Me me me me me.....it's all about me....

Ipoh, a city in the peninsular of Malaysai that people all over South East Asia,( as far south as Singapore and as far north as Hong Kong) travel to, just for it’s wonderful food. Being a truly multicultural business centre, this Malaysian city is littered with foodshops, restaurants, food markets, hawker stalls, food courts and all things food related inspired by the many races and cultures of Malaysia. It is said that people in Ipoh live and work for their next meal. So far, I am yet to meet someone who has been to Ipoh who disagrees. I was fortunate enough to be born into this beautiful culture, referred to by the Chinese as 民以食为天, loosely translated as ‘FOOD is the primary enjoyment in life’.

For the first 12 years of my life, my parents, who are keen ‘food enthusiasts’, took me to all the ‘best’ food establishments that they knew. I’d like to point out here that the phrase ‘best food establishment’ used here will probably be very different from the popular western idea of ‘best’. The eastern concept of a meal experience has a great deal to do with context, tradition and culture. Which in short, means that the I didn’t go to places resembling Le Gavroche or El Bulli at the tender age of 9. Those experiences were more like little road side stalls which served North west Malaysia’s ‘best’ roasted belly of pork on newspaper, with the crispiest rind you can imagine ; ‘Ipoh’s best Oxtail braised noodle soup served in chipped plastic plates in the back alley of a residential care home; South east asia’s ‘best’ chicken and beansprouts on the ‘chicken and bean sprout Street’ which is an experience that could only be described as timeless and unique in the way the food taste as well as the memories imprinted into one’s memory by the sheer atmosphere of the place. The seed of which was planted in those years slowly grew into this unstoppable passion for, not just food, but dining experiences that could bring about someone’s ‘best and most memorable’.

Throughout my career, I have worked towards the sole objective of gaining as diverse a range of experience in the world of food and dining as I possibly can. With my passion and ambition deeply rooted with Food. Between the age of 12 and 16, whilst indulging the process of growing up in the seasonal resort town of Great Yarmouth, I did spells of work in Indian restaurant kitchens, Chinese takeaway kitchens, a 3* hotel breakfast kitchen, Delicatessan, Cheese counters, a traditional bakery, staff canteens, and a Chinese Dimsum kitchen. Like a sponge, I soaked up all the passion, knowledge and experience I could, whilst spending all my spare time reading, experimenting and tasting food which is still the case till this very day.

The two years that I spent in college studying a BTEC National Diploma in Science, was also when my full time career started off. To support myself financially, I seeked employment at the local Pizza Hut of Yum! International where I learnt to manage a kitchen which ran at 130% capacity for 3 months of the year and barely scraping 30% the rest of the year, with extremely stringent standards to adhere to . What started off as being just a part time job being a pizza boy, turned out to be a lot more than that. I made my mark within the company and developed a good network in the East Anglian circuit of the brand within a considerably short period of time and very swiftly rose through the ranks to a multi-site management position. I learnt a huge amount by ways of advanced management systems & corporate business development. I was lucky enough to be assigned to several new restaurant opening projects, a few of which I headed within my own field of expertise which gave me priceless project management experience, which compliments well with the repertoire of financial and operational management roles I had up till then. Though very involved with the corporate management culture, my heart was still very much tied to the kitchen. I continued my personal studies on food and was still regularly spending some nights off from the corporate world in professional kitchens helping out my friends who were in need of a spare pair of hands.

After several years and having gained a very solid foundation and deep understanding of the corporate world, I found myself being offered the opportunity to head up a small, city centre boutique bar and restaurant operation in Norwich, Norfolk which had all the potential but required a complete total revamp and an injection of character and personality. As opposing to my previous experience of managing a teams of between 60-100 staff churning out high volume medium yield transactions with an annual gross of £1million or above, Bedfords Bar & Restaurant was more of a team of 10-14 low volume high yield operation grossing a third or less than the former. But it was by no means easier, in fact quite so the contrary.

Working alongside my employer turned good friend, we set out to transform the business from a old out of date old boy’s club to a hip, chic, happening place, with a locally acclaimed fine-dining venue. In the 3 years of heading that business, I had established a fair reputation as chef and businessman both in the public eye as well as amongst fellow professionals within the city. It was also during this time that my personal style of cooking and operation fully blossomed and matured. I was also lucky enough to have worked with some amazing unsung heroes within the industry whom I made no secret of learning and extracting experience from. Business was good, I was at a point whereby I was ready to take the next step up o9n my personal development ladder, with opportunities already presenting themselves, an unfortunate twist of fate occurred. Due to reasons caused by no fault of my own, I was left with no choice but to leave my career, my friends and most importantly my newly wedded wife who I met within the industry, to go back to Malaysia for an indefinite period of time. My story was heavily covered by the local media. The business community and the industry were extremely supportive by spearheading a media support campaign to pressurise the authorities to reconsider my position.

With anything up to 18 months in Malaysian soil which I hadn’t set foot on for over 8 years, I set out to make it a productive chapter of my career as well as my life. It took me a short few weeks to refamiliarise myself with the multilingual culture, but it didn’t take half as long for me to re-discover the multicultural food-led way of living Malaysia is so well known for. Malaysia is indeed a heaven for anyone who has a love for cultural food or ‘contextual dining’ as I’d like to call it. It was clear that I had no choice but to rediscover my Malaysian roots and exploit it for any and every ounce of food related experience it can offer. I was also fortunate enough to find employment in a procurement & export firm which specialised in Malaysian & south East Asian speciality food products and ingredients exporting to the USA, which put me in contact with a lot of food manufacturers and producers, which gave me priceless insights into the production of many ingredients, such as soya sauce, beansprouts, sauce, sesame oil, tofu etc that even in western kitchens we use day in day out but take for granted its painstaking production.

I also managed to get myself appointed as the Campaigning and Operations director for the Democratic Action Party at the State assembly Constituency level for the recently concluded Malaysian General Election, where I was in essence the chief of staff for the candidate, responsible for scheduling, planning and executing rallies, dinners, press conferences, closed door meetings and the security and wellbeing of the candidate. We won the seat with a 75% majority as well as the state governing power. I am currently the still serving in an advisory/consultative capacity for the constituency as well as the state assembly representative for planning, executing and managing of events proposed by the party. Needless to say, both appointments played a vital role in my decision to start this business. But the decision was solidified and put in to action shortly after the election when I started being asked by guests in the events I have co-ordinated to do the same for them. I now have a significant portfolio of clients in the Northern part of Peninsular Malaysia It seemed like fate wanted its share in moulding my Curriculum Vitae.

The year of being in Malaysia, also known to some as my year’s enforced sabbatical in the orient, has understandably got me back in touch with my oriental roots. With the so-called sabbatical, I have gained a deeper understanding of fundamentals of food pairing and have developed a newfound style of food. Without the daily grind and pressures of running a bar, restaurant and kitchen, I have been able to dedicate more, time, attention and energy to creating food as opposing to having to turn out results for the customers. Predominantly using south east Asian food concepts and combinations with diverse use of Chinese herbs and spices, but remaining grounded with familiar European influenced techniques backed with scientific methodologies, I believe this style of cooking is as exciting and interesting for me as a chef as it is for you and your guests at your dinner party.

Advocating on behalf of the proverbial devil, I would also like to clarify my position as a professional; an artist; an artisan; a craftsman or maybe simply a chef. I’d like to believe that what I, and my colleagues (fellow chefs) within the catering industry do is none short of practicing a sacred discipline or providing an artisanal expertise/craft that demands respect and recognition for the same reason artists, musicians, film makers do. We have the duty and responsibility, not to mention well-earned right to express ourselves creatively through our work, and more often than not, we’re forgotten about because to enjoy the fruits of our art form is a very ephemeral experience - one minute you are savouring all it's qualities and the next it is a distant memory! Most art is around for considerably longer periods and that is sometimes a good thing because most Art takes time to fully appreciate it. The legacy that is left by each moment of gastronomic experience may not leave much physical evidence though the psychological/mnemonic traces that it has the potential to leave, is scientifically proven to be measurably deeper than an experience conjured by any other artform. I can honestly and trutfully say that my first rare-aberdeen angus T-bone is still maturing as a memory, despite the fact that it happened 16 years ago. Experiences that I had but didn’t know I was having, (you don’t know what you don’t know), are slowly presenting themselves as marked memories, as I gain more knowledge of the Physical and psychological aspects of a dining experience. What was just piece of meat with weird taste and texture in a really brightly lit place with lots of noise and and laughter, is now a very positively different picture in my mind, all because I now have a deeper (though still limitless more to learn) understanding of the everything there is to know about having an experience.