FILIPINO-Thai chef King Phojanakong, the man behind the successful Kuma Inn/Umi Nom restaurants in New York continues to be baffled as to why there’s still a lot of people who (a) have not tried Filipino food before and (b) do not know where the Philippines is.
This, he says, despite the sheer number of Filipino-Americans in the United States today.
Back in 2003, Chef King opened Kuma Inn (an ingenious play on the Tagalog word “to eat”) on the second floor of a Lower East Side tenement.
“I wanted to do food that I grew up eating. My mom is from Batangas, dad is from Thailand. I love the food and I want to bring it here,” he shares.
Eight years later and he still regularly gets first-timers to his restaurant, asking him what they should eat and what Filipino food is like.
“It always surprises me when people come here and ask what we serve. Not that I’m complaining because I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of explaining to non-Filipinos what our food is like. I always start them with pancit and adobo, and more often than not, they end up liking the food,” he adds.
King graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in 1998. He was elected group leader of his class and graduated dean’s list. Chef King went on to train under Daniel Boulud at Restaurant Daniel and David Bouley at Bouley Bakery and the Danube where he sharpened his classical training and knowledge of the craft.
He also acquired experience in various New York kitchens like Jean-Georges, The Grocery, and Cendrillon. He was co-executive chef at Beekman Kitchen in New York and executive chef at Fatapples in El Cerrito, California before venturing on his own. Since opening Kuma Inn, Chef King along with long time friend and colleague Soulayphet Schwader opened Talay in West Harlem in May 2008.
Looking back, going back to school, a culinary school at that, was one of the best decisions he’s ever made.
“My parents weren’t really that into it when I told them I was shifting careers and going back to school to study cooking. They weren’t very receptive back then,” shares King, who was in energy management before he went to culinary school.
Working with some of New York’s finest chefs honed King’s talent in the kitchen. He toiled and worked hard, and he knew the lessons he would learn from the top guys would come in handy someday.
At the back of his mind, King was busy building his dream, his own restaurant.
He knew what he wanted. He wanted to cook and serve the food he felt he was most familiar with, and this was the food he grew up eating.
He knew that he wanted to recreate a lot of dishes that his mom cooked while he and his brother were growing up. He then and incorporated different styles and techniques in cooking, things he learned from culinary school and from working at various restaurants.
Filipino dishes for him have strong profiles: sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and finding that right balance among all those flavors was crucial.
When he felt he was ready, he took the dive. And Kuma Inn was born.
“Opening a restaurant in NYC is a very difficult task. 8 out of 10 restaurants close in the first year. Failure rate is very high and it’s not the best business to get in to. I can think of a dozen ways to earn money other than this but cooking and serving food, seeing people enjoy it is what I love to do,” King quips.
He already knew that he wanted to do Filipino food so deciding on a menu wasn’t too difficult. Making it all come together was the harder part.
“There are so many things that go on behind the scenes. It’s a business, you need to make money. It can become overwhelming,” he adds.
Despite the recent rise of celebrity chefs, particularly in New York City, King maintains that being a chef is not a glamorous job as media, particularly television, purports it to be.
“It’s not at all glamorous. It’s physically and mentally demanding. It’s pretty much a 24/7 thing. I just had a baby girl (named Phebe Catalina) a couple of months ago so I am now juggling my family and professional lives. You have to be very passionate about it,” King says.
He immensely enjoyed the Kuma Inn experience that he decided it was time for a new restaurant. This time, he wanted something that would complement the first. Last year, recession be damned, Umi Nom opened its doors in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn.
“I have always wanted to open another restaurant. I decided to open Umi Nom because it was time for another one and I wanted to have the “eat and drink” vibe. The dishes here are different from Kuma but the flavor profile is pretty much the same,” he shares.
Opening a business during the height of the worst recession the United States has ever seen is a bold move for King.
“It’s a tough time for everyone. We’re still busy considering the situation. Our weekends are great but we see our weekdays suffer a bit. I think people are spending less money going out,” he says.
“Our customers in this neighborhood aren’t really Pinoy but they love our food. During the weekends, we have Filipino families who bond together here and eat,” he adds.
It was love at first sight when King found Umi Nom’s location.
He liked the area because it reminded him of Kuma Inn when he opened it in the Lower East Side. Back then, it was just his restaurant and a bar on that block of Ludlow. Now, there are five bars and about four restaurants, and the list keeps growing.
The most popular dish at Kuma Inn is the sweet sausage, similar to the longganisa served with sticky rice and Thai chili lime sauce. At Umi, it’s the pork belly adobo. They braise the pork belly in the traditional Filipino way, until it’s tender. They then grill it so it gets a nice, smoky flavor. Then they reduce the sauce and add some coconut milk to give it a little body.
“That’s my comfort food. It’s something that I want to share. People love it. I’ve actually had two people who ate it and cried because it reminded them of their mother, who passed away recently,” he says, “That means a lot to me. Anybody can follow a recipe but it helps if you cook from the heart. “
(www.asianjournal.com)
(NYNJ April 15-21, 2011 LifEastyle pg.2)
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