Barang

At the turn of the century, I didn’t know I wanted to write about food. I was planning an exit route from advertising, so I started doing screenwriting courses. Just like every other tosser with enough spare cash for a PowerBook G3 ‘Pismo’ and a desire to be seen with it in Coffee Republic. ‘Colossal twat’ was a phrase I guess I knew, but had yet to realise how significant it would become in my life.

There was a screenplay. I even finished it. A four-hander that bestrode that difficult line between monumental pretension and emetic whimsy. It was so far sub-Richard Curtis as to be immeasurable. Even if you understood how much I hated his films. A that point in my life, I was in ‘an unhappy place’... but I still can’t explain why I sublimated it into unspeakable dreck instead of doing something more positive for humanity…. Like climbing a university clock tower with a hunting rifle.

The terrible thing was that I set this anguished tripe in the old Victorian pub in Borough Market. I worked near there at the time. My protagonist (female chef) would have a flat, one room, semicircle of windows … up above the trains. (You see what I mean? Curtissy.)

I think it was probably 5 years later that I finally saw Bridget Jones. Late at night and utterly smashed. I remember howling at the screen. My one screenplay had been completely derivative of something that didn’t even exist yet … and would be shite when it did.

Anyway. Her flat is now Barang. A ‘Cambodian inspired’ residency by a little team out of Kiln, about which le tout Londres will not STFU.

I was greeted at the door by a chap in a knit waistcoat and a flat cap. I don’t know why this troubled me. I suppose north of the river and heading east, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d had a crocheted balaclava or a neon plastic Stetson. But in a Victorian pub, in a bloody fruit market? I went into a sort of site-specific brain lock. Was this ironic? Witty? Fashionable? Did he have a cold head? I was lost. If everyone had been wearing one, I could have concluded it was part of the brand, but no. The rest of the crew went teasingly bare-headed.

God, there were a lot of them too. All extremely handsome and all practicing that thing you get in pop-ups, where everyone looks like they’re really enjoying being ‘part of something’ - rather than actually working in it. The service was great. Warm and friendly, but informal to the point of melée. In the end, I just decided to go with the flow, that wearing a felt hat indoors was somehow unhygienic, but that he’d probably forgotten to take it off when he came in.

There are a couple of cocktails on the menu. The ‘Night Market’ is a very passable margarita skewed with longan, smoked green chilli, Thai basil and lime, all of which is pleasant, though running a little sweet. The ‘Bassac Lane’ combines white rum with tamarind and makrut lime, which is then lengthened with soda and served in a thick, chilled beer mug. The rest of the meal absolutely defied any attempt to get on with wine, so I should probably have stayed with the Bassac Lane. It was cool, refreshing, and I’d even have considered dropping the rum, if it meant I could pack in three or four virgin versions.

This was dinner with a distinct narrative arc. Lots of excitement in the first act, solid second, but kind of petering out toward the finale. Obviously there was a short pitch presentation, enjoining the hopeless diner to choose many things and share them, to start at the beginning and work through. Though obviously disclaiming that the kitchen may not necessarily wish to cleave to such weary bourgeois conventions.

Apparently, Cornish bluefin tuna is now a thing, so there were slim slices, laminated with compressed melon. A cheery little combination that raised up by a coconut sauce ‘split’ with a virulent makrut lime oil and strong hints of tik trei, the Cambodian fish sauce that was going to develop as a strong B-story throughout. For some reason, I’d spent £30 on Kiehl’s post-shave moisturiser on my way through King’s Cross. Now I wished I hadn’t. The sauce was more emollient, more soothing, organic, smelled a bit nicer, and was about half the price.

Prahok ktis is a pork mince and coconut dip. We know this because it comes in a small bowl and tastes sensationally rich and intense. ‘Khmer crudites’ were interesting though. I speak neither French nor Khmer, but I deduce it means ‘Lumps of vegetable that you can’t balance mince on’. Wedges of apple and aubergine cannot be employed to ‘hold’ a dip from any angle, nor does their surface encourage adherence. I tried plastering the mince onto the side of it with a fork, like a cowboy builder cramming filler into a collapsing wall, but I just ended up wearing it.

Grilled hogget chops with Cham spices and burnt tomato relish were a triumph. The meat was pink and running with all kinds of juices. The marinade was life altering but it was the fat that did for me. A broad belt of it round the outside. Huge, dark, uncompromising and just a bit foreboding vc, like those mysterious lengths of shed remould truck tyre you see at the edge of the hard shoulder. God, I’d have sold my Nan into serfdom for another piece of that.

Things were getting pretty ‘animal forward’ and I’m not going to tell you I don’t love it that way. Laab of venison could be as dry as hell, but not if combined - it felt about 50/50 - with pork fat. Hell yes! Now I can see what the fuss is about. God! Can you imagine how good morbidly obese deer would taste? Utterly beyond … it would rewire your amygdalae. We’d eat no other meat. We’d just ride round the countryside, hunting them down. Too slow to flee. Too fat to hide behind trees. Just follow them on a quad bike for a mile or two until they dropped from exhaustion and cook ‘em with Khmer spices and wild pepper leaves.

Sadly, the third act denouement fell short of stellar. A whole deep-fried turmeric sea bream looked ‘grammably good. The tik trei was back. And the Khmer herbs. But it had spent just a few seconds too long in the fryer. I’d be an arse to say it was overcooked, but it was fully done down to the bone. Deep-frying whole fish is a crap-shoot at the best of times, so they’re brave to try it in a pop-up kitchen. I just kind of wished I’d quit at the laab.

Look. I’m being here critical here. Was the food good? Apart from a few ‘technicals’, yes … lovely. The initial courses have a kind of shock-and-awe effect ‘Jesus … these flavours are novel, powerful … amazing.’ But as the courses keep coming, the same patterns repeat.

Like most multi-dish … 3 ’sizes’ of course… sharing … no particular order ‘concepts’, I find myself really enjoying the small stuff, but that things run out of steam when they feel they need to come up with ‘mains’.

Did I have a good time? Yes. The staff were lovely. I was well looked after.

Does it have what it takes to become a full-on restaurant?

That’s becoming an increasingly hard question. If you took this model and polished it up a bit, the result would not be somewhere you’d spend a whole evening and a lot of money. You’d go, have a few small plates and a cocktail, and move on. When we take another culture’s street or bar food, we can reinterpret it, re-present it, but perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised when it sneakily reverts to type. I mean … I don’t think you should be forced by the Authenticity Cadres, to eat, sitting on a plastic stool outside in the market … but I also find it hard to see how one could evolve it into something that would justify the markup to pay West End rent. As things get tougher in the industry, this is going to be a tougher and tougher step to take.

I loved the soundtrack though. Back-to-back 90s House. The last time I heard CeCe Peniston and Steve “Silk” Hurley, it was on a MiniDisc… sitting in Coffee Republic and hammering a PowerBook.