Kebab Pop-Up Skewered On Opening Night

The initial trial of the pop-up restaurant turned out to be an eventful evening. But then, I suppose, what did I expect living so close to Serendipity Beach?

It was New Year’s Eve, but the place was dead. Many of the bars and restaurants had shut for the four-day holiday period so the Cambodian chefs, cooks and waitresses could go home to their families. Some of them were travelling hundreds of miles to ramshackle farms and slums in northern Cambodia.

Two days on bone-cracking roads, and two days with their loved ones. It was tragic to think that some of the young mothers only saw their children two or three times a year, and then only for a couple of days. The rest of the time the youngsters are brought up by the grandmother while the mother sends money home. I could only wonder at the strength they had to get back on the bus, back to their tiny, shared rooms, knowing they wouldn’t see their children for another few months. There’s definitely something not right with the world.

Not that the global food crisis and Cambodia’s Great Land Grab were of much concern to Rodney. He kept pointing at all the closed bars and rubbing his hands. By 7pm, he’d snared most of the drinkers on the hill.

All the food experts were in there, muttering about kebabs, and the best ones they’d had. And whether it was best with naan bread or pitta, and whether they liked pickled green chillies in theirs, and the culinary merits of minced lamb compared with slices, and the divisive issue of whether the chilli sauce should contain grated carrot, and whether it was a gentleman’s right by God to insist on “crisp, fresh slices” from the elephant’s foot rather than “stewed slices from the pot”.

The boxer was there with his new Cambodian girlfriend. He’d met her in the street two nights ago. He started boasting about how he once lived above a shop that sold the best kebabs in the world. When I told them I only had chicken they shook their heads, and sucked through their teeth like mechanics under a bonnet, and I had to keep explaining about the price of lamb.

We had all chipped in $20 to buy Akara, Rodney’s bar manager, a single mattress and a double one for her parents for New Year. They all slept on the floor in a wooden shack down the road. It was heart-breaking to see. I walked past on my way to the beach each day. Her father would always be sat outside playing cards. Akara once muttered: “If my father work, family have mattress.”

We always tipped her well, and Rodney paid her $5 a day – double the normal wage in Cambodia – but we suspected most of it went to pay off her father’s gambling debts. “Her father not take care,” Rodney would often say.

With the midday sun burning down, and 35C temperatures in the shade, it was miserable to see a family of six living in that 20ft by 10ft wooden shack without a fan or air con, trying to get to sleep on nailed boards, bugs below them, mosquitoes on top. Akara showered using a bucket filled from a water butt, but came in every day looking immaculate. None of us knew how she did it.

Josh and Rodney crept upstairs to get the mattresses and we all gathered round. It was a touching moment. Akara’s face broke into a huge smile and she wiped away tears from her eyes. Her father arrived later on a moped to take the mattresses home. I was worried he was going to head straight round to the pawn shop with them. I told Rodney I’d give my share of the kebab money to Akara. After that they all wanted kebabs, and I had eight orders all at once.

It was easy juggling the food, the biggest problem was competing with the beer glasses (above). There was only one sink, so we battled for space. And talk about an open kitchen. It’s one thing being on show in a restaurant, but at least you’re tucked away behind aquarium glass like a zoo exhibit, or separated by a counter too high to jump over - you don’t have to put up with people walking through the kitchen to get to the toilets.

It was impossible. The food experts were all far too curious, and kept stopping for a chat. At one point a man called Steve walked through. He was barred from most of the bars on the hill, and had been in the country for three years without a visa. There were dark rumours about why he couldn’t go back to the UK.

“What bread are using for the kebabs, kiddo?” he said, venturing into my side of the kitchen. He was definitely past the water cooler. He was definitely off the toilet right of way.

Wraps, I said. I told him I was using wraps.

“Wraps! Jesus! Why don’t you use pitta bread, that’s a proper kebab that.”

I politely pointed out that it was just a trial and we were checking out suppliers, and it was easier to get fire-breathing midgets in Sihanoukville than pitta bread, and tried to get rid of him. He was still hanging round as I wrapped the kebabs.

I was annoyed with Rodney for letting him in the bar in the first place, let alone allowing him to loiter in the kitchen. But then it was my kitchen now. Rodney had told me himself. “That bit’s mine, this bit’s yours. Luvvly jubbly,” he’d said.

I hate people hanging around in the kitchen, but this was a frightening looking man, and my usual hints were lost on him. In the end, I was forced to put my arms up and walk towards him in an uncertain shooing manoeuvre. Luckily it worked and he loitered off.

My T-shirt was soon stuck to my back. It was truly unpleasant. I’d never enjoyed running around in wet clothes. I thought about cooking bare-chested, but I didn’t want to put the customers off. Rodney had mentioned putting a fan in the kitchen. He had one standing idle in the bar. He came through at one point and joked: “I’ve been thinking about it. But I thought, no, I want the customers to smell the food! Then they’ll order more!”

I wanted to teach Akara how to make the kebabs, but she was far too busy. Every time I showed her how to cook the chicken there was a shout from the bar. I didn’t know how long I’d be in Cambodia for, and I wanted to make sure she could take over when I left. Even if she sold four kebabs a night, it would double her daily wage.

We sold all the kebabs in three hours. A young Aussie had three in a row, and the Finnish boys had two each. I cleaned down and went to sit with the others. They kept talking about the food and the Finns raised their thumbs. And then a row broke out between Steve and the boxer’s girlfriend.

It turned very ugly, and people began to leave. I tried to calm it at one point, but Steve immediately eyeballed me.

“Believe me Tiger, you don’t want to get involved,” he growled.

He was right. I didn’t. I went off and sat at the bar. “You don’t need this when you’re trying to sell food,” the young Aussie whispered to me as he paid his bin.

In the end, Rodney closed the bar and kicked everyone out. He spent the rest of the night muttering to himself about how they were all barred, and how his friends had let him down. He brightened up after a couple of hours.

“Do you know something?” he said. “I love it!”

I went back to my room and lay awake for hours. The night had been a disaster. Even the thought of Akara’s joyful tears was soured by the ugly scenes at the end. There would be no mention of the food on the expats’ rocket-fuelled grapevine, just the trouble. Then I tried to make light of it. If it wasn’t Cambodia’s first pop-up restaurant, and it probably was, it was definitely the first one to bar all its customers on the opening night. What was it about kebabs?

Cambodia's First Pop-Up Restaurant

Tom was slouched in the lounge, drinking gin. He smiled as I walked in. Not even a thank you. Not even the slightest bit of shame at stealing my recipe. I ordered a sandwich and coffee. As soon as Tom rode off on his scooter, I went into the kitchen. Dee wasn’t there.

“You have chicken curry?” I asked the cooks.

There was a bit of confusion for a while, and then they realised what I was talking about.

“Yes, yes, one you made,” one of them eventually said.

It was impossible. Josh had said they’d sold out. I looked in the fridge. None of the bowls were covered. It was a world away from food premises inspection reports in the UK, and all those tedious manuals to document recipe production steps, and fridge temperatures morning and night.

Then I spotted a portion of what looked like my curry sitting uncovered on the bottom shelf with raw mince above it. I was delighted. The rage evaporated. My bruised ego was restored. They hadn’t nicked my curry recipe after all – not yet anyway.

I met Josh in the street later and he asked about the pork pies again. He said he’d bought some belly and was rendering down the fat in his kitchen at home.

“Got to be right, got to be right,” he said. “Leave it to me.”

I suggested we experimented with the pastry first, filling the pie cases with chopped onions rather than meat. I said they’d still give off moisture, like meat, and it would be cheaper to crack the pastry first before moving on to the filling and jelly. But Josh said pork was cheap enough in Cambodia. It was roughly the same price as chicken breast – about $4.50 a kilo.

I still wasn’t looking forward to the pastry, especially in that cramped kitchen. I needed to find bigger premises. That way I could set up a pop-up restaurant for a few nights, and experiment with the pie pastry at the same time. It would probably be Cambodia’s first pop-up restaurant – there was no sign of another one on the internet.

I asked Rodney if I could use his kitchen (above). It had been well-furnished when he bought the lease two years ago, but he’d ripped it all out and given the equipment to Josh and Tom. But it was big enough and had the basics – two hobs powered by Calor gas, a sink, fridge, shelf space, and a tiny plastic chopping board. It would be fine for pot-based dishes.

And then it came to me. That was it – kebabs. I could start the pop-up with a few kebab nights over the Khmer New Year: Year of the Rabbit to get used to the kitchen. It would give me time to check out food suppliers. Then I could start on more cheffy dishes. There was even an unused bar upstairs that would take 25 covers. Rodney said he was happy for me to put tables up there and do a few pop-up evenings for the many wealthy Belgian expats in town.

They say it takes people a long time in business to discover that you need to make what customers want rather than what you want to make, and I was aware of making that mistake. It would probably be fairly tedious churning out kebabs, but they were the ideal food to get the name out there. You couldn’t get a kebab anywhere in Sihanoukville. The nearest one was a five-hour bus ride away. I knew lamb was hideously expensive, so I’d go for pan-fried chicken doner-style kebabs. I’d made them a number of times in Blighty and they’d always gone down well.

I headed down to the supermarket the next day and bought 2kg of chicken breast, a pot of paprika, salt, white pepper, ketchup, vegetable oil, a decent knife, foil, kitchen paper, a large covered container for the chicken, a bowl for the salad, and three pots with spoons for the sauces.

Then I came across a major problem. The tortilla wraps were $5.50 for ten. It was much more than I was expecting, and they were small round ones, meaning I’d have to sell the kebabs as more of a snack than a meal. I wouldn’t be able to sell them for more than $2.50, meaning a fifth of the food costs would just go on bread. It was disastrous, there was no way I could make a profit. Not that I expected to make any money. Pop-ups are just about marketing really. I thought about making the flat breads myself, but the kitchen was far too hot and underequipped for all that.

I bought two packs of wraps, and reckoned I had just about enough chicken to make 20 kebabs. On the way back, I stopped at the market and bought half a huge white cabbage, tomatoes, cucumber, onions, garlic, limes, and chillies. I’d spent $40 including the tuk tuk fare. If I sold all 20 kebabs, I’d make $10 profit. And then there was Rodney’s share to take into account. We still hadn’t really discussed that.

Rodney chatted away non-stop as I prepped the chicken, and kept sticking his thumbs up and saying “luvvly jubbly”. Imagine David Jason 30kg lighter, with dreadlocks and Keith Richards' wrinkles, and you’re half-way there. The facial resemblance was so strong that for the first year, Cambodian kids would run past the bar and shout ‘luvvly jubbly’ at him, much to his annoyance. Then he slowly joined in, and the catchphrase stuck from there.

“Everyone’s talking about the kebabs, you know!” he said. “The boxer phoned up earlier asking about them. He’s having one, and I’ve got another three orders from the Finnish boys.” He rubbed his hands together again. “Luvvly jubbly!”

I chopped the chicken into thin strips lengthways and marinated them in oil, garlic, paprika, salt and pepper. Then I finely shredded the cabbage and sliced the tomatoes, onions, and cucumber. I mixed the salad together and stored it in a bowl in the fridge. Then I made the sauces. For the hot chilli sauce, I finely minced red chillies and mixed in ketchup, lemon juice, and spices. For the garlic, mint yoghurt sauce, I finely chopped fresh mint, garlic and cucumber and added two tubs of yoghurt and plenty of salt and pepper and lime juice.

Then I tried a prototype. I got the largest frying pan smoking over the hob, dripped in some oil and there was an explosion of flames as I threw in a handful of chicken. After three minutes I let the chicken rest as I heated the smaller frying pan and toasted the tortilla wraps until they were puffy and slightly scorched.

I lay the tortilla on a tray, put chicken in the middle, spooned over the yoghurt and chilli sauces, and topped it with salad (above). Then I made a half-moon shape with the bread and folded both sides inwards and folded up the kebab. I rolled it in a piece of foil like a Cornetto. A Babnetto if you will.

Rodney came back a few minutes later, saying he couldn’t find his other sandwich board to advertise the kebabs on. He said he’d write out a sign on a piece of paper and stick that over his existing board.

“How do you spell chicken?” he said.

I told him I’d write out the sign.