Imagine cooking steak and pasta dinner for 10 people with bread, salad and dessert. Multiply that by 2,500. Note that everyone has different dietary requirements. What’s more your kitchen is 35,000 feet above ground!

For Mohamad Ihssan Farran, Vice-Conseiller Culinaire of the Bailliage of Bangkok-Rattanakosin it is his everyday reality. As Head of Operations for Bangkok Air Catering (BAC) Mohamad oversees the production of 25,000 meals a day in Bangkok, 8,000 in Phuket, 6,000 in Koh Samui. BAC provides food for travellers on 32 airlines (from Emirates to ITA) headed worldwide.

“People think it’s very easy to do airline meals,” says Mohamad over lunch at his flagship Lebanese restaurant Al-Saray in Bangkok. “In fact, we are like any restaurant on the ground. However, we change our unit of measurement from kilograms to tons.”

This vast spectrum of captive diners with any number of diets and preferences, Mohamad’s job becomes infinitely more complicated. “It’s like we are cooking for 25 weddings, with each wedding made up of 1,000 people every day. Each groom and bride have different menus. All from different cultures worldwide.”

Unlike at a wedding, “not everyone is in a good mood. The challenge is to come up with something everybody likes.”

Mohamad did not always have to think about catering to millions of people daily, from all walks of life. Growing up in Lebanon with a father who helmed many successful restaurants, Mohamad was not encouraged to go into the culinary arts. “Parents want their sons to be doctors or engineers,” he says.

He left home at 16 to study gastronomy in cosmopolitan Beirut and started working in five-star hotels which took him to Dubai. Here he combined his twin interests in food and airlines at Emirates flight catering. Bangkok followed as Production Manager for BAC, a post which eventually led him to the Chaîne.

“It was a difficult decision to change from being a chef to management, to remove the white chef’s jacket for a suit,” Mohamad remembers. “I still cook and try something new in the kitchen when I have time.”

Consider the challenge involved in planning a Chaîne event for 100s of members. A wide range of allergies, personal preferences, professional egos figuring in myriad complexities of drawing up menu and seating plan. Making food for airline passengers is even more complicated. Food safety and timing taking on more importance than even taste. Immediately cooking is finished, the temperature is reduced from 100ºC to 4ºC within 45 minutes by putting food in a blast chiller. Items like beefsteak can’t be rested. Solutions: food is cooked “a little under” so when reheated, it is cooked properly including noodles and pasta. “Rice can be covered with steamed cabbage leaves to keep it moist,” he says. Attention to details keeps food nearly pristine. Rather than dry, rubbery food of plane passengers’ nightmares.

Importantly food can’t be late. If food is delayed, customers are delayed and timetables are disrupted. Space for airlines at their next destination may no longer be available. Crucially Executive Chefs in charge of operations must be very well-organized and detail oriented.

Mohamad’s biggest challenge may be one we all face. To ensure good quality of all his clients’ food, Mohamad attends multiple tastings weekly, sometimes several daily. “It’s hard to maintain my weight,” he says. Adding that his current work with the Chaîne doesn’t make matters any easier.

“Being Vice-Conseiller Culinaire in the Chaîne basically means I get to eat great food, talk about great food, hang out with people who love great food. It’s a tough job but someone’s gotta do it!”, he quipped.

Chawadee Nualkhair
Vice-Conseiller Gastronomique
Bailliage of Bangkok-Rattanakosin