Notes from the Chef's Office: Challenge for the industry

Another week flew past without us noticing, It's Friday again. And while most contemplate where to party after their work, most Food and Beverage industry workers especially in the Restaurant business, will be slogging our weekends away. Before the weekend even started, we will be slaving to rush out the last minute orders for the food supplies to cater for the reservations and walk-in customers for the weekends. Just for those who have no idea of how the Industry operates, the rule states that there will be no deliveries for food supplies on weekends. So that translates to: If you do not place order for sufficient Seabass, your head chef or restaurant manager will give you a piece of his mind when a disappointed customer complains. However, the new and over-zealous might put an order for too many Salmon and he will also be put on the hot seat when the cost of food spoilage piles up.

Let's return to the topic to close the end of this week: The Biggest Challenge... for the Industry. What could it be? The Customers? The Stress? The Cooking? Nope. It's the ability of the manager to retain staff. In this Industry where the working hours are treacherous and mostly stressful, not many with whatever level of passion can last long. Most of the time, the owners of F&B businesses will face the problem of staff turnover. Staff leave for multitude of reasons: the inability to handle the stress, the boss or management is giving him/her problems at work or simply the staff was proposed a better salary elsewhere.

How much should the boss be paying the staff to retain them? Sometimes, monetary value of the job may not be the sole reason. Job satisfaction or the other staff working the company could be contributing factors too.

So I've learnt, there's more to running a business than just delivering the products. I welcome your comments on my post.

Ur Resident Chef signing off for the week. Eat well and stay healthy.

Losing direction? Back to Square one!

This post only purely from my observations and this industry. It should not serve as a guide of any sort.

I've seen a few businesses come and went recently (and even worked in one). Some had great potential but others were doomed to failure from the start. From what I observed, here are a few factors that sent perfectly healthy business to its grave: Management, Staff, Location and Products.

However, I reckon that once a business loses its direction or focus on what it really wishes to accomplish, it is slowly digging a hole for its own demise. The business owner needs to be focused on which target group of customers he wants to capture, what does he want to accomplish when he started the business and so on. I can't elaborate much as I'm still pretty inexperienced in this line. I welcome comments on this particular area!

Back to regular blogging from the Chef's office tomorrow. Take care and eat healthy!

Writing from a chef's office

Oh well, that much I wish to do in the near future. Yeap, I've switched to a chef job again. Cooking is back on the menu. But I hope it doesn't stay as the main course. And appetiser or antipasti or entree... whatever you call it in your language.

New job is challenging and involves menu planning which I had prior experience in my previous hotel job. It is real fun brainstorming up new items to put on the menu especially for a small establishment like ours at the moment. But the tough part has to be costing. Yeah.. it's the most vital ingredient in the process. Without knowing how to do costing, a business can go bust pretty soon.

I hoping to continue my thought process by documenting my thoughts on this weblog and hope someone finds it useful somehow like how I learn the business process now.

Till the next page off the chef diary, eat well and stay healthy!

First post for 2010!

Hoorah!! I've finally written my first post for this new decade. I was totally drained by my previous job that I couldn't find any more brain (processor) power to blog. Yes, just in case you do not know, blogging is more than a hobby. It takes dedication and time to write a decent post.

Apologies for not following up on my wedding cakes. I do hope I can find some time soon to blog about it along with some more closeup pictures of the mini cakes.

For this post, I shall dedicate it to one of my favourite foods of all time - Roti Prata. It's not hard to find a link on this food item on Wikipedia which I'll attach here. That simple Indian pancake made from the usual ingredients of flour, water, egg and ghee (clarified butter) is simply to die for especially at 3am after a whole night of dancing at the club. From my observation, this dough is carefully mixed through in a large basin. Then the skillful Prata maker (for the lack of a better word) will divide them into palm-sized dough balls which are left to ferment (note that there is no yeast added) probably to develop the flavour as with most doughs. Before the frying the dough, the Prata maker will press the dough flat with his palm then flip it till it's paper-thin. This requires tremendous amount of experience as the dough must not be rip. Afterwhich, he would fold the 4 corners inwards to form a square piece of pancake. This will then be thrown onto a hotplate and fried with ghee till crispy. Once done, the Prata make will remove the pancakes and stack them on top of each other before giving them a good squeeze to give them a lighter texture. For additional ingredients, for example Egg or the more innovative Cheese, the ingredients are added before the pancake is folded.

Traditionally, the plain ol' Roti Prata is served with a dish of Kari Kambing (Lamb Curry). Now, the variants include the kids' favourite of white sugar to ice cream!

Recently a mate of mine has enlightened us that a "Plaster Prata" means a simple Plain Prata with a egg cracked on top once it's crispy!

Having gone on a short trip across the Causeway (Malaysia) this week, we have savoured the Roti Canai which is done in a similar fashion. What a wonderful experience with a plain pancake that can be enjoyed in many ways.. sweet or savoury. Roti Prata or Canai captures the hearts of many Singaporeans and Malaysians (and we have to include Croatian on the list now)!

Me and my Wedding Cakes

I made them myself! Look at the proud Patissiere Bride!