A day in our sandals

You may be wondering how our days pass by on this beautiful island and how busy can we be if Cuca is not even open. Being distractions dangerously reachable, it may well look like we are spending our days getting a tan and drinking mojitos.

Well, this post is going to reveal the truth of our island life. While all the Balinese walk around giving away their gorgeous smiles, telling us to relax and being a living proof of balance with their environment, we must confess that we struggle to follow their example and advice. This is what a very typical day in our new world is like:

• Alarm kicks off at 6.30am. We need to get up to beat the jam! 
• 7.15: we jump in the car and make our way flowing among rivers of motorbikes going to work, women carrying market products on their heads as they make their way home, ceremonies filled with beautiful white costumed worshippers… 
• At 8.30 we arrive at our first destination, a company where we are asking for a second quotation for our uniforms. We meet a lovely lady who spends an hour telling us about options and their respective pros and cons.
• It is 10am when we walk into our printer’s shop. We have brought them our designs and today we need to select the colors from their Pantone. It seems they cannot make round stickers in small quantities as they require an expensive custom-made knife. The containers we have chosen for our retail products are round so after discussing for long and looking at different options, we have no choice but to make thousands of labels… we hope you all support us as we have stickers enough for everyone.
• We now meet the company that is going to engrave our cutlery. They have prepared a sample but unfortunately the result is not as good as we thought it would be. We need to find a solution… what about painting the engraved logo to cover the uneven wood? “It may work”, they tell us, so we need to go back to their workshop in a week time to see the new samples. 
• Time to collect our “beloved” round containers… This is a hectic Arabic run shop where everyone is immersed in captivating tasks: they make and bottle perfume, among other products, so their job is to smell and smell again. While we wait for our receipt, the owner comes to us and asks us if he can help us with something else… we look at each other and come up with an amazing idea. You will have to wait to find out more…
• We speed towards an area called Kerobokan, where all the interior design shops are located. We need to find hanging lamps for Cuca. Our designers have come up with a few proposals but they are completely out of our league (designer lights from Italy…) and we really want to find Indonesian alternatives as part of Cuca’s philosophy of going local. After visiting 5 or 6 shops we find one where the owner tell us he can custom-made all type of lamps. We can’t believe our luck! It usually takes us weeks to find the suppliers we are looking for! We get his contact, shake his hand, returned his smile and tell him we love him.

• Our empty stomachs strike at 4pm… we don’t have time to stop for lunch so we buy some bread and eat in the car on the way to the construction site. We want to have a look at the progress and at the same time collect some paper samples for our menus. 
• On our way home we stop at a servicing centre. Our car has been working as hard as us and needs a little oil change. 
• We get back home at 7. Time to check our emails and get back to suppliers, interior designers, contractors… We also send emails to everyone we met during the day recapping our meetings and “gently” reminding them of the looming deadlines. 
• I check once again our “to do” list and take the last few decisions of the day while Kevin starts preparing dinner. 
• We smiled at each other and tell ourselves we need to take it easy. Things will only get more hectic when Cuca opens and we will need to be rested… Sigh. 

Can I get a menu, please?

One of this week´s missions was finding our menu holders. This is an item that has taken us long to design because we wanted something different than the typical leather folder.

We squeezed our brains to come up with an idea that we were happy with both functionally and esthetically. Apart from looking good, the holder must be easy clean, long lasting and with a simple system that enables us to change the menu pages frequently so they always look fresh.

We spent months discarding lousy ideas until we found the right one and when we finally did, we still had to see how to produce it. We then went from shop to shop asking for what seemed impossible and after being met with nothing but confused Balinese faces and even considering to make it ourselves, all our problems were miraculously solved when we walked into this shop, recommended by another of our suppliers. Despite having literally hundreds of menus on display, it was great to see nobody had thought of our idea (this made us smile… it is so damn hard to be original nowadays!) but they still were willing to help us by producing something from scratch.

We now know where to have our menus made and only need to understand the sizes of paper available in Bali (yes, this is not “paperland”) to finalize the measurements of our holders. Can’t wait to see them finished and more so you holding them!

The faces of Cuca

We are now focusing on analyzing our staffing needs to start advertising the positions we want to offer. This may sound pretty simple but we need to create the foundations for a solid human resources structure that attracts great talents to Cuca.

We have started by drafting our organization chart in which we establish departments (culinary, marketing, etc.) and levels and classes within each of them to make clear the reporting line and the respective compensation packages.

The second step was to identify the stages for the hiring process. For example, we will first need someone who works closely with Kevin to test and study his recipes. We will then need a core team to be trained under Cuca’s values, products and services that later will be able to train the rest of the staff. The size of consecutive teams will depend on our sales forecast for each period and increase as our business does.

Another task is then to describe each position and define its respective job scope and remuneration. Finally we will also have to compile this plus other relevant information into an Employee Handbook that will work as a reference tool for all our staff.

The greatest challenge for us now is to design packages that are attractive enough to appeal to great employees (Cuca bets for on its people) and at the same time try to keep costs low as we are obviously working only with sales projections and not actual revenue. It is also difficult to decide the exact number of staff for each stage: we may be busier at the beginning with guests who want to try out Cuca and thus we would need to be ready for high numbers or we may be less busy until we get better known.

Well, at this stage we are getting used to face option after option. We are learning to overcome uncertainties by trusting our knowledge and experience and to move forward despite the obvious fear of making mistakes. What a journey…

New Year, First Guest

How have you all started this promising 2013? Ours kicked off in a big way… Our first guest showed up a bit earlier than expected in the midst of Cuca's newly dug foundations!

Yes, as you see we have finally started construction.

We witnessed the first days of the digging in awe, hardly believing this is really happening and getting goose bumps looking at so much action, all directed to build up our dream.

Now the clock is ticking and although we are walking towards the right direction, we realize there are still hundreds of things to be done.

Prioritizing is key, especially because being in an island the lead time for almost every product is 3 months so we need to make sure we place on time the necessary orders.

On the other hand, decisions made from now on are critical since there is now way back as the digger moves unstoppably.

As our adrenaline is peaking up, please expect continued excitement attacks from us!

Sent to chase a wild goose

I would have never imagined how many things can go wrong simply by choosing the wrong floor for a professional kitchen. If you are half as naif as me and believe you would be safe by simply asking the contractor, you are in for a big surprise...

Last week we met our contractors for the first time and they kept on asking us questions we had not yet thought of. One of the many was about the kitchen flooring. They recommended "epoxy" but before we said yes I, the tireless researcher, thought we better did some research before confirming our choice. This decision unexpectedly triggered a chain of field trips, meetings, findings and surprises that kept us busy for the week.

Our goal is finding a flooring solution that stands the test of time, resists chemicals, spills and stains, it is hygienic, easy to clean, anti-slip, affordable and looks good. Secondary research showed a few options which we narrowed down to three, and a deeper look into them proved that each had unique pros and cons. Let me enlighten you:

Epoxy quartz floor

It is applied in multiple steps. First a resin is painted on the floor, then quartz is broadcast into the resin. The dry quartz then soaks up much of the resin that would otherwise soak into the floor. After it cures, an epoxy is painted over the quartz.

Pros: it is highly resistant, hygienic, exceptionally durable and soft on the feet.
Cons: it is quite expensive compared to the other options, it chips so it needs to be replaced periodically, it could be slippery and the biggest con of all, it requires a very long time to prepare both the surface and each layer, and extremely skillful labor, quite scarce here.

These are some of the scary consequences of a poorly applied epoxy flooring:

Tile

It is usually made out of natural clay and applied to the floor with a troweled-on cement based mortar. 

Pros: it is comparatively inexpensive and easy to install, can be individually replaced and readily available.

Cons: it is very hard on the feet, it is a porous material so can easily grow bacteria (specially in the grout joints), it breaks quite easily both under impact or as water eventually goes through it and the grouts are very difficult to keep clean as grease, water and food particles get trapped.

Vinyl flooring

This is a finished flooring material used primarily in commercial and institutional applications. It is made up of a mixture of polyvinyl chloride and plasticizers pigments are added for color. Vinyl flooring is usually flexible, fine textured and appears to be relatively non-porous. It is applied to a smooth, leveled sub-floor using a specially formulated vinyl adhesive that remains tacky but does not completely dry.

Pros: it is soft on the feet, it looks good when new and is cheap. Also it is quick and easy to both install and clean and it has high resilience to abrasion and impact damage.

Cons: it does not work very well at all under wet conditions. Almost always, the water gets underneath and the floor starts coming off.

Lost in these lists of advantages and disadvantages, we decided we needed to better understand our options in Bali so we visited several professional kitchens around the island to see what they were using and get their opinion. The outcome was a myriad of advice. Our decision would change every time we ended a conversation or faced the disturbing truth of a wrong choice.

Will keep you posted on our decision but as you can see, there is never a dull day in our adventures in Bali.

Pick up table 12!

While regular cash registers used to be acceptable, it seems that a restaurant cannot longer efficiently operate without a Point-of-Sale (POS) system, a must in today's technologically advanced world. 

We recently decided it was time to start checking our options for POS and understanding their prices so we have met a few suppliers who briefed us on their respective systems. 

Basic systems are commonly offered in restaurant packages and usually are a combination of hardware and software. They typically include: a touchscreen monitor to enter data (for example customers’ orders), a receipt printer, a cash drawer, a reservation system, kitchen printers, wireless tableside order-entry devices, etc. 

Beyond serving as a method for collecting payments, POS systems also help track sales and inventory and streamline the accounting process. For example, if you start the day with 50 bottles of beer, after entering customers’ orders of 40 bottles, the system will alert you that the restaurant is low in beer stock so you know when you need to order more. Furthermore, they are a powerful communication tool between the dining room and the kitchen. After the waiter has entered a guest’s complete order, he can then transmit to the kitchen, through the POS, the timing on when each dish needs to be served.

Premium features are really smart. For example, nowadays POS can split bills, get instant pairing recommendations to help upsell, reward repeat customers, alerts for customers’ long waiting times, etc. 

The good old days of a waiter coming to your table with a pen and a notepad seem to be coming to an end…

An intense week of learning

This week has been heavily loaded with meetings and trips to search for suppliers. Kevin was delighted because he misses the action of the kitchen so coming and going to meet many people is the closest to hectic activity he can get for now. 

One of the main missions of the week was to understand our options regarding audio systems. The biggest challenge for Cuca is to be able to play music at different volumes in the several spaces we have designed. Each of them must offer its own rhythm and tempo and we wanted to differentiate the experience not only with a well-defined space but also with the appropriate lighting and music level. We were relieved to find out that this was definitely possible thanks to dedicated space control devices.  Another goal we need to achieve is even sound coverage within each zone, not so easy when one setting will not work in all areas as each has very different properties, especially in outdoor spaces like our garden patio. Furthermore, all the equipment will have to be chosen taking into account the different time slots of the day / night, the type of music, the player we select, the location of the controls, etc. There are many, many decisions to make along the way but we believe we found the right professionals to guide us through this journey. 

We have also been introduced to the power of laser. As you know, we can find lasers everywhere: in CD players, dental drills, speed measurement, for tattoo removal, hair replacement, eye surgery, etc. But at this moment in our lives we are interested in laser engraving. This technology, facilitated by a computer, consists on converting the beam of a laser into heat and delivering this resulting energy to change the surface of the material under the focal point. It may heat up the surface and subsequently vaporize the material, or sometimes the material may fracture and flake off the surface. Different patterns can be engraved by programming the controller for the laser beam to traverse a particular path over time. The trace of the laser beam is carefully regulated to achieve a consistent removal depth of material. The benefits of this method are that it allows the engraving of very fine precision patterns on even the tiniest of items and it is a very clean technology with no harmful residues.  

Can you guess where are we applying this magic? We are actually engraving our logo in several items… but you will have to wait to see the end result!

Balancing Forces

December first post is about the captivating religion of Bali. This is an very complex subject and, from my point of view, an extremely interesting one, so today I offer you just an introduction.

A fascinating amalgam of native animism and Indian Hinduism splashed with Buddhist elements, the Balinese religion is followed by about 95% of the population and is the largest Hindu outpost in the world outside of India. 

Like the India Hinduism, Balinese Hinduism (called “Agama Hindu”) believes in the long cycle of birth, death and reincarnation of one’s soul and that rebirth continues until the spirit is freed from all desire. It also recognizes the universe as an organizing force that maintains a cosmic order in which each person, animal and object plays an integral part. To maintain the equilibrium, the Ordering Force must be kept at least as strong as the Disordering Force, both of which are constantly at battle with one another. 

This is the reason why every single day we are trapped in a blocked road in Bali waiting impatiently for a procession to pass by: only by the correct and timely execution of rituals, disorder – a disease, a volcanic eruption, a drought – can be made orderly again. So while we wait wondering how many ceremonies are held daily in every corner of the island, Balinese are hard at work keeping Bali in harmony with the natural forces. They believe themselves a blessed people who have been leased a magic land to cultivate it and live from it and they look upon themselves as the custodians of this “Pulau Dewata”, the Island of the Gods. 

Although both types of Hindus share a non-violet temperament, a sense of religious obligation and their identification with the forces of nature, Bali Hinduism is in reality too close to the earth, too animistic, to be taken as the same esoteric religious as that of the Hindus of India. Using his God-given talents, a Balinese needs only to perform daily offerings and participate actively in village and temple events. The emphasis is on the routine of ceremonies and rituals rather than on theology and on behavior and service rather than on belief. 

All Bali’s many gods are merely realizations from the one God, Sanghyang Widhi, the omnipotent supreme being. This deity manifests himself to man in three forms called Trisakti (the Holy Trinity): Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver and Shiva the Destroyer. The latter is seen and felt by people through suffering and sickness. Appeasing him will bring prosperity, happiness and finally liberation. 

Although Bali Hinduism is essentially monotheistic, the average Balinese does not utter prayers or make offerings directly to Sanghyang Widhi and none of the island’s temples is dedicated to him. Instead, in many temples there stands a three-seated pedestal enshrining the Trisakti. Before a ceremony the temple guardians decorate the pedestal with bright wraps of colored cloth: red for Brahma, white for Shiva and black for Vishnu. In the hierarchy of the divine, below Sanghyang Widhi and the Trinity, there is a multitude of other protective spirits: Dewa male and Dewi female, each closely link to nature. 

As in many other aspects, the Balinese have been extremely liberal in matters of religion. Every time a new idea was introduced into the island, instead of repudiating it, they took it for what it was worth and, if they found it interesting enough, assimilated it into their religion since no one knew what power there might be in the new gods…     

Meetings, Merchandise and Macet

We are back from our trip to Jakarta. We had an amazing time there and managed to get done everything planned. 

Our priority was to meet with our interior designers. The meeting went well and we are very happy to welcome them on-board.  Now decisions will be easier to make, counting on the support of someone who can safely sew together all our wild ideas. 

We also took advantage of this trip to visit Food & Hospitality Indonesia. This is a yearly event where everyone involved in the industry gathers to showcase their products and services. We were very interested in attending as Cuca will only use Indonesian ingredients so we welcome any opportunity to learn more about our options. Since some of the companies were selling their products at the expo itself, we bought some kitchen tools that we had not been able to find in Bali. 

During our time in Jakarta we did as much as possible but it is difficult to plan lots of things for a day as transport in Jakarta is basically this:

Yes, the famous Jakarta “macet” (traffic jam). We had heard lots about it but this time we could finally experience it for ourselves… In Jakarta your life is planned around the traffic jams which often continue through the day. Travelling even short distances can take hours and some parts of the city are in a constant state of jam. The situation seems seriously critical. A 2007 study by the Yayasan Pelangi Indonesia, an environmental NGO, predicted that if nothing is done to improve things, traffic will grind to a complete halt by 2014. Can you believe it??? To ease the situation, the government has implemented schemes such as the “three in one”, which requires vehicles to have at least three passengers on busy roads at peak hours. However, Indonesians have seized the latent business opportunity and a new profession has emerged: “the jockeys”. These are hitchhikers who are taken at the beginning of the main roads, dropped at the end and paid to ride with single drivers who otherwise would not be allowed to use these roads. 

Despite this chaos, Jakarta is a very exciting city with a vibrant restaurant scene. We were especially impressed with the design of quite a few restaurants and we look forward to the next opportunity to go back, this time with a good book to combat the jam.

Jakarta

Before telling you about our recent trip to Jakarta, I leave you with some interesting facts about this city for those who do not know much about it:

• Jakarta found its origin in the small early 16th century harbor town of Sunda Kelapa. 
• The Dutch East Indies Company, which captured the town and destroyed it in 1619, changed its name into Batavia and made it the center for the expansion of their power in the East Indies. 
• Shortly after the outbreak of World War II, Batavia fell into the hands of the invading Japanese forces that changed the name of the city into 'Jakarta'.
• It is located on the Indonesian island of Java.
  
  
  
  
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• It is the capital and the largest city of Indonesia.
• The number of people residing in greater Jakarta is estimated at 23 million, making it the fourth largest urban area in the world.
• Jakarta is nicknamed Big Durian, because the city is seen as the Indonesian equivalent of New York City (the Big Apple).
• There are about 13 rivers flowing through Jakarta.
• The northern part of Jakarta is a plain land. Some areas here are actually below sea level and therefore subject to frequent flooding. Meanwhile, the southern parts of the city are hilly, and consequently designated for reservoirs. 
• With a tropical climate, Jakarta's average daily temperature is 27 degrees Celsius during a day, sometimes exceeding 35 degrees Celsius in the hot season. 
• It has two seasons: the wet season from October to April (with the heaviest rains falling from December to January), and the dry season from May to September. 
• Most residents in Jakarta are Muslims, i.e. 85.50%. Other religious followers are Protestants (5.20%), Roman Catholics (4.77%), Buddhists (3.56%) and Hindus (0.97%). 
• Jakarta is a city of contrasts: the traditional and the modern, the rich and the poor, the sacral and the worldly, often stand side by side in this bustling metropolis.

Colonial Jakarta and Current Jakarta