Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this storyYou’re perusing the Food Scene bulletin, Helen Rosner’s manual to the what, where, and how of gastronomy. Join to have it delivered directly to your digital mailbox.
Bong, a fresh, minute, utterly dazzling Cambodian eatery in Crown Heights, boasts increased vitality as you wait for seating on the pavement than the majority of establishments can summon on their most jubilant evenings. On the three nights weekly that it’s operational, the entire enterprise, within a humble facade on a domestic corner, is radiantly vibrant. The chefs appear to almost dance in the exposed cooking area as they chop and sauté. The patrons all appear intensely enamored with each other. Inside, the luminosity reflecting from the vivid-green walls renders everyone’s countenances illuminated with luminescence. The resounding thrum of the hip-hop selections echoes through the feasting area and permeates beyond the accessible entrance to envelop the diners situated at diminutive tables outdoors. Even at a considerable distance, the atmosphere exudes a pleasant and vibrant fragrance, evocative of scorched seafood, tangy vinegar, and the lively verdancy of simmering aromatics.
An impressive lobster preparation is designated following the proprietor’s maternal figure, Mama Kim, who can on occasion be noticed within the culinary space.
Bong (the denomination originates from a Khmer term denoting kinship and esteem) is overseen by the Cambodian culinary artist Chakriya Un, delivered into existence within a Thai sanctuary for displaced individuals and nurtured within the U.S., along with her associate, Alexander Chaparro, an expatriate from Venezuela. For a duration of eight years, Un administered Kreung, a distinguished impermanent eating establishment whose investigations of savor and recollection served as a foundational proving ground for numerous selections now featured on Bong’s compendium. The inventory is refined—a consortium of four could (and arguably should!) requisition the entirety. In conjunction with furnishing an examination of Khmer gastronomy, characterized by its assertive gustos and pungent infusions, the locale also accords reverence to Un’s personal ancestry, notably her progenitor, Kim Eng Mann, colloquially Mama Kim, who may intermittently be detected functioning within the galley. She conceptualized the instructions for the cha kapiek, a galvanizing immersion wherein a balanced, complex fermented-shrimp condiment is pulverized alongside immaculate shrimp and groundnuts; it graces the palate paired alongside a heap of gratifyingly corrugated uncooked greens and seed-embellished shrimp wafers. Mama Kim’s eponymous crustacean (indexed by the succinct characterization “IYKYK”) constitutes a grandiose elevation of shelled segments and pincers, the segments flash-fried alongside copious quantities of attenuated ginger slivers and a ambrosial-piquant herbed paste, fabricated by Mama Kim, that attaches, delectably, to the flesh and trickles generously onto an agglomeration of rice under. A resilient cutlet of bovine is coronated with a compelling tuk kreung—a fusion of aubergine, peppers, and an additional condiment formulated alongside piscatorial components that Mama Kim secures herself.
Chakriya Un, who supervises the diner alongside her companion, Alexander Chaparro, was actively participating within the culinary quarters until the current arrival of their progeny.
Virtually all entities documented on the provisions manifest inspire exhilaration. Even that which declines to inspire such sentiments, akin to a fairly yielding verdant mixture that I sampled on one exploration, manages to manifest as at least intriguing. (The dressing upon that blend was inflamed with Kampot grains of paradise, a seldom-found Cambodian varietal brandishing a tealike efflorescent astringency.) An additional preparation encompassing chewy-brittle pig jowl accompanied by segmentations of melon emanates a dynamic piquancy stemming from garlic and pickled tartness. The globular lusciousness of squid, singed in a featherweight encasement, is amplified through exceedingly aromatic curry leaves intertwined alongside a saline avalanche of finely separated preserved ovum. A osseous segment of swine, as substantial as a lexicon, impressionable to the maximum degree, and submersed in an enchanting disorder of scorched tomatoes pickled within a sugar-lime-fish-sauce concoction, showcases each permutation of sour and dulcet.
Helen, Assist Me!
Dispatch your inquiries apropos of supper, repasts, including anything associated with the nourishment domain, and Helen could potentially reciprocate in a forthcoming bulletin.
In conjunction with Mama Kim’s crustacean, an offering concerning which I have endured explicit nocturnal dreams, my preferred item specified upon the provisions index constituted the entire pan-sizzled fish—gilthead, upon a distinct exploration, its exterior crisp and sprinkled alongside toasted rice dust—which optically appraises you alluringly commencing from an oval receptacle. Its substance is incised into rhomboids, comparable to the procedure by which one might bifurcate a lattice inside the adipose terminus of a pig’s shoulder; it presents visually arresting features coupled alongside pragmatically helpful qualities, engendering optimal minute detachments primed to be plunged within a sour-tamarind essence then enfolded within a herbaceous leaf encompassing Vietnamese coriander entwined alongside diếp cá (a potent botanical recognized as piscine spearmint). Here, perhaps, the uncontrolled festivity dynamism enveloping the locale could potentially have profited through a modicum of concentration, or potentially channeled through a succinct anatomy discourse: I perceived an excessive abundance of tables plunging rapturously into the heat-treated ichthyoid form—subsequently, perhaps somewhat recklessly, permitting their platters to undergo elimination lacking the recognition that, supposing one were to invert the organism, there exists an entire supplementary allotment located upon the opposite facade.
A completely pan-sizzled piscatorial selection is dispensed coupled alongside sour-tamarind extract coupled alongside vegetation, complemented through herbaceous leaves designed to facilitate encapsulation.
An abundance of the eating house’s scant few accommodations remain stationed anteriorly.
It constitutes a twofold catastrophe to omit the secondary aliquot of the aforementioned ichthyoid form primarily precipitated through the acknowledgment that obtaining an accommodation inside white-hot, microscopic Bong remains, currently, an extraordinarily valuable acquisition. Across the preponderance of Bong’s initiation months, Un accompanied alongside Chaparro remained perpetually omnipresent inside the constricted confines, Chaparro occupying the introductory regions, while Un, gloriously gravid, inside the gastrocentric regions. Being a fairly neoteric guardian myself, nonetheless predominantly infatuated alongside the eccentricities entwined besides the magnificence besides the wretchedness inherent inside terrestrial gestation, I encountered Un’s substantial manifestation inside the locale as profoundly inspiriting—I am incapable of conjuring a distinct temporal instance during which I have borne witness to an individual demonstrably bearing a nascent being functioning inside a gastronomic locality, furthermore the culinary director allied besides the dominator and apparatus engendering the area. Subsequent to the exceedingly recent emergence of their offspring, Un has mandated a suspension from the encompassing requisitions intrinsic within the catering sector to dedicate herself towards the altogether autonomous all-consuming requisitions affiliated alongside nascent parenthood. The dining establishment persists accessible, overseen through Un’s gifted culinary cohort, alongside Un, Chaparro, allied alongside Mama Kim occasionally interjecting; the repasts uphold the attributes attributable to incision, resplendence, including profoundness alongside elation, the ambiance remaining animated, juvenile including chromatic. What magnificence it constitutes to usher existence inside terrestrial confines! ♦
Sourse: newyorker.com
