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Current Career Offerings

Recruitment

Executive Chef - Hong Kong	0	gsa	61	27 Feb 2008 02:40 am gsa
	Executive Chef - Jakarta	0	gsa	28	27 Feb 2008 02:38 am gsa
	Executive Chef - Ubud, Bali	0	gsa	22	27 Feb 2008 02:37 am gsa
	SOMMELIER, restaurant supervisor/ Maitre d’ (4)	0	Pamala Baldwin	42	21 Feb 2008 12:16 pm Pamala Baldwin
	HEAD CHEF for member of Small Leading Hotels of the World	0	Pamala Baldwin	81	21 Feb 2008 12:13 pm Pamala Baldwin
	EXECUTIVE CHEF 5***** Caribbean	0	Pamala Baldwin	56	21 Feb 2008 12:08 pm Pamala Baldwin
	Exec Chef, Pudong Int'l Airport, Shanghai	0	ChefMarco	156	21 Feb 2008 04:02 am ChefMarco
	Executive Chef - South Asia	0	gsa	156	20 Feb 2008 02:06 am gsa
	EXECUTIVE CHEF SOUTH ASIA	0	gsa	125	20 Feb 2008 01:59 am gsa
	EXECUTIVE CHEF INDIA	0	gsa	88	20 Feb 2008 01:58 am gsa
	AREA EXECUTIVE PASTRY CHEF INDIA	0	gsa	75	20 Feb 2008 01:55 am gsa
	Chocolate Chef	0	veronica	102	18 Feb 2008 10:47 am veronica

 

Current Articles

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Invitation--Fragrant Harbour Cruise with Wolf Foods

You are invited to attend a "Fragrant Harbor Cruise" sponsored by Wolf Foods, with beautiful Cold Cuts and delicious Sausages and other goodies from Wolf, on:

Date:        Saturday 15th March

Time:        11:30 until +-5 PM

Location:    Tsim Sha Tsui Ferry Pier, Next to Cultural Center

Only 25 spaces are available so if you wish to join, please sign up quickly!

Send email to Rudolf.muller@disney.com to reserve your spot.

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HKCA Awarded "Caring Organization 2007/08"

   

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HKCA AGM Results

Our last AGM meeting and dinner at the Members Box at the Hong Kong Jockey Club was a great success. The AGM meeting went with out a hitch. The committee presented their last years activities with a glimpse into the 2008 happenings and it will be on the same pattern. A lot of effort went in to training, education local and international competition, newest professional info update at the website and news letter, international chefs drive and charity events… and we also had a bit of fun and our calendar was spiced by social events, for us to come together relax and exchange work related issues amongst other things.

End of the meeting the 30 something eligible members with voting rights, confirmed the appointment of the current committee.

Most of the remaining committee will stay on and serve the association with the same dedication and professionalism as done in the past, Dominique, Denis and Jennings have left us due to job relocations.

There was a question from the public about the HKCA funding and how we would bring the HKCA on top again, therefore Rudy explained the sponsorship drive which was just started and already brought in more money then we ever had in our accounts for the last 8 years.

 

By Rudolf Muller

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HKCA Gala Dinner

After the meeting we proceeded to the dinner, on the 3^rd Floor overlooking Happy Valley Race Course’s stunning view, specially after dark when all the lights come out and you have the big sky above you, then you know why this place is so special. We had a record turn out, as over 195 people attended this dinner, I believe the biggest number ever at a HKCA AGM Gala Dinner.

It was a great evening and everybody had fun and was well taken care off.

The food was very good and chef Lam was able to put a excellent Chinese dinner for us, which all tasted wonderful.

This event today would have not been possible without our great supporter and sponsors. Thank you so much from the bottom of our heart for your generous contribution.

You made this evening a success.

Once again; to everybody, thank you very much for have made this evening a memorable event for all the members of the Hong Kong Chefs Association

Best Regards

 

by Rudolf Muller

The Ladies Team representing Hong Kong on the FHA in Singapore 2008

 

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Our Sponsors

   

&

Feyel Alsace 1811,Hong Kong Kwan Tai Poultry,

Leung Kee Sea Products Ltd

Hai Soy Hong Limited

&

 

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Stage Pictures

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Table & Group Pictures

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Foodshots

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Excuse me Please, Food Cost or Soft Ware

by Andreas Muller

In all the years as chef we have experienced, some places-more here than there the confrontation with the ever appearing situation regarding food cost.

I propose that more often than not, the source of the stress isn't the food costs themselves, but the never-ending disparity between managers and chefs regarding what the magical "ideal" or "theoretical" food cost should be. Depending on which side of the serving line they are on, each member of the management team uses their own "gut feel" to attack or defend the monthly food cost number, a feeling that is influenced by industry averages, experience or bonus desperation.

But feelings can get in the way of facts. By monitoring food costs based upon some arbitrary number instead of investing the time to calculate the true ideal food cost, management can be guilty of criticizing a kitchen staff's performance when the costs are in line or, worse, be lulled into food cost complacency when the costs are running two to three percentage points off the mark. The best gauge of a restaurant's food cost is an internally developed standard based upon an analysis of inventory, recipes, sales mix and price structure.
Simply put, an ideal food cost is the number that will end up in the monthly food cost bucket if everything goes as planned. It is the aggregate cost of all ingredients that should have been used, based upon your recipe costs and sales mix. There is nothing arbitrary about it.
Fortunately, your back office computer can take the bulk of the pencil pushing out of costing your menu. There are currently numerous software programs on the market that have streamlined the arduous task of menu costing, replacing the tedious manual recipe cost sheets with "electronic" cost sheets that can update your recipes "on the fly" for changes in ingredients, portion sizes, inventory costs, or menu prices. And best of all, the programs are designed to be "manager friendly", so you don't have to be an engineer to operate one.
Yes, you still have to dig through the invoice pile to find the current cost of pineapple tidbits and get your chef to commit to the number of parsley springs on the blue plate special, but the beauty of these programs is that once the inventory and recipes have been entered, you have a database that is packed full of valuable information on inventory usage, purchase trends and menu item profitability that would take many labor hours to accumulate manually.
So stop making excuses. If you want to replace the monthly food cost rationalization game with food cost accountability, then get serious about getting a handle on your food costs and make sure you have the right software and the manpower and support of your team to update and manage the recipes and data input.

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Statement by Ferran Adria, Heston Blumenthal, Thomas Keller & Harold Mcgee

Story supplied by Christopher Gallaga

The world of food has changed a great deal in modern times. Change has come especially fast over the last decade. Along with many other developments, a new approach to cooking has emerged in restaurants around the globe, including our own. We feel that this approach has been widely misunderstood, both outside and inside our profession. Certain aspects of it are overemphasized and sensationalized, while others are ignored. We believe that this is an important time in the history of cooking, and wish to clarify the principles and thoughts that actually guide us. We hope that this statement will be useful to all people with an interest in food, but especially to our younger colleagues, the new generations of food professionals.

 

1. Three basic principles guide our cooking: excellence, openness, and integrity.

We are motivated above all by an aspiration to excellence. We wish to work with ingredients of the finest quality, and to realize the full potential of the food we choose to prepare, whether it is a single shot of espresso or a multicourse tasting menu.

    We believe that today and in the future, a commitment to excellence requires openness to all resources that can help us give pleasure and meaning to people through the medium of food. In the past, cooks and their dishes were constrained by many factors: the limited availability of ingredients and ways of transforming them, limited understanding of cooking processes, and the necessarily narrow definitions and expectations embodied in local tradition. Today there are many fewer constraints, and tremendous potential for the progress of our craft. We can choose from the entire planet’s ingredients, cooking methods, and traditions, and draw on all of human knowledge, to explore what it is possible to do with food and the experience of eating. This is not a new idea, but a new opportunity. Nearly two centuries ago, Brillat-Savarin wrote that ‘the discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a new star.”

Paramount in everything we do is integrity. Our beliefs and commitments are sincere and do not follow the latest trend.

  

2. Our cooking values tradition, builds on it, and along with tradition is part of the ongoing evolution of our craft .

The world’s culinary traditions are collective, cumulative inventions, a heritage created by hundreds of generations of cooks. Tradition is the base which all cooks who aspire to excellence must know and master. Our open approach builds on the best that tradition has to offer.

     As with everything in life, our craft evolves, and has done so from the moment when man first realized the powers of fire. We embrace this natural process of evolution and aspire to influence it. We respect our rich history and at the same time attempt to play a small part in the history of tomorrow.

 

 3. We embrace innovation—new ingredients, techniques, appliances, information, and ideas—whenever it can make a real contribution to our cooking.

We do not pursue novelty for its own sake. We may use modern thickeners, sugar substitutes, enzymes, liquid nitrogen, sous-vide, dehydration, and other nontraditional means, but these do not define our cooking. They are a few of the many tools that we are fortunate to have available as we strive to make delicious and stimulating dishes.

Similarly, the disciplines of food chemistry and food technology are valuable sources of information and ideas for all cooks. Even the most straightforward traditional preparation can be strengthened by an understanding of its ingredients and methods, and chemists have been helping cooks for hundreds of years. The fashionable term “molecular gastronomy” was introduced relatively recently, in 1992, to name a particular academic workshop for scientists and chefs on the basic food chemistry of traditional dishes. That workshop did not influence our approach, and the term “molecular gastronomy” does not describe our cooking, or indeed any style of cooking.

  

4. We believe that cooking can affect people in profound ways, and that a spirit of collaboration and sharing is essential to true progress in developing this potential.

The act of eating engages all the senses as well as the mind. Preparing and serving food could therefore be the most complex and comprehensive of the performing arts. To explore the full expressive potential of food and cooking, we collaborate with scientists, from food chemists to psychologists, with artisans and artists (from all walks of the performing arts), architects, designers, industrial engineers. We also believe in the importance of collaboration and generosity among cooks: a readiness to share ideas and information, together with full acknowledgment of those who invent new techniques and dishes.

 

Ferran Adria, Heston Blumenthal, Thomas Keller, Harold McGee

 

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