San Fun In the Kitchen
Running a restaurant is not only about cooking food.
For Chef Bo and Chef Dylan of Bo.lan restaurant, it’s also about promoting an understanding of food from the very first step. With that intention came the Bo.lan Educational Program (BEP). This program not only introduces the art of Thai cuisine to Thai and international food enthusiasts, but also the concept of “food literacy”—the understanding of the environmental and societal impacts of our food choices when buying, cooking, and beyond. If this sounds abstract to you, think about your lunch. Do you know what exactly is in it? Where are the ingredients from? Are they from ethical sources, or not? In a nutshell, the chefs want to see people cook and understand what they cook.
To help BEP spread its conviction, our team of San Fun Group firstly needed to learn how the restaurant operates. And the best place to learn that is the kitchen.
Kitchen Experience
We spend a portion of our day in the heart of the restaurant itself, where we get our hands on ingredient prepping. If you have never peeled five kilograms of shallots, filled several trays with coconut gratings, or hand-pick the root of each bean sprout, being in the kitchen will indeed be tough. However, experiencing the intensity of working in the kitchen is essential in understanding the business. It is the best way to know the ingredients and how the people of different working sectors interact. By understanding how the kitchen is run, you understand how the people are managed and resources allocated.
HR System
The F&B business generally has a high turnover rate. Therefore, it is very important to have an efficient system to track employment and payment of staff members. For this, our team has assisted the HR department with a workflow that seamlessly connects job application with attendance tracking.
Content and Marketing
Due to the unique philosophy of the Bo.lan Educational Program, online contents also extend to the sharing of knowledge about Thai and international culinary culture, ingredients, and sustainable practices. Below you can see one example: a knowledge post about the edible plants grown in the Bo.lan garden.
Library and Database (Books and Dictionary)
A hub of knowledge on food, BEP has been a home for a myriad of books— cookbooks, local recipes, historical recipes, memorial books, research papers, food photo books, books on sustainability and agriculture; even child psychology! Together with Chef Bo's extensive writings, we set up a database of books for easy reference and search.
Podcast & Voice Clone
Apart from short snippets of knowledge, we produce a podcast that dives into the behind-the-scene facts of the food industry. With the help of A.I. and voice cloning, we are able to explore new possibilities of podcasting, e.g., generating a podcast from a pre-existing article written by the chefs.