The definition of food for me is not just stuffing yourself with goodness, but also understanding how every flavor works with each other on a dish. From the plating to the flavor and even the portion itself needed to be considered. Food is more than just making you feel full, it’s the art of creating a dish from the chef, and the art of enjoying it to the fullest from the person that tastes that art on a plate.
I have loved cooking my whole life, and there is no doubt that I love food more than fashion. I love to cook for my family and friends, from the process of going to the market in the morning to pick out the produces to the preparation to the cooking itself. Every dish that I made, I put my heart into it for the people that I love. Growing up in the States, I love going out to eat, not just to hang out with people but to taste a new dish, and figure out how to make it myself. But I didn’t get a chance to actually come close to anything other than cooking the food myself.
Within the year that I’m back from Vietnam, I have had a lot of opportunities to be around food constantly. Such as becoming friends with a few chefs or people who work in the Food and Beverage industry. Being around them a lot helps me realize my love for food not just because I want to eat well, but maybe I want to work in that industry too. From seeing them create the dish to serving it to the customers, it’s a long process but worth the wait. “Masterpiece takes time.”- that’s what I usually say to my friends.
One fun thing in this industry is testing the food before it becomes the final product. I had the opportunity to try this "fun activity" out twice, and I only captured the moment the second time. The first time I tried it, it was in a more formal setting, so it was harder to actually see what was going on back in the kitchen. But it was fun the second time, and I was in the kitchen myself to see the whole process. So let me tell you how this experience was for me!
Kuro - the cutie
She greets all the guests that come to dine.
I arrived at the private dining around 2 P.M. on a chilly Sunday. The chef greeted me with a big smile on his face as always, while trying to stop his dog from jumping on me. I took about 10 minutes to catch my breath and just catch up with the chef. Oh! the chef and I became friends after one night I booked a slot at his private dining, I came to dine alone and be friends with another girl, and turned out the girl and the chef were high school friends.
Kuro was surprisingly very clingy to me for some reason, she followed me everywhere, and wouldn’t leave me alone for just a second. The first dish that I tried out was a very interesting one. It was a crispy rice base and raw tuna on top with some beets which the chef had diced into small cubes. He had seasoned the raw tuna already and set it in the fridge before I arrived, I guess he did it in the morning for the marinated to soak in. He originally wanted to have some sort of tea to pour in as a soup to eat together, but it didn’t work out in the end so he got rid of it. We tested that dish so much that I got so full from just one dish, we actually finished the whole pot of cooked rice.
After taking a short break, we began testing out the second dish, which was dessert. It was a cold dish, which is perfect for the weather in Vietnam, but the ingredients are so fitting for Fall and Winter seasons. At first, the dessert ingredients contain spices-cookie crumbs, purple sweet potatoes mochi, and apple sorbet, and serving it with plum wine. The plum wine with spices-cookie crumbs turn out to leave a very bitter aftertaste, so the chef decided to just take out the plum wine. Then, I suggested making it in a glass jar, with the cookie crumbs as a base, then the apple sorbet, then with whipping cream on top, and topping it off with small mochi balls. It turns out pretty well in the glass jar.
By the end of the “session”, I was too full and very sleepy. I was resting at the table and almost fell asleep. I said goodbye to the chef, and his assistant, then Kuro walked me to the door and I said goodbye to her then. It was a very memorable experience, and I had so much fun doing it. I was very happy and my tummy was extremely happy.