TFP: How do you test the quality and taste of your ingredients?
S: The rule of thumb is: if you can eat it everyday, your customer can eat it as well. If you can’t eat it everyday, chances are your customer would not eat it everyday.
TFP: I like that rule of thumb! Interesting. What’s your own belief when it comes to cooking and food?
B: I would depends on what situation you’re cooking for. For myself now, then I’ll say I’d have to stick to my keto diet, so it’s only selected types of food I can eat. But if it’s just on a regular basis, I would say everything in moderation to be healthy. Especially if you want to keep it sustainable.
TFP: How do you maintain the quality of a dish if you’re trying to make it healthier?
S: I work with a group of very talented chefs but I think it’s tough for them to work with me because I have a very stringent set of rules when it comes to developing new taste. Simply put: no sugar, no added sugar, so it’s hard for them because they have gone to reputable cooking schools where presentation and taste is everything. But to tweak it in a way that you still want to get the same taste without using all these (unhealthy ingredients), I think it’s a challenge for them to pull through. For example, I say no soya sauce because there’s too much MSG, so we replace it with liquid amino, which is organic. And I say no salt added because salt causes hypertension, high blood pressure, so we replace it with Himalayan rock salt. So all this kind of little tweaks, I think it makes our food…it doesn’t taste like the original but it’s closer to the original and of course, with the healthy aspect to it.
TFP: What is the one ingredient (generally speaking) that you would recommend to those embarking on a healthier way of eating? Advice for those who want to adopt a healthier way of eating?
S: Like what Brian said, everything has to have a balance, you can’t go to the extreme because it’s not sustainable. There will be cravings and when you indulge in cravings, it might seem like it’s a sin for you because you’re cheating. But I think we should slot in a bit of ‘cheating’ to your meals everyday to make your diet sustainable, where you don’t go extreme with the cheating. So everything in moderation. I believe if you research online, if you want to lose weight, 70% of the efforts will be placed on diet, because you lose weight without exercising simply by correcting your diet.
B: I think that’s what I have experienced with the keto diet as well. Yeah.
S: So you don’t have to go for a full marathon to lose weight. I think you just do a little more change. Insert fibre, eat clean everyday, I think that’s the best way to lose weight. It’s more sustainable. Keto diet is good, it’s a good kickstart.
B: But it’s a bit extreme (laughs)!
S: I think everything boils down to sustainability. We have to do this for the long run, not just for maybe one to two years. It’s supposed to be for life. I think health is for life, not just a period of time. prevention is always better than cure. You should not go on a healthy diet (only when) you’re diagnosed with a sickness. You should be on this journey before even you’ve been diagnosed with anything.
TFP: What’s your favourite dish on the menu?
S: For me, I like the chipotle sauce because it’s spicy. And in terms of protein, I like the sous vide chicken. Why do we sous vide the chicken? Because we use chicken breast. Chicken breast is known to be very tough when you cook it, so the sous vide process softens it, makes it 30-40% less tough than compared to the traditional cooking method. So together with the dressing and vegetables, I think it’s a perfect blend. It’s just so soft, that customers sometimes mistook it as tofu because it’s white!
B: For me…I just like the fact that everything is customisable. I guess what I would pick is sashimi, but that’s because that’s just me, I’m a sashimi fan and I could eat it everyday (laughs).
TFP: Oh yeah, me too!
B: But I like how I can add different sauces, different combinations of brown rice or no rice for that day, whatever veggies I like to that, just to I guess mix it up, and be different everyday but still the main taste of sashimi that I can really eat everyday.
TFP: It sounds like you like to mix things up yourself.
B: I do, I do! Sometimes I like go behind the counter and mix things around myself.
TFP: I guess I should come down a day when you are and say, “Come on Brian, make me a good bowl!”
B: (Laughs) I can, I can!
S: I think the beauty of customising your bowl is, it can be as healthy as you want it to be or as sinful as you want it to be. Or you can strike a balance. For example, spicy mayo is known to be a high fat dressing, so on days when you’re going to do high intensity sports later in the day, you can just eat spicy mayo. On lighter days, you can go for your Truffle Shoyu or Wasabi Ponzu, which are the ones lower in calories. So customisation gives you the freedom to control how much you want to go into this heath food thing, but it’s a good kickstart, because you can start with something unhealthy, slowly transit this one item by one item.
TFP: So kinda like giving up the unhealthy stuff in stages.
S: Correct!
Melissa Fann
