Before I get on with the rest of my holiday’s food-posting, I have something quite pressing I feel the need to talk about. Chubby Hubby has just announced The Miele Guide. I’d already heard about this project a while back, and while I applaud the intentions, there are some issues that I have with the premise in general.

All of us foodlovers who live and eat in Asia surely lament the fact that most restaurants worth their salt in Asia definitely don’t get enough recognition. Singapore, which is known as a “food hub” has but one restaurant in the top 100 list. Hong Kong, another food hub, has three. And where are Japan’s?

That said, it must be noted that there IS a reason why Singapore (and most of Asia) lags behind in this circuit.

The one thing that I found more outstanding (apart from the food) when I was (fine) dining in Europe over the past month was that the service in there just brilliantly outshone this region’s best efforts. I know that service and ambience are not actually part of the critical factors which come into play when a restaurant is being judged for guides like the Michelin one, but I think it’s a crucial part of the entire dining experience. There is only one restaurant in Singapore where I’ve received consistently excellent service - to a standard which is on par with the fine dining establishments in Europe. (For those interested, this particular Japanese restaurant has not made any lists in any food articles or magazines either.) Elsewhere, service is either rude, ignorant, intrusive, or just inept. In Hong Kong, an unspoken rule is that you’re in a “good” eating establishment because the service is so bad that they musn’t feel the need to suck up to patrons. (Obviously this applies more to the lower end of the price range.) Nonetheless, I think this disparity is really the biggest area in which we trail behind our Western counterparts.

And while there are a myriad of reasons which compound our conundrum, I think one of the reasons that may have led to the poorer standards overall has to do with the exceedingly low wages we pay our local staff (both in the kitchen and in the dining room), which, low as the market rate internationally may be, has really taken “cheap labour” to a new level. Job satisfaction (which includes a variety of factors including reimbursement for one’s efforts) is one reason to stay and if the staff stays, the restaurant runs like a well oiled machine. Without knowing that staff will stay on for a reasonable length of time, employers also won’t spend the effort in training their staff adequately.

One other glaring reason is that I find our local restaurants don’t seem to get their hands on produce that is good enough. Which is why we’ll find that the cities which are more recognized for their food (e.g. any Japanese city, Hong Kong, Sydney) all have stellar produce at arm’s reach, whereas we fail to catch up to them. The food we make is only as good as the ingredients we start with, and even a chef with the most magical touch cannot do anything that would save a piece of rotten fish. Of course that statement was slight hyperboly, but you get my point.

Obviously, there are many things that we can point to, and the blame-pushing game is one that could go on forever if we allow it. And don’t get me wrong - I do think it’s a good thing, what the Miele Guide aims to do. But with all this talk of food in the region, what with Singapore getting its Michelin guide (we don’t deserve it yet, as our best restaurants are still the Japanese ones which are nowhere near the standard of the ones in Tokyo), and what not, I just have this sinking feeling that many restaurants which don’t deserve it are going to get too much recognition.

Let me leave you with one thought: when was the last time you spoke of a “famous” restaurant in Singapore, which has been around for at least 5 years, but has never had the phrase “the standards have dropped” or “the food used to be so much better” attached to it? That’s right, hardly ever.

Note: As mentioned previously, there’s still an issue with the comments system on my blog, so if you have any pressing concerns that don’t seem to be getting published, please email me. Thanks. The comments thing is mostly sorted, but if anything, again, don’t hesitate to email me. Cheers!

I’ve pretty much decided that when I’m done with this stage, I’m going to write a book. (Check back with me when I’m actually done with said stage to see if I really get down to writing it or not.) Not about my experiences with this kitchen/restaurant in particular, just some things I’ve found out, been taught, and in general want to scream at the world at large.

The first chapter is going to be titled after this post. Salad leaves are the single greatest bane of my existence in a professional kitchen. Salad leaves get wet, bruised, START TO SMELL FUNKY, and always - ALWAYS - need to be treated with the utmost care. In my first week, I really did little more than sort out buckets and buckets of salad leaves - for which I’m glad. Because now I respect them, now I know how they need to be treated, and - frankly speaking - if I didn’t, I wouldn’t trust myself with a knife.

Yesterday was my first day into the second half of my stage. It’s growing to be the sort of experience where you wake up each morning with half of you excited about going to work, and the other half has to be dragged kicking and screaming out of bed. I love that I’ve become more comfortable with my surroundings; that I now know (more or less) exactly what I need to do, that a grey tub slightly over half full of salad dressing X will likely last me at most 3 more days before it’s time to make a new batch, that I need to defrost the chicken first thing in the morning so that I can get it grilled before dinner service starts. I just wish there was something that would make it easier to yank myself out of bed when it’s a Sunday morning and my girlfriend’s fast asleep next to me.

As much as I hate having 3/4 of my non-sleeping hours locked up every single day of the week, I know I’m going to miss this terribly when it’s over. I guess I might be having one of those existentialist moments where I wonder if I’ve found something I could do for the rest of my life.

Hello all. I’m alive. Just finished my first week of work and in fact I even found the inspiration to make donuts today. But that’s not the point of this post. (And I’ll write more on that later.) Unless you live under a rock, or in a tree trunk or maybe in the middle of a deserted island with no internet (but then how are you reading this post?), no phone, no newspapers and no anything, you’d know by now that section 377A of the penal code exists. And that it shouldn’t. Or maybe you think it should exist because you think that homosexuals are sick people who should be shot or jailed or shot in jail. But in that case you wouldn’t be reading this blog because you wouldn’t want to have anything to do with me, seeing that I’m a bisexual woman in a homosexual relationship.

Sign it. You know it’s the right thing to do. As much as I am not any kind of activist, this isn’t about activism, it’s about a human being’s right to privacy at his or her most basic level - and homosexuals are human beings. Humans deserve the right to love, and by NOT DOING ANYTHING, you are, by default, condoning our government’s preference for imprisoning two people for loving each other and being physically intimate with each other. That doesn’t sound right, does it? And even if you don’t think that homosexuality is alright, I’m sure you also know by now that for most people in homosexual relationships, sexual orientation is not a choice. And it’s not fair to imprison someone on the basis of something that they haven’t chosen. It’s like being imprisoned just because I’m female. Or because you’re male. Or because my hair is black, or my eye colour brown. Hell, it’s like imprisoning me because I’m above 150cm tall.

Do it. And tell everyone you know to do it too. You know it’s the right thing to do.

Alright, simmer down. I don’t hate straight people. I love them! In fact, I’m part of one of the few gay couples I know that actually mix predominantly with heterosexual friends. As part of a community that clings to each other like flies to a dung heap, it really is quite amazing that bunny and I have all of one other gay couple that we see on a regular basis.

Gay rights are not where they should be today, particularly not in our sunny little nation-state. I, like most of the gay people I know, would very much like for Section 377A to be repealed. I would also like for gay marriage to be legal. I would like that when I fill in forms and have to state my relationship to bunny, I don’t have to put “Friend” or “Flatmate”.

I do, however, recognize that Singapore has come a long way from where we started out. A decade ago, bunny and I wouldn’t be able to live together the way we do now, nor would she be able to introduce me to all her colleagues. Our landlords, for sure, wouldn’t know that I’m her girlfriend, and that we’re living here together as partners, not as flatmates. In fact, let’s boil it down to the simpler things - she and I can walk, holding hands, down Orchard Road in the middle of a Saturday (only it’s normally too crowded), we can sit in a cafe in Holland Village, and if I so wish, I can kiss her in public and we’re not going to get stoned for it. That - to me - is progress. And while I can stand right here and tell you that no, this is not the end of the line for progress, it is something that warrants our attention, something that the GLBT community tends to forget. Read the rest of this entry »