So... my cuisine'12, towards opening restaurant P.S.I., where I'm heading, what I'd like to cook as of 2012....
My culinary stance / vision is I'd say same as last year. I've been thinking the name for my cuisine, the perfect word to describe my cuisine, but I can't come up for now..... As soon as I come up, I'll post and confirm on this blog! So... for now, my cuisine is called "UNI cuisine" as same as last year. It means Unlabeled No-rule Inspiring cuisine. The pictures showing above are some culinary inspiring shot from CJWDT'11. I compose the dishes inspired by these!!
During 2011, I staged/worked 11 restaurantts in Australia, U.S.A., Singapore & Hong Kong. Plus I visited 8 countries (if I count HK & Macau different),have fortune to do special dinner with chef Sean Brock, Claude Bosi & Sat Bains at Coi, do the special dinner event with great chefs around the globe in Korea and also help 3 days chef Morimoto pop up dinner in HK last month. Good experiences, I'd say overall.
Let me think back a bit.... Coi is definitely different from any of the restaurants I worked full time. California Market cuisine, the food speak the breath of California. Chef Daniel Patterson's philosophy remind me Noma & Royal Mail hotel, very inspiring. One of the reason why I want to open my restaurant in Australia is they have a good produce / market. I don't say best produce in the world, but there is good "soil" to open a good restaurant. To me, the good menu means showing where the restaurant is located and also reflecting the four seasons. Coi definitely remind me what eventually I want to do at P.S.I. Produce-driven seasonal market cuisine.
Other produce related thought: last September I had an inspiring conversation with chef Que Vinh Dang when I staged TBLS kitchen studio in HK. One of the thing he told me was like "there are so many chefs in HK, complaining the poor quality of local produces. But if we're the food professional, make it taste good by utilizing the technique & idea. We can't excuse we can't make this, that dishes is not as good as supposed to be, I make it taste good despite the poor produce because we're food professional. This is challenging, but I like it." He told me something like that. I liked his story a lot.
For example, I mean composing dish with Kindai toro would be awesome, but no much to play in my opinion. Why? Because the intense full fatty flavor is there, I don't want to lose any drop of it, meaning the dish should be super simple. I just gonna say I want to eat with white soy, wasabi & sesame, nothing more.... oh, I'd take the bowl of good Japanese rice PERFECTLY COOKED! If it's working with silly tuna, the story gonna be totally different. Need to work on it, y many ways to make taste better though. Say some: kewpie mayo, sesame oil, toasted nuts, pickling vegetable... there're many solution to erase the fishiness.
Single okay-taste bok choy, how we can wow the diner? My answer is you can see in old China pig post. The produce is not that great? Look at Chinese dry scallop, it must be bad scallop, but they utilize the technique and draw every drop of flavors. With idea, knowledge, technique & creativity, we can take every single ingredients to next level. Uni cuisine by Good produce x technique / idea with affordable price, that is the food concept at P.S.I...... say: for now!
What else.... CJWDT'11 Asian tour & life in Hong Kong has been really inspiring. There're so many local dishes I never taste & new flavor profile I didn't know. It will definitely use all these ideas in the near future. Name some dishe ideas from CJWDT'11: Singaporean foie gras, The violet thyme, Po pa i, Snow ground, Jade green..... mmm... who got the kitchen for me?
Last year I couldn't post any dishes which make me so sad..... I still want to finish my old ideas from RM seafood, like black & white'11, green & yellow, the transparent, foie gras mont blanc.... Hopefully this year I can post some.... really hope! Guess my kitchen rule apply here >> "TRYING MEANS NOTHING, DO IT!! DO IT RIGHT, DO IT FUCKIN' RIGHT!! EVERY DAY, EVERY FUCKIN' DAY!!!" Towards opening restaurant P.S.I. in Australia on 2018, my GastRomancing saga continues!
Coming up: I just finished Amber as of January 31st! Going Madrid on Feb 10th and Start CJWDT'12 Gastr 'N' omad tour!! Details coming Next!Labels: My Passion
