Gouda Talks

On the second episode of Gouda Talks, a podcast exploring the intersection of culture in food, Jess sits down with Ari Kendall, the co-founder and head chef for the Chik Chak food truck. After several stints as a chef in Cambridge restaurants, he entered the food truck business after working with Rami’s, a Middle Eastern Israeli restaurant, on making their kosher menu mobile. Eventually, he decided to split off from Rami’s and start Chik Chak, a kosher food truck.

Chik Chak, which roughly translates to “be more efficient” in Hebrew, epitomizes Kendall’s niche in food truck industry. Always rapidly moving, working, and cooking, the life of a food truck chef presents many challenges including truck fires, yet, according to Kendall, reaps even more rewards. This is the second episode in a series of conversations with local food trucks in the Boston and Cambridge areas.

On why he enjoys being a Food truck owner and chef:

I guess I’m a bit of a sadist. I enjoy working 14 hours a day, seven days a week.

On how chefs are selling food from different cultures:

I don’t own falafel and I don’t own hummus. I just share it with people. And that’s what brings me joy and other people joy. So as long as I can keep doing that, I’ll be happy.

On how he introduces people to ethnic food:

My favorite way to introduce people [to food] is to let them try it. People will ask what is a falafel and without skipping a beat I’ll just give them one.

https://www.whrb.org/archive/gouda-talks-kosher-food-go

On Jess Eng’s first episode of Gouda Talks, a podcast exploring the intersection of culture and food, she talks to CEO of Bon Me, Patrick Lynch (‘05). Lynch graduated from Harvard with a degree in Economics and then later attended MIT where he obtained a graduate degree in urban planning and environmental policy. As Lynch explains, when he co-founded Bon Me, he had no experience in the food industry. In this interview, they unpack the story behind Bon Me’s conception, its success as a food truck and currently budding restaurant, and the inspiration behind their Asian influenced food. Lynch also reveals the challenges of starting a food truck and managing the business side as its CEO. This is the first episode in a series of conversations with local food trucks in the Boston and Cambridge areas.

On Bon Me’s Asian-inspired food:

I don't think we're…[trying] to be authentic Vietnamese. Our sandwich is the most traditional Vietnamese dish. And the rice noodle salad that we do is also reasonably Vietnamese, but the rice bowls are much more of a Chinese dish. A lot of the fillings we use and so on are either from Southeast Asia.

On the influx of food trucks in Boston and Cambridge:

We have seven restaurants now...So we're definitely as much a restaurant company now as a food truck company. And I think since then to the last year and a half now, we've seen more competition come in. I think a lot of that has actually been driven on by the restaurant side rather than the truck side. The truck scene got pretty well saturated even as early as 2014.

https://www.whrb.org/archive/gouda-talks-bon-me