No cooking but weekend food...

200 days aged Rib eye. Miso reduction. No, not Kobe Beef. Angus Australian Wagyu Beef at Pavilion B.bintang
Cheung Fun at Eest. Westin
1st Dim Sum for 2008.
Welcoming entrees at Eest Westin Hotel
Never had this, cuttlefish with seafood Broth
Scallop and prawn Dumpling with Black Summer Truffle. NEW to me...Brunei No have. I think this was the chicken With Saffron Wontan wrapped.. No have this in Brunei

Chicken Fajitas at CHILLIS
My Favourite, Wet Penang Popiah, Lots of radish and Carrots.
Hadi, DUCK RICE. No more Four Season Hadi...
Vietnamese prawn wrapped. Just ok.

250gm, New york Strips at Chillis
Kway Teow in Opah Leave (PINANG LEAF)

Where do you buy your chicken?

We get our fresh daily supply of chicken from Ideal Marketing. They have been supplying for our kitchen for almost three years now. One reason we stick with Ideal is for it's prepared fresh clean chicken. They removed about 90% excess fats and unwanted skin. Our butcher would be spared extra time.

We use approximately 300 fresh chickens a day. Clean washed and proper pakaging. The problem comes if they have shortage of supplies. That would mean we have to buy the chicken by ourselves from the supermarket.

For lunch I made Penne tuna cabonara. I was showing my brigade how classic cabonara is made. We don't use bacon, I could have substitute it with salted beef but i used tuna instead.

also, Lasagne with ragu. As reluctant I was to use Buffalo meat, I just have to continue using it due to the high price of a cattle, the REAL BEEF! (Sapi) Buffaloes lack in flavour. Since the "Halaqah" invasion of bringing indian buffalo to Brunei, Now you can see most food industry using buffalo as it is so cheap. It is really indeed a sustainable cheap cuts available. The effect on economy as some would know that some well known abbatoir shops have to closed down some of thier branches.
A wise restaurant chef who put steak or mignon or rib eye or tenderloin on thier menu should highlight what kind of Meat they are using. If it's BUFFALO, PLEASE state on the menu page [BUFFALO MEAT!] Merci...

Garlic Honey chicken Breast... the chicken wasn't burnt, thats Camerelised Honey :P

chef Pol'

Bruneian cooks up Indian Dish.

Hi, Me and second brigade made indian set lunch early morning just in time for 9 o'clock breakfast. I never like doing a huge batch of dish serving up more than 100 people say 400 people today. It's just not easy to maintain standard.

In Brunei, caterer are famous for serving up to 1000 people usually on a wedding day. I don't really like taking huge orders and i guess it's the reason why we turned down quite a number of customers. There's no specific reason for not taking it but don't do it if you don't feel it. You surely end up ruined the dish.

The locals are immune of catering food and how many times have we heard about food poisoning especially wedding event held under the hot sun sitting in a tent? It's not about chefs or cooks, I just find it not suitable. In this modern days some caterer tend to do lots of short-cut methods of cooking. (Minimise cost??)

Without proper Fridge and right temperature, Brunei whether is an ideal place to grow bacteria. No one is perfect but careless is always there. I always make sure every food that I cooked comes out of the kitchen safe to eat. nevermind tasteless. It's better having a loss than putting someone to the hospital.

Today we made Lamb Biryani and chicken Tandoori. Tandoor is a clay oven used in India using charcoal. We haven't got one that we grilled them instead.

I used dried tomatoes for special garnish. It's gives sort of sweet, sour flavour and a certain bite which marries well with biryani. An Indian Chef Thought me this.

Often you heard Sundried tomatoes. I find Italian sun-dried tomatoes more sweeter and full of body. What you see above is the slow 5 hr baked dried tomatoes. Hand cut too! Also, you can eat this as a snack. The purpose of drying is to get rid the acidity. It leave the natural sweetness and all is not lost. Four Rice cookers was used to make this morning Biryani.

Chicken Tandoori, Red is just a colour. Indian loves colouring thier food. Don't ask me why.

Overall, It was nice to see empty dirty plates back to the kitchen.

Chef Pol

British Today

So it was planned. Simple and no messy job for today. Roast Chicken. When you are short of manpowers, sometimes you just have to make it as simple as you can but by standard. In my kitchen, there's 3 kinds of labels. 1) 'Western': when we want no mess, easy bland buffet. It would be something like oven baked dishes, stewing, boiling. 2) 'Chinese': when we want fast, busy hours in the kitchen or even last minute orders. Quick Stir fry, deep frying. 3) 'Malay': When we are in the mood, happy to do extra washing, scrubing and messy chef's white.

Clean boiled vegetables of French Bean, Cauliflower, brocolli and yellow peppers.
Mashed Potatoes and Gravy
Fresh and healthy.
Healthy cooking method. Tender and moist. = Oven baked
There you have it. Roast Chicken with Mashed potatoes and Gravy. haha. Simple and Earthy.

I also like to say thanks to Mr Brunei Resources http://bruneiresources.blogspot.com/ for recommending my "Blog". Thank you

Chef Pol