POPULAR CHEF – Part 23

CONFESSIONS OF A GLOBAL GYPSY

By Dr. Chandana (Chandi) Jayawardena DPhil

President – Chandi J. Associates Inc. Consulting, Canada

Founder & Administrator – Global Hospitality Forum

chandij@sympatico.ca

Bentota ‘Killer’s’ Annual Party

In 1975, there were two competing medical doctors providing services to ten beach resort hotels in Bentota, Aluthgama and Beruwala areas. The hotels contacted one of them when any guest needed medical attention. Both these doctors were general practitioners and they liked servicing the hotels as it was more lucrative than looking after the locals. One of them was gentle and the other was a bit rough in terms of bedside manners. Therefore, he was nicknamed ‘Bentota Killer’ by one of the German Resident Tour Leaders.

Although the so-called ‘killer’ could be a little rough with guests, his Public Relations with the hotel executives and the front office staff, was excellent. He treated the European tour leaders, hotel managers, executives and staff free. As a result, the hotel receptionists always called him first when a guest needed a doctor. He made a lot of money looking after tourists and built a beautiful large house by the Bentota River. Once a year, during the off season, he threw a big party to thank all hotel executives for their referrals. This was the most popular party in the area, which usually began late but continued till the early hours of next morning. We looked forward to this party where all hoteliers were able to meet our growing hotel community in the area and have a good time.

Friends with Tour Leaders

In the mid-1970s, resort hotels in Sri Lanka depended heavily on back-to-back group business that came from the major tour operators in Europe. These companies used chartered flights and assigned some employees as resident managers, tour leaders and tour guides for the whole season in Sri Lanka. The hotels provided them complimentary board and lodging and treated them like royalty as any complaints from them meant lower prices for the following year’s room booking contracts.

I quickly realized that it made good sense to have a friendly relationship with tour leaders from the first day of their stay. Such PR was helpful in using any complaints about food from tourists in their groups to opportunities to provide meals suiting their tastes and ensure customer satisfaction. Most of these guests were on full-board and stayed for two weeks in one seaside resort before going on a one week round-trip to the ancient cities in the cultural triangle. To avoid repetition it was important to have a rotating menu with 28 different lunch and dinner menus to cover a two-week period. Variety was the key, and weekly buffets were usually popular with these groups.

The simple type of PR I learnt to interact with tour leaders during my time at Bentota Beach Hotel, helped me throughout my career. My PR style was to become friends with people who were important for business (tour leaders, local community and trade union leaders), before unforeseen challenges crop up. Due to my friendship with some of the tour leaders, I was at times invited to their parties and excursions. However, I wasn’t the only hotel executive with such PR. A few other hotel executives took these relationships to different levels by marrying foreign tour guides.

Brochure Photo Shoot

No hotel school or university/college can ever teach all ‘you should know’ aspects of hotel keeping. Although, I spent a couple of decades as a hospitality educator, I know in hospitality management, nothing is better than on the job learning. For an example, in 1975, I had zero understanding of the objectives and process of producing a hotel brochure. The Manager of Bentota Beach Hotel, Malin Hapugoda, asked me one day if I could organize the buffet and food display for a photo shoot. When he told me that this was for a new brochure, I was a bit nervous but excited to participate and learn.

Working with the photographers I learnt a few new things. Aspects such as special lighting, background props, colour combinations and even a little bit of choreography with tourists were all interesting. When the lead photographer asked me to model for the brochure I was thrilled!

Promoting Sri Lankan Food

After my brochure assignment, when the Executive Chef was away on business, the Hotel Manager gave me another assignment. I felt that Malin Hapugoda was testing me and I was determined to impress. At that time most fixed, à la carte and buffet menus at hotels here had a very limited choice of local dishes. In the recent past, Sri Lanka has emerged as a major culinary destination thanks to a wide range of spices and some great chefs. The mid 1970s were very different with regard to introducing Sri Lanka’s amazing food to tourists and Bentota Beach wanted to make a difference. I was asked to begin a weekly lunch buffet serving only Lankan dishes.

As the Executive Chef was away, I was given total freedom to make this happen. I enjoyed leading this assignment with help from the kitchen brigade. I had a hand in everything – planning the menu, purchasing buffet utensils, creating buffet decorations, and also making a slight change to the service staff uniforms. In providing local cuisine at hotels, it is essential to strike a balance between authentic dishes and taste buds of tourists. Therefore, I also consulted my foreign tour leader friends to get their feedback during a trial buffet. With their input, we adjusted the spiciness of certain dishes and eventually, included two offerings – traditionally spicy and moderately mild. That worked well and the new weekly buffet became popular.

This experience led me to improve my knowledge of Sri Lankan cuisine (which was not a subject I did well in at the Ceylon Hotel School). Eventually I became a master in the trade and in the 1980s and 1990s, as the Guest Executive Chef, I organized five major Sri Lankan food festivals in five countries. These large-scale food and culture events were held at Furama Intercontinental in Hong Kong, Goodwood Park Hotel in Singapore, Oman Sheraton, Forte Crest in Guyana and Le Meridien in Jamaica.

In later years, the first two books I wrote and translated titled: ‘Traditional Sri Lankan Food’ (published in 1992) were best-sellers and used as text books at a few hotel schools in Sri Lanka. My co-author, Chef T. Publis Silva continued publishing twenty more Sri Lankan cookery books. He is today the best-known and most-respected Master Chef for Sri Lankan food in the world. He is considered a national treasure bestowed with various honours including an honorary doctorate and a national honour. I am proud to say that he is my friend and was my Executive Chef when I managed the Mount Lavinia Hotel in the early 1990s as its General Manager.

Popular Chef

By the middle of the 1974/1975 tourist season I had become quite popular with the long-stay guests, tour guides, kitchen brigade and the management team. I loved interacting with guests at the four weekly buffets with the added benefit of listening to the hotel bands, watching the action on the dance floor, enjoying entertainment acts such as fire limbo, and when the occasion permitted, flirting with pretty girls. On the other hand, my room-mate and immediate superior, Vijitha Nugegoda (Nuga), Assistant Executive Chef disliked going to the buffets. His preference was to remain in the kitchen and manage the flow of dishes to replenish the tables.

One day Padde Withana, the Executive Chef appearing annoyed, summoned Nuga and I and ordered, “With immediate effect, Nugegoda, you go to the buffets and Jayawardena stay in the kitchen!” After that my interactions with guests and tours leaders were limited to the beach during breaks between my split shifts and in the evenings.

A Boring Off Season

We were saddened when the last of the charter flights left Sri Lanka at the end of the season in early in April 1975. It was normal those days for the occupancy percentages of resort hotels on the south-west coast to drop to a single digit around the traditional new year in April. The sea gradually became rough, red flags appeared warning guests not to sea bathe due to currents, construction and maintenance projects commenced and I was bored. We hardly had any work for nearly six months.

All managers took their accumulated and annual leave during the off season. As a result, when on a few occasions I had to act as the Executive Chef, I was pleased. I enjoyed being in charge when both executive chef and his assistant were away and focused a lot on checking stocks in the stores. I did some creative menu planning to utilise over-stocked items requisitioned at reduced cost prices. This resulted in a win-win situation all round. The stores reduced their excess inventory and the kitchen brought the food cost far below the required 40% of the menu price. After that, the Stores Manager, Anton Tevarayan treated me like a hero.

When the monsoon commenced in June, we were confined to our quarters most of the time. Sri Lanka had no TV till 1978, and we had to keep ourselves entertained by playing cards, reading and chatting. The heavy rains and rough waves inspired me to go back to my childhood hobby – painting. One of the cooks found some clay from his village for me to re-commence sculpture. It was also a good time to experiment with new dishes, particularly using some herbs then not legalized, to marinate meat like wild boar not allowed in hotels!

Whenever the rain ceased for a short period, I used to go to the neighbouring Hotel Serendib down the beach. Owing to my pranks during my previous stay in Bentota, its manager was not very friendly and tried his best to avoid meeting me. But his two Assistants, Lionel and Hameed, were very friendly and hospitable. They had both fallen in love with two young ladies who worked at their hotel, a Sri Lankan Front Office Receptionist and a Swiss Tour Leader, whom they eventually married.

Other departmental managers and supervisors of Hotel Serendib were our friends with whom I hung out during a long and boring off season. On some days, we used to walk to other hotels, especially when some event was organized to entertain Sri Lankan guests who were taking advantage of extremely low off-season “local” rates. Occasionally, we compared our career dreams and aspirations. Both external inspirations and my own aspirations were aligned and I was aiming at becoming an executive chef soonest and then become a hotel manager when I was in my mid-twenties.