RL140624: It's finally ended...

OMG, what a haul we've been through, and we're finally seeing the end! Together with our juniors, we presented our hardwork to the 'big bosses' last Tuesday. And wow, was it a thrilling experience with the last minute surprise. That aside, we managed to pull through and the big bosses were really satisfied with the outcome!

RL140624: The D-day! (pun intended ;))

7.50am, I reached R&D kitchen well-prepared and full-spirited for the presentation in the noon. We've paid so much effort for this to come true, so I promised myself to go all-out and nail the presentation later. Although the rehearsal the day before was very messy as I was not really familiar with our new slides. Anyway, as I was getting ready, Helen came into the locker room and greeted me with her ever sexy and husky voice. Gosh, she lost her voice! of all time but this uber important day! If it were the usual me, I would be all panic and anxious. I didn't know where did I gain the confidence but I was not at all worried about the situation, and was positive that Helen can get her voice back by the afternoon. However, for 'insurance' I got Wilbert and Eugene to prepare for the presentation too. *fingers crossed*

The production that day went on smoothly. As we prepared the Asian paste and condiments before hand, we had ample of time left for the opor and rendang. We even had time to cook our 'staff meal'! 

My new creation- salted vege duck soup without salted vege.. Tastes superb!

Oh, so back to the project, BS4 joined us later of the day to get their dishes ready. We started around 1.40pm, when our industry partners arrived. We had our dean and the coordinator of this project together with us that day as the food tasting panels. Group 1 went first. Our guests were awed by their concept of pasembor pasta, and also liked their dry curry pasta. Coming up next was the presentation by BS4, and then group 2. We were the last group presenting. The best fish swims at the bottom heh? Just kidding

Okay, so the presentation was a long one, our guests were very meticulous I'd say. They paid attention to every single detail, thinking from different perspectives,  the feasibility of the production at central kitchen, reheating the food and serving at the outlet. I was amazed by their patience as they have been through so many dishes before, but could still manage to critically taste our food. 

Me and Helen presenting our dish...

According to their feedback, the opor chicken (now named as creamy turmeric chicken pasta) tasted like ayam percik, which I have no idea what was it at all. LOL! It did not caught their attention anyway. But the response for our Rendang received a very welcoming once again! Yay to that! Surprisingly, they liked my Asian pasta as well. Haha, it was something unexpected, but strangely acceptable and addicting. 

So, there you go, we ended the session after our presentation. They were really satisfied with our performance, and said that they will feature some of our dishes on their menu! That's cool, imagining people ordering the dish I created in a commercial outlet. That's really gratifying! =) 

Group photo time! Say cheese =D

Oh ya, I wasn't sure if it's appropriate to disclose the restaurant before, but since they're operating now, I felt like giving a heads up to all of you! Simplyd by The Delicious Group is now open at nuSentral. Please support them as a form of support to us too! =D Like their facebook for more info and promotions!

Cheers, 

Dong

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RL 140610/140617 Last Tryout +Touching up: Counting down for the D-day.....

Hola, people! The follow up for our pasta project is here! I just realised I haven't been updating on the pasta project since week 7.. oops, there actually weren't much progress since then.. Anyway, we've finalised all our products and we're about ready to present our hard work to Group E next week. Woah, where have the time passed? 

RL140610: Last try out

So basically after the 2nd try-out, we had another try-out last week. I modified my Asian Paste again, with less peanuts this time, and added sourness with lime powder. I tasted closer to the first trial, but the paste was still fibrous nonetheless. The recipes for opor ayam and beef rendang were kept the same, except we fine tuned the taste and consistency by standardising the cooking time and temperature.

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We also simulated the production process that would be carried out in the central kitchen in the R&D kitchen, from cooking to storage to testing the product stability. The product were prepared as usual, but we added some technical ingredients to the product and see it improved the quality of the product. Since we were planning to keep our meat products in the freezer (with vacuum pack), shelf stability in terms of microbiological quality wasn't the biggest concern. What we worried was the potential splitting in our opor, and also the loss of crispiness of our fried chicken. So, we tested on the both products. Opor was vacuum packed and stored in the freezer, and checked one week later for the homogeneity of the gravy. Crisp film was added to the fried chicken batter to check if the crispiness is retained. 

At the end of the day, we also had external panels to taste our food. I was glad that all our food actually suits the panel's taste bud, our cheesy rendang was a hit! But there's something with my Asian pasta.. hmm, how to put this in words? It definitely tastes like something from this region, but we just can't come out with a description. It doesn't seem to resemble any of the dishes out there, except it's presented pretty much like nasi lemak. Bizarre, much? LOL! Anyway, I still have to improve my paste as it is still very fibrous. 

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The session ended with the end of food tasting, and fingers crossed for the product to turn out good. 

RL140617: For the D-day

We had our final touch up, fine tuning the dishes according to the comments in the previous food tasting session. Great news here, I finally got my Asian paste right!! =D It's no longer fibrous as I didn't blend the galangal together with the other ingredients. The taste is also very balanced this time around. 

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We also checked on our product, after keeping it for one solid week. It turned out that everything was still in good condition. Even for the fried stuffs I kept in the cabinet! The fried chicken was also not bad, as in the it was still crunchy on the outside, and juicy on the inside, after I reheated in the oven. There's actually not much difference between the gold standard and crisp film version, so we decided to keep to the gold standard. 

Yeah, another thing, we also had a trial presentation that morning. The overall presentation was so long that I lost my concentration already halfway through group 2's presentation. *sorry bow* Basically, I think all of our presentations lack the wow factor. Imho, it was way too boring and I doubt if anyone can follow the presentation. In addition to that, I found that most of us are also not confident in our own product. How are we suppose to convince the others to accept our dish when we ourselves sounded so timid. Haha, guess everyone has to brush up their presentation skills. 

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As for our group's presentation, we generally performed slightly better than the other two groups, because we were the last to present. So, we had time to modify our presentation according to the comments given to the previous groups. But then again, our presentation was not perfect too, and that's partly because of the introduction, it was all over the place and Dr Chong said she can understand better just reading at the slides. Not to blame anyone, but Wilbert, please get over your stage fright!! It's not like you're not prepared, just speak like how you usually do! 

Oops, I think I wrote a bit too long.. I'll be right back with the results of the project!

Till then, 
Dong

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