Catering a Hollywood Movie—Half way through

Today marks the halfway point in the catering gig and, so far, I can give a mixed review of the experience. Catering breakfast and lunch (and sometimes dinner with less than 2 hours notice) for a 120 people a day has lost its luster. Initially it was very exciting to go in and cater for the same people everyday—getting to know your client this well is a pretty unique experience, but it has become extremely repetitive and we have lost connections with the other end of the business in the restaurants. In fact, since we started 2 weeks ago, I have only been to the other restaurants less than 2-3 times (except for the one I live in). We are trying to keep it fun and interesting for the crew (and ourselves) by making themed buffets and trying to provide creative options and our spirits are still high. If you have noticed that there has been a drop in the posts of this blog you can blame it on the long days. I would have to say the worst possible thing about this project is the moving. We rarely film in one location for more than 2 days and moving all of the equipment is an absolute drag. The typical schedule involves having the buffet ready by 630 and then serving lunch 7 hours later. After meal service we have to prep for the next day or move locations up to 2 hours away. This involves moving all of our tables (seating for 150), grills, 2 fridges and a chest freezer, prep tables, pots, pants, plates, EVERYTHING. Then we wake up and do it again. The shoot is also looking like it is going to start running late so we are starting to dig into the vacation time and on the “scared” weekends.

However, with all that being said, the best part of this project is the people that work on the movie. The catering base camp also serves as a central location for people to hang out when they have time off or to grab a snack, so I hear it all from everyone and the troubles that they are going through and how crazy it is to make a movie. The executive producer is also a Harvard man hailing from Dunster House, so I have had a few conversations with him about times in Cambridge. One of my other favorite things is to be hanging out in the catering area between meal services and have people spring special requests on us and to see if we are fulfill their needs. Some are simple like a diet coke (coke zero was a little harder) and an espresso machine. However, some people (cough cough the stars and directors) ask for completely separate meals, ice cream, and my personal favorite—a kind of bleu cheese that is only produced in Vermont.

Below are the pictures of one of our Mexican inspired buffets that we did for lunch. It was a Mexican fiesta with all of the works—quesadillas, guacamole, Cuban black beans, and a Mexican Mole.

Bangkok: Part III of III and Other Fun Stuff

I know that I have been lacking in the blog post department and all apologies. The reason that I have been so busy lately is that we landed the catering contract for a huge Hollywood movie. I signed an NDA, so I cannot really go into the details, but if you are a smart person you can figure out where I am living and what kind of movie would be filmed there. It has been tons of fun and I am meeting a lot of the Hollywood and New Yorker types. It is actually pretty funny, everyone is in a terribly shitty mood all day and then they come to the caterer and lament their troubles while enjoying the food. As long as we keep feeding them well they are extremely happy with that. We are basically the most popular people on campus. The physical catering job is fantastic too. We are doing a great job of supplying fun breakfast and lunches for the next month. The only trouble is that I am waking up at 3 AM to get the buffet open by 530 AM…. so, as you can imagine the hours are grueling.

I have also moved into my apartment in Ubud that is in the back of the bar. It is an extremely nice set up and it is nice to be living in a much more lively atmosphere. I am really enjoying it (although I haven’t had much free time).


Back to Bangkok:

There is not a lot to do in the city if you are a tourist. The eating and the shopping is great, but the city lacks many of the main attractions (such as museums and other arts) that most other large cities have. However, there is one great attraction that is known as the temple at Wat Arun.

Wat Arun is located on the river a little west of Bangkok and is accessible by one of the city water transport boats (interesting concept). From a distance, it is your basic large temple that was built by Buddhist monks a few hundred years ago. See picture below.


However, once you get close to the temple you see something completely different: the entire thing is made out of Chinese plates and china. Back in the trading days Chinese ships would load their boats full of china for ballast for their ships and set sail for Bangkok for spices and other tradable goods. When they arrived to Bangkok they would dump the china out on the dock and load it with the tradable goods. The Buddhist monks would collect the china and use it in the construction of the temple. See the pictures of the detail below, it is quite amazing. I was really impressed with the level of detail. The temple is comparable to a huge mosaic.



Next post: things that I think are interesting on the movie set.

Bangkok Part II of III: Eating through the City

Sorry for the delayed posting. Things have been crazy here. Days turn into weeks in Bali due to the lack of seasons and the weather always being perfect every day. My host explained that is why 2 weeks turned into 26 years for her. Next post will explain why I am so busy. Also, my lovely mother is in town, so I am trying to spend time with her.

Back to Bangkok…

We flew to Bangkok for one reason: to eat Thai food and learn the nuisances of the recipes we have at our restaurant, Siam Sally. I can promise you that the three of us did not get cheated. It is actually pretty funny—we had dozens of meals at restaurants and in the street markets, but only really tried the 4 main dishes in our restaurant that we felt needed the most work and fine tuning: Pad Thai, Tom Kha Gai, Sum Tom, and some weird mushroom dish I cannot really remember the name of.

We landed at 7:40 pm, went to the hotel, dumped our bags out and went straight the lobby to try the Sum Tom. The restaurant was nice and we ended up ordering about 3-4 dishes and were writing down reminders in small books and making mental notes on how everything tasted. After the first dinner we hopped into a cab and went to a hole in the wall called “Jay-Fai.” Jay-Fai is not a hard place to miss as you are walking down a crowded street in Bangkok; most noodle shops charge 20-40 Baht ($1) for their noodle dishes. Jay Fai charges 250-400 Baht and there is a line out the door. The restaurant has absolutely zero décor and the tables are plastic lawn furniture. However, after tasting the food (which in my opinion was the best of the week, even outdoing the Peninsula), my doubts were wiped away. The prawns were the size of golf balls and the herbs and veggies in their soup stocks were fresh and bountiful.

Woke up, ate the room service continental breakfast and were out the door to go to the big 10 story tall shopping center called MBK (mentioned in the first post). At the top of MBK there is a huge food court with over 60 vendors. I know what you readers are thinking, why the hell would we go to a food court in Bangkok to try Thai food? I was also skeptical at first, and I guess the only answer is that all food courts are not created equally. The entire complex takes tokens so that the vendor stalls you get food from do not have to deal with cash. The average token sale was around 40 Baht per person. When we went to the cashier and asked for 800 Baht ($17) worth of tokens for food the lady looked at us with a look of disgust and confusion and handed us a large cup of tokens. Typical Americans.

I cannot even count how many dishes we had there, but to give you some perspective, we were there for over 2 hours. If I would have to give a ballpark figure, I would say 13 dishes. This food court is where I discovered my favorite Thai dessert of all time, “NahmKai Sai.” Nahm Kai Sai is shaved ice with coconut milk, pandanus leaves, and a variety of “tidbits” that included jellied fruits, nuts, etc. See the picture below sothat you can see all of the lovely and colorful ingredients that you can throw in this dessert. It is basically like a creamy snow cone with natural candy in it. I had about 6 the entire trip.

The food court and the first day were the most memorable experiences of the trip. It is pretty funny when you look back at vacations like this—we ate at the Mandarin Oriental and the Peninsula as well, but the experience did not resonate as strongly with me in comparison to the street markets. Bangkok is also a strange town, as you get very very bored after about 3 days. There is really nothing to do there besides shopping and eating. We hopped on the plane and started preparing for the big catering project that we are doing. I arrived back home the same body weight! I guess it is because we walked a lot and Thai food is a lot of fish and stocks...not a lot of saturated fat.

Next post: Monuments in Bangkok, and what I have been doing with myself.