Boston Common - Niche Media - A side of Boston that's anything but common.
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on the town continued from page 56 just how to do that, and at the same time to jazz up the hotel's bar by featur- ing weeknight specials—of a five-star variety, of course. These include Southeast Asian street food on Tuesdays, Champagne and oysters on Wednesdays, and premium vodka and caviar on Thursdays. 11:05 am I n the hotel's presidential suite—now renamed the Tata Suite, in honor of Jamsetji N. Tata, the founder of Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces—Kang tastes a delicate white-chocolate concoction in a shape reminiscent of the outline of the Taj itself. "We need more distinctive amenities for our guests," he says. He peruses a selection of Molton Brown products they are consid- ering using instead of the standard miniature bottles; he sniffs the scents on offer. "We'll run it past a few of our guests," he decides. 11:40 am B ack in the kitchen, Kang points out the hotel's newly installed tandoori ovens. He hopes to make the Taj a destination for those who want the abso- lute finest Indian food. "I'm a foodie," he confesses. Before moving to Boston, he took a sabbatical year to teach himself to cook, mostly classical Indian dishes. Today, he whips together the ingredients for a lamb recipe from Lucknow, India ("I use papaya juice to tenderize the meat, which is minced six times," he says), and Atta Chicken, a Punjabi recipe. 2:50 pm A fter lunch and a weekly conference call with Ashrafi Matcheswala, the general manager of the Taj Campton Place in San Francisco, Kang returns to the main conference room, where he and his management team review guest survey responses; nothing less than a 70 percent "excellent" rating is acceptable. Housekeeping is falling short, with only 63 percent of responses coming in at excellent for laundry. He also remarks that guests will likely note every bruise on every apple in a bowl in the fitness center. Reassured that they are checked twice daily by the chef, he moves on to plans to buy new televi- sion sets. "The minimum expectation from our guests is that they are 42 inches and HD—that is what we have to offer to compete with the Mandarin." Nothing that a cus- tomer notes in response to the survey goes unnoticed. 5:20 pm A fter sampling Friday tea service in The French Room and catching up on e-mails in his office he'll be down in the lobby, watching over every detail and always ready to step in to offer anything that might be needed. Until he moves into his new home in the suburbs, he's also living in the hotel. "It's like sleeping in your suit—and your tie and shoes!" Kang says. So he likes to end the day playing guitar. "Hopefully, I'm not disturbing anyone else on the floor," he says somewhat anxiously. "I haven't heard that I am." And given Kang's eye for the tiniest detail of what is happening in his domain, he almost certainly would be among the first to hear if his interpretations of Grateful Dead classics were keep- ing his neighbors awake. BC 58 bostoncommon-magazine.com Checking a glass to be sure it's spotless in The Café Sampling Molton Brown bath products Discussing the menu with executive chef Michael Mandato Back in his office, reviewing budgets for Taj's Boston and San Francisco properties Preparing a traditional Indian dish