A few bits of interesting information has reached our ears regarding the rightful owners of Wine Spectator goblets and Michelin Stars. If you are in the industry, you would have heard of a man called Zoltan Szabo. If you haven’t, then you obviously haven’t been in the industry long enough – or so he would like to think anyway.

We have been told that his short venture here in Shanghai ended abruptly when no paychecks came his way. From what we know, this is definitely not the first case. However, he did earn the restaurant one wine goblet – and a photo of himself in the renowned Wine Spectator magazine. A pity then that he is no longer connected to the restaurant or its wine list.

We congratulate him on his award (it wouldn’t be fair to call it the restaurant’s award now, would it?) and the other restaurants who made the list here in Shanghai this year!

Now on an entirely different topic, a good read dropped onto our desks a.k.a laptops last week and we thought it would be an interesting read for everyone – if you haven’t come across it already.

It poses the question of just where each chef sets his/her limits. To the brink of insanity? Bankruptcy? Suicide for losing a star?

Kitchen Savant

-          High quality “Lucerne” china ware
-          Silver ware
-          Buffet items like chafing dishes, juice dispensers, coffee dispensers
-          Food containers
-          Small kitchen machines including a gas BBQ and 3 sheet oven
-          Kitchen SOEs
-          Bakery machines
-          Bakery SOEs
-          Glass ware including Riedel crystalline wine glasses
-          Tables
-          Designer chairs
-          Bar stools
-          Aloha POS system with 7 terminals and 6 printers
-          And much more…
Discounts up to 50%, all equipment around 2 years old. Please call Frank 13818025592 for address details and appointment.

The offer of a members-only place caters to a very select minority group in Shanghai. A bit like the Polo…which I had the painful pleasure of being present at as part of a Hen’s Day outing. Us chefs being mostly socially inept and awkward; particularly when it comes to being in the company of polite and cultured people, I was a little nervous, especially with the free-flow offer of champagne and wine throughout the day. However, the free-flow ran out only about three hours into the event, with several more  hours to go. Having paid almost an obscene amount for the VIP tickets, we were needless to say quite disappointed.

Firstly, the white wine and champagne was served at room-temperature (and the sun was out in full-force that day with the tent acting more like a heated yoga room than a shade from the heat). The line-up for the buffet was disappointing, luke-warm and flies were buzzing around the hot dogs. Need I say more? With this exclusive bunch of people paying for their tickets and taking an interest in the event, you’d think that they could have spent a bit more on the food budget, serve wine at the right temperature, and at least have enough wine to support the ‘free-flow’ theme as advertised. Luckily for me, the company I had was enough to keep me entertained for the whole day. That, and coincidentally meeting the operations manager from LAN.

Having attended the City Weekend Awards night last week, I had the chance for the first time to visit the place. While I won’t mention anything concerning the awards (as it has been covered by our other writer), I will say however that LAN does not serve glasses of ice water. At least that is what the bar tender told me that night. Instead, I was offered Sprite filled up to 1/4 of the glass when the bottle was finished. He didn’t bother to open another bottle and just continued to stare at me. Now, come on…

We were informed by the operations manager that a new concept was being designed for a place…something that involved two tapas menus – one Western style and the other “Chinese style” (dim sums) on the same floor. There was also going to be a sushi bar, rooftop bar and another restaurant? Sounded like a whole lot of confusion to us…but let’s hope they’ll serve ice water in all areas.

On another note, Factory will be hosting another ‘Too Many Chefs’ event. The ten chefs involved will be judged by customers who attend on the night and the winner gets…to keep their ego intact. We hear that even the media has to pay for their seats so this one will definitely be a paying-only customers’ choice awards….

Granted, with the many different expats in the city chances are that there will always be a difference in opinion about places with best value, best wi-fi or whatever. And rightfully so.  I mean after all, it is a reader powered magazine.  And while most of us Chef’s not always agree with the reviews we get on the web or magazine by users – it is their right to voice their opinions.

What really got me going though was some of the editor choices. There where 4 people named as writers on this article so I guess it came down to a vote. But honestly, the picks for Best Indian? Best French? And most notably Newcomer of the Year????.

I am usually not one for writing bad about fellow chefs or restaurants. Our industry is already difficult enough without us gunning for each other. But honestly, those editor choices really make me wonder if these Editors have any clue about what they write or if they even bothered to visit the places they chose more than one time; or was is just the one lunch they got invited to by the owners in order to review the place?  As I mentioned, I won’t go on bashing fellow industry co-workers or dare to offer my choice of what should have won.

It is not really about whether I disagree with it or not. I just find that after having followed City Weekend over the past few years that the food columns have turned more and more into advertising columns than anything else.  I mean even good old Aubrey Buckingham at the Shanghai Daily finally seemed to have woken up and grown some balls.  For the longest times his reviews where just pathetically boring without any bite. And now even he seemed to have waken up.  So I guess what I am trying to say is that :

• Either leave the voting to the readers and skip the Editors Choice
• If you keep the Editors choice please let us know the criteria involved
• Stop trying to please all the restaurants you go to

Shanghai has plenty of good restaurants and plenty of bad ones. So I’d say, stop constantly reviewing the obvious choices that seem to go from magazine to magazine.  Venture out there and look at different things – Shanghai has so much to offer and most readers never even get a glimpse of it since there are always the same restaurants and bars featured.   And please, start to get a bit more critical. Just because a Chef has a restaurant does not mean he is always right. It would be really refreshing to read a restaurant review which is a bit more critical and does not always feel like the Editor has fallen absolutely in love with the chef.

Alfred B. (a wisely chosen pseudonym) is an executive sous chef that has been residing in Shanghai for the past several years. He is our up-to-date person on current events taking place in the food scene. For legal purposes, we cannot reveal his true identity but you can be sure there will be no candy-coated articles from him

Compared to the FHC trade show featuring products from various countries, the SIAL event was not really worth a visit – besides of course for the Cooking Trends Demonstration.

Organized by ‘Chef of the Year’(as voted by CW Editors) Emmanuel Soliere, the demonstration covered different themes from East Meets West, Foie Gras, Sub Zero, etc. A few of the chefs involved in the demonstrations were Dan Segall (M1NT), Shaun Anthony (NAPA Wine Bar & Kitchen), and Brian Tan (House of Flour).

While it was a good opportunity for these chefs to show the spectators some cooking skills and techniques, the spectators a.k.a. cheap freeloaders were more interested in eating the finished product rather than learning anything. One of the chefs described the feeling of being surrounded by hungry, snarling vultures with some of the spectators grabbing items of the demonstration plates before the chefs even had a chance to finish plating up.

Though there were a handful that seem genuinely interested, pulling out their cameras and snapping away; we couldn’t help but wonder – rather synically – whether we would see replicas of these demonstrated dishes in a ‘new restaurant’ a few weeks later.

Only time will tell…

That is when I got curious, as I remembered the selling prices in a few of the restaurants I had been to recently with this particular ‘product’ on the menu. Granted, I am unaware of their calculations but one does wonder.

So out I went. Took the opportunity to visit a few locations with a fellow colleague of mine who happened to look for the same product. We ordered, we tried – and we found out why it was so cheap. It wasn’t the real deal! It wasn’t the much hyped ham we were looking for.

As the places we went to were some rather reputable restaurants we were a bit upset. In most places the server admitted right away that the restaurant did not have the mentioned ham on the menu. Well, then why is it offered on the menu in the first place? The most common answer was that the restaurant had been told by suppliers that the product would be available soon legally and it would only have to be hand-carried in for a month or so, at the most.

Well, we are still waiting for the official approval on the mentioned ham and some of the places that have it on the menu must have done some cost calculations. But then why not just take it off the menu rather than lie to their guests? Not too sure why they would do that.

Does it have to do with the guests’ expectations? Will they not go back to their favorite restaurant if they can’t get their hormone and antibiotic injected USDA approved beef anymore? I think most of our co-expats don’t fully understand the challenges of getting some products in. I am not saying that it is up to us to educate them. (Though I did get good results after explaining to my guest why they can’t get the USDA beef or some other missing popular items in my hotel.)

I am not saying a restaurant should do the same. If you can get the product you want at a price you can afford – go for it. I just don’t agree with putting it on the menu and then end up serving something else instead. This is just wrong.

So in the meantime, if you see a new import item on the menu of your favorite restaurant with a price that just seems too good to be true…chances are, it isn’t what you think it is.

Alfred B. (a wisely chosen pseudonym) is an executive sous chef that has been residing in Shanghai for the past several years. He is our up-to-date person on current events taking place in the food scene. For legal purposes, we cannot reveal his true identity but you can be sure there will be no candy-coated articles from him

While the usual outing consists of a hotpot meal, we took the opportunity to take advantage of the baby crayfish season. The guys of course knew the right street to go to – a street filled with vendors selling exactly the same thing as far as the eye can see; baby crayfish being dropped into boiling vats of hot chili oil, grilled items such as mussels as big as your hands, skewered meat, and gigantic scary oysters being opened by the roadside with an axe.

An axe? For oysters?

Well, so we settled for an impromptu table by the street-side with cars whooshing past a few millimeters away from our sleeves. A table of 12 was obviously too big to fit into any of the small holes in the wall dotted along the street. The guys were in charge of the ordering – a few baskets of steaming baby crayfish, some grilled meats, vegetables, seafood and cold beer.

After a few bad previous experiences with ’street-fresh-grilled-seafood’, we were smart enough to stay away from the mussels, oysters, razor clams and scallops. The local guys were game enough and had some, but when you see oysters that big and then remember just how shit-brown that Huangpu River is? Put two and two together and then also remember that oysters filter the water. Need we say more?

Okay, okay…so crayfish might be the same deal, but we are told that they are mostly farmed and plus, all that boiling chili oil has got to kill 99% of the bad stuff. The oysters and others are grilled with an overly generous dollop of chopped garlic on the top. An ingredient commonly used here to mask and overpower any other ‘off tastes’ in the local food.

The crayfish arrive with little dipping sauces of black vinegar and a bit of chopped garlic. Oh, and not to forget, the plastic gloves. If you’re smart, you’ll put on two pairs just for the hell of it. Lamb, beef, mushrooms, garlic chives and chicken cartilage (yes, you read that right) skewers all arrive with the same seasoning of cumin, chili and msg. Someone sneakily ordered some stinky tofu too. These overly fermented item surpasses the term ’spoiled’ or ‘rotten’. The more it’s covered in hairy mold the better.

Just when we think it’s a safer option to eat the skewered meat, one of the guys informs us that it is pretty common for people to show up with dead cats to some of these shops at the end of the night. These cats are then left to ‘marinade’ in some lamb fat overnight before being sold as lamb skewers the next day. Hmmm…more mushrooms and garlic chives please! And definitely more cold beer!!

After copious amounts of beer, the razor clams start to look appetizing and we try one. A bit of stinky tofu gets pushed our way and we settle for a tiny tiny bite.

Back to the “Ganbei!” and more baby crayfish. The night carries on for a few more hours until there is talk of Tongren Lu and someone losing money in a previous outing. Definitely time to head home.

One week on, and we’re still paying for that one bloody razor clam and stinky tofu…obviously not enough garlic or boiling chili oil to kill the little buggers.

Let’s talk location first – while undoubtedly location is key in Shanghai it is surprising to see how many of these so called “new locations” aren’t exactly new. Most of them were previously hosts to failed restaurants or bars (e.g. Moon River Diner).

Most locations contain an exact copy of the old concept and menu but with new owners. Not exactly something to get excited about. In all fairness though, these former places did not fail because of concept issues but rather due to some challenges within the joint venture partnerships. But this is just one example of many.

I mean, go around; visit some of those new spots that some print media are raving about and I bet you have been in many of them before. And yet, still new owners try once again with a very similar concept to the one that failed before. Maybe I should write them and ask them to give their money directly to me rather than wasting it on another rat hole.

No doubt, there are a many great restaurant that opened recently that will be very successful – they are ranging from Fine Dining to casual. This proves that there is definitely room in Shanghai for new openings. Having checked out a few of them over the past few months I took note of a trend in all of them. Most of them seem to have very ambitious menus, with numerous ingredients on the menu that yours truly has been trying to source for months – but more about that in another blog – and can’t seem to find.

The menus contain descriptions of food that truly makes your mouth water. But when the food arrives you wonder if the server understood you. There could be several possible reasons. Maybe the kitchen had a bad day; maybe the guy who wrote the menu is more creative with a pen than a pan; or, more than likely, the Chef who wrote the menu is taking a day off. Especially if you are going on to visit them before Wednesday.

I have seen so many of places where a menu has been put together based mainly on the skills of only the Head Chef. So much so that when he has his day off (which he is totally entitled to), the kitchen falls apart. Not necessarily because his team lack’s the skills – although, I dare to say this might be a small part of the result too – but more so because of the lack of ownership they have.

Most of us chefs see them as a set of tools we use to get the plates out. What happens is that they then don’t have a sense of pride about what goes out the kitchen door. Thus, if the chef is not there, often the food does look / taste different. Now, I am not saying that all we should serve now is Spaghetti with Meat Sauce, although sadly, some restaurants would be much better off doing just that. But I do think that some of us should look closely at the menus we write and think twice about how it will look when we are not around.

So, what is it am I trying to say? Well, it is actually pretty straight forward. Before some of you go out there and think about opening yet another Pizzeria, do some research and look at why places like that have failed before. Look at what is missing in the area or LOCATION. Think twice before you spend all your dollars on a project that has crashed already. And if you do go ahead and open, have a look at your team and check if you have the right people on hand for the menu you design.

Shanghai does not need another overpriced restaurant that only serves good food half of the time it is open then goes down the drain the moment the chef leaves.

Alfred B. (a wisely chosen pseudonym) is an executive sous chef that has been residing in Shanghai for the past several years. He is our up-to-date person on current events taking place in the food scene. For legal purposes, we cannot reveal his true identity but you can be sure there will be no candy-coated articles from him

]]> http://www.shanghai-chefs.com/?feed=rss2&p=427 0 http://www.shanghai-chefs.com/?p=414 http://www.shanghai-chefs.com/?p=414#comments Mon, 20 Apr 2009 04:59:00 +0000 Editor http://www.shanghai-chefs.com/?p=414

Greetings Chefs!

We hope that everyone enjoyed themselves at last month’s event in MAYA. Brad Turley definitely knows how to throw a party and we are sorry to see him leave the Shanghai scene for a while (though he assures us he’ll be back every so often!)

We want to congratulate Factory on their opening earlier this month, and on the success of their ‘Too Many Chefs’ event; bringing together 10 different top chefs in Shanghai and having the balls to do it on their opening night.

For this month’s event, we advise that everyone get in touch with their feminine side…April’s Chef’s Talk will be held at the Barbie Café. We hope to see you all there.

And wear something pink!

Best regards,

Stefan Stiller

Chef’s Talk @

Host: Chef Tessa Thompson & Manager Hayes Zhou

Venue:

Barbie Cafe

550 Huaihai Zhong Lu,
near Chengdu Nan Lu

淮海中路550号
近成都南路

Tel: +86 21 61716060 x 6098
Mob: +86 137 615 22022

Attendees:
Exec Chefs, Chefs, Pastry Chefs, Baker’s
Restaurant Manager, F&B Managers

Charges:
Free flow of Beer, house wine and soft-drinks, some snacks will be passed around.

Price: 150rmb

Click for a map

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