My eyes widened when I saw the – rare – email from my father. “Your dad is in mourning,” said the subject of the message. I opened it expecting to learn of the sudden death of a family member, a precious friend. It was nothing of the sort.
My father announced to me the sudden closure of the Apsara restaurant in Old Quebec.
Well, in mourning? I said to myself. You’re exaggerating a bit, Dad!
Quickly, images began to flash through my head. I was 6 years old the first time I ate in this exceptional Vietnamese-Thai-Cambodian restaurant. I keep this first visit – of my first khémara beef with lemongrass – an unforgettable memory. I had put on my most beautiful dress for this dinner for grown-ups in the elegant dining room where European and Cambodian decorative elements combined.
That day I added the word “refinement” to my vocabulary. To talk about jasmine rice garnished with carrots cut into the shape of a duck. And the service, both friendly and impeccable.
Dozens and dozens of other visits followed. My father has celebrated most of his birthdays there for the past three decades. A visit to the Quebec Carnival or the Quebec Summer Festival? There were always excellent excuses for a supper at the Apsara.
I realize today that the restaurant was a family friend. Literally as well as figuratively.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE FAMILY
The Khuong clan in front of the Apsara restaurant on rue d’Auteuil, in Quebec, in 2013
One of my maternal uncles even played a behind-the-scenes role before the establishment opened in 1977. As a young forestry engineer, he joined forces with a group of colleagues, including two of Cambodian origin, to bring in from Cambodia members of the same family, the Khuong family. They arrived in Quebec in 1975, the year the Khmer Rouge took power in Phnom Penh, quickly establishing a reign of terror.
The family’s grandfather, Ben An Khuong, his wife and 12 of their 16 children as well as their respective families were not restaurateurs in their country of origin, but barely two years after their arrival, they opened their first restaurant on Saint-Cyrille Boulevard, now René-Lévesque Boulevard, in Quebec. A true family business which wanted to be a bridge to the host society. “They invited me to go and test the desserts they wanted to put on the menu. Donuts, lychees. This fruit was not known at all in Quebec at the time. We told them, don’t hesitate, Quebecers will like it,” my uncle Jean-Claude told me.
Lawyer Lu Chan Khuong, who grew up in the restaurant, says that at the very beginning, in order to convince people to venture into their exotic restaurant, the Khuongs made an offer that they could not refuse: if you don’t like it, you won’t pay. They came out big winners.
On October 27, the restaurant announced on Facebook that it had permanently closed its doors. Suddenly, without warning, without a farewell tour. “It was a sad moment, we didn’t want to drag it out forever,” Bun Kim Khuong, who has been responsible for running the restaurant since the 1980s, told me.
PHOTO CAROLINE GRÉGOIRE, THE SUN
Apsara officially ceased operations on October 27.
The generation of Khuong who held the establishment on their shoulders decided to retire and did not find a successor. The rising generation – who also worked in the restaurant – is called to something else.
“For more than 46 years, we have had the immense privilege of welcoming you into our family unit, of serving you, of sharing unforgettable moments with you. […] We are grateful to you for welcoming us, for adopting us, for choosing and encouraging us all these years. Thank you for your great generosity towards us,” the owners wrote on the social network.
The reaction was strong. The Khuongs received hundreds of messages of thanks. Tributes. My entire family was speechless. My father had a heavy heart for days.
There are restaurants which, like Apsara, are much more than good restaurants. They are witnesses to our most significant moments, a place to stop to mark the passing of time, but which always bring us together. Havens of reunion, but also places of meetings and exchanges.
The Apsara restaurant was also a spark for me as a child. A first bite elsewhere in a very beautiful, but very homogeneous city.
I now realize that I too am in mourning for this restaurant which had a soul, that of the family who ran it for almost half a century.
May this column serve as a bouquet of flowers to the Khuong with my thanks.
And thanks to her, I was able to ask for the recipe for khémara beef.