BGF United

BGF (the company I am cooking for) has over 255 employees in a portfolio of restaurants in Bali. One of the coolest things that I have seen to date is the fact that they have a company soccer team that competes in a league and is named "BGF United." The team plays twice a week in an organized league that consists of about 20 other teams and is a full blown Indonesian soccer league that even has a cash prize (100,000 Rupiah per player for the winners). My hosts and I went to the game to support the team and it was a great time. When we showed up we were the only two white people in the area, but the staff were ecstatic to see us there to support the team. The soccer field was in the middle of a residential section of Ubud and there were about 120 locals lining the field to watch the match. The field was dug below ground level and surrounded by stone wall with about 7 cigarette banners advertising their brands and the value of sport (great combo). The game was the same as any other soccer match as you would see anywhere in the world, but in Bali you also had to deal with children running around and playing instruments to cheer the team on, chickens interfering with play, and throngs of young women laughing at whenever one of the players made and error or missed a shot.

One insight that I had that my host found that was very interesting was the team's uniforms. The league was just assembled and this was one of the first games, but even so, the stylin' BGF United team had some of the best uniforms that I have seen for soccer teams. All of the team had nice blue spandex shirts and shorts that had BGF embroidered in on them with the players names on the back of the jersey. The detail that took the cake was that they had embroidered socks that has "BGF United" sewed into them. My question to my host was "How on earth are they able to throw together uniforms like this in two days, but it takes them over a week to organize anything else work related?" She was also dumbfounded.

There was also an announcer that vividly depicted every play of the game with a hilarious tone. I did not understand what he was saying (due to my inability to speak Indonesian) but my host explained that he was using words such as "epic struggle" and "good prevailing over evil." She also said that he quoted some of the Hindu epics to draw comparisons in announcing the events of the soccer match.

The result was indeed tragic. BGF United lost to Gado Gado, 3-0.

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 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.

The Abandoned Croc Park

I took the day out of the kitchens and decided to have Giri (Karen's son) show me around Bali and take me to some of the local attractions. His first recommendation was snorkeling and some other very common touristy things that seemed pretty ordinary. He then mentioned that about a year ago there was a huge crocodile amusement park that went bankrupt and the management decided to leave the Crocodiles there because they were out of money. This immediately struck my fancy and we hopped in the car.

We drove up to the park that was out of town and it looked like a place from Disneyland or a haunted house in a movie. We paid the security guard 10,000 Rupiah ($ 1 USD) to let us in and we walked around an abandoned park. The statutes were falling, the leaves and vines were overgrown, and the entire complex was falling into complete disrepair. After walking about 100 meters to the Crocodile pit and crossing a very ramshackle bridge (see photos) that was over the Croc pit we were able to see them. The security guard explained that there was at one point over 150 crocodiles...now there were about 70. A lot of them are poached for their skins and others simply disappear. The entire Croc pit is full of collapsing rocks from their retaining wall and the loading ramp in which they could get out has been barricaded with a couple of fallen trees. When asked how the Crocs were able to stay alive and eat, the security guard explained that people throw them live chickens and that the airport food catering company comes by and throws the left over food wastes into the croc pit. Giri and I are now considering returning with a few live chickens...

All in all, I thought that his was a ridiculous example of how something like this would never fly in the USA. The abandoned Crocs are a perfect example of Bali attractions. See the pictures below.