After running restaurants in Madison for over 10 years, Som Maly wrapped up his first food cart season at FEED Kitchens last fall. Maly serves Hawaiian food as JAK’s Ohana, although he’s careful to distinguish it from purely authentic Hawaiian food — “there’s my own twist on it,” said Maly.
Maly and his wife fell in love with Hawaiian food after getting married in Maui in 2011. They had talked about opening a food cart before, but “three years ago we were on a plane trip back from Maui,” he said, when they decided to go for it.
Maly’s decision to begin his own business to bring a taste of the food they’d enjoyed in Hawaii to Madison doesn’t seem far off from the pursuit that led him to enjoy cooking at a young age. After years of working at his parents’ Thai restaurant doing everything from “washing dishes, working the phone, to the front of the house, delivery service,” Maly said, “ultimately I learned how to cook there.” The skill stuck. “I like eating good food,” said Maly. “It was really hard to find food that was cared for, the way I wanted it to taste.” Cooking it himself was the easy solution.
Now, through JAK’s Ohana, Maly works to bring cared-for food to his customers. “I’m trying to make food that people can really enjoy. A taste of Hawaii.”
