When chef Jeff Chanchaleune and his mixologist sister Jeslyn determined to open a Lao restaurant of their hometown of Oklahoma Metropolis, the 2 had already labored collectively on a number of restaurant ideas. However a foray into Lao meals, the delicacies of their heritage, was completely different. The enterprise felt deeply private.
Born to Lao immigrant mother and father, Jeff and Jeslyn grew up consuming dishes from the Southeast Asian nation however not often noticed their tradition represented in mainstream American society, a lot much less of their residence metropolis. Within the U.S, eating places targeted on the delicacies of Laos are far much less frequent than these related to neighboring nations like Thailand and Vietnam. “A Laotian restaurant has at all times been one thing I wished to do,” says Jeff. However there was stress from understanding that his cooking could be many native patrons’ first expertise of his ancestral nation’s foodways. “I didn’t suppose town was prepared. And likewise, I wasn’t prepared.”
After launching a handful of profitable initiatives targeted on Japanese meals—the meals truck Kaiteki Ramen, a pop-up sequence referred to as Challenge Slurp OKC, and the brick-and-mortar outlets Gorō Ramen and Gun Izakaya, all with Jeslyn’s assist—and incomes a James Beard Basis nomination for Finest Chef: Southwest alongside the best way—Jeff couldn’t ignore the overwhelmingly constructive reception to his cooking. The second felt proper to lastly take the following step. “I used to be like, alright, I imagine in it. And I believe town will belief me.”
In 2021, Jeff and Jeslyn opened the doorways to Ma Der Lao Kitchen in Oklahoma Metropolis’s Plaza District, the primary full-service restaurant within the space to completely serve Lao delicacies. Each side of the presentation, from the title to the decor, is an homage to their household’s roots. A neon signal hanging within the window reads “ma der,” which suggests “come eat” or “come by.” Upon getting into, company are greeted with ruby-red floral wallpaper and a mural of the siblings’ grandmother donning a standard Lao robe.
When he was creating the menu, Jeff ceaselessly consulted his mom to verify the recipes would intently replicate what she cooked at residence all through his upbringing. This method, relying largely on feeling and reminiscence, was a departure from the strict adherence to approach and custom that had outlined Jeff’s Japanese cooking.
Slightly than diluting Lao delicacies’s daring and vibrant flavors to cater to American palates, the siblings try to seize and spotlight the aromas of their childhood. “The very first thing about Lao meals is that it’s funky. We’re very spicy, umami-forward,” explains Jeff, including that on the restaurant, “We use a number of fermented unfiltered fish sauce.” The ingredient options prominently throughout the menu, together with the most well-liked dish, Nam Khao, a crispy rice salad with lime juice, mint leaves, and pork sausage. Fish sauce even seems within the bar’s best-selling cocktail, Little Dragon, which Jeslyn describes as a savory, spicy, and fruity concoction paying homage to a margarita. “That’s in all probability the drink that I’m most pleased with,” she says.
It seems landlocked Oklahoma is definitely a great location for cooking the meals of Laos, which is the one landlocked nation in Southeast Asia and has an analogous terroir, in keeping with Jeff. Substances naturally present in each areas embody white freshwater fish equivalent to catfish, greens like sorrel, and numerous mushrooms. To supply different harder-to-get specialty elements, the duo turns to town’s longtime Asian grocery store, Tremendous Cao Nguyen, which first opened in 1979.
“Jeff and Jeslyn truly shopped at my retailer after they have been little youngsters. Their mother would at all times come by,” says proprietor Hai Luong, who remembers seeing the 2 taking part in on the rice pallets with different youngsters whereas their mother and father shopped. It wasn’t till Jeff grew up and launched his meals truck that he approached Luong as a stockist. Later, Luong provided Jeff with specialty meals gadgets like a crab paste that could be a key ingredient in Ma Der’s papaya salad. Luong was additionally instrumental in bringing Beerlao, a variety of Lao-made beers, to Ma Der, which is now the one restaurant in Oklahoma to hold the beverage.
In response to Luong, Jeff is likely one of the first cooks of Asian descent in Oklahoma Metropolis to open a restaurant not out of necessity or survival, however to rejoice and uplift his heritage delicacies. “We’re beginning to see extra [young] folks taking initiative,” says Luong. “That subsequent technology is having their very own concepts and entering into with the precise set of expertise.” Luong, who’s Vietnamese American, notes that there has lengthy been a way of friendship between Oklahoma Metropolis’s Vietnamese and Lao communities. “We’ve been type of facet by facet—to a degree the place my mother and father, who began the shop, truly can converse Laotian.” Jeff’s profitable launch of Ma Der is a win for town’s complete Southeast Asian restaurant neighborhood. “I can cheer on the sidelines and root for him, and I really feel proud.”
The Chanchaleune siblings’ restaurant careers may appear to be no shock, contemplating their father is a classically skilled chef who labored in lots of New American and French eating places and later opened a diner. However when Jeff was rising up, cooking professionally wasn’t in his long-term plans. “I truly labored my means by highschool and faculty in a kitchen, hoping I might get out, as a result of I used to be in it for therefore lengthy,” he says. (His first gig was dishwashing at a Japanese restaurant, which sparked an curiosity in Japanese delicacies.) After ending faculty, he determined to pursue promoting, however after working for 2 years as a graphic designer, he concluded that the trade wasn’t for him—he had little inventive autonomy and felt restricted by different folks’s visions. All of the whereas, his ideas stored gravitating again to the familiarity and pleasure of the kitchen. “In my downtime, I might at all times be on some meals web site or weblog,” he remembers.
Like Jeff, Jeslyn was as soon as firmly set on a path removed from meals. As early as Jeff’s first meals truck, Jeslyn, who was nonetheless in highschool on the time, would cease by after class and on weekends to assist out. Nevertheless, she was concerned about pictures and, after graduating faculty, relocated to Oregon to start her profession. When Jeff was prepping to launch his meals truck, Jeslyn got here residence to Oklahoma Metropolis to assist him—and wound up falling in love with the service trade and the food-and-drinks universe. At Gun Izakaya, beverage director Ryan Goodman started educating Jeslyn cocktail approach and idea, which she shortly soaked up. After constructing a basis in mixology, she began pushing inventive boundaries. “She does stuff that I might by no means consider,” says Goodman of Jeslyn’s inventiveness behind the bar. “My complete bar program actually depends on the flavors from Laos, and I attempt to deliver them out as a lot as I can,” says Jeslyn. Along with the Little Dragon cocktail, she developed her personal model of an quaint, with cognac, rye, and coconut syrup. Cognac, she notes, turned a well-liked spirit in Laos after the nation’s colonization by the French.
It’s vital to the Chanchaleunes that company not solely benefit from the restaurant’s meals, but in addition study Lao tradition within the course of. “The eye to element comes by,” says Goodman, who notes that issues like employees members utilizing the right pronunciations of Lao phrases are vital to the siblings. Earlier than launching Ma Der, Jeff spoke to many kinfolk and did copious analysis to place collectively detailed manuals and guides for coaching employees members within the intricacies of how Lao historical past—together with French occupation in the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—has formed the nation’s delicacies and the best way folks exterior of Laos understand its meals.
“When the French got here in, lots of people migrated up north in the direction of Chiang Mai, Thailand,” says Jeff. “Quite a lot of dishes, like laab, papaya salad and sticky rice, all originated in Laos, however [the origins] bought misplaced by migration.” Nationalist insurance policies in Thailand selling the unification of Thai tradition erased non-Thai descriptors from merchandise and practices that have been thought-about imported, decoupling Lao meals from their supply. When immigrants opened up Lao eateries in America, many discovered that their companies attracted extra prospects in the event that they tacked “Thai” onto the menu and in addition served Thai meals, partly as a result of there have been extra Thai immigrants than Lao immigrants within the U.S. and therefore extra consciousness of Thai meals, Jeff explains. He hopes that, by Ma Der, company will purchase a higher understanding of Lao foodways which have been neglected—hidden inside Thai menus.
“He thinks there’s an untold story there, a narrative that must be heard, that must be shared,” says The Oklahoman’s meals editor Dave Cathey, who has reviewed Ma Der. “I’d had laab, and I’d had papaya salad, as a result of there are a selection of Thai eating places across the metropolis—not understanding that these are literally Lao dishes. I’m like lots of people, I had had Lao meals with out understanding it, earlier than [Jeff] began actually emphasizing it.”
“90 % of the individuals who stroll by our door have by no means had our delicacies,” says Jeslyn. “That’s the one factor we have been principally terrified of—are folks going to just accept this? And to date, [reception has] been actually, actually good.”
Fueled by the constructive suggestions, Jeff and Jeslyn are extra targeted than ever on bringing the meals and flavors of their heritage to extra diners. The siblings have develop into energetic members of the Lao Meals Motion, a nationwide initiative spearheaded by chef Seng Luangrath to extend consciousness, training, and celebration round Lao delicacies. Ma Der can also be internet hosting common pop-ups in collaboration with cooks from throughout Oklahoma and different states, to showcase the potential of Lao elements in numerous contexts. (The restaurant beforehand partnered with chef Kevin Lee, proprietor of Oklahoma Metropolis’s Korean fried hen restaurant Birdie’s, and a collaboration with the Japanese sando purveyor Sandoitchi is slated for July.)
Sibling rivalry is nowhere to be discovered at Ma Der. The truth is, working as a staff has introduced Jeff and Jeslyn, who’re 10 years aside, nearer than ever. When their mother and father divorced, Jeslyn was 9 and Jeff was already out of faculty, so “we didn’t actually join till I opened up the meals truck,” says Jeff. Slightly than function in separate silos, the 2 repeatedly focus on ingredient tweaks that can permit Jeff’s meals and Jeslyn’s drinks to raised stability one another—and to deliver out the perfect within the different. “I’m fairly proud to have that reference to a sibling,” says Jeslyn. “The meals and beverage area is type of extremely charged,” provides Goodman, noting that household partnerships he’s seen within the restaurant trade are inclined to have one one who’s clearly in cost. “That’s positively not the best way it’s with Jeff and Jess. It’s collaborative, and it’s enjoyable to see them construct up one another.”
“I really feel like we’re heading in the right direction to showcasing our tradition and our meals and what now we have to supply,” says Jeslyn.
“It’s about to be an excellent time for Lao meals, and the publicity to our meals goes to open folks’s eyes to what they’ve been lacking out on,” says Jeff. “It actually feels good to be part of it.”
Recipes
Nam Khao (Crispy Rice Salad)
Little Dragon Cocktail
