I’m a restaurateur. Humble. Poor. Struggling to make ends meet. As transparent as it gets. I spend each and every dime I earn on building my brand. Why? To enhance the experience I give you! My customer! My consumer!
They say “customer is king!” In the society we live in today, that truly is its makers mark. That’s fortunate in some situations, and not as much so in others.
Why did I get into this business? Because I love to feed people and let them revel in the existential food experiences that I have had. Food is all about sharing. And if I can bring joy to someone through food, I shall rest in eternal serenity. Why is it such a difficult purpose in the city we live in now? I believe I’ve unravelled one part of the answer, at least.
As subjective food culture is, most of us understand that it can never truly cater to all and sundry. I curate a menu of 60 dishes, not everyone is going to like all 60. I understand that. Most of us rational restaurant people do. I can walk into my kitchen at the restaurant and cook any single one of those dishes, recreating it the way it’s meant to be, or with my own personal touch to it.
Coming to the power shower moment now; social media today is clearly such a powerful opinion maker in today’s times. Truth be told, I’m all about freedom of expression. I say whatever the f*@% I want to, whenever I want to. No filter. Again, I’m no expert on most things worldly. I am extremely social and vocal, so maybe my opinions on things influence certain numbers. Though I always encourage people to experience things on their own, and not on my very intimate palate of measure. We empower people in today’s modern society to be able to be influencers without even understanding the strength that wields. Fair, or unfair, such is life today. I, for one, have resisted the temptation to join the social media bandwagon as yet.
I had a funny experience where a large format blog wrote an article about my new space. It wasn’t negative at all, but there were some questionable comments made, I reached out to them to understand better the basis of those comments. As aforementioned, I’m all for freedom of speech, but if you have the ability or power to influence 2,00,000 people, then please send someone more qualified than a 21 year old who doesn’t know the difference between salmon roe and caviar to “review” my space. Similarly, food is subjective, as I mentioned earlier. You must be open to all flavors or seasons to be able to fully and properly critique a space! Don’t tell me you don’t eat certain subjects, or don’t enjoy certain flavours! Come with an open mind. Don’t come saying “I don’t like sweet” or “I don’t like spicy” or “I don’t like sour.” Don’t like the dish? No problem! I’ll give you something else you will like!
The challenge arises when we empower these people to influence our opinions, where a majority of them don’t know how to get in the kitchen and turn on the chulha.
So two notes to end this tirade. One, please let’s change our mindset and let our own experiences define our opinions entirely. And two, if anyone has figured out who is behind this soliloquy (and I’m sure a lot of you have), bring it to the kitchen and let’s have it out!
I’m not a chef. I’m just an angry guy who believes in freedom of speech, yet likes to judge things based on his own experiences.
And now my power shower rant has cleansed me of my anger.
Truly yours,
Mark Ko Kia Brown
‘Pandora’s Box: Unlocked by DSSC’ is an anonymous series of 5 F&B industry superstars who disclose what it is about the industry that irks, nay, annoys the #&*$ out of them. You can read the other articles here, here and here.
