 | With 500 staff, Thalias has grown out of growing the people who make the company what it is. We invest in training, support our staff as they develop and reward them for their hard work. It is without question the most important thing we do. Like any company, Thalias is no more than the sum of its parts. But for any company in the hospitality industry in particular, the most important parts are the people who are the face or the backbone of the company. Some people are both though, and that is certainly true of Hak Lina, the general manager of Topaz who worked her way steadily and diligently up from secretary to the position that she holds today. You can find out more about that in Cambodge Mag’s interview with Lina, reproduced in this month’s newsletter. And, of course, there’s plenty more besides that. I hope you enjoy it. Yours sincerely,
Arnaud DARC | At the end of last year, Hak Lina, who has been general manager of Topaz since 2013, was elected president of the Cambodia Restaurant. Warm-hearted, generous and almost always wearing a smile, Lina is a woman of character who fought her way up through ambition and hard work. She sat down with Cambodge Mag earlier this year to share some thoughts on her journey. How would you describe yourself in a few words?
I’m 33 years old and the general manager of Topaz restaurant. I was born in Sihanoukville, though my family is originally from Kratie... read more | Towards the end of 2016, Topaz was honoured to host Michelin-starred chef, and champion of Provençal cooking, Christian Etienne, for one of our earliest Les Étoilés Michelin de Topaz events. For one evening, he dazzled diners with a seven-course menu that put truffles, the culinary equivalent of fairy dust, into the spotlight. This warm-hearted, generous chef also left us with some of his favourite ideas and recipes for using truffles, including one of our favourites, a carpaccio of cured duck breast, with black winter truffle shavings and a rocket salad... read more | This month, Chef Hong Luu has been working with the eternally versatile gourmet’s delight, bamboo, in order to create a special Chef’s Seasonal Menu with a little extra spring. Combining the firm texture and earthy flavours of bamboo with the soft, light essences of fish and shellfish, this month’s Seasonal Menu unites all the elements in perfect harmonies of sweet and sour, earth and water, firm and soft. And Chef Hong is not the only one who’s been busy. Our bar team has cooked up a delicious range of cocktails that celebrate the deliciously sharp flavours of... read more | Start your party on a high note by booking your event on the first floor at Khéma La Poste. There, you’ll find a classic wide-open space perfect for hosting sit down meals with up to 150 friends or for dancing the night away and meeting some new ones. If you want to make things more intimate, we also have a selection of private rooms for dining with close friends and business associates with complete discretion and our usual high standards of service. The elegant space is perfect day or night ...read more | Over the last 20 years, Cambodia’s economy has rocketed into the pantheon of “Olympians of Growth.” thanks to a sustained period of consistent and exceptional GDP growth of around 7% a year. That growth has transformed living standards for many Cambodians and played an instrumental role in promoting education, healthcare, technology and communications within the Kingdom. Its origins and consistency have many roots, but for the last 17 years one fundamental element has been Europe’s partnership with and support for Cambodia expressed through the European Commission’s Everything-But-Arms (EBA) agreement. This partnership is now under threat.
...read more | Six-thousand acres of wandering lanes, wooded open enclosures and more than 1,200 rescued animals from across Cambodia, Phnom Tamao is a wonder to explore and easily worth the short hop down from Phnom Penh. All the animals here have been rescued from markets, poachers, hunters and zoos — the latter being responsible for the unexpected presence of lions. More than 100 species represent the wild array of animals that call Cambodia home ...read more | French cuisine is still one of the most respected in the world, a byword for standard setting, style, elegance and, of course, exquisite flavours. It is also the foundation on which many other cuisines base their knowledge and development. For many though it can seem too complicated to achieve at home, perhaps other than seemingly simpler dishes like coq au vin or beef bourguignon. But a little knowledge goes a very long way in French cooking and can even help you to transform the simple into the sublime. The resources are the tremendous array of French cookbooks written since the first one ever published in the 14th century. But that is rather a lot of material to draw from. So which ones are best for novices or those seeking to upgrade their skills? ...read more | A grass that can grow to 30 metres tall and create frames that are weight-for-weight stronger than steel hardly sounds like the ideal ingredient for delicious food, but bamboo is different. There are over a thousand different species of this frilly grass with a firm, woody stem whose leaves seem to froth in towering abundance throughout Asia’s forests. Yet only a handful have edible shoots that add texture and savoury notes to cuisines from across the region. In fact, bamboo is even more fundamental to cooking than that. Almost 5,000 years ago, this plant that can grow up to a metre a day was used in the earliest rotating grindstones for milling wheat, rice and millet, and ...read more | Cambodge Mag online — your top resource for smart social, political, cultural and economic news and commentary — has a sharp new look and layout that makes browsing the website an easier, brighter experience. Here you’ll find all the stories you’ve come to count on in the magazine — from up-to-the-minute current affairs and news through to reviews on arts, food and fashion as well as economic and political reporting ...read more | Read previous Thalias newsletters here: July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 | | |
