Past Clients: Art Basel HK Organising Committee & Slow Food HK

Soy sauce, an essential seasoning to Chinese dishes, was developed by Buddhists more than 2,500 years ago to complement their vegetarian diets. Dutch merchants have then brought it back to the kitchens of Sun King XIV in the late 17th century and named it “black gold”.

For this soy sauce workshop and dinner at Plantation (a creative space in Sheung Wan), we sourced different artisanal Hong Kong locally brewed soy sauce for the tasting to experience their smell, colours, taste and aftertaste. I have also invited Yuan’s (頤和園), a premium soy sauce maker and their private kitchen chefs to cook a Chinese soy sauce themed dinner Hong Kong Naturally Brewed Soy Sauce.

Guests had a lot of fun with the soy sauce spray bottles where they can spray onto fragrance strips and fan it around their nose to smell it. Also, people were spraying it into their mouths and also into their neighbours. There were a selection of white coloured food for dipping into the soy sauce samples like white mushrooms, tofu and squid. They were also complimentary to the soy sauce, so the umami soy sauce taste can be enjoyed fully. 

Hand drawn soy sauce placements act as a rating board for everyone, where they can stick different stickers to rate the different types of soy sauce samples. People also wrote many notes to keep track of which one they like the best! 

Afterwards, Yuan's private kitchen team did a cooking demonstration with soy sauce and served up delicious soy sauce inspired dishes like soy sauce braised pork, soy sauce fried whole prawns, soy sauce stir-fired noodles and Plantation's pastry team created the first ever(!) soy sauce caramel sauce paired with vanilla ice cream. 

Commissioned by Cosmopolitan Hong Kong on a feature reinventing Chinese preserved tofu (腐乳), in collaboration with Hugo from Fuzizoue (金譽手藝腐乳). Do you know that the weather and season influences the tastes of preserved tofu? Winter preserved tofu has a milder taste and softer texture with a strong soybean taste, summer preserved tofu has a strong alcoholic taste and taste sharper in general. 

In the feature, we explored the possibilities of this humble Chinese ingredient in a Chinese cheese board with winter preserved tofu and summer preserved tofu fruits like figs, apple and grapes. 

Other modern interpretation, preserved tofu marinated pork jowl with apple chips and fried eggplants with preserved tofu sauce. 

Excerpt from Cosmopolitan article: 

"腐乳嚐味法

很少人知道腐乳在不同季節釀造，其實有不同口感，Hugo就替大家補補腐乳冷知識：
1.冬、夏各異，春秋大同：其實腐乳在不同時期發酵是會有不同口感的。如夏天製的腐乳因濕度與溫度較高，口感會較強烈，米酒味更濃；冬天製的腐乳則味道綿蜜，豆味濃郁而香；至於介乎二者之間的春秋兩季，期間發酵的腐乳口味會是前兩者的平衡，比較溫和。在坊間買到的腐乳不會標明其季節性，唯只有手工腐乳方能有上述所說的口感差異。
2.腐乳的原配：腐乳入口之前，可先加砂糖，砂糖的甜是為中和腐乳的鹹。
3.黑腐乳放心食：由於腐乳汁變少，令到上面的腐乳粒露出一部分，造成氧化變灰或黑，屬正常現象，可照食無誤。
4.健康無添加：很多人以為腐乳是不健康的食物，錯晒！其實天然製的腐乳含豐富維他命B雜、氨基酸，以及鈣、磷、鐵等礦物質，易被人體吸收，不用擔心。"

Below Photo Credits: Cosmopolitan Hong Kong

This is a WKND Farmers’ Club event created in collaboration with Founder, Sangok Kim and Alex Tung (Nutritionist) and Locofama Organic Small Bites (Chef Justin Chan). Vegetables sponsors include Happy Families Organic Vegetables Online Store, City University GROW and HK Perma Club.

Experiencing the colours of Hong Kong grown vegetables through making a personal Edible Collage, then a taste through the rainbow in a colour themed dinner with a red, black, green and purple course.

It was harves time in Hong Kong, we had a beautiful selection of seasonal vegetables which included Chinese pigweed, roselle flowers, long beans, basil flowers, basil, cabbage, daikon, dragonfruit, mushroom, asparagus, rainbow chard, rosemary, okra, sesame leaves, chili pepper and sweet potatoes.

The edible college was the first course, once guests were finished with their collage, they were invited to eat their collage with homemade mayo and salad dressings. The following dinner courses were dominated by different colours, red (tomato and strawberry gazpacho), green (fried Japanese green peppers), black (scallop risotto with squid ink) and purple (Taro flavoured popsicle).

We also worked with a Sound Director to pair each course with different music complimentary to the moods of the colours. For the black course we wanted to create a solemn mood, so we told our guests to eat in silence and people ate very quickly so they could talk again after they finish!

A WKND Farmers’ Club event created in collaboration with Founder, Sangok Kim and Alex Tung (Nutritionist) and Locofama Organic Small Bites.

This is a new eating ritual to welcome a new restaurant to its neighbourhood in Hong Kong. A lot of times, when people don't really remember the faces of their neighbours but they sure do remember seeing their laundry across the windows. I was inspired by this and used drying racks to "serve" the tortillas and lettuce leaves for the meal. 

The meal is a do-it-yourself tortilla station, we created small surveys where guests can fill in and tell their neighbours whether they like their food drier, sauciers...etc. To encourage interaction between each guests, we invited them to fill in a 4 choice surveys on food preferences and afterwards they had to pass it their neighbour on the right side. Everyone ended up making tortillas for their neighbours according to their taste preferences. It was great seeing people going from strangers to feeding each other food and bonding at a big long dinner table.