Ma Der Lao Kitchen - Come Through
Chef Jeff Chanchaleune’s Ma Der Brings A Taste of Home to 16th Street.
Once a year, I have a dish that is transformative. I stop and think, “Oh my god. This is it. It’s flawless.” I don’t want to analyze it. I want to savor it because it may never be the same again. In 2016, it was Chef Jeff Chanchaleune’s Brisket Ramen. It was perfectly balanced, and I gently hounded him afterwards to recreate it. I had met Jeff a decade earlier when he was in college. I was looking at space in Sushi Neko for adding a potential wine room and had surveyed the restaurant and made notes. I noticed Jeff on the line, we were introduced, and I began to watch his work. Unlike so many people in Jeff’s position, he wasn’t just grinding out dish after dish. It was fun to watch him work. I say that from experience.
For twenty-five years, I operated the classical French chef apprenticeship program at the Coach House, now The Hutch. Every six months, a new apprentice began their two and a half year journey learning each role in the kitchen. Every six months, I would see the world through another set of eyes. Beyond training other chefs, I opened thirty restaurants over twenty-eight years and worked with all personality types. Chefs, myself included at times, are headstrong. They can drive forward with blinders, sometimes ignoring the opportunities provided by available ingredients and the setting. Like so many of us at a young age, chefs think they’re pirates.
Jeff stood apart. Unlike most of us, he was thoughtful and focused on the creative process. His uniform was spotless and sharp. Plus, he had a raw entrepreneurial spirit. Jeff began working in a kitchen at age eight. He operated a black market in contraband chewing gum in middle school as a side hustle. Having grown up working at his family’s diner and steeped in the flavors of his parents’ Laotian and Thai cuisine, Jeff learned a lot about food and long hours, but, like so many children of small business owners, was also given space to figure out most of life on his own.
Over a beer at Mushashi’s, I worked to convince Jeff to join the Coach House’s apprenticeship program. He declined, hoping to make a career of a nearly complete college education in marketing. After graduation, Jeff worked at a New York advertising firm, honing his creative design skills but feeling frustrated and unfulfilled as his creative work was revised by higher ups. After two years devouring food websites, practicing new dishes, and wondering what was next, he quit his stable job and moved to Chicago to work minimum wage, benefit-free jobs at Takashi Yagihashi’s Slurping Turtle and Gene Kato’s Sumi Robota before ultimately accepting a permanent position with Joseph Fontelera’s Michelin Guide tapped Arami.
And then, Jeff returned to OKC. He opened a food truck (my personal idea of an eternity in hell) and ran a year’s worth of pop-up dinners before partnering with Hospitality 84’s Rachel Cope to open the much loved Goro Ramen. I’ve long forgiven him for not calling me first upon his return. He went on to open the Japanese Yakitori concept Gun Izakya in Paseo and was nominated for Best Chef Southwest by the James Beard Foundation in 2020.
Ma Der, which roughly translates as “come over,” is Jeff’s new concept. It’s 100% his vision, in design and flavor. His goal is to use his creativity to communicate an experience from his memory, from his childhood, and from his travels. And, at times, he creates dishes the way he wishes they existed. Ma Der is not just Lao food. It’s Jeff’s vision of those flavors through the lens of modern techniques and expectations without losing authenticity. In essence, it reflects Jeff’s optimism in Oklahoma City, that it’s ready for honest, creative new flavors.
There are dishes I now crave from Ma Der: the Chuen Gai (fried chicken legs), the Chopped Vegan Laab, and Tuesday’s soup special, Khao Poon Nam Gai (spicy chicken vermicelli soup). These are dishes with fantastic savoriness (umami) that are satisfying and made thoughtfully with high quality ingredients. Potentially the most exciting part is, like all Jeff’s work, they are subject to constant refinement towards perfection.
Jeff doesn’t see himself as a scientist, even though he’s meticulous in his testing and planning. He doesn’t see himself as a celebrity, even though his work has been recognized locally, regionally, and nationally. In an admission, stunning to me, Jeff shared that his favorite visual artist is Jackson Pollock. He likens the visions in his mind to the organizational style of the artist’s notorious drip technique. However, through some metamorphosis, his menu and each dish at his restaurants are clean, concise, balanced, and delicious. In a city whose palate and interest in food is expanding, we’re ready for Jeff’s updated and thoughtful version of the flavors from his youth.
>Ma Der, 1634 N Blackwelder Ave, Suite 102, Oklahoma City; maderlaokitchen.com; (405) 900-5503
For more on Chef Jeff and his restaurant Gun Izakaya, please read Kim Hickerson’s piece in EdibleOKC Issue 29.
