AsiaLIFE

La Boulangerie owner, 27-year-old Leak Sokun, was looking bleary eyed in the back of his café at midday. He’s up half the night baking the delicious croissants, breads and pastries that fly out of his kitchen at first light to awaiting temple goers, hotels and restaurants. At 6am the popular café is open and ready for the steady flow of expats who have made this their breakfast-home away from home.

Sokun’s family couldn’t afford to send him to university, but fate had another plan for him as he was selected for training as a Boulanger in France. The only foreign student in the class in Aurillac, Central France, he overcame his fears of being an outsider in a foreign land and went on to succeed –graduating from the program with top marks and winning a competition for artistic decorations. Since his return to Siem Reap in 2002, he’s worked at Sofitel and Paul Du Brule, but all along all he dreamed of owning his own place.

Over the years he waited and saved until finally, together with two friends and partners, he was able to scrape together the money for the expensive equipment, and Voila!  La Boulangerie was born! Better news yet the café survived the critical first year  and celebrated its first anniversary last month.  

Perk Sophal of Khmer Kitchen served no apprenticeship. As a young 18-year-old, she went to work for the UN as a cook during the 1993 elections. Her family and neighbours were totally opposed to her working for foreigners, but she persisted and eventually landed a job working as a cook for Médecins Sans Frontières.

At 26, Sophal grew tired of hearing foreigners talking always of Thai, Vietnamese and Chinese food, but never about Khmer food. Her mind was set to do something about it. She shifted her entire family to the upper quarters of their central Siem Reap home and began a bare bones restaurant on the ground floor. She had to move all of her family upstairs and borrow gas from her neighbours to cook with, but with four tables in the ground floor of her house and some very cheap crockery she managed to start up a bare bones restaurant in central Siem Reap.

This meant continuing her work at MSF during the day, then coming back to run her restaurant every night. It was exhausting, but little-by-little she was able to build and grow and now has arguably one of the most popular restaurants in Siem Reap, on three different sites.

The training available to Sokun is a reflection of increased foreign assistance to Cambodia since the 1993 elections during which Sophal first started her working career. Times are changing still and Sophal worries about the young Khmer generation who seem to miss the beauty in other people, and often value only money. Both Sophal and Sokun brought their own patience and persistence to their enterprises, undaunted by the challenges and obstacles ahead of them. “I knew nothing, not even how to write a menu!” says an amazed Sophal. You’d never know it now.