Mon, Dec 23, 2002 page11

• Jake's Country Kitchen a Tienmou institution

  A master of American culinary delights, Jake Lo, owner of Jake's Country Kitchen has spent 24 years perfecting his craft. Last week he sat down with `Taipei Times' contributing reporter Joanna Dunne to talk about his experience catering to Taipei's expatriate community and his increasing Taiwanese clientele

  • By Joanna Dunne / CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
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  Taipei Times: How did you first get into the restaurant business?

  Jake Lo: I'm originally from Chiayi and I moved to Taipei when I was 17 to look for work. The chances of finding work here were better because the Americans where here. I found a job as a live-in cook for American military families. Before that I had never been in contact with Westerners.

  

  Jake Lo, the owner of Jake's Country Kitchen in the Taipei suburb of Tienmou, is always ready to great customers with a warm smile and authentic Western-style food. ``I was up until 5am this morning making mushroom soup and pumpkin pie.''

  PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES

  It was a really interesting experience, as I was straight out of school and spoke very little English.

  I worked for four or five different families in the space of about six or seven years. Then when Taiwan and America broke off diplomatic relations in 1979 and the American military pulled out, I decided I would open my own business. Actually, I had no other choice.

  TT: How did you learn to cook Western food?

  Lo: The American families that I used to work for taught me how to cook very simple Western food. Those recipes provided a basis for my menu, although not enough selections to run a business.

  I bought cookbooks like Betty Crocker, and now have over 30 in total. I have adapted many of these recipes over the years to better suite my customers' tastes. I plan to write a book with all my recipes in it to pass down to my son and grandson so that they can keep the restaurant going after I retire.

  TT: How much of the cooking do you do yourself?

  Lo: I still make most of the basics myself. In fact I was up until 5am this morning making mushroom soup and pumpkin pie. I usually make large quantities of things like pancake mix in the central kitchen, which takes up the whole of the third floor of this restaurant. I then put it in the freezer and whenever the chefs downstairs need anything, they can just go and take it out of the freezer.

  But I don't actually cook the food myself. I just train the guys in the kitchen how to prepare it and add the garnish. They just do the real simple part and I don't have to hire Western chefs.

  TT: Who were your main customers back in the early days?

  Lo: When I first started my restaurant about half of my customers were Taiwanese and half Western. I made very simple things like fried chicken, hamburgers and spicy beef.

  Then in about 1984 or 1985 we redecorated the whole restaurant and I started to change the menu as I wanted to concentrate on my Western customers. I started selling pancakes, cooking bacon and eggs and other Western food. At that time 70 or 80 percent of my customers were foreigners.

  TT: When you first opened your restaurant in 1979, what sort of difficulties did you run into?

  Lo: At the beginning it was a little bit tricky getting a license. But you could always just open up without one.

  I found the main problem was hiring staff who could speak decent English, as the majority of our customers were foreigners. Then somebody suggested going to ask at the American School. Of course the high-school kids there could speak excellent English as most were native speakers. So I started hiring these kids to come and work on the weekends when we are the busiest.

  Now things have changed and I have no problem hiring locals who speak good English.

  TT: You offer everything from grilled-cheese sandwiches to Mexican dishes. How did you come up with such a wide-ranging menu?

  Lo: When I first opened, my menu was only one page. But as my customers increased, my menu diversified and now it's a whole book long.

  If customers really want something, then I will make it, like pot roast. It used to just be on special every now and again. Then one of my customers said that it was just like his mother used to make, and eating it made him think of home when he was a kid. After lots of other positive feedback, I decided to add it permanently to the menu.

  Adding Mexican food to the menu is another example. One day in 1985 an American customer suggested that I start doing Mexican food to improve my slow dinner sales.

  My first reaction was that the ingredients would be hard to get hold of and that I didn't know much about Mexican food. But then I bought an American-style Mexican cookbook and I learned a lot from it -- for example, how to make tortillas. At that time, there were no imported tortilla so I had to make them myself.

  Now I can make almost everything from the Mexican menu myself, from the tacos to the salsa. And it's proving quite popular, especially with my Taiwanese customers.

  TT: Who are your main customers now?

  Lo: Now I'd say that it's about 50 percent Taiwanese and 50 percent foreigners. My foreign customers tend to be regulars and will come once a week, maybe on the weekend for breakfast after church.

  Our foreign customers change quite frequently as people tend to be in Taiwan for a limited period of time. They then move on and we don't see them in the restaurant any more. But we always get new people to replace them.

  Many foreigners also bring their Taiwanese friends here who like the food, and they then introduce their own friends to the restaurant.

  My Taiwanese customer base has kept growing over the years. I think as more Taiwanese go abroad for study or business, their appetite for Western food has grown.

  The first time they may come out of curiosity and then they come back because they like it. Some of our Taiwanese customers also come here when they need a Western food fix. One man travelled all the way from Taidong for my pecan pie!

  But I've noticed that as Taiwan's economy has slowed, I have lost Taiwanese customers. Our business is down by about 30 percent compared with two years ago. But it is starting to pick up a bit now. I think our 23-year reputation has also helped us survive.

  TT: When did you open your bar upstairs?

  Lo: We first opened it in 1985. I felt that American-style restaurants always have a bar and if we wanted to be authentic, then we should have one too. We extended our original evening kitchen hours so that our customers could enjoy a drink with their evening meal.

  Our Happy Hour is another authentic American touch. It has caused some confusion among our Taiwanese customers who don't understand that our two-for-one offer is restricted to in-house individual consumption.

  Sometimes our Taiwanese customers just don't know when to stop drinking. But Westerners seem to be able to handle themselves much better, even if they drink a huge amount.

  There is one foreign couple who always make me laugh. I think they are husband and wife, and whenever they come in here they go through about 40 bottles of beer between them! But they are always very well behaved.

  TT: How do your Taiwanese and foreign customers differ?

  Lo: Foreign people are pretty direct -- they say what they mean. They're also quite demanding, as they always make things quite complicated. Scrambled eggs, boiled eggs, over-easy -- who would have thought there were so many ways to cook an egg?

  They are quite different compared to our Taiwanese customers who don't really know what to order the first time they come in.

  I don't have any problems in dealing with our foreign customers. I've found that telling the truth is the best policy. If we make a mistake, there's no charge. I like to think that we understand customer service and our customers appreciate this.

  One thing that is quite different from our Taiwanese customers is that foreigners order their dishes individually. Even the children are allowed to decide for themselves. Taiwanese customers don't have much respect for their kids' choice of food.

  TT: What special plans has the restaurant got for Christmas?

  Lo: Since we don't have a public holiday this year and Christmas falls on a weekday, we've decided to spread the Christmas dinner menu over one week. This will give our customers more opportunities to come in and celebrate with us.

  We will have a traditional Christmas dinner with roast turkey and stuffing. I think I've found the best way to cook turkey, and some of my foreign customers say that it is the best roast turkey that they have ever had.

  TT: What is Jake's most famous for?

  Lo: I think our food is quite rare in Taiwan -- it not only looks Western but also tastes good. There are so many shops here that make pies and cakes that look great but taste disgusting.

  With 11 variations of pies and cheesecakes, I think we have one of the best selections of American-style pies in the country.

  Our breakfasts are always popular, especially on the weekend. There was a period in the mid-'80s early '90s when we even had people waiting outside on a Sunday as there was just not enough room inside.

  Some people saw that our business was good and tried to imitate us, but they could never compete with us, because they don't have Jake's recipes.
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