Off Spec Cows...

I was looking back at the previous posts and realised that many of the photos have disappeared. Probably when Blogger was migrated over to the Google servers.. I'm pretty sure I uploaded those photos and didn't just link them to FB.

Anyway, I was summoned to my beef supplier's warehouse today because he needed me to see something. Check out what was waiting for me.

A

B

C

The marbling is really insane. I ended up buying the whole lot, roughly 20 kilos. That was his evil plan all along...

Thing is, all beef was created equal, just that some are more equal than others. The 3 pictures above show:

• Wagyu M8/9
• Wagyu M6/7
• Grass fed Angus

What's the big deal? Well, higher intramuscular fat is prized because it adds flavour and unctuousness to the meat. Finding grass fed beef with marbling like this is ridiculous. Definitely off specification and a true gem. 

I'm gonna try something new here. The first person who can correctly match the type/grade and cut of meat to A,B and C above wins a portion of this at okb. Obviously, people I've spoken to about this yesterday do not qualify.. Leave your answers in the comments!

The portion is about 300g and is worth $50. For the heck of it, I'll even throw in a free glass of the Brave, a Barossa Valley Shiraz that is not sold by the glass. I'll pour you a glass and keep the rest for myself. Definitely my favourite wine and the ultimate companion to this piece of cow.

Any takers? :)

2013

At the start of the year, I told myself that I would be more active here. The last post was in January. So much for that...

2013 has been an interesting year. Took on 2 potential investors who turned out to be mostly hot air, kicked them out in a squabble that nearly went to court, accepted that I wasn't gonna get rid of okb so easily, took on 2 investors with real chops, a renovation and a new girlfriend later, the business appears to be finally in order. Time will tell...

Learned a lot this year, that's for sure. I hope 2014 is less of a pain in the ass :)

Food, from the heart...

okb :)

Scallops dengan Minyak Buah Keluak

My eldest sister loves scallops. I like them but she LOVES them. Scallops are fantastic but expensive. A scallop sporting a perfect sear is one of the best ways of eating them and adding too many other flavours will just ruin it. I find that searing the scallops with the oil skimmed of a big pot of ayam buah keluak ties my love for this shellfish and the classic Peranakan treat into a perfect knot.

Belachan Butter Midwings

This is NOT a variation of prawn paste chicken. I first tried this combination with leftover sambal belachan that I had made, by hand, at my grand aunt’s house. I had friends coming over and wanted to do something ‘more’ than just fried chicken wings or buffalo wings. I wanted something with local pizazz. So I was rifling through the fridge looking for inspiration when I came across the sambal belachan sitting in the margarine tub she gave me. Gold. But I needed a way to bind the belachan to the chicken and what better way than to make a compound butter with it? This followed by a really slow fry in the oven creates real magic.

Pork Belly & Luak Chye

I first tried luak chye at my great grand aunt’s house over CNY just a few years ago. I was really amazed at how good a combination of mustard greens and ginger, given time to mellow out in vinegar, could be. I knew it would become a signature dish of mine because it’s such a perfect condiment for any pork dish. I personally like the fattier cuts of pork and the luak chye works so well in cutting through the grease and lifting the entire dish.

Roast Beef with Gula Melaka Glaze

Cheap cuts of beef have the most flavour. Asians especially like the gelatinous texture that slow cooked cuts of beef, like shin and brisket, offer. Reading along the same lines, I give good quality US chuck a slow cook treatment, sear off the outsides to give tasty caramelized bits and serve the lot with a demi-glace made with beef jus, red wine and gula Melaka carried back by hand from, you guessed it, Malacca. The result? One of the most popular dishes in my repertoire. 

Starfruit Chicken

This dish is truly my personal culinary piece de resistance. A perfect marriage of traditional French technique, modern cooking methods and SE-Asian flavours and textures. This is something I would proudly call fusion. This dish really took it's time to evolve. I first toyed with the idea of using starfruit in salads when I got bored of the usual cherry tomato and baby radish that commonly go in. The pickled starfuit was an instant hit with my private dining clients and I thought it would give a refreshing kick to the Hainanese style poached chicken I learned to make while selling chicken rice at a hawker stall. Personally I hate steamed/boiled chicken skin so I took to searing the skin like how roast chicken is made at the stalls. The finishing touch came when a friend suggested using a beurre blanc as a finishing sauce to make the precision poached chicken breasts a little more unctuous. You may not be a fan of chicken breast, but wait till you try this dish out...

Cha Ca

I spent some time in Vietnam on internship during university and made really good friends there who’d bring me home and teach me how to cook real everyday Vietnamese foods. The culinary impact can still be seen in my cooking today with the use of many fresh SE-Asian herbs and fish sauce in my dishes. Cha ca isn’t something I particularly like but my interpretation of this dish really represents what I love most about Vietnamese cuisine. The mix of herbs and fish sauce brings unexpected depth of flavour to a simple looking presentation.

Haloumi and Tomatoes

My twin sisters did their degrees in Brisbane and developed a penchant for grilled haloumi and lemon juice over outdoor barbies and beer, the perfect companion to haloumi, in my humble opinion. They started making it here but I always found it too salty for my locally adapted palate. Never thought highly of it till I tried Bjorn’s version, with a tomato salad, over at Artichoke. Then it hit me that I could jazz this up with the marinated tomatoes I had already created as a side for other dishes. The rest, is history.

Shepherd’s Pie

My sisters have been a huge influence in my life and they always will be. I always remember them cooking and something they’d make pretty often was shepherd’s pie. Back then, no one in school knew what that was. They’d brown beef in a wok with frozen mixed vegetables, and top the casserole dish with instant mashed potato. My version pays homage to that. A mixture of beef and pork worked by hand into a smooth emulsion (just like how my mum taught me to make tahu tepung), brunoise vegetables, a spicy tomato sauce cooked like sambal rempah and a rustic sweet potato mash to blanket it all up. This dish is heaven in a cocotte, comfort to the max.

Update

Almost 3 years have passed and obviously, a lot has happened. By the grace of God, I managed to graduate. I started a moderately successful supper club and a slightly more successful private dining outfit. I made many new friends and lost a few as well. I ditched an awesome opportunity in Italy (a masters degree) and instead, opened this up.

What's next? I don't know. I think though, I'll be penning more thoughts here from now on. Come what may...

:)

omnomnom!

Vexing as they may be, making these sure beats FYP reports...

Bill

Just wanted to put this up before I lose the photos...

Bill and me

Merv, Bill and me

So, in October last year, Merv and I were Bill Granger's cooks for a photo shoot of his upcoming Asian themed cookbook. Fun times in Pulau Ubin :)

Sous Vide @ Home - Part 2

Alright so this post is long overdue but I only just got my own vacuum sealer last week so technically, my sous vide set up is only just now completed. A lot has been said about cooking sous vide. When the technique first came out in the 70s, it wasn't long before valid concerns over the stability of plastics in hot water and anaerobic bacteria propagation were raised. But we know a lot more about food safety now and food grade plastics are here to stay. There will be those who will always claim that charcoal stoves and wood fired ovens make the best food, and for specific dishes I will be among the first to agree, but seriously, can you do this without sous vide technology?

how gay is this?

That is a piece of USDA choice chuck eye roll. That's right, CHOICE. Not premium standard American beef and yes, CHUCK. But look at it. Perfectly medium from end to end and you know what? So tender that you can easily slice it with a butter knife. Sous vide cooking value adds. Full beef flavour of a tough cut with the tenderness of filet mignon without the slow cooking effect of drying out the meat. I can't think of ANY other way to get results like this.

So, in my case, sous vide cooking is literally meat in a plastic bag, a computer and a rice cooker but damn, the results are mind blowing.

I have used this set up to cook tender cuts and tough cuts of beef, lamb, chicken, fish, scallops, vegetables and even fruit! The results are consistent every single time. What varies is the finishing and I have learned several tough lessons, experiencing it the hard way. For example, searing something at room temperature, something fresh out of the fridge and something fresh out of sous vide, yields differing results. Common sense right? Well not for me...

pre-packed beef in my rice cooker with a resistance thermometer probe

Before I got my own vacuum sealer, I would get the cuts trimmed and pre-sealed and then do a quick marinate before finishing. I was also limited to cuts of meat ordered from my suppliers Now the possibilities are endless, I can save on marinades because vacuum marinating requires a fraction of the marinade and confits can be made hassle free. Perfectly poached scallops and salmon mi-cuit are easy peasy.

pre-sealed lamb shank and marinated chuck tender

I am completely sold on the sous vide technique. I believe it was Thomas Keller who said that sous vide doesn't take away the need to learn classical cooking techniques, it's just another option in a good cook's repertoire.

Fund Raiser, Round II

In Feb, JAM catered for a fundraiser. Hor d'oeuvres for 30, we did 6 savoury and 3 sweet. I got the savoury tartlet shells from poon huat and to be frank, they sucked. The photo below shows the shells in the background being filled with a lemon cream cheese, smoked salmon and deep fried capers. A fantastic combo marred by substandard shells.

 

At about 20 cents a shell, I should have expected pastries made with their vegetable shortening. When filled and left at room temperature, they were hard and cloying on the palate. Unfortunately, we didn't have the budget for anything else and baking 300 of these just wasn't enticing. However, now that Ming and I have done 1200 macaron shells, baking these tartlet shells seems more feasible than before. A move to maintain the quality of the stuff we put out.

We were called in for a second round of the fundraiser. This time no shells will be needed as the menu will be more substantial. I'm staying away from shells until we find a good source or we get the equipment to bake our own. Right now, I have sashimi grade salmon curing in the fridge and chuck eye roll in the sous vide. Macarons with assorted fillings were made last Saturday so things are going well.

Hope everything goes well, I have a packed 3 weeks ahead :(

Colin, the Ninja Chef

How do you create a menu using premium ingredients and yet keep your average price per dish at just under $20? One way is to cut away overhead and manpower costs.

That's exactly what my friend Colin did.

If one could get away with dragging some burners to the middle of the sidewalk and setting up shop, I'm half sure he would have done that, at least at the beginning. Instead, he moved into the premises of B Bakery on Bussorah Street. Serendipitously, B Bakery closes on Sundays and at 6pm on weekdays, giving Colin free reign over the kitchen for Sunday brunch and dinners from Monday to Wednesday.

He opened shop quite a while back and I've been meaning to head down but somehow never did. I finally made it a point to get my ass there for the half year anniversary of ZT and me. I should have gone sooner.

I first met Colin at the Brown Sugar Bistro. He was helping his friend Kelvin, the owner of the now closed Le Figue, for a private engagement. Kelvin was there as a favour to the owner Yuan who was having issues with his chef. That was back in 2007 and if I recall correctly, Colin stayed there for a while after and that's how we got to know each other. Some time later, I helped him for a lunch function at the now defunct Les Brasserie on Club Street. I burned his strawberries for dessert :(

After that, he got married and we only kept in touch via the odd text or facebook msg. We met again when he joined the spanking new Pamplemousse in Dempsey. Then he stepped away from a respectable position and went out on his own.

In his own words, moving to B Bakery was the right thing to do because he finally had a humble place to call his own and where he was free to express himself. Cooking is artisanal to him and I respect him tremendously for sticking to his guns. For the same reason, I think he wouldn't be too happy calling him a ninja rather than an artist. But that's what he is - a bad boy rebel who does things his own way.

Some days at B Bakery are better than others. Today, when I walked in, the 20 seat dining room was empty. The location and the lack of awareness is definitely a reason for this but it shouldn't be this way. IAmArtisan, is a gem of a find. I don't claim to be an authority on food but I have eaten quite a bit in my short life, to the point that I am rarely impressed. Don't get me wrong, I'm not playing his tune because he's my friend. I can foresee a whole host of problems if they got more than 3 tables simultaneously because it's just him in the kitchen and his wife Rose handling front of house. I also didn't like every single thing about the food. BUT what he let me experience today was a real and proper meal. Dining as it should be, leisurely and of excellent quality.

The menu changes weekly but I've observed that Colin keeps his favourite main ingredients on each edition of the menu. Look out for the beetroot salad which will change the way you think of this muddy root. He also brings in fresh sardines from Europe but as well executed as this dish was, I'm not a fan of fishy fish. What I thoroughly enjoyed was the Port Nicholson cheese and his rendition of carbonara.

Don't take my word for it. Go try it for yourselves and be wow-ed.

IAmArtisan
B Bakery
15 Bussorah Street

Tuesdays to Saturdays - Dinner
Sundays - Brunch

Cooking Classes

4 years ago when I was constantly trying to take Jo's eye out and helping to facilitate cooking classes and corporate bonding sessions at the Coriander Leaf, I never thought that I would be running classes of my own. Back then, I couldn't understand why people would pay so much for the same information they could easily find on videojug and youtube. I have a different view on this now.

In Singapore, there isn't much to do. After watching every movie that's out and pacing the malls, cooking classes offer an alternative activity that is interactive without being sweaty, as opposed to passive movie watching and sweaty games of tennis.The tactile learning one goes through by participating in a class gives form to the words and numbers in a recipe. What does consistency of magma or stiff peaks or over whipped cream mean? Better to discover it with your own senses then waste several batches of ingredients finding out on your own.

These classes are also a great way of meeting like minded people. Sure I've met really obnoxious know-it-alls but the majority of the people just want to have a good time doing something they enjoy. One thing I enjoy about hands on classes is that it's a 2 way learning highway. I am there to present a class but we all learn together along the way by fixing things that go wrong on the spot and by trading tips.

Besides being a good source of income, sometimes even better than the cooking stints we get at JAM, we get to showcase our skills and get new leads for what I love doing most, cooking for people. I used to tutor chemistry. I love chemistry but I hated teaching it. I'm quite ok with teaching how to cook though, maybe it really is about the content.

I still think that these classes can be expensive but I can see the allure they have. Check out what I'm doing this month with ToTT and Cookyn with Mervyn.

:)

Circles of Eternal Vexation...

vex·a·tion/vekˈsāSHən/Noun
1. The state of being annoyed, frustrated, or worried.

2. Something that causes annoyance, frustration, or worry.

Why? For starters, these annoying things sometimes go tits up for no reason.

Then, there's ALLLLL that waiting time involved in the multi-stage process of mixing,



piping,


drying,



baking,


filling


and packing...


Yes, I'm talking about macarons and after making at least a thousand filled cookies, I can finally say with conviction that, 'j'ai atteint macaronnage', I have attained macaronnage.



Maca-wud? Macaronnage is the term used to describe getting the correct consistency when mixing your tant pour tant and your meringue. Undermixing gives you puffy meringue-like cookies and overmixing gives you chewy discs.

Even if you get the right consistency, nothing guarantees the elusive feet. I think I've seen them all. No feet, feet right across the top (cracks), lopsided feet, half formed feet, collapsed feet. I generally have a lot of luck with patisserie, I almost never ruin chocolate when melting it down, but with macarons, oh with macarons, I'm always flipping coins...



For Valentine's day, Ming and I filled out orders for 600 cookies. 17 hours was how long it took, from start to finish.

Next time you lament at having to fork out $2.50 for one, just shut up and pay. It's much easier to just buy it.

I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream For Ice Cream!

I got myself an ice cream machine. The final choices were the cuisinart ice-50bc and the venetto classic. I read somewhere that the cuisinart production has been discontinued (indicating a possbile lack of spare parts in the future) and when I tested the machine at the shop, it was really noisy. Those reasons and the $700 price tag made me go with the venetto.


First thing I made was an apple blackberry sorbet. I used my own standard recipe which gives pretty decent results as a frozen block blended with a hand blender before a JAM service. The results were pretty good, except that I didn't churn the mix long enough so after ripening in the freezer, the texture wasn't as smooth as it could have been due to the formation of larger ice crystals.


After that pretty successful run, I decided to try my hand at ice cream. There was no other way but the vanilla way. I'm not a big fan but I do believe that the best way to judge the quality of an ice cream label is by tasting it's vanilla flavour. I made a standard creme anglais custard I learned at the coriander leaf and churned it. I didn't have vanilla pods so I used extract. The texture was amazing but the lack of real pods really showed in the flavour of the ice cream, it was also a little too rich. Probably too much heavy cream.


I had anticipated this though and only churned half the custard. I loaded up the other half with a copious amount of Irish cream and churned it, curious to see just how the alcohol content would affect the texture. The results were stunning. The alcohol lowered the freezing point even further and after ripening overnight, the ice cream was incredibly smooth. The liqueur had tempered out the richness of the custard and because of the amount I added, putting a spoonful into your mouth immediately released a bold but pleasant alcohol 'cloud'. Unlike the alcoholic ice creams from Skinny Pizza which were a little overpowering, this recipe is definitely a keeper.

Irish Ice Cream & Chocolate Fondant

The next day I decided to try something a little more exciting and prepared some salted caramel. I increased the proportion of whole milk to heavy cream and at the last minute decided to go gelato style as a further experiment so corn flour instead of egg yolks were used to thicken the custard. The custard tasted awesome after being cooled down in the fridge but after churning, the caramel flavour became too prominent. I must have burned it a bit too much. The texture though was really nice and I think the gelato style works best for me. The egg yolks in Singapore have a really eggy smell even when they're fresh from the market and this flavour becomes detectable in the ice cream, something I personally don't like. Gelato it is.

In the churner right now, I'm trying out a barley gelato. No corn flour here, just really thick barley water sweetened with melon sugar. Adding some lemon juice to make lemon barley might make it a nice local flavour palate cleanser. Next up is a water chestnut sorbet :)

Will post a recipe for gelato once I get the proportions right.

Sous Vide @ Home - Part 1

So it's my birthday in 2 days and instead of studying thin films and quality control, I spent the day online, reading up on sous vide functional principles, looking for equipment online and getting in touch with my inner geek :) damn the things people do when they have too much time..

Because a thermomix is just too expensive right now ($2500, but if you think that's bad, a pacojet costs $6000), I decided that one last birthday treat was in order but couldn't decide on whether to get a high power food processor, an ice cream machine or a sousvide supreme. Getting any of them would contribute a lot in the kitchen and getting all would be swell but at an average price of $700 each, it wasn't going to happen.

The food processor was last on the wish list and while the sousvide supreme is a really nice toy, $800 for the set up, EXCLUDING the vacuum sealer, was just too much. So, I decided to buy the ice cream machine and a low end vacuum sealer and build my own sous vide rig. I am studying to be an engineer after all, may as well put all that tuition to some use :)

A sous vide set up requires 3 basic components. Something to hold the conducting liquid(water bath), something to heat the conducting liquid (incandescent light bulb or heating element from an old electric kettle) and most importantly something that makes sure the temperature stays the same by switching the heating element on and off (equipment with a feedback loop to control the heater). I studied the product reviews and as much online literature about sous vide machines and decided to use the sousvide supreme, convection circulated design as opposed to the open top, thermal immersion circulators I used at the brewery which cost abt US$1200 for just that small box (PID controller) at the top left of the picture below. Wish I had this now :(

Beer kept overnight at 19°C for daily testing

The convection design costs less because it requires less equipment, you depend on convection currents as opposed to pumps to circulate the water in your bath. My own rig will use an old school mechanical rice cooker as the bath and heating element. The heat coming from the bottom should also create good convection circulation of the conducting liquid. The rice cooker is well insulated and has a fitted cover that will help maintain the higher than ambient temperatures with less energy. On the flip side, cooling it down will also be harder.

I study materials science and not electrical engineering so all the circuit diagrams for the amplifiers and other feedback units we study are truncated to black boxes on our diagrams. In any case, Singapore doesn't have a 'radio shack' analogue and sourcing all the individual parts seemed like too much work to complete my home sous vide machine. Instead, I got a PID controller unit online and 2 sets of platinum resistive thermal device probes. I chose to use RTD probes because sous vide is a process that can take a long time, up to 72 hours in some recipes and this requires high long term accuracy. After a bit of research, I found the appropriate circuit diagrams and process codes here. Now all the GPA hammering shit from first and second year engineering, like C++ programming and electrical circuitry is reaping returns.

According to wikipedia, A proportional–integral–derivative controller (PID controller) is a generic control loop feedback mechanism (controller) widely used in industrial control systems – a PID is the most commonly used feedback controller. A PID controller calculates an "error" value as the difference between a measured process variable and a desired set point. The controller attempts to minimize the error by adjusting the process control inputs.

In essence, Proportional calculations set an initial or present platform to achieve the desired outcome. These are supplemented by the Integral calculations which using previous data, calculate feedback based on previous data and Derivative feedback are predictions worked out from current rates of change to ensure that the temperature stays constant to within 0.1°C with proper calibration. Compare this with a simple thermostat in an oven that switches on and off within a sinusoidal range of about 15°C peak amplitude.

I HATE math so I'm glad there're pre-written formulas from the circuit diagram site and that's why Man invented the computer, to do all that calculus :) $300, 4 hours and programming software courtesy of NTU later, I'm ready to rock and roll. This works out so much better than buying a sousvide supreme. By changing the size of the rice cooker, which costs less than $100, I can easily adjust the set up to sous vide items for 2 or 25 people in a snap. All this for less than half the price that the sousvide supreme is being sold at. I can already see myself cooking a 4kg ribeye sous vide and then searing the outside on the cooking plate I bought today.

Will update when I can, probably when the PID controller arrives. I hope this works! In the meantime, I will be reading up on this great free resource for sous vide cooking data.

Bún Chả Singapore

I spent almost 7 months in Vietnam last year on Industrial Attachment at a brewery. Most of that time was spent in Hanoi, where I made some lifelong friends and had some seriously amazing adventures. Many involving copious amounts of bia hơi and occasionally, thịt chó.

Good doggy..

Vietnam has so much more to offer than phở and nem tươi and one of my favourite things to eat for about a dollar is bún chả Hà Nội. My favourite bún chả street stall sits at the junction of Phan Chu Trinh and Trần Xuân Soạn in Quận Hai Bà Trưng, Hà Nội. In addition to the standard fan aspirated charcoal grill that pumps out insanely wicked grilled pork, this stall also serves really good nem rán cua. Which on second thought, is pretty much de rigueur.. Haha!

keep 'em coming auntie...

After coming back home, I kept having cravings for bún chả and when my godmother asked me to cook a dinner for her, I decided it was time to get the charcoal fire going. I tried capturing every detail I could remember to make an authentic bún chả, even using wire mesh meat holders I brought back from Hanoi. I even considered setting up the grill next to my car's exhaust pipe to capture the real street food flavour.

I didn't know where to fit in my stand fan :(

I made Ming hand chop a 50-50 mix of pork belly and pork shoulder with garlic, shallots, Thai basil, and coriander because it was too much work for me. Then I mixed in some water, sugar, nước mắm from Phú Quốc, salt and pepper. This mixture was shaped into mini burger sized patties. I also marinated slices of pork belly with sugar, more nước mắm, minced garlic, salt and pepper. I can't find good Vietnamese nước mắm here so I have to bring back several bottles each time I make a trip there. I also didn't look very hard for bún and used thick bee hoon instead. So much for authenticity...

Are bean sprouts used in bún chả? My memory fails me.. Oops..

The bowl looked kinda empty, because obviously I couldn't find any other herbs besides,Thai basil, coriander and mint so I decided to toss in some bean sprouts. Least I got the nước chấm right. Can't go wrong with that when you have great fish sauce on hand.

It tasted gooood....

Then Ming and I were so busy serving that I didn't get photos of the final layout. The dish was well received, probably cos I didn't tell anyone how much sugar went into the dipping sauce... I think it's about time I headed back north for some real bún chả. Where's a xe ôm when you need one?

This post also appears on the 8th edition of the Delicious Vietnam series hosted by Bear Head Soup and initiated by Anh and the Ravenous Couple to celebrate the diversity of Vietnamese cuisine.

JAM

I have a test tomorrow, and another one the day after. Also, final exams are about a month away. What better way is there to pass the time than writing an entry here? :) I thought I'd talk a little about the private dining outfit I run with my friends Alroy and Ming.

The 3 of us met during NS where we played rugby for armour. Some time between choreographing the best looking offense/defense drills and dancing to music on the field, we discovered each others inclination toward the kitchen. Soon, we were organising massive meat bbqs for our friends. Once in a while, friends and family would ask us to cook for dinner parties and we started roping in each other to help. It occurred to us that we could increase the quality of what we were making by planning and charging for better ingredients instead of just churning out whatever the person wanted. This was the start of things to come.

The name JAM comes from the first letters of our first names. In sequence, here's the crew.

I love the name. Alroy came up with it one day while we were at Ming's house messing around in the kitchen. Ming's mum was talking to us and asked what we would call ourselves in the future and Roy just spat it out. I was on the crapper at the time but I heard it loud and clear and loved it. That was more than 2 years ago and we've come a long way since. The logo was only finalised this year after a lot of struggle on Ming's part to get the design finished.

Simple, unassuming and yet elegant, quite like our food. I am sure I pissed Ming off quite a bit with all the hounding I did for him to get this done. It's irritating though, when people ask what JOM is. Once that was done, I got the email accounts and website set up, jackets embroidered and the calling cards embossed fairly quickly. Overnight, professionalism x 10,000.


Our charges are low, you will probably never see anything above $100 a person for an individually plated meal with up to 8 courses. Communal plating of 5 dishes goes as low as $50 a person for a large group. We made it this way for several reasons.

1. We're not doing this for profit
2. We don't want to over reach and go beyond our capabilities
3. We don't believe that access to such services should burn a hole in your pockets

We've had more hits than misses, that's for sure. To date I can only think of 2 occasions where our clients were not impressed with our food. Most of the time, we totally exceed expectations and that's a great feeling.

Our cuisine is simple. We take the flavours we like and express them with the ingredients we're familiar with so expect to taste limau purut, lengkuas, gula melaka and tau cheo in our cooking. Having spent almost 7 months in Vietnam on my Industrial Attachment, I must admit that my cooking of late has been influenced by Vietnamese flavours. Some dishes are reinterpretations like this chả cá Thăng Long,


while others are original creations like this tomato, avocado & prawn salad.


Our plating is simple, to save on costs and to showcase the ingredients used.

Roast Leek & Asparagus Salad with Beetroot and Xiao Bai Cai Miao

Hei Mee Ta ( Dry Prawn Mee)

Mi Cuit Salmon with Watercress & Taragon Puree

Chick'n in a Bizkit

Each new client gets a customized menu to fit the theme and reflect the personal preferences that he/she has. After all, it's a meal in your own home, you should get whatever you want. Many people have told me that the JAM website needs to be spruced up but I designed it to be deliberately enigmatic. Before all the press coverage happened, all our clients were recommended to us via word of mouth. This suited us perfectly because we are weekend warriors in the kitchen and this method was just right for the amount of time we could commit to cooking. The site simply serves as a point of contact for those already in the know and as a shell for us to 'chope' the domain name.

So here's a little introduction to what I do at JAM :)

To contact us, drop me an email or visit the website.

Bon Appetit!