A SECOND WIN FOR THE SINGAPORE NATIONAL YOUNG CHEFS
QNEWS
We speak to Team Manager Chef Elvin Chew, after the team clinched the championship for the second year in a row at the Alen Thong Golden Coffee Pot Young Chefs Challenge in Abu Dhabi last December.
How did you prepare for the competition?
We started training in June 2018 and we focused mainly on R&D and tweaking the taste of our dishes. While during the last 6 weeks, we trained according to the timeline of the competition’s process – with a full 48 hours preparation for cold kitchen, and the next day churning out a hot main course and dessert. We clocked in a total of 300 training hours.
The most valuable lesson you learnt from the competition was…
We need to make sure our dishes are beautiful yet also kept simple, while maintaining basic cooking techniques to allow the true flavour of the ingredients to shine through.
Recently, we took the students from the F&B course in RMIT on a tour through our facility in Q Industries Vietnam, which gave them the opportunity to familiarise themselves with our integrated F&B solutions from the backend logistics, to the front of the house.
At the Q.uriosity kitchen, we equipped the students with basic culinary skills and they competed against each other in an educational and exciting Masterchef Challenge where they had 45 minutes to prepare 2 dishes.
In the classroom, industry professionals were also present to guide the students on their learning tour and to provide product trainings to help them understand the diversity of products carried by Q Industries.
We hope the students had a fun and educational journey and we can’t wait to nurture the next batch of young minds!
QFEATURED F&B SPOTS
WE SPEAK TO CHEF THOMAS GUGLER, PRESIDENT OF WORLDCHEFS AND CATERING DIVISION CEO (MANSOUR HOLDING GROUP)
The F&B scene in Saudi Arabia is best described as…
Booming. The Saudis are very well travelled and globally connected, and they love their food, so there’s a very high demand for good interesting cuisines from all over the world.
Currently, the trendiest phenomenon in the Saudi Arabian food scene are…
Pop-up food trucks. Personally, I think the market is over saturated with them and most of the promotions and menu items are beginning to look the same.
Describe your latest project with Q Industries.
MHG Holding Group and Q Industries together have branded and created the TAG (Thomas Andreas Gugler) line with chinaware specially designed by Legle, which includes different glassware, cutlery and kitchenware as well.
The most surprising thing you learnt about Saudi Arabia was…
How friendly the local Bedouins are when you’re touring the desert in jeeps and how well maintained all the historical places are.
Your favourite local dishes include…
Hashi, a whole cooked camel with rice and its accompaniments; Masoub (banana bread pudding); Aish Bil Laham (lamb pizza); Salig (white rice dish with meat); and Kabsa (mixed rice with meat) are all delicious traditional delicacies that are always worth trying.