Kitchen Pimped!

Finally, I have invested some new kitchen equipment. It gives us a lot of ideas. Good saucepan, Good food. Atleast I can be assured this time, all this quality pans will last longer.

We only got these two 'Dome warmer' (below) very recently. We never favour having this in our disposal. Reluctantly we bought 2 in the end. It's heavy and no doubt it does look stunning with its chrome, shinning cover.

Whenever you see this "dome" warmer, it represent "V.I.P" dining. Naturally, it is placed at the centre of a round table with a capacity of Ten diners. Never been a V.I.P myself, It felt weird sitting so close to people and you do feel embarassed when it comes to digging up your portions to your plate (depends whos next to you). All my life Im brought up to any event on a buffet style. I never enjoyed my 1st time experience on a round table.

Now I can see why some caterer love doing V.I.P service. I mean lets not kid ourself, look at the portion. It's limited, you can even overdress the garnish and charged over $10 per person and let the waiters do the hard labour carrying those heavy domes. Job Done!. I don't think I have the pleasure watching those who has to carry them.


The chef having a laugh and feeling a bit amused. The ones on the orange shirt doesn't look convincing either. haha.

You work hard, you play hard. Fortuantely it was Sunday, No uniforms. so don't forget to have fun too. We have a joker in our kitchen. hahaha

The things I don't mind doing

Filleting Salmon.

You have to scrap its scale first.

I like to start from the head. At this point your knife must be really really sharp. Slicing it at one go.

Not only human uses tweezer. This method is for removing the bones.

After filleting...

Nicely cut into portions and ready for service. This job is fun in the butcher room. Enjoy.....

It was a good weekend.

• I finally managed to get atleast 8 hours of sleep during the weekends. A good recovery for myself. At times, I just need to be alone and being away is the sort of remedy I need. Tomorrow will be another brand new day and I'm looking forward to be back in the kitchen.

• Friends and people has been asking me how to recruit a chef. The only tips that I could tell them is that don't rely too much on thier C.V. I don't mean any disrespectful, but alot of restaurateur tend to think the best way to recruit a chef are the ones that hails from a hotel. Don't get me wrong. They are all talented cooks but that doesn't present them as 'talented' when running a restaurant.

• Restaurant or cafe are not that similar to hotel's system. Hotel chefs works in a routine and scheduled system. Whereas a restaurant depends on the concept and it's customer's turnover. In Brunei, Customers can't be predicted. Provided the population Brunei have, the boss, chefs, waiters got to work hands on, on day to day basis. To me A good chef is one who has vision, good palate, creativity, knows how to refine classic food, not pretentious, not too much cutting corners, a teacher, team player with firm personality and of course, a chef who works from 6 a.m to 10 p.m six days a week. haha.

• I am a firm believer that a restaurateur should atleast has a g0od knowledge of food. Atleast knows the basic of cooking. The main backbone of a restaurant comes from the kitchen and the number one is the CHEF!!! It is not easy to recruit chefs in Brunei. Sure, if you have that kind of capital, you might as well recruit those overpaid chef's with lot's of Hotel's experience on thier C.V.

• If I can be honest with you, would I take a hotel chefs or ordinary cooks from a food stall? I would take both, so long they used to work in a busy enviroment. C.V counts nothing for me. They must produce the results and that matters the most. Once results are produced then you can start to negotiate about thier pay raise and incentives.

• Remember Restauranter, you are the bosses and you make the rules.

• All the best and lets hope we see more local bruneian chefs running thier kitchen and with that I pray so much this dream will come through. I also like to add, they are so many restaurants in Brunei. Unfortunately, there are not many locals who runs it. InshyAllah (god's willing), there is life being in the food industry only if you got the passion. (Tidak Hangat hangat tahi ayam)

• here are good 'Pidato' that I like to share "....Kita cari makan untuk hidup, bukan kita kan hidup untuk cari makan....... " in english would be translated as ("We earn money to live and we don't live in order to earn money"). watever you may define that. :)

regards

Chef Pol'

p/s: thanks to Sheikh Khalid of http://www.arab-families.com who invited me on thier open house. I was outstation. Maybe next time. May you always be in good Health. AMin...

Salam Hari Raya

To all Muslim Readers, Happy Eid Mubarak.

From your local Chef.
Chef Pol.