We're also hosting a follow-up buffet luncheon this coming May 9 - spearheaded by Cambridge high school student Lucy Flamm - to help further the CambCamb mission - (Tickets are still available!)]

Frankly, until recently, I had no idea how many people are making extraordinary commitments of time and money, sometimes even risking their lives let alone their life savings to help bring the opportunity of education to people whose governments and community resources cannot provide it. Their efforts and achievements are amazing and inspiring.

More than up to the Challenge...

This past Tuesday's Challenging Flavors dinner at The Elephant Walk in Waltham was a lot of fun. The spirited group dove right into all the dishes, which included plenty of pork belly, tamarind, shrimp paste and, of course, prahok. In fact, nothing daunted a soul, nothing until the durian served warm over sticky rice, that is!

It's always dangerous to generalize based on feedback from a self-selected group such as ours, but my biggest take-away from our guests is that flavors that once were extreme may be much closer now to the mainstream than even 10 years ago. Diners' palates have grown so experienced and sophisticated in the modern era of so many wonderful restaurants showcasing the full rainbow of global cuisines that there's not much people really don't like or can't handle. [Except maybe durian.... ;-)]

The wine component of the dinner was matched to the family-style presentation of the food: We offered 4 wines - 2 whites, 2 reds - up to the group to taste through in random fashion. Rather than the strict "this wine goes with that dish" traditional wine dinner format, we went free-form to acknowledge the fact that pairing Western wine with Eastern food is far from an exact science, or no science at all. As I suspected, personal choice ruled, with no obvious, perfect matches.

The one wine surprise to me was that the darker and more concentrated Toro - made with tempranillo - was much preferred over the brighter and fruitier Beaujolais-Villages - made with gamay. No question the Toro was the more elegant wine but what I didn't expect was that it would find such favor with our guests in the context of an unusual meal. To me, that's robust support for this truism I personally adhere to: "Have wine you like with food you like and very likely you're going to have a meal you like." - Tuesday's Challenging Flavors dinner was a good meal indeed.

Challenging Flavors

One of the things we've been doing in recent months is trying to align our self-perception with that of our customers. Our first step down that path was recognizing that most people view us as Asian restaurants first, and not fine-dining. And since most people expect non-sushi Asian restaurants to be inexpensive, we realized that we needed to lower our prices and did so in October.

Tomorrow night's "Challenging Flavors" dinner at The Elephant Walk in Waltham is another step in the direction of seeing ourselves as others see us.  While perennial Elephant Walk favorites like Poulet à la Citronnelle, Loc Lac, and Khar Saiko are authentic Cambodian dishes, they offer fairly mainstream flavors - very approachable for the vast majority of our clientele.

Most of our Cambodian menu consists of more approachable dishes for one simple, sound business reason: People like them and rarely send them back. For a vocal minority in the dining public, however, our playing it safe has been tantamount to a betrayal of sorts.

As you probably already know, there are relatively few Cambodian restaurants in this country, and precious few with a national profile such as ours. So when some people come to The Elephant Walk and find that prahok - a fermented and salted fish paste that is Cambodian cuisine's one truly unique ingredient - has only a bit part in our play, they feel let down and really slam us for it.

Those critics make a fair point. As a more mainstream Cambodian restaurant concept, it makes good business sense for us to emphasize the flavors that we've learned our clientele wants, and avoid serving those flavors they've taught us they'd rather not try again! But what about that vocal minority that craves the rustic intensity of prahok, bitter melon, shrimp paste, tamarind, and durian? What about their needs? One answer is our Challenging Flavors dinner tomorrow night in Waltham.

It is a small irony that our Cambodian, chef-owners, Nyep and Nadsa - who are mother and daughter - themselves prefer the more challenging flavors of their cuisine even as their customers do not. So they're pretty excited about tomorrow night!

Predictably, there's still some space available if you want throw your palate for a loop. But if you want to have this experience but can't make it tomorrow, don't worry: "Challenging Flavors" is a very special theme dinner we are sure to host again soon!

Special Events for Charity...in Hong Kong!

Yes indeed, Nyep and Nadsa will be travelling to Hong Kong together to host a charity wine dinner on Friday, October 17, 2008 and teach a cooking class on Saturday, October 18th. The farthest they'd travelled together from Boston to cook for a special event until this one was the Big Island of Hawaii!

This trip is the inspiration of, and by invitation of Jeffrey LeBon, Nadsa's former Sous Chef from about 8 years back at The Elephant Walk in Boston. Since leaving us - on very good terms, mind you - Jeffrey has seen the world, gotten married, had a child, and settled in Hong Kong. He's clearly established himself professionally, now Group Executive Chef for the Chiram Strategic Group, a Hong Kong-based foodservice conglomerate with an Asia-wide reach as far as Australia. Needless to say, we're impressed.

The Charity Wine Dinner and Cooking Class will both be held at Sukhothai restaurant in Wan Chai. A generous portion of the proceeds of both events will be donated to two charities that primarily benefit children:the Heep Hong Society of Hong Kong and the Nginn Karet Foundation for Cambodia of which Nyep is a U.S. trustee.

Thank you Jeffrey! This is an exciting and important opportunity to do some good work for kids, to bring The Elephant Walk's Cambodian food to Hong Kong, to cook with Jeffrey again, and for Nyep and Nadsa to have a little fun together too (they love Hong Kong!).