Published on May 07, 2005

Mrs Somprid Ballard has a broad smile and she smiles a lot. Well, she has ample reason to smile – her restaurant, Le Jardin de Thailandaise, serves some of the best Thai food in Africa.

Her partner, Frank, a former architect who worked in Thailand and Southeast Asia, has left a distinct mark on the Thai culinary scene in West Africa.

Somprid’s smile no doubt broadened considerably when, four months after it opened in 1999, her restaurant had already recouped all of its initial expenses.

“Customers here spend around US$50 dollars (Bt2,000) for two at our restaurants. You cannot make that kind of money in Thailand,” she added.

Her restaurant is nicely decorated with motifs and artefacts from Thailand, including items from her family’s personal collections. The ambience is truly Thai.

Guests are mainly from area embassies, tourists and well-to-do Senegalese who have developed a fondness for Thai cuisine. “They visited Thailand or learnt about the country from their friends. They want to try out the new cuisine,” she said.

It has taken her some time to adjust the taste and presentation of Thai cuisine to suit the palate of Senegalese restaurant goers.

They do not like oily food, especially in dishes prepared with coconut cream. When preparing a curry, she said, she only uses diluted coconut cream.

Since it is a family restaurant, everybody helps out. She still cooks every day, with two assistants in the kitchen.

So whenever guests complain about the food, whether it is too hot or too sour, someone will be there to deal with it. On the preceding weekend, she said, the restaurant took in about Bt70,000 each day.

She says it is very easy to open a restaurant here, and making a profit is not difficult because there are very few Asian restaurants, and those that are tend to serve Chinese food.

Ingredients are also easy to find. Some are available locally, such as lemon grass, ginger, coriander and other vegetables and nuts. Senegal is the world’s largest peanut exporter. The only thing she purchases from Thailand is shrimp paste, a must-have for Thai cooking.

One thing she would never compromise at her restaurant is the quality of rice. “We use good hom mali rice, and it is free with every dish you order,” she said, adding that offering free rice is a very Thai thing to do. Africans prefer broken rice imported from Thailand, Vietnam, India and Indonesia, which are competing for expanding markets throughout the 54 African countries.

She said she was aware of the Thai government’s campaign to promote Thai food overseas, but said she does not need any help.

Currently, as part of ongoing promotions, qualified overseas Thai restaurants will be designated as “Thai Select” restaurants by the Export Promotion Department of the Commerce Ministry.

“To me, being a Thai Select restaurant would not help. The restaurant has hundreds of regular clients who drop by at my restaurant every now and then,” she said.

Not far from her restaurant, Bandit Hoichan, 36, from Buri Ram, is also cooking, but for a different purpose. Bandit, better known as Khieu, is the personal cook of the Japanese ambassador in Senegal.

He is one of two dozen or so Thai-born “Japanese” cooks employed by the Japanese government to serve selected Japanese envoys stationed throughout the world.

He has lived in Dakar for the past five years and has prepared thousands of meals, including many for high-level guests who dined at the ambassador’s residence. His latest guest was the director general of Unesco, Koichiro Matsuura, who was here to celebrate World Press Freedom Day.

Khieu’s life journey has been an interesting one; having little formal education and with experience only in Japanese kitchens, he now earns a PhD-level salary.

He has worked in different Japanese kitchens and learned how to use various Japanese knives, as well as how to de-bone fish, and grill and boil vegetables and meats.

After he was chosen to be a personal chef, he underwent a three-month intensive training program at a Japanese restaurant in Bangkok, under a contract with the Japanese Foreign Ministry.

He learned how to serve Japanese dishes as well as different ways to arrange the menu for guests, including Japanese table and dining etiquette. Lessons in spoken Japanese related to cuisine and other cultural matters were also stressed.

At this moment, Khieu has friends working in various Japanese embassies around the world. It is well known that Thai-born Japanese cooks are much in demand, especially in high-end markets in major cities of the world such as New York, London and Paris. Young Thai teenagers from the Northeast, who have spent six to 10 years in Japanese kitchens in Thailand, can fetch several thousand dollars a month. Those with the ability to speak English get higher salaries.

Khieu knows every nook and cranny of Dakar’s fresh markets, especially places where he can obtain fresh vegetables and fish. “We have to know the time when the trawlers arrive so you can get the freshest fish. We can prepare sashimi right there,” he said. Thai embassy staff also benefit from his culinary skills, he clandestinely cooks for them several times, he confessed with a wide smile.

He says he can prepare at least 200 Japanese dishes, including fresh soba (buckwheat noodle) and fresh tofu. “Well, we have fresh soybeans here and we make our own tofu and other goodies,” he said.

Khieu says he would like to stay on in his position as a private cook as it is a secure job and he and his wife, who lives with him in Dakar, enjoy a comfortable lifestyle and have ample opportunities to travel.

Kavi Chongkittavorn

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