Kai bar puts garden food on table

By ROSELYN ELLISON
Mondo Kai Bar in Kokopo, East New Britain, has attracted many customers through its cooking styles.
Mondo is a new kai bar outlet located right at the heart of the Kokopo Main Market.
Many customers flock into the kai bar daily because most of their food is fresh from the garden.
Mondo Eric Kua is property director and hails from the Mt Wilhelm in Chimbu.
He said he and wife Keren started the kai bar to encourage Papua New Guineans to buy and eat fresh garden food.
Kua, a chef by profession and a lecturer for tourism and hospitality at Kokopo Business College, said local garden food cooked the right way was good for people’s health.
He has been in East New Britain for over 10 years.
Kua has seen that lifestyle diseases such as diabetes and obesity are common in the province because many people are not careful with what they eat.
Kua said these two diseases were very common because people were not careful on what food they ate.
He said many people eat junk food from fastgood outlets.
Kua said e Mondo Kai Bar was different because they cooked fresh garden food.
The food is cooked in traditional PNG style or to meet customers’ appetite and demand.
Kua said food was contributing to lifestyle diseases, therefore, people must be careful with what they ate.
“I am encouraging our good Papua New Guineans to go to locally owned fast food outlets as most of them prepare fresh garden food because they are healthy,” he said.
Mondo Kai Bar also catered for major events in Kokopo.
“Some of the catering we did were for Prime Minister Peter O’Neill’s visit during launching of autonomy last October, the Apec team that visited the province, as well as for police personnel that provided security for the Apec tea,” he said.