Eat local

By Kevin Cherkas

After five years not returning like a salmon to my spawning grounds, we had the opportunity last month to plan a trip to Canada for a short little break in the action. The truth is, any trip we take is always planned around food. It is never only about eating but also about hunting down those wonderful things that are truly special and unique to that specific area.  As we prove it in Cuca day in and day out, our philosophy is to go as local as possible and we follow this religiously even on holidays.

Cooking food at home is a very different experience compared to that of a restaurant. It is not only the precision, the stress or the fast pace demanded of chefs, I am talking also about why people fall in love with the craft of cooking in the first place, how at home you can take a whole day to slowly prepare a meal with attention and love. This is why I make a point of cooking at home every time I have the opportunity as it is (apart from greatly appreciated by Virginia) like therapy, meditation and a much needed break from my day to day life,

Now back to my story, we made our way to Salt Spring Island, a small island just outside of where I grew up and a quick float plane ride or ferry trip from Vancouver. Waking up in the morning surrounded by deep dark green wilderness and the isolated coastal beauty of British Colombia you can see why the meat, fish and vegetables live a happy undisturbed life that does not go unnoticed when consumed by those lucky enough to stay for dinner. With 4 days and a proper kitchen we planned to take full advantage of the island's organic markets, local farms and fishing spots. 

DAY 1: MUSSELS

One of my favorite foods has to be mussels. I can however understand why people do not share this opinion as it is easy to end up with overcooked shrunken seafood gummy bears in big empty black shells. But when the mussels are much heavier than they appear (like a ripe melon) and come from cold nutrient filled waters, it can easily become an expensive addiction. Straight from the dock on that beautiful autumn afternoon, the famous local mussels were my only worry with 6 hours until dinner; no stress, no pressure, just some quiet quality time with me and my new shiny purple friends. A small amount of heat is enough to release open a mussel but these bad boys held on for dear life till eventually opening to expose beautiful bright orange, massive sized, tender seafood balloons. Eating our way slowly through the Japanese chawanmushi-like custard bulging from inside its thick powerful shells, everything else faded away and my new friends delivered by far the best experience a mussel had to offer. One thing is for sure: whenever we open in Canada, mussels will be on the menu. 

Day 2, 3 & 4 of finding, cooking and eating to be continued...

Where has the time gone?

So Cuca turned 1… and then 2 and we have been so caught up in this wonder that it has taken me all this while to get back to my beloved blog. I started to write wanting to share with you the magical adventure of moving to a new country and starting a restaurant from absolute zero but once we got it up and running, daily operations, a total dedication to our staff and of course to our guests took over our life.

To narrate Cuca’s 27 months of life would take me another 27 months so my goal is instead to summarize these 2 years in order to bring you up to date and then hopefully be able to resume my regular updates.

I guess one of our biggest accomplishments so far has been to develop a team of wonderful people who care about Cuca as much as we do. Our strategy has never been to hire the most experienced professionals but the nicest ones. We believed from day one that we could train skills but could never change an attitude and this has led us to be surrounded by truly good guys we can trust. Operations in Cuca are now a bliss because each of our staff is totally dedicated and trained to do a great job and this allows us (Kevin and I) to focus on making sure Cuca has a future for the many families that now depend on us. As you may know if you are familiar with the culture in Bali, relationships are here always personal so we feel our family is bigger than ever, with more than 60 “children” buzzing around us. They definitely keep us busy.

Cuca Team celebrating our second birthday

And what about our customers? It may be possible to get people to give a try to a new restaurant but how do we keep it interesting enough so new customers want to come when is no longer new? This is a critical issue that more frequently than not kills businesses in their second year so we had to take it to heart and come up with ways to continue being talked about. All kind of events have definitely kept us on our toes. Events take us out of our comfort zone and make us squeeze our brains to be unique while still offering the highest standards in a more unpredictable environment. We have done events in Cuca, in other restaurants in Bali and in other cities both within Indonesia and overseas. We have delivered talks, created new dishes for a specific occasion and deliver the same experience we offer in Cuca but outside Cuca. Our senior team is thrilled every time we call for a meeting and excitedly share with them the next Cuca stunt. If you haven’t attended any of our events, stay tuned, there are many more to come!

From top to bottom, left to right: Cuca in Ku De Ta, Cuca in Surabaya, Cuca in Perth and Cuca in Ubud.

So… busy with our team, busy with our customers and busy with keeping bright and shiny a restaurant that is well into its second year. And finally now back here and introducing a few sparks in our blog. Be warned that I have convinced Kevin to also share with all of you his unique perspective and will start doing so in the next entry. Don’t miss it!  

Cuca turns one...

In August 2012 I started this blog with a post titled "DREAM" and with the hope of sharing with anyone who found me in the world wide web the ups and downs of our little adventure: opening Cuca, our restaurant. We had no idea back then if we were going to manage to actually open (so many businesses die before they even start!) or if we were going to miraculously attract any customers. Or even if our guests were going to like at all what we could offer…

If you have followed our journey, you are part of Cuca’s family already, but for those of you who just found out about us and are lazy to read all previous posts, I summarize them: after years in Singapore working way too much in separate jobs, Kevin (a Canadian) and I (a Spaniard) decided it was time to work even harder but together towards a common goal. We had the vision of building a restaurant where amazing food were affordable and served in a casual environment. The concept was simple: tapas, cocktails and desserts made with local ingredients and cooked in a western style.

We chose Bali because we believed an international clientele was our best bet and we jumped at the opportunity to star this adventure. We spent the first few weeks in the island settling in: finding a home, transport, learning the roads. We then started writing down all our ideas and trying to come out with a priority list, what to do first. And finally we hit the road and started looking for the people who could help us, one by one. Although we faced many more challenges than we could have thought of, every day we went to bed having ticked off one more task. There were many days when I felt disheartened and just wanted to give up and Kevin then promised me that everything would be ok. There were other days when Kevin felt frustrated and didn’t know how to move forward and it was then my turn to come up with a plan. Thankfully, we had each other. Cuca would not be here otherwise, although it has not been easy. If you want to test your marriage, go ahead and open a restaurant :)

On July 23rd 2013 Cuca opened its doors. Adrenaline and coffee saved most of our days back then. The challenge was no longer the building but its people: 60 employees from all over Indonesia, each with a different background and a unique set of beliefs and expectations. They only had in common the same enchanting smile that convinced us to hire them and although we have been greatly disappointed by some of those smiles, new ones have come to our rescue and every day make us better.

With $0 advertising investment since we opened, we have been relying exclusively on our product and your word for it. The first few weeks were scary and an empty Cuca is still a recurring nightmare in our short slept nights, but word of mouth is all the magic we needed. Even though and despite being quite busy most of the time, we still stand on our entrance welcoming new and returning guests as if each of you were our first. How could we take for granted the blessing of having all of you?

Well, Cuca is now turning 1 and this first year is being a roller coaster of events and emotions. Any regular day is loaded with tons of crisis, laughs, tears, surprises, encounters and goodbyes. We know this is only the beginning and that consistency is a critical test in the long term. We know we cannot lower our guard because a restaurant is as good as its last meal, but we also now know that Cuca´s miracle is possible and this is much more than we knew 2 years ago!

We dedicate Cuca’s anniversary, our little miracle, to each of you:

- to those of you who believed in us more than we believed in ourselves and to those who didn’t and pushed us to prove you wrong;
- to those who gave us ideas and helped us in thousand different ways and to those who refused to give us a hand and thus made us find an even better way;
- to those who broke our heart because we are not what you were looking for and to those who mercifully mended it by totally getting what we are;
- to those who can see we have put our life into this restaurant and encourage and congratulate us and to those who only see the faults and eagerly point at what we should do better;

We try to learn as much as we can from all of you while remaining true to ourselves.

Thank you for this year and let’s toast to many more to come!

Waves of faces

Cuca’s opening marketing strategy was to focus ourselves on every single guest, welcome them with open arms and make them feel taken care of, spoiled by the food and our sincere smiles. We were determined not to advertise anywhere, firstly because after building the entire restaurant we were seriously broke and secondly because our thinking is: who is going to believe an ad someone has paid for? People believe friends or acquaintances who have tried a place and eagerly recommend it.

Things could have turned sour and we may have failed badly as we knew nobody in Bali so not even friends or relatives could help us out to start spreading a good word about Cuca... However our humble strategy and very hard and long hours of work slowly started to pay themselves back.

It all started by Kevin himself in full uniform fishing for customers among the tourists at the nearby beach (“Come, I will cook for you!”). Once convinced, they would walk in, sit down and be in awe with our food. I guess it is not that hard to exceed low expectations :). Most of them would return the following night and then promise us to tell their friends back at home, write something nice about us on Internet or share their unexpected find with their fellow hotel guests.

It was shocking to start getting guests recommended by previous ones… It was working! Our strategy was working! Then the power of Internet multiplied exponentially the chain of recommendations and the word of mouth started to cross borders. Believe me, it is still truly magical to witness day by day and first hand this phenomenon.

While tourists came and left, we started to recognize faces that kept on coming, every time with different company to show new groups of friends their recent discovery. We know each other by name and they are now our regulars.

At the end of October the tourist season significantly slowed down and locals took over. Guests from Jakarta or Bali timidly walked in knowing exactly what to order. It seems they always watch out for reviews about new places and wait for the tourist wave to leave before trying them themselves.

We are now preparing ourselves for a new tourist peak season: our first Christmas. We don’t know exactly what is ahead of us but we are ready to embrace this new chapter with our eyes wide open, a well-laid table and a Cuca smile that will make you feel at home away from home.

PART 2: religion reaches Cuca

The altar in our kitchen

Religion has also invaded Cuca’s life. As soon as the first employee walks in, the “canangs” are prepared and placed around the restaurant: on our cars, on the main entrance, staff area, in the office, on the reception counter, etc. Special attention is put on the main “pecati” in our kitchen, carefully decorated and daily taken care of. The ceremony of blessing all the key locations takes place at least twice a day and the Balinese masterfully organize themselves to take turns to carry out these intriguing tasks. 

Our priest 

For you to understand the degree of importance of the spirituality in Bali, let me tell you about our “Mlaspas”. Our initial plan was to open Cuca’s doors for the first time on July 20. However, a brief consultation with the priest revealed that we could only request permission from the Gods to open Cuca on July 22, a full moon day. Our staff explained to us that it was unquestionable to open Cuca without divine permission, so it was decided by the higher power to postpone our opening until July 23 and celebrate our Mlaspas on 22. 

The “Melaspas” is a traditional Balinese ceremony meant to cleanse and purify a new building after it has been completed and prior to its occupation. This ceremony is held by priests, relatives, neighbors, friends, etc.  for the people who will occupy the building to feel at ease and avoid undesirable tribulations (pain, frustration, conflict). During the day-long intricate ritual, we asked the spirits of our coconut grove to consent us to carry out our business in their land. We fed them with countless offerings so they leave us work in harmony and Kevin and I witnessed the endless series of rituals participating as we were told. 

Feeding the spirits with offerings

Cuca staff ready for the ceremony

Cuca's ladies discussing the ritual

Blessing Cuca

Blessing Cuca

The main ceremony

Taking the blessed water

On the way to the beach

The end of the ceremony: in the sea

A few weeks later, on August 10 we celebrated Saraswati Day. This is a very special celebration in which the Balinese give thanks for the gift of knowledge, for the ability to understand human nature, to write and to read. We got up that day leaving our bedroom to find incense burning on all our bookshelves at home. Cuca’s office was equally scented and we were recommended not to write by hand and seriously forbidden to erase anything written.  Schools are closed on that day and students pray for the success in their studies. 

On the morning of August 24 Cuca was a very busy restaurant. Our Balinese staff was waving dozens of beautiful offerings made of coconut leaves. We soon found out that we were celebrating "Tumpek Landep", or the Day of the Iron. Originally this day was about giving thanks for the swords but it has evolved to all things man-made from metal: computers, kitchen equipment, cars… That afternoon when we briefly left Cuca for a meeting we were amazed by the wonderful decoration on our cars and smiled every time we came across to other cars in the road similarly decorated. How nice look the streets of Bali with so many mobile decorations!

The front of our car

It is not easy to find out why you are supposed to do or not do certain things on certain days. Balinese take these beliefs in such a natural way that when you ask them why this or that they just look at you surprised at your question. Trust me, no matter how much you ask, you don’t get a straight answer, they simply tell you “don’t worry, just make sure you don’t erase anything today”, what leaves you with no option but to follow…  Life in Bali is a constant enigma. 

PART 1: Bali, all about religion

Religion in Bali is present everywhere and every day. It is literally a way of life where ceremonies mark every single step a Balinese takes and every event he or she experiences.

Hinduism came to Indonesia from India in the 5th century, was first replaced by Buddhism and later in the 14th century by Islam. However, Bali was the only part of Indonesia to remain Hindu and despite the foreign influence generated by tourism still until now Balinese people worship an elaborate array of deities: of fertility, fire, water, earth, sun, the mountains and the sea, gods and devils…

Several types of Canang

No matter where you are in Bali, you only need to look around to see signs of religion in every corner: the “canang” or traditional baskets reign over the island filled with the most unusual gifts to the Gods such as a candy, a tangerine, some frangipani flowers, a banana or a salak fruit, some leaves, even a cigarette! Balinese start each day by buying these items in their traditional markets, they then arrange them nicely in coconut-leaf baskets and finally they pray while placing them in strategic locations around houses or workplaces. These offerings are meant to thank the good spirits and appease the evil ones, keeping the balance between good and bad in the island.

Teeth filing ceremony

Apart from these daily rituals, ceremonies are a major aspect of the Balinese lifestyle and culture. From birth to death the Balinese celebrate a variety of milestones or rites of passage that they believe will guide the soul through the numerous stages of life. Some of these celebrations can be really shocking from a Western perspective, as it is the tooth-filing ceremony. This very significant ritual marks the step from puberty to adulthood for both males and females and it consists of filing down the canine teeth (the pointy ones) until they are even with the other teeth around them as they are considered animal-like and getting them shortened symbolizes the smoothing out of the animal aspects in a human's personality. If for whatever reason a person has not undergone this ceremony by the time he/she dies, then it will have to take place prior to his/her cremation, as the Balinese believe that the gods may mistake a human for a savage animal if his/her teeth are not filed.

Until recently, Kevin and I were exposed to religion in Bali just by watching the locals in their immaculate ceremonial clothes buying or preparing the offerings, walking to the temples, praying to holy trees... Or as we waited anxiously in traffic for a cremation procession to enter or leave a temple. Or when we witnessed from time to time the taking over of a beach by a group of worshippers to release their offerings into the ocean. But, as I promise to reveal in my next post, religion is now also part of Cuca and of our daily tasks and accomplishments. 

It’s time to go, Cuca’s dining room is filling up and dinner service begins!

Being a restaurateur

Although I have lots and lots of things to tell you about after my long silence, today I would love to share with you how does it feel to have your own restaurant. If you have been reading my blog from the beginning, you will know well the ups and downs of this year long journey. You will also remember the array of little details and great people involved in the making of Cuca so you will be able to perfectly understand me when I tell you that the opening night was truly magic. To see our guests walk through, touch, feel and taste everything we had so thoughtfully developed gives you the utmost feeling of accomplishment. The room around us that night was silently screaming “You made it!”.

Cuca´s first night

On that first evening we left Cuca exhausted but smiling and above all determined to tackle the second day of Cuca’s life with a long list of points that needed our attention and improvement: a bulb here and there, better signs for our guests to easily find the main entrance, a different selection of flowers, bigger candles for the garden and smaller ones for the oil burners, different lighting in the dining room, lower volume in the cocktail bar…

Kevin and I do pretty good getting things done but it is overwhelming to see that for every tick accomplished we discover another 5 new “to dos”. And whenever something seems under control, it just suddenly slips out of your hands and you need to reassess the situation all over again. One of the biggest challenges in the day is to combine our marketing efforts to get Cuca known with the daily operations of the restaurant. We know we have to do whatever possible to attract guests but at the same time we need to make sure we are ready to impress them so they return. Another tricky part is to be strict with our staff so they perform up to our expectations but at the same time to make sure they are happy and in good spirits to provide a heartfelt service for many years to come. You know that this is always difficult but it becomes a real challenge when you take into account that all our staff is new so we don’t count with the loyalty of any senior employees.

In a nutshell, to be a restaurateur feels like climbing a mountain every morning. You start full of energy and motivation, get going and easily skip the first obstacles, continue farther and start feeling a bit tired, go some more and begin feeling the pain and the weariness and when you are about to desperate…  you see the peak (the first guest of the evening) and forget how exhausted you are. You are at the top and feel great while admiring the view. By the end of dinner service is time to slowly pack up and descend… get home and feel a mixture of accomplishment and tiredness. And fall asleep realizing that tomorrow another mountain awaits you.

So we moved in… and then?

You may wonder what is it like to move into a brand-new restaurant and how do you start organizing yourself when all you see ahead is tasks to be done and people asking you what to do next. Well, in this entry I want to share with you what we have lived this couple of weeks and how are we are managing to keep the boat afloat.

Service team attacking their dining room for the first time

In theory the trick is to meticulously plan every step, although planning in the middle of so much activity is definitely a challenge, and so many things come up every other minute that plans vanish as we make them. For example, the first task to tackle seemed to be cleaning, although with what, where and when was not so easy to determine. Imagine a space still full of all types of workers (plumbers, electricians, aluminum specialists, glass contractors, painters, carpenters, etc.), all busy trying to finish up their jobs; on top of that, picture a restaurant made out of materials that look great but fragile and 50 people eager to jump on them and make them shine. We smelled trouble right away: if we armed our staff with all the cleaning tools we had, we would end up without cleaning tools and with a brand new restaurant seriously damaged. The solution? We got our management to coordinate with all the workers the status of their job, schedule when we could start cleaning and with what products to avoid any damage on the floors, glasses, doors, wood, etc.  Furthermore, we divided the team in smaller groups easier to manage. The next challenge we encountered was realizing that 50 people work pretty fast and jobs were completed faster than it took us to come up with new tasks… 

Briefing about receiving our first orders

A simultaneous challenge was the urgency of getting the office ready. We could no longer work from home as the cleaning and organizing required our full attention so we had to get the office at Cuca operative as soon as possible to start placing our first orders. In Bali every step is an adventure and trust me, to place an order is worth an entire novel.The system we had developed was straight forward: orders to be placed on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 12 to 2pm and deliveries to be received Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from 9 to 12pm. We were so naive…Just to give you an idea, we are working with 32 suppliers and each of them has to be contacted through a specific way (some only accept orders via sms, some via the phone, some via email...) and they deliver “when they are nearby”. Fifty per cent of the products we ordered were “indefinitely” out of stock (the suppliers had no idea of when they would be available) and it seems that most prices change daily (depending on the price of petrol, if it is Ramadan or any other seasonal festivity, and some other factors we fail to grasp). To cap it all, most of the suppliers did not understand the names of the products we wanted to order as we were using either the English or the Javanese name (apparently different from the Balinese one) and since our staff was not trained yet on the recipes, they could not help us to find the right translation. 

The "receiving" drama

This process was totally a gamble. We were so afraid about the products we were going to receive… So the moment arrived when the first product was delivered: grapes from Australia. Fantastic. Cuca uses exclusively Indonesian products… We looked at the label in disbelieve and just when we were about to lose it, the magic of Bali took place:  in the midst of our upset explanations to the supplier repeating that, as mentioned when we placed our order, all products delivered had to be local, he, without any bad gesture whatsoever, took the grapes back and said he would come back "some time later" with local grapes. Similar situations took place non-stop during the entire week. I would say that 60% of the suppliers got the product wrong but each of them had no problem taking it back and either bring the right one later or tell us where we could get what we were looking for. Unbelievable. 

So receiving was a major milestone for us:  we learned the local names, confirmed suppliers and get our chillers organized. While placing and receiving orders, we were moving all the equipment and utensils from the store rooms to Cuca to get everything ready for the next step: production. I must say this is a piece of cake for Kevin so, luckily for us, no drama on this field. 

Cooks reviewing production for the day

In the office, once we got over the ordering we focused on communication and human resource matters: keys (there were just everywhere!), phones, air conditioner timers, internet, shifts, staff catering, uniforms, laundry, etc. Hundred little things necessary to get started. Regarding the service, we continue facing challenges as there are still quite a few details to be completed so a final cleaning has not yet been possible. Furthermore, we did not want our furniture to be damaged with the works still taking place so we have not unpacked yet. Fortunately, we are almost done and next week our service team will be able to shine by making our dining room as pretty as we dreamed of. 

I must confess that I feel dizzy when I think of everything ahead of us but looking back I understand that the secret is to take a step at the time. Tomorrow: cocktail production and tasting!

Cuca miracle

This is the longest I have been silent since I started this blog but my excuse could not be more solid. These last few weeks have been extreme and made full use of all my time and neurons. However, they have been absolutely unforgettable. It is funny how aware Kevin and I are of these magical days. We live every minute fully conscious that this dream is slowly becoming true right in front of our astonished eyes.

There were countless steps that took us here and along this way we kind of forgot that we won many of the little fights that we picked on to accomplish each detail. One by one we painstakingly tackled so many tasks that after a while you stop seeing the forest and lose count of the trees. Now the trees are through the art of magic being delivered to our front door and we spend our days unwrapping, polishing, labeling, searching in our dream the spot where we had imagined them and finally placing them there. A bit more to the right, yes, there!

So I couldn't stop myself and here I am trying to share with you this mundane wonder. I am not talking about the grand opening, or our first guest. I mean an extremely intimate moment in which you plainly see how thousands of hours of your time and sweat start to make sense and images that were somewhere in your mind are now real and in front of you. Cuca is made of so many conversations, sleepless nights, arguments, loving contributions, late night decisions and even accidental discoveries that it is truly magic to see how all these unconnected events embrace each other to make up something that for us is nothing short of a miracle.

That is what we experienced a couple of evenings ago when after the whole day busy at the restaurant site fixing this and that we realized it was already dark outside and all our staff had left. Taking a break from the chaos, we went out to see for the first time an almost finished Cuca, beautifully lighted and glowing like a new-born star. Only then we saw the forest, not the trees, and the feeling of having made it to this point and seeing with our own eyes this piece of our hearts now out there, real and reachable, is something that we will never forget and will forever take with us.

The moral we learned: try hard enough, it is possible.

Nomad Training

Since 80% of our time now is occupied with our new staff, I guess there is no better topic choice for this post than our staff training.

As in all businesses, the first weeks for new employees are spent learning about their new company and training how to perform the tasks required.  The great challenge in our case is to conduct this training without having a restaurant ready where we could meet all our staff at once and go through all the topics they need to know and master before we open. But as they say, a challenge always gives you an opportunity to be creative and that is what we are doing.

Training at home

The first two weeks with no other space the training had to be held at home so we decided to focus on a small group: our management team. We introduced them to Cuca, the concept, the philosophy, our values, etc. Next step was to start reviewing and developing the systems necessary for everyday operations. Our intention was for the key team to be involved in this step as they need to understand and agree with the structure of the restaurant to be able to genuinely embrace it and explain it to their teams as something they themselves believe in.

Exam at the beach

For the third week we managed to get a small meeting room so we divided all our staff in two groups (kitchen and service) and got our managers to train these two groups on the topics we had previously trained them on. Kitchen trained on Monday and Wednesday and Service on Tuesday and Thursday. They had a day off in between to be able to study what they had learned during the lesson days. Friday was a big day: exams for everyone to make sure they were assimilating the content given. Is it very obvious I have been a teacher before? :) You can’t believe how handy my experience comes in…

Since we did not have a space to put 45 people, we held the exam at the beach (oh Bali…. ) and once the examination was out of the way, we spent some time getting to know each other and teaching our staff techniques to work as a team through funny  games.  A well-deserved break after a week full of theoretical lessons.

The egg toss, one of the games we played to practice team-building

This week we face yet another challenge. Our contractor says we are still one week away from getting in the restaurant so how do we keep our staff motivated to continue learning without being able to practice? Remember that the type of persons working in hospitality are very active people, used to a quite physical job. To keep them sitting down in a room for very long while listening non-stop to someone’s speech will eventually stop being effective so we came out with a new plan for this week: we have rented a function room and set stations all around it. We will divide the class in groups that will rotate from station to station to meet a different leader who will explain one single topic for 30 minutes. When the gong goes off, the group rotates to a new station. In this way participants will be exposed to a new experience every 30 minutes: the space will change, the students will have to physically move, the teacher is different, the topic a new one. The idea is to keep the family awake!

Well, we have plenty of ideas for this week but we really hope we can finally have a restaurant for the next one as we are all eager to move in to our new home!