Food Republic Pavilion KL Shares Secrets of Oriental Delights at Its 1st Public Culinary Workshop
Food Republic Pavilion KL, the first themed food atrium in Malaysia is on a mission to get more Malaysians to preserve and use traditional recipes on a regular basis.
The people from the food nation shared this delicious news during the launch of the first in a series of public culinary workshops that are aimed at keeping interest and knowledge of heritage recipes and cooking techniques alive. A similar series of public workshops have proven to be a big hit at the brand’s Singaporean outlets since being introduced three years ago.
More than 50 foodies, food aficionados and those who simply wanted to learn how to dish out some tasty local delights proved an eager audience at Food Republic’s flagship outlet at Pavilion Kuala Lumpur, here, today.
The first public culinary workshop in the series, themed Oriental Delights featured well-loved favourites from two of Food Republic’s tenants – Sergeant Chicken Rice, from Singapore and Hong Kong La Mien, a member of the Palace Group of restaurant.
Sergeant Chicken Rice, was founded by Kiang Joon Toh, one of the original Mandarin Hotel Chatterbox chef who made chicken rice a household name in Singapore decades ago. The Hainanese chicken rice with steamed chicken is just as fragrant and buttery with succulent steamed chicken made to exacting traditional standards.
Chef Paul from Sergeant Chicken Rice demonstrated the three components that go into making old fashioned Hainanese chicken rice, namely chicken seasoned and steamed to savoury tenderness and a simple dipping sauce that complements the seasoning used on the chicken. He took extra time to demonstrate the making of the chicken rice explaining that it was essential to have well-coated, lightly seasoned and slightly firm rice for the Hainanese style of this dish. He recommended a light hand with the seasoning of the rice to avoid it overpowering the delicate flavor of the chicken.
Hong Kong La Mien takes the making of traditional hand-pulled la mien noodles seriously as demonstrated by Chef Chen who showed participants how to make these ‘longevity’ noodles from scratch, and shared the technique of hand-pulling noodles which proved harder than it looked.
He also showed participants the finer points of wan ton (shrimp dumpling) making in a hands-on workshop that had participants rolling up their sleeves to mince, mould and pinch the delicate dumplings into shape before plunging them into boiling stock.
Since the opening of the food nation in Malaysia in November 2007, Food Republic Pavilion KL has brought all local and foreign food lovers together by uniting the best qualities of a “themed food atrium” with the finest aspects of Asian street hawker food, while introducing street fare from other countries to expand and enhance culinary appreciation.