This M’sian F&B group created an elevated version of all-you-can-eat mookata restaurant in Subang

For Thai food lovers, mookata spots are definitely the place to be. It’s affordable and delicious, what more can you ask for?

However, oftentimes, these places tend to be a bit more casual, making it awkward for a nicer evening out with friends or loved ones. It’s great for a night to “pig out” (literally), but especially to our Muslim friends, it can be quite exclusionary. 

That’s why when people think of a nicer all-you-can-eat destination, Korean BBQ spots and Japanese sukiyaki-styled restaurants tend to dominate. 

On a mission to change this perception is Chan Rak BBQ. 

Located in Subang Parade, Chan Rak BBQ blends the best of hotpot concepts, such as with a plethora of sauce ingredients for you to cook up your own concoction, with delicious Thai flavours we Malaysians know and love. 

From one brand to four

Led by Lroy Lim, Chan Rak BBQ—which means “I love BBQ” in Thai—is part of a family of four restaurant brands, which also comprise The Farm, Ignis, and Buttersome Bakery. More on those later. 

Lroy himself comes from a chef background, having worked for two two-Michelin-starred restaurants: Domaine de Chateauvieux in Switzerland and St Pierre in Singapore. After some time working for these restaurants, though, he decided he wanted to try something with more mass appeal. 

That’s when he joined The Farm, a Western restaurant in Bangsar South with a farm-to-table dining experience. 

According to Lroy, The Farm was inspired by the owner’s interest in nature and desire to delve into hydroponic concepts. However, during the pandemic, the restaurant was struggling and brought on Lroy to turn things around. 

From there, the group expanded into Ignis. Although Ignis also offers Western fare, Ignis boasts a more fine-dining concept. It was intentionally created not to “self-cannabalise,” Lroy told us. Whatever The Farm offered, Ignis wouldn’t, and vice versa. 

Then came Buttersome Bakery, which exists to fulfil the restaurant’s own demands for baked goods. The Farm has been sourcing cakes from suppliers for years, but the team understood that they would be able to tailor their own dessert offerings more, at a lower cost, if they had their own bakery arm. 

Buttersome Bakery was thus born to cater to their own internal needs, and also serves customers at their Seksyen 17 location. 

As for Chan Rak BBQ, it draws from the owner’s Perlis upbringing. Bordering Thailand, he tasted much of our Thai neighbour’s food growing up. The seeds of Chan Rak BBQ was thus sown when he complained that the Kuala Lumpur offerings to be inauthentic. 

Beyond that, Chan Rak BBQ also fills the aforementioned gap in the market—a slightly more upscale and elevated space that offers all-you-can-eat food that isn’t the same old East Asian cuisine. 

Two concepts in one location 

Some might think that Subang Parade is quite an odd choice for not just opening one restaurant, but two. After all, it’s a pretty old mall with lesser foot traffic nowadays when compared to others in the vicinity. But Lroy cited strategic reasons for choosing the location.  

“First of all, Chan Rak BBQ is a pilot project. It’s a new brand,” he pointed out. “I’m not willing to risk going into places like Pavilion.” 

With a lower rental cost, Subang Parade offers Lroy and his team a safer start to the new business, allowing them to tinker with their SOPs along the way. Once things are stable, they hope to duplicate the concept in more elite malls. 

Plus, Subang Parade is actually undergoing some renovations that will improve the space. Some notable new names have been brought in as tenants, including Fly Project, Padi House, Paolo Paolo Gelato, and Mokky’s Pizza. 

It would likely be some years before the whole mall is upgraded, but right now is a good time for Chan Rak BBQ to enter the space as one of the first movers. As luck would have it, they also managed to acquire a front-facing corner lot which helps with visibility. 

All that said, Subang Parade initially wasn’t confident about Chan Rak BBQ’s concept—which is why The Farm has also expanded to its second outlet there, too, tucked right next to Chan Rak BBQ. In fact, the two restaurants are directly linked. 

“I was looking for a space for Chan Rak BBQ,” Lroy elaborated. “When Subang Parade approached us, they wanted The Farm. They were offering us this space with a good deal, so we thought, since it’s 6,500 square feet, we chose to do both.”

Overcoming challenges 

Although Lroy has got plenty of F&B experience under his belt and has developed his entrepreneurial sense through launching Ignis and Buttersome, Chan Rak can be seen as a different beast. 

For one, the pricing rubric for an all-you-can-eat pricing rubric is difficult in terms of measuring profit margins. And with it being such a novel concept, it was hard to find direct pricing comparables.

Thankfully, especially for a chef, Lroy is good at numbers, having studied actuarial science before he hopped into the culinary world. 

Right now, the restaurant is still fine-tuning its pricing, but the buffet starts at RM32+ for express lunch on weekdays. Students get a 20% discount, while senior citizens can dine for 30% off and children for 50% off.

This is fairly reasonable considering that they offer a good variety of foods in their buffet line-up too, including hot foods like Egg Thai Salad, ChaTraMue Thai tea soft serve, and a shaved ice machine where you can make your own desserts like Thai Red Ruby. 

But in terms of the hot pot itself, Chan Rak BBQ prides itself on its variety of Thai soup bases.

You’ll find lesser seen selections such as Tom Kha Gai Soup, Beef Bowl Noodle Soup, and Gaeng Kati Soup. And of course, Red Tom Yum Chicken Soup where you can choose your preferred spice level (from mild to hell).

In their journey of opening Chan Rak BBQ, there were quite a lot of external challenges the team had to confront. Most notably was when their contractor ghosted them in the middle of the project.

It was a painful experience, as the process of handing over tasks to new contractors, especially without transparency from the first guy, is no easy ordeal. “If the original contractor had caused some issues, the new contractor was concerned that we would be pinned on them,” Lroy explained. 

Thankfully, the team was able to overcome the obstacle and successfully launched Chan Rak BBQ in May. 

An F&B powerhouse 

When asked about how he manages the four brands, Lroy’s answer is: “run left and right.”

Each of the group’s restaurant brand runs differently, with its own SOPs and identity. How he runs Ignis is different from how he would run Chan Rak. While this sounds simple, the understanding that you need to approach each thing uniquely is key to keeping a group like this running smoothly. 

Another crucial thing is employing a good team of people who take ownership of their work—which is easy to say on paper, but much harder to execute. 

Lroy’s approach to attracting good talent is through a referral system. He often gets staff members to recommend their friends. After all, you wouldn’t want to bring on someone who might negatively affect your own work, right? 

In terms of retention, Lroy always strives to promote internally. With the restaurant expanding now, this has also allowed the existing team to step up and upskill. 

Autonomy is also important. “We try not to micromanage,” he said. “At the end of the day, if I hire a manager and he can’t manage, then why is he a manager, right?” 

As the whole team continues to grow, Lroy hopes that the existing culture of ownership will continue to persist. 

But for now, the team has no intention to scale rapidly. Rather, the point is to really stabilise the business. 

“Since Chan Rak is a new brand, there’s a lot of hand holding to do. There’s a lot of unforeseen things that might happen, so we need to make sure all the SOPs are up to par before we do anything,” Lroy concluded.