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British Chamber of Commerce Thailand “cleaned up”
Mum, I’m bringing some friends home for dinner by Miss Terry Diner How many people came to your last dinner party? Six? Eight? Ten? How long did it take you, the maid, your daughter and your best friend to prepare for that dinner? Can you now imagine what it is like when large hotels undertake a banquet for large numbers of people?
Walter Thenisch, the executive chef of the Royal Cliff Beach Resort, himself a member of the gastronomic group, the Chaine des Rotisseurs, invited his fellow members and their guests to come and see the preparations needed to feed 900 diners at the Pattaya Exhibition and Convention Hall (PEACH). Walter controls around 250 chefs of all shapes, sizes, cuisines and levels, and it seemed on that night that they were all ‘on deck’ with the PEACH kitchens a flurry of food being prepared by one group, to be then cooked by another. Imagine the logistics - if every diner gets two prawn rolls, that is 1,800 items to roll and then deep fry. Presume it takes only one minute to roll up each prawn and that ends up as 30 man hours for two prawn rolls! Or 30 chefs one hour each! No wonder the kitchens get crowded.
Ever marvelled at the intricate vegetable carvings that came with the plate of hors d’oeuvres at the last grand dinner you attended? Walter Thenisch had 90 plates with a fish carved out of pumpkin as the central piece. The carving exercise took 20 women vegetable carvers two whole days to complete the order! And they weren’t sitting around chatting on the phone for half the day either. But it wasn’t just the kitchens where the action was thick and fast. Just how many waiters and waitresses do you need to service 90 tables with 10 diners on each setting? Simple answer is “lots”. Even with just one waiter to a table, there’s 90 waiters standing elbow deep in the wings, ready to pounce on the next course and take it out to their table. If each waiter commands just half a square metre of carpet space, that’s 45 square metres, or 90 metres of waiters if they were standing in a line-up.
After looking behind the scenes, you begin to appreciate just that little bit more, and can perhaps understand why the serving personnel can sometimes look just that little bit flustered. The Chaine des Rotisseurs were naturally a little hungry after the grand PEACH tour and were then the guests of the kitchen, with cold Norwegian salmon eaten in mini-rolls specially baked on site by pastry chef Jozef. Washed down with two fine Australian wines it was a memorable culinary evening. Those who are interested in finding out more about the Chaine des Rotisseurs can contact the Baillie, Walter Jack Heller, on 427 777 (weekday mornings).
Aust-Thai Chamber June S’downer: Networking, too by Peter Cummins The Australian-Thai Chamber of Commerce (ATCC) June Sundowners, held at the Australian Embassy, Bangkok, was an unqualified success. Aimed at fostering networking and information exchange among ATCC members and the business community at large, these events are always well patronized as are the Eastern Seaboard Sundowners, albeit somewhat more frequent, being held on a monthly basis.
Sponsored by the Pan Pacific Hotel, there was a plethora of good food, good wine and copious supplies of Carlsberg and spirits. At one stage, with the capacity crowd completely filling the Embassy’s spacious exhibition area on the second floor, Pan Pacific Hotel general manager William Sayce was concerned that the bar would run dry. As that was already about an hour into ‘overtime’, William had some cause to worry. However, I overheard one happy guest re-assuring the personable Pan Pacific GM that there is no such thing at any Aussie gathering, as “A pub with no beer” - even when the scheduled ‘closing time’ has been breached! Australian Ambassador H.E. Miles Kupa joined the animated crowd, in between formal duties which kept him moving between his office and the reception area where he did even more leg-work, mingling with the group. It was, indeed, a splendid evening and all thanks are due to the GM and staff of the Pan Pacific Hotel for the first-class catering which has become synonymous with the monthly Sundowners. Besides the food, beverage and good fellowship which always permeates the embassy on such occasions, there was even an occasion to “network”!
Updated every Friday Updated by
Chinnaporn Sungwanlek, assisted by Boonsiri Suansuk. |
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Douglas
Whittaker of PCS addresses the networkers at Shenanigans
The
PCS Team
Part
of the Royal Cliff team enjoying a moment of rest between serving up the
masses (L to R) GM Andrew Wood, Chaine des Rotisseurs Baillie Walter Jack
Heller, the executive chef of the Royal Cliff Beach Resort Walter Thenisch,
and the resident manager of the Royal Cliff Grand Ranjith Chandrasiri.
A
beautiful chef prepares one of the many Salmon.
Oooo!
Looks delicious. And we only need to make about a couple hundred more pans
full just like it.
(L.
to R.) ATTC Pres. Hugh Mosley, Pan Pacific GM William Sayce, Kirsten Sayers
of Austrade and H.E. Miles Kupa enjoy the ambience.