check it out at

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12166572/2AM(Final).mov

Happy new year!

Christmas is just around the corner.
Chef Astoria has been busy churning out gingerbread men and logcakes.

lining it with different colours

What we do in our spare time:

we put our gingerbread man through a texture activity machine to test the hardness when its baked on the same day and left outside for 2 weeks

We were requested from the business times to create a christmas inspired piece.

Hanging lollies, chocolate packets, roll ups

As the year is coming to an end, it ended beautifully for us with this last international event.
As china is a very new market for us and both Robert and I were very excited to be invited and part of this event

Robert was the guest sommelier at this event and had the pleasure to work with China’s celebrity sommelier Julia Zhu

Day1: mis en plus in hiltons pastry kitchen

pastry chefs at work assisting us

We were lined up for one night only dinner at Hilton’s One East

It was great working with the hilton beijing team
It was very challenging with the ingredients available in China but we were glad we were able to bring some of our local ingredients there such as edible flowers and micro herbs
Jeffrey Siew was the guest chef that night. He is a fellow Singaporean who used to work at the marina mandarin hotel and has moved to Hilton Beijing as Executive sous.

We showcased our signature dessert that night which was the Valrhona Chocolate H20, textures of caramel

As wine pairings are difficult to perfect when you have to imagine the taste and nuances.
When robert presented the wine that was paired with this dessert, we both found it a little too strong for the delicate chocolate H20.
Although we used 72% dark chocolate, as it was mainly made out of water, the texture is light.
Hence we used the sponsored new valrhona product P125 70% dark chocolate, engineered to have a very intense note with less cacao butter in it. we made an intense chocolate coffee ganache and placed a additional 3g in the dessert.
It does change the balance of the dessert however it was essential with the wine pairing.

Main course
Beef

servers and culinary team

press conference
This was held before the opening reception.
We was pleasantly surprised to see Justin Quek there as well!
This Singaporean chef has been a pioneer in this industry and we have such great respect for him and what he is about to do at Marina bay sands.

Its been one very blessed year for 2am dessertbar. We are most grateful for all of the people who believed in our vision and given us all these opportunities and we can only strive to perform better each time.

We were hosted by City of dreams for the wine gourmet Asia Macau. It was a 4 day event for us and we started off with a full 6 course dinner by 2am dessertbar on the 27th of October at Horizons restaurant.

We were very well hosted by chefs Guillaume Galliot (horizons), Christophe (exec pastry), Sam (exec) and their entire team of chefs. Without them the dinner would have probably be mission im possible for us.

http://uomacao.net/en-us/dinning/detail/7355?position_id=130&thread=3730

Menu
Amuse
|
Lemon explosion. Poprocks

Plum aperitif

Course 1
|
Hamachi, Popcorn
endamame. parsley
pickled baby radish, pearl onions

Course 2
|
Butternut squash soup
Toasted dehydrated pumpkin seeds
buttermilk bubbles
pinenuts, ginger pastilles

Course 3
|
Foie. Hibiscus
Foie terrine
hibiscus gel
quince
tempura batter

Course 4
|
Beef cheek in charcoal. Apples
Apple Cider jelly
coffee soil
Quinoa

Course 5
|
Peach espuma
berry compote
white chocolate panna cotta
red wine salt
blood orange sorbet

Course 6
|
Basil White chocolate ganache
Textures of passionfruit
Coconut marshmallow sorbet
sea grapes

petit fours
chocolate truffles
alcohol shots

horizons restaurant

plating the first course
Hamachi

getting ready

plating up the foie

foie dish

It was Peng and Min’s wedding
With a natural theme in mind, the wedding cake was centre piece constructed with isomalt.

centre piece

cake for 300 people. the base
Valrhona chocolate cake. textures of chocolate

Sydney: International food festival demo

After the dinner at Sepia.
We had a demo for 200 people under contemporary approach category

The response was very encouraging and im glad the video assisted in helping the audience understand the 2am concept better.
You can view the 2am video here

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12166572/2AM%28Final%29.mov

It was a great audience and it feels really great being back in Australia as this is where i first found my true passion in cooking.
The audience was interactive, asking many questions and even coming up to try the ingredients!

After the demo, we had a talk the next day with Wylie.
It was about our philosophy and approach towards food.
I have always had so much respect for Wylie and Alex stupak (WD-50)

SIFF was a great success and we definitely hope to be back in the coming years.

We had the privilege to run a dessert degustation at Sepia restaurant with Chef Martin Benn (sydney chef of the year 2010).

Menu for the night

Flowers for garnishing

half the tickets for the night.
It has been a long time since i have been on the line in a restaurant.
It was good fun with all the adrenaline!

one of the courses.
Guava cloud. guava sorbet. elderflower gel.
plum. starfruit and pear compote

Overall it was a great event with a full house attendance of 80 guests. The team at Sepia is absolutely wonderful to work with.
One should definitely go to Sepia for dinner when you are in Sydney as it is slowly rising and martin’s delicate approach to his dishes is refine and clean on the palate. He focuses on the ingredients and pairs them all with fresh herbs and flowers.

We had an opportunity to cater for the lovely couple Jaelle and

Her idea of a wedding is out of the ordinary and we had the privilege to be part of it.
A few months ago she sent me an email with the picture attached and asked if we are able to replicate just that.

Art in the cakes

1963 oil on canvas painting by Wayne Thiebaud

My first thought was wow. Thats pretty simple yet challenging in so many ways.
Classical look to the cakes and depicting a painting on the table was no easy feat.
All the work went into the inside of the cakes where we played with colours and textures.

We chose 2 flavors for the cakes.
Basil white chocolate, yuzu.
Valrhona dark chocolate rocher

testing out the colours of the interior

interior of the cakes.
*It has not been filled with white chocolate ganache
This is one of the designs.

one of the cakes.
Yellow glaze. basil white chocolate yuzu filling

Piped by Cathy our new pastry chef at 2am.

lining up the cakes for packaging