Raffles Culinary Academy

Last Wednesday, 11th June, was an exciting day.

The catering sales team and I were privileged to join the Executive Assistant Manager, Mr Fabrice Blondeau for a night of fun and cooking.

We headed down to the Raffles Culinary Academy (RCA) around 7pm to join Chef Saifal from Raffles Grill and his helpers from different outlets.

Now imagine a bunch of office dressed people in a kitchen preparing a 2-course meal and not knowing a single thing about cooking. Awkward is a word that i would use rather then weird.

On the menu for the night was...(not fully in detail because I forgot what we made and I left the menu at work =) )

1) fried scampi with celery and apple salad
2) black angus beef with sauteed mushrooms and carrots
3) chocolate cake with white asparagus ice cream

The night started with a well prepared mise-en place on the training stations and a wonderful atmosphere. We started by observing the chef do his stuff in the kitchen, trying to pick up as much pointers before getting our hands dirty.

While enjoying Chef Saifal do his stuff, we sat back with a nice glass of wine and laughed and gocked at his work. While he quickly demonstrated how to prepare the various dishes, it was soon our turn.

Amazingly, our whole department can't really cook except for maybe one of the managers who is a mother of two. While we struggled to marinate, fry and actually get something cooking, the helpers were there by our side to guide us and help us so as to not burn or destroy anything (haha) it was a mess to begin with and a tad confusing - but FUN!

After cooking the appetizer and enjoying it with a glass of wine, we started the main course, which was much more easier because it was just a piece of meat lol. With the raw red meat in front of our eyes, we stared for a split second wondering what to do. After figuring out what we were suppose to do it was smooth sailing from there.

Overall, the fried Scampi and Angus Beef Steak were amazingly good. Giving the fact that we had to cook it on our own after a demo from the chef, I think it came out quite well. We had a bit of a dry conversation but it turned out to be a bit more relaxed little into the evening.

It was an experience that I won't forget. Having the time to spend with the team and getting to have some fun from work was really relaxing and enjoyable. Who knew cooking could be so much fun? but if my kitchen ended up the way it did that night everyday, I'd be dreading the clean up afterwards lol!

Anyhoo..enough words...here are some pictures from the night. There are a lot more, but for some reason the photographer said his memory stick fried or something and we couldn't extract all the photos, so pretty much all of them are from the beginning of the class.

Enjoy




Preparing our first course - Fried scampi with celery and apple salad



Mr Logan (our GM) came down to show his support and take out some anger on his staff haha!



Everyone's quite lost at this point!




I became a very good stirrer that night!



I love the atmosphere to the room! amazingly pleasant!



Believe it or not, our kitchen wasn't hot at all!







Candid shot of me stirring!



Our director is scared of cream and butter lol!



This is where we were lost!!



All shocked by how he's handling the scampi on the hot pan!



Hard @ work!



Plating our appetizers!



Yum Yum!! time to eat!!



Though our dish was a tad salty, it was still enjoyable.

*I have pictures of the appetizers and main course, but i need to extract it from my phone, which i'm just too lazy to do now..one day i may add it in =p *

I'm out guys!!

peace!