Macao News Macao News https://macaonews.org Tue, 12 Dec 2023 00:20:29 +0000 <![CDATA[Raymond Vong: Cooking up the future of a Macao icon]]> Wed, 29 Mar 2023 14:24:31 +0800 Sara Santos Silva 61577 2023-06-26 22:38:55 2023-03-29 14:24:31 Since taking over the restaurant in 2003, Raymond Vong has honoured his father Henri’s vision for a welcoming eatery that serves Macanese and Portuguese food from the heart. ]]>Raymond Vong is the affable restauranteur behind Henri’s Galley, one of Macao’s best-loved eateries. The Macanese and Portuguese restaurant was founded by his father, Henri Vong, in 1976 and quickly became a popular meeting spot for prominent individuals, including then Governor Garcia Leandro and Governor Vasco de Almeida e Costa, who ran the administration from 1981 to 1986.  Before picking up the reins at the family-run eatery in 2003, Vong embarked on a career in marketing that would serve him well in the restaurant industry. Since then, he’s continued to draw a loyal following with friendly service and ever-popular dishes like African chicken, pan-fried prawns and curry crabs.  While the pandemic proved challenging, 2023 looks much brighter, says Vong. Building on tradition, Henri’s Galley recently partnered with Wynn Macau to present a selection of the restaurant's time-honoured dishes on the hotel’s menus.  It’s a good time for Henri’s Galley, Vong reckons. “Ever since the borders reopened, business has been picking up. I also get to see many old friends coming back from Hong Kong. Many of them still greet me, "‘Hello, Henri!’" he laughs. “I have stopped correcting people – now I just smile!”

Growing up in Canada

Born in Hong Kong in 1972, Vong and his family relocated to Macao when he was a newborn. He had a happy childhood and remembers walking from school at Colégio Mateus Ricci with his two sisters to eat lunch at the family’s restaurant on weekdays. When he was 11, the family moved to Canada to be closer to their mother’s relatives, who had immigrated to the country in the 1960s during the Cultural Revolution. Back in Macao, Henri’s Galley was already a success when the family moved to Canada, so Vong’s father asked a relative to manage the restaurant while they lived abroad. The family settled in Calgary, Alberta, and Vong describes his teenage years as typical of “any North American kid”. He hung out with a diverse group of friends, from Indians to Italians, biked to the local convenience store for snacks and sodas, mowed the lawn, and scraped snow off the driveway during harsh winters.  Starting another restaurant hadn’t been the plan, but Vong’s father found himself with too much spare time on his hands. He’d gone from busy restaurateur to stay-at-home dad and was looking for a creative outlet, says Vong. So about four years after the move, he opened a Henri’s Galley in Calgary. On weekends, Vong helped out at the restaurant. “My father was fair; it wasn’t like free labour!” he laughs. “He paid me the minimum wage, and on top of that, I got tips.”  While the experience offered Vong a crash course in the restaurant industry, taking over the Macao restaurant wasn’t something he considered until much later. Instead, Vong studied marketing management at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology in Canada because it provided a lot of career options. “You can adapt knowledge of marketing to almost anything, whether you own a restaurant or do sales,” he explains.

A marketing career in Macao

[caption id="attachment_61635" align="aligncenter" width="640"]Raymond Vong wearing chef's jacket Henri's Galley Although Vong isn't formally trained as a chef, he learned how to cook by watching his father cook[/caption] In the 1990s, mainland China saw an economic boom, which brightened Macao’s prospects, too. “Those were the golden years in Hong Kong and Macao,” Vong says, adding that both cities offered abundant career opportunities at the time. After graduating in 1995, Vong returned to Macao with his family. (His father closed down Henri’s Galley in Calgary after their return.) Vong returned fluent in English, Cantonese and Mandarin and ready for his first job as a marketing officer at a Nissan car dealership. He then joined McDonald’s in the restaurant development department. There were only five or six branches in Macao in the mid-1990s – compared with over 20 today – and Vong was excited to work at the expanding chain.  His next professional challenge took him to the local telecommunications company, Vodatel, where Vong worked as a marketing officer.  During the job interview, Vong took a chance by answering a rather unusual question with candour. “They asked me, ‘Do you drink?’ To which I replied, ‘Yes! I can drink a whole bottle of cognac by myself,’” he recalls. “The interviewer – who would soon become my boss – went, ‘Good! You’re hired!’” Indeed, Vong’s taste for tipples came in handy for the role, which involved frequent business dinners and networking in mainland China with important clients like state-owned China Telecom. 

A pivot towards the culinary world

[caption id="attachment_61722" align="alignnone" width="2000"]Henri's Galley One of Macao’s best-loved eateries, Henri's Galley sits on the edge of Sai Van Lake[/caption] In 2003, Vong’s father was ready to retire from Henri’s Galley in Macao. He didn’t want to close the restaurant, so Henri invited his son to take over.  Vong didn’t want to see the family business close either, but he was ascending in his marketing career, so he had to think about it carefully. Ultimately, he agreed on one condition: his father would have to step away and truly let him run the business. His father agreed. It was a tough time to run a restaurant. Vong’s father retired right after the first wave of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) struck Hong Kong. During the early 2000s, tourists from Hong Kong made up 60 percent of the restaurant’s customer base, so the drop in visitors impacted the restaurant.  But Macao’s gaming boom was right around the corner, and Vong could sense the city was entering an era of growth and change. “Americans, Australians and Europeans were coming to set up enterprises or consult for companies in the hospitality industry, and we started seeing some of them at Henri’s Galley,” recalls Vong. As he sees it, international hospitality and gaming companies marked the start of another golden era for the city. Business was good for Henri’s Galley and remained so until 2019, when Hong Kong went through a period of civil unrest. Widespread protests discouraged people from visiting Hong Kong (according to statistics from the Hong Kong Tourism Board, 2019 visitor arrivals dropped 14 percent compared with 2018 due to local social incidents), and businesses like Henri’s Galley in Macao suffered collateral damage.  Then came Covid-19, and business plunged some 60 percent compared with 2019. Throughout the pandemic, Vong kept the restaurant open but adjusted operating hours. He also provided accommodation for cross-border team members travelling to and from mainland China to minimise the risk of virus exposure.

Preserving Henri’s nostalgic atmosphere

Despite recent challenges, Henri’s Galley sails on. Loyal customers keep coming back to the warm and welcoming environment, where they’re guaranteed to receive some of the best home-style food in Macao, right on the edge of Sai Van Lake.  “In the ‘70s and early ‘80s, all the merchant ships coming from Hong Kong had to go through this part of the delta to get to the Inner Harbour,” he says. “The harbour workers used to come over for lunch or a late drink. Because they could see the ships sailing by, they knew exactly when they had to head back to the harbour.”  Ships no longer cruise past the restaurant, but Henri’s Galley has remained remarkably true to its roots. When Vong renovated the restaurant 15 years ago, he carefully preserved the interiors as much as possible. Naval motifs like wooden oars, a helm and an anchor adorn the walls, alongside historical pictures of Macao. Even the charming maître d'hôtel, John Young, has worked there for nearly 45 years, donning his signature white naval uniform.  [caption id="attachment_61637" align="aligncenter" width="640"]John Young Henri's Galley Henri's Galley maître d’hôtel, John Young, has been working at the restaurant for over four decades[/caption] Little details like these, alongside consistently excellent service and food, have made Henri’s Galley a Macao institution. Vong’s father’s African chicken recipe is the restaurant’s most famous dish – and one of Vong’s favourites, too. One of the many fragrant and flavourful examples of Macanese cuisine, it consists of baked chicken doused in a sauce made of Indian spices, peanut and chilli, and coconut milk from Malacca in southern Malaysia.  “My father did not invent the recipe for African chicken, but he perfected it,” Vong says. “The meat is perfectly tender, and the sauce isn’t overcomplicated but well-balanced.” As owner and general manager of Henri’s Galley, Vong strives to maintain the restaurant's yesteryear appeal and excellent food prepared by a team of talented cooks. Over the years, he has become a significant figure in Macao’s business scene.  Vong serves as the Macau Culinary Association’s President of the General Assembly and the chairman of the Macau Commerce and Industry Association’s Supervisory Council. “When the commerce associations from China come to Macao, they visit us, too,” he says. “We strive to link [up with other] businesses.”   Being part of these associations allows him to connect with people in the industry, stay on top of the latest happenings and support emerging talents. “We [Macau Culinary Association] host a yearly cooking competition for young chefs to foster new talent and encourage people in the industry,” he says. He also owns Club China Bar, a karaoke bar in NAPE. “The bar is not a money-making business, but I also don’t have to put money into it. And I can go for drinks there!” he jokes. [See more: African chicken by Henri's Galley]

A new partnership, old traditions 

[caption id="attachment_61638" align="alignnone" width="2048"]Henri's Galley African chicken African chicken has earned Henri's Galley epicurean fame[/caption] In January, Vong started a new partnership with Wynn Macau, enabling diners to experience a few of Henri’s Galley's dishes – like African chicken, pan-fried Macanese prawns, and Macanese curry crab – at the resort’s Café Encore. Although Vong isn’t a formally trained chef, he learned a lot by watching his father and cooking by his side. “In 2003, when I took over the restaurant, I had to work really hard to polish up my skills,” he notes.  Reflecting on the past two decades, Vong wouldn’t change a thing about the restaurant or life in Macao. He has a happy family life and has enjoyed watching his son grow up and discover his passions. Now 19, his son plays his favourite sport, hockey, while studying in the US.  When it comes to hobbies, which he doesn’t have much time for, Vong loves to swim. “A lot of people invest in a restaurant, get people to run it, and that’s it. But not me. I am very involved in Henri’s, and it does not leave me much free time,” he admits.  Vong is glad to see the restaurant finding its footing again now that Macao’s borders have reopened. He continues to carry on the legacy of his father, who passed away in 2009, and does not plan to change much in the future. On the contrary, Vong hopes to maintain the nostalgic atmosphere for years to come.  “Taking over Henri’s was my destiny; I just didn’t always know it,” he says. “I’m sure my father would’ve been proud to see it where it is now – and his food being served at Wynn.”    ]]> <![CDATA[Jack Ung]]> Mon, 30 May 2022 10:04:05 +0800 Cathy Lai 50932 2023-06-26 22:38:59 2022-05-30 10:04:05 Learn how this serial entrepreneur went from the gaming industry to building Café THS Honolulu and bringing eco-friendly Nordaq water filtration systems to Macao.]]>For more than two decades, Jack Ung has been a familiar face at Café THS Honolulu in Taipa. On any given day, you might find him at the café near Pou Tai Un Temple having a black coffee to start the day, enjoying his favourite oxtail stewed in red wine for lunch, or greeting people as they walk through the door. The serial entrepreneur has been in charge of Honolulu since 1988, expanding it from a coffee roasting company into one of the most iconic café chains in Macao over the years.  But coffee is just one of Ung’s fields of expertise. From food and beverages to casino operations, real estate development to sustainability innovations, Ung has done it all, making his career story a page-turner.  His journey began at a humble two-storey building at Rua da Erva in the San Kio district, a historic residential area situated at Travessa da Corda. This was not only his childhood home, but also the birthplace of Tan Heong San (THS) Enterprise, a coffee roasting business and the parent company of Café THS Honolulu.  Ung lived with his parents and four siblings in the building throughout his childhood. Starting in 1950, his father ran the company on the first floor, where he stored about a hundred bags of coffee beans at a time.   “Since the San Kio district was always flooding, we put the coffee beans at least one metre above the floor. I always climbed on the bags with my siblings. They were like a playground to us,” Ung says.   

Moving up the ladder 

It seemed certain Ung would join the family business, but instead, his father encouraged him to apply for a job at Sociedade de Turismo e Diversões de Macau (STDM), the only gaming operator in Macao at the time. “My father’s company was too small and couldn’t afford to hire me. He would rather let me work [for someone else] so that I can bring money to the family,” he says with a laugh.  “At first, I was hesitant. The gaming industry didn’t have a good reputation at the time [as they were seen as dishonest businesses],” Ung recalls. “But things eventually worked out well for me. STDM became my employer for more than half of my life.”  In 1970, Ung started as a dealer at STDM’s Lisboa Hotel and was promoted to pit manager four years later. Being one of the few people in the gaming industry who could speak and write English gave him an advantage locally – it also opened doors to new opportunities with the company overseas. In 1976, Ung’s boss brought him onto the launch team for Manila Bay Casino in the Philippines. As the project’s assistant manager, he was responsible for recruiting, training and operations.  About one year after Manila Bay Casino opened its doors, Ung returned to Macao and continued to work for STDM as a human resources manager.  Ung says one of his most interesting achievements working in human resources was setting up a pension plan for STDM employees. “It was a time before Macao’s labour law was established [in 1984]. Since our older team members didn’t have a retirement plan or pension, they just kept working,” he says. So Ung came up with a scheme to provide security: if a team member wanted to retire, they could refer a person to take over their job. The company did not set a standard fee for the referrals, and Ung learned later that some retiring employees were paid as much as MOP 100,000. STDM gradually phased out the system because the Macao government launched a social security fund in 1989.   In 2002, after three decades with STDM, Ung transitioned to a new department, becoming a senior administrative manager overseeing the slot machine department. In 2008, he was appointed president of Casino Oceanus of SJM Holdings Ltd (a stock-market listed affiliate of STDM) It was a responsibility he describes as both challenging and exciting. “I had been managing human resources for a very long time, and this is the first time [I was hired] to lead the launch of a casino, where my priority was to make sure it earns money,” he recalls. But Ung found a formula for success.  “As the Chinese saying goes, food comes first for the people. For a casino property that has few facilities like Oceanus, food is a major tool to attract and retain customers. We give out food coupons to the guests so that they can enjoy good food while gaming. Oceanus has been a rather successful project for SJM, which proved that our strategy is correct,” says Ung.

Back to the family business

Ung eventually left his position at SJM in 2018, but his work was far from over. All the time he worked for the gaming operator, he continued to build the family coffee roasting business, too. When his father retired in 1988, Ung became CEO of THS Enterprise. He wanted to expand the business, but first he needed to improve his knowledge of coffee and roasting techniques.  In the 1990s, he travelled to London and apprenticed under Colin Smith, past president of the Specialty Coffee Association of Europe. He also took a coffee-roasting course in Las Vegas, where he learned how different roasting schedules can affect the flavour of coffee beans. This knowledge helped him optimise THS Enterprises’ roasting facilities and brewing techniques. In 2012, he expanded the business, relocating the company to a multi-storey coffee factory at Rua Norte do Parque Industrial, dubbed the THS Centre. There, the company produces all its coffee products locally using three roasting machines purchased from Germany. The centre also houses an industrial bakery and a large storage area that can house more than 200 tonnes of coffee beans at a time. Over time, THS Enterprise grew into one of the leading food and beverage suppliers in the region, supplying roasted coffee beans, coffee capsules and bread to gaming operators, restaurants and hotels mainly in Macao and Hong Kong. As the company’s food and beverage supply wing thrived, Ung set out to develop a consumer-facing side of the business. The company opened its first Café THS Honolulu in 1997 at a ground floor shop near St Francisco Garden. “A coffee-roasting company is like an unsung hero. We supply the coffee to other restaurants and hotels, but people don’t know about us. So it’s important to have our own coffee shop if we want to promote our brand.”   At its peak, the company had 11 cafés, but that number has fluctuated over the years due to worker shortages. Today, he operates eight cafés in total. “The rent is a big part of the cost of running a coffee shop in Macao, and then the salaries and food costs. I try to run the café in properties [that I purchased], so that I don’t have to pay rent,” he says.  Except for the first shop near St Francisco Garden, that is. “Today, I am still renting that shop,” he says with a laugh. “It was my first coffee shop and the location is good, so I am not ready to let it go.”  

Brewing new ambitions

Jack Ung Whether managing a casino or a food and beverage enterprise, Ung says his professional roles have been challenging yet enjoyable in their own ways.  “At STDM and SJM I was a manager, but I was not the owner. I had to give a lot of time and dedication to my job. I had to think about how to maximise profit, how to promote [the venues], how to save money and how to allocate the budget,” he says.  “As the boss of THS Enterprise, I can trust my employees with the company’s daily operations and various responsibilities, because the business is already on track.” On top of his work at STDM and SJM and his growing coffee empire, Ung also ran a medium-sized real estate business. Essentially, he would buy old properties, tear them down and build new developments on the land. “I just let the architect draw the plan, then I will sign my name and green light the project. It wouldn’t take me too much time or affect my job at the casino,” he explains.  But now Ung has a new focus. In 2021, he established Java Company Limited, which became the sole distributor of Nordaq in Macao and Southern China, a patented water filtration system founded in Sweden that enables users to filter, bottle and cap water on-site.  The company helps local hotels and resorts install the system, so they can phase out plastic bottles across their properties. His customers include several notable partners, too: Melco Resorts & Entertainment, Wynn Macau and Wynn Palace and the Mandarin Oriental, among others. Based on Ung’s calculation, the system will cut 5 to 10 million single-use bottles in 2022 even during the tourist downturn caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.  “Everybody wants a clean environment. On a personal level, I have been practising recycling at home,” says Ung of his desire to provide sustainable business solutions. “So when Nordaq approached my company, I saw it as a chance to make a contribution.” Ung’s work ethic and adventurous spirit constantly motivate him to try new things in life and business. “I want to [use] Macao as a platform to promote the Nordaq system to the Greater Bay Area. It will be my new goal. I don’t like retirement and I will never speak about retiring, because it makes me happy to have something to work hard on.”  ]]> <![CDATA[Eddie McDougall]]> Tue, 08 Mar 2022 11:12:39 +0800 Inara Sim 48523 2023-06-26 22:39:04 2022-03-08 11:12:39 The Flying Winemaker and driving force behind Macao-based Eddie McDougall Wines talks about his journey to becoming one of Asia-Pacific’s leading boutique winemakers.]]>As the founder of one of Asia-Pacific’s most dynamic wine brands, it would be easy to assume that Eddie McDougall was born into the wine world. But the award-winning winemaker, TV presenter, columnist, wine judge, and CEO and founder of The Flying Winemaker is quick to point out that this is not the case. “I didn’t grow up on a vineyard,” he says. “My father wasn’t a winemaker, and my mother was not an heiress of a famous chateau.” McDougall, who has lived in Macao since 2013, was born in Hong Kong in 1983. His mother, a receptionist from Hong Kong, and father, a third-generation dairy farmer from Brisbane, Australia, raised him in Hong Kong until he was 11.  A keen rugby union player, a young McDougall moved to Australia to attend boarding school at Brisbane’s elite rugby school, St Joseph's Nudgee College. “I really wanted to pursue a career in rugby,” he says. “Nudgee is the nursery for rugby players in Australia, so it was the perfect school for me.”  McDougall eventually had to let go of his rugby dreams because he couldn't gain enough weight. “I couldn’t get past 75 kilos – it didn’t matter how many protein shakes I had,” he laughs.  After graduating from secondary school in 1999, McDougall enrolled in a Bachelor of International Business at Griffith University in South East Queensland and worked odd jobs throughout his degree.  With graduation looming, McDougall wondered what to do next. It was at McDougall’s job at the now-defunct fine-dining restaurant Isis Brasserie in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley, that gave him a clue. At this VIP hotspot, he learned about fine dining and fell in love with the whole experience.  “The restaurant had a really fantastic wine list, which when I read it, meant nothing to me,” he recalls. “It was gibberish – French, Italian and Spanish words I could barely pronounce and places I’d never heard of.” It piqued his curiosity and, soon enough, he was spending his spare time reading up on wines at bookshops. “I began spending what little money I had on wine just to develop some knowledge but never thought that there was a job or a career down that path,” he adds. On a quiet Tuesday night at the restaurant, McDougall’s destiny as a vintner unfolded. “We had a bunch of politicians come in for dinner after a big meeting,” he says. “Everything that could go wrong in a restaurant was going wrong: wine was being poured in the wrong glass, food was going to the wrong people, meat that was supposed to be well-done was undercooked – it was a disaster.”  The experience was so bad, the group paid the bill and hurried out, leaving food and wine on the table. “As you can imagine, there were not too many tips that night, so the owner told us to drink the wine instead,” McDougall laughs. “We didn’t understand the concept of tasting wine or what people were talking about when they would swirl and sniff the glass – it was so foreign to me. I picked up the glass, and literally by the time I had put the wine in my mouth and it hit my tongue, it was as if this sensory halo just exploded.” For McDougall, it was a moment of clarity, an unforgettable sensory experience, “I turned to the guy next to me and I literally said, ‘Holy shit, this is amazing. I need to learn how to make this.’”  That single sip of wine – a pinot blanc from Domaine Paul Blanck in Alsace, France – set the wheels in motion. McDougall began mapping out his new path and enrolled in the University of Melbourne’s Wine Technology and Viticulture postgraduate programme – a move that would put him just a stone’s throw from a few of Australia’s major wine-growing regions. To complement his studies, McDougall landed an entry-level position at boutique winery, Shadowfax Wines, in Geelong, a city southwest of Melbourne. “From sweeping the floors in the front driveway to picking grapes, working in the tasting room, sticking labels on bottles – I just put my hand up and said yes to everything,” says McDougall. The odd jobs exposed McDougall to the entire process of winemaking. “I had the opportunity to see everything: where the wine comes from, the hard work that goes into it, realising that each label has been stuck on by someone’s hand, [how the] bottle ends up on a table, and then being the one serving it and talking to customers about it,” he says. “It cemented the fact that if I can stick labels on bottles for hours and weeks on end, then I have enough motivation to stick it out and go through that process.” Eddie McDougall After four years at Shadowfax, McDougall relocated to the Clare Valley in South Australia to O’Leary Walker Wines, before returning to Victoria in 2007 to work at Clyde Park in the Bannockburn region. “This was a real inflection point where I was starting to have some say in terms of the wine-making process,” he says. McDougall also started thinking about starting his own wine label but first wanted to accumulate more experience and resources. McDougall moved to the Yarra Valley, a wine-growing region northeast of Melbourne, at the end of 2007 to work with Giant Steps as a Vintage Winemaker.  A few months later, using a small space in the winery, he produced and bottled 100 cases of pinot noir under his own label, Umami Wines. “Giant Steps gave me the time and facilities to do my own thing on the side,” he says. “I bought grapes from a local grower, but the wine-making techniques and the processing was all my own craft.” The success of the wine – a light-bodied red with a fruit-forward flavour and spice on the nose – spurred McDougall to expand his small production by moving production to a shed on a friend’s vineyard which allowed him more freedom. “At that point, I’d worked with some of the best people in Australia,” he says. “But I wanted [to be able to say] that I’d done the same with people in the Old World.”  In 2008 he packed up and moved to Italy, where he worked with Italian winery Vietti – universally recognised as one of the finest Italian vintners – in the Barolo wine region of Piedmont. The role also enabled him to spend time travelling and discovering more wine regions in Europe. At the end of his four-month Italian stint, McDougall returned to Hong Kong at the beginning of 2009 for a friend's wedding, and to his surprise, got a job offer while in the city. “It was a really interesting time in the wine world, because Hong Kong had just abolished its wine tax so the market was really opening up,” he explains.  A wine consulting company hired McDougall, who is fluent in both Cantonese and English, to conduct wine education workshops, host events and share his knowledge with clients and customers.” Six months later, a Canadian woman approached McDougall with another opportunity to produce a “Hong Kong” wine using imported grapes. “She needed a winemaker to do it, so she approached me knowing I was the only wine producer currently in Hong Kong,” he recalls. “Of course, I said yes.” For the next three years, McDougall helped develop Hong Kong’s first urban winery, The 8th Estate. As part of his role, he travelled to wine regions near and far to select grapes to import. From shiraz to grenache, riesling, cabernet sauvignon, merlot and chardonnay, he tested different varietals to see which responded best to transit and production methods.  “The wines we ended up producing were excellent, surprising and really drinkable,” he recalls.   Though the winery received many accolades, it dialled down production in 2012 as competition increased locally. It was a blessing in disguise, enabling McDougall to focus on the wines he was still producing in Australia.   A lot had changed in a few short years. He had outgrown the shed, moved to a large facility and rebranded everything to Eddie McDougall Wines. He also expanded into Asia, with Hong Kong as the first city on the wine distribution list. “While working for The 8th Estate, I was literally flying around to different regions and bringing in grapes from different places,” says McDougall. “That kind of formulated the concept [of The Flying Winemaker], which then became a brand and [opened] lots of new avenues for me.”  [caption id="attachment_48536" align="alignnone" width="1333"]The Flying Winemaker The Flying Winemaker[/caption] Under the new brand, he focused on making Italian varietals. “I like wines that are honest and reflect the varietal, place and maker,” he says. “They should be considered as postcards of the location they are grown from.” In November 2011, he opened The Flying Winemaker’s first retail outlet. Located in Lan Kwai Fong, a popular nightlife area in Hong Kong, the shop hosted events and doubled as a wine bar at night, which quickly helped McDougall raise his profile across Asia-Pacific as a credible winemaker. “That was the point when I decided that I was all-in, no more working for people on the side,” he recalls. “I put a team together, so I could increase the production.” In Australia, where “everyone drinks shiraz, cabernet, chardonnay, riesling and sauvignon blanc”, the winemaker focused on less-common varietals, such as pinot, prosecco, rosé, pinot grigio and san gervase. “We had something that was a little bit different. As we got bigger, we started to feed in some of the more mainstream varietals, like cabernet sauvignon and shiraz.” With momentum building, McDougall and his partners pitched The Flying Winemaker television show, and ABC Australia signed a deal to premiere the show on the Discovery Channel in 2014. Over the next two years, McDougall and his team produced 13 episodes. “The premise was food and wine pairing with some adventure thrown in,” he says. “We focused on unexplored wine regions throughout Asia, and how their locally grown wines paired with the local food.”  Eventually, the show aired on Netflix and several airlines. As a result, McDougall’s wine business boomed, enabling the winemaker to expand his “diverse” and “approachable” wine portfolio. In 2016, the winemaker and his team began producing wines in Margaret River in Western Australia. Two years later, they bought an estate, Gladstone Vineyard, on New Zealand’s North Island. “[These] locations are great for the varietals [like pinot noir or rosé] I’m inspired by and like to drink,” he says. “New Zealand was our first choice for a vineyard as it is a sustainable, high-quality focused grape producing country – clean, green and premium.”  It’s a giant leap forward for the young man, who first bottled 100 cases of wine and now produces over 10,000 cases each year across five regions in three countries with more in the pipeline. Looking ahead, McDougall will continue to manage his own vineyards or buy grapes from local growers and use contract winemaking facilities. “We like to keep a balance,” he says. “For big volume stuff, we use growers. For our more premium products, particularly in New Zealand, we try to have full meticulous control over our sites.”  Working away from his wineries has been the new normal for McDougall ever since the Covid-19 pandemic began in early 2020. “The past two years have been a bit leaner in terms of our operating scale,” he says. “We took the time to tighten things up, work on the customer service side of things and regenerate our content, logos and branding.”  McDougall has also taken advantage of being stuck in Macao – where he has lived for nearly a decade with his wife and two young boys – to spend more time cultivating relationships with his Chinese distribution market. “I’ve been spending more time in China these past two years,” he says. “I go to trade expos and host events and tastings. None of my competitors can currently get in, so people are really receptive to getting to know our brands more.”  Last month, The Flying Winemaker’s Margaret River cabernet sauvignon won the tender for Qantas’ business class red wine, which will be available from June 2022 – a promising start to the year for McDougall and his company. “Australia has just opened its borders, and international and interstate travel is back into play,” he says. “We’re really proud to have our wine in the skies.” And with that, The Flying Winemaker will literally be taking off around the world, once again.   ]]> <![CDATA[Florita Morais Alves]]> Thu, 15 Apr 2021 12:40:53 +0800 Vivianna Cheong 38533 2021-05-06 14:04:42 2021-04-15 12:40:53 La Famiglia’s chef de cuisine is on a mission to preserve Macao’s heritage, one bite at a time.]]>For more than a decade, Florita Morais Alves has championed Macanese flavours both locally and globally. She transports the tastes, sights and smells of Macanese food from home kitchens to the tables at her restaurant La Famiglia. Alves also hosts cooking demonstrations, both online as well as at international gastronomy events. Born in December 1960, to a Macanese father and a Chinese mother, the retired civil servant is proud of and deeply connected to her Macanese, Portuguese and Chinese heritage through the food she cooks.

The birth of a second calling

Alves didn’t begin her professional career in food and hospitality. In fact, she first spent over 30 years as a civil servant. At the age of 18, she got her first job as assistant postmaster at the Macao Post Office. The following year, she began dating her Macanese husband, who worked nearby. “In the old days, there wasn’t much entertainment. Our dating life was quite domestic. During lunch breaks or after work, I cooked for him.” And thus, out of food, grew love. After three years at the Post Office, she transferred to the Insurance Supervision department at the Issuing Institute of Macao, now the Monetary Authority of Macao, where she remained for 31 years. Following a life-long career as a dedicated civil servant, Alves decided she wanted to contribute back to society by promoting Macanese food. “To be honest, as a retired civil servant, I don’t have to work anymore, but I had an incredibly happy life, and I wanted to give back to this town. And for me, the way was through the food of Macao that is so uniquely positioned at a crossroad of history and cultures.” Her opportunity came in 2010, just a year after her retirement. NHK TV from Japan was filming a series of gastronomy programmes and was looking for someone to demonstrate Macanese cuisine. The Macao Government Tourism Office contacted the Macanese Gastronomy Society (Confraria da Gastronomia Macaense), which in turn invited Alves, who by then had already carved out a name for herself as an expert in local fare.  She recalls making casquinha de caranguejo (stuffed crab shells): “I chose this dish because it was special to my family, and it demonstrates the global fusion element of Macanese food, using local ingredients with Western techniques.” The broadcasted demonstration flung open the doors for Alves, who was then invited to collaborate with bloggers, local hotels, and the Macao Institute for Tourism Studies (IFT). Shortly thereafter, in 2012, Macanese gastronomy was inscribed on Macao's List of Intangible Cultural Heritage. In 2017, Alves’s son Vinicio teamed up with some friends and opened La Famiglia, an Italian restaurant located in Taipa village. Due to the density of Italian restaurant offerings, La Famiglia pivoted to Macanese cuisine in 2018, changing its Chinese name from ‘The Home of Italy’ to ‘The Home of Macanese Flavours’.  Alves became chef de cuisine of La Famiglia, and with her team of five, the restaurant has seen business take off, especially with Hong Kong customers. “Many middle-aged Hong Kong tourists come in search of sentimental dishes that they ate in Macao in the 1970s,” she explains. In 2018, Alves was awarded “Best European Chef” by CEUCO (European Council of Enogastronomic Brotherhoods) in Athens, Greece. Most recently, La Famiglia has been chosen as an ‘Essence of Asia 2021’ restaurant, deeming it one of the top 50 Asian restaurants celebrating regional and local fare. “We feel proud to earn such recognition,” says Alves. “It really encourages us to keep exploring the history and dishes of our regional cuisine.”

Food, family and love, intertwined

Alves first began cooking at the age of seven, under the tutelage of her Chinese grandmother, who cooked both Chinese and Portuguese dishes. She viscerally recalls the aromatic smells of her grandmother’s kitchen: onions, garlic and shallots, staples in Portuguese dishes, and spring onions and ginger for Cantonese steamed fish.  “In those years, Portuguese home cooking was simple – Bacalhau (salted cod fish), poached food, steaks and pork chops. Not very exciting. However, we marinated the pork chops in a Western way, with salt, pepper and garlic, and rounded off the dish with a starchy sauce.” And in fact, Alves’s earliest sous chef duties included making this starchy sauce of cornstarch, sugar and soy. It is a ubiquitous sauce served with Portuguese dishes, as a finishing sauce to many Cantonese dishes, and often served over rice. The first savoury dish she remembers cooking is minchi (Macanese sautéed minced beef and/or pork), a simple and delicious traditional dish. She fondly remembers accompanying her grandmother on shopping trips to the market Mercado Municipal Horta da Mitra: “At that time, fishmongers didn’t sell fish on the stands that you see now; they sat on small stools with their fish on a board placed on the floor, aside a thick cutting block. I remember an old lady selling fish at an entrance of the market. She must have sat there filleting fish every day for hours on end. I liked watching her handle all kinds of fish, and I marvelled at such hard work day in and day out.” Alves looks back on the old market days of no air-conditioning and slippery floors, with nostalgia: it was a time of greater environmental conscientiousness, where food was wrapped in newspaper and bundled with rope made of woven straw.  Shoppers put their items into rattan baskets and purchased only what they immediately needed due to limitations of storage. “Summer holiday was three months long. People went food shopping every day, even twice a day, because we didn’t have good fridges.” Alves never grew up distinguishing the foods she ate as specifically Chinese, Portuguese or Macanese. To her, they were simply dishes that she ate everyday, a veritable melting pot as a result of Macao’s unique cultural and ethnic history.  When she married in 1984, at the age of 23, her in-laws opened her eyes to a deeper understanding of Macanese food. “My mother-in-law knows many people who excel in cooking and baking. They used to arrange gatherings where they served chá gordo, and this is how I came to understand the variety of Macanese food.” Chá gordo translates literally into ‘fat tea’, a traditional Macanese afternoon tea served with a spread of delicacies.  Christmas Eve 1984, just three months after getting married, Alves faced the first challenge that would test her culinary knowledge. Asked to host a ceia (late supper) for her in-laws, following midnight mass, she threw together a meal featuring empada de peixe procured at the old Mercearia Hap Heng, which still used a firewood oven.  Translated as ‘tortoise bun’ (麵龜) in Cantonese, empada de peixe is a Macanese fish pie flavoured with olives and turmeric, with a buttery sweet and savoury crust. She also prepared some stir-fried noodles, deep-fried snacks and Macanese Christmas delicacies – alua (butter cake), cakes and pinwheel pastry – for her in-laws and their relatives, some of whom had just returned to Macao after many years in Portugal. “I wanted to make them the local foods that they must have missed.”  It is a universal truth that breaking bread brings people together and transcends our differences. Alves is grateful for all the people who have inspired her gastronomic experiences and adventures. In particular, she attributes her husband’s childhood nanny Fun Che with helping to form so much of her culinary knowledge and interest. Che excelled at making a wide range of Chinese cakes, including nin gou (a sticky rice flour cake served at Chinese New Year) and sugar rings. “People in the old days possessed excellent craftsmanship with their hands. When [Fun Che] made sugar rings, she attentively rolled dough into long, thin pieces and wove them into one single ring. Nowadays, people tend to use moulds. I feel so lucky to have met people who passed down their knowledge and love of food. Food makers back then were extremely skilled and patient.” Tia Mari, her husband’s aunt, also played a pivotal role in informing Alves’s Macanese food expertise. Tia Mari left Macao for Portugal in the early 1990s, leaving Alves a collection of authentic local recipes pulled together from domestic workers and friends. Many of the recipes posed a challenge, as they often only stated the necessary ingredients and omitted specific amounts and methods. Alves has explored this treasure trove thoroughly and patiently, through trial and error, and it is through this process of deciphering and perfecting these dishes that she has become one of the foremost experts on Macanese cuisine. Mastering the method for alua (Macanese butter cake) took Alves five years! A centrepiece of any Macanese Christmas, alua, like so many notable local dishes, is a melting pot of cultures. “I knew the taste, so I tried different amounts and methods until I got it spot-on. Alua has its counterpart in India, and there is a strong Indian influence in Macanese food, such as the use of turmeric. The texture of alua is similar to a Chinese version of lardy cake, and the challenge of making the perfect alua is to control the oven temperature and the heat of the sugar.” Alves continues, “I love making Macanese desserts, such as genetes (corn-starch cookies), alua, coqueiras (coconut tartlets), and rebuçados de ovos (egg yolk candy). We always use coconut in our desserts, and this is a very distinctive aspect of the cuisine. I really hope to help more people discover Macanese cakes.” Alves reminisces about her favourite childhood foods – siu mei (a Cantonese rotisserie meat), char siu, and wonton noodles. She remembers learning to make turnip cakes from her grandmother for Chinese New Year, and every New Year she also prepares poon choi, a layered dish traditionally served at Cantonese festivals and special occasions. Now a grandmother herself, Alves wants to pass down her love of Macanese home cooking to her children and grandson. “They eat pizzas and pasta, but I hope when they eat Macanese food, they think of their childhood, just as eating minchi brings my husband back to his childhood and the important people in it, like Fun Che.”  ]]> <![CDATA[Alyson Lundstrom]]> Thu, 25 Feb 2021 11:59:55 +0800 Tanja Wessels 36629 2021-08-13 10:33:02 2021-02-25 11:59:55 Marine biologist and The Blissful Carrot co-founder Alyson Lundstrom may have spent most of her life studying wildlife, but it took moving to Macao for her to really make the connection between diet, consumer choices and the environment. ]]>Hailing from a small farming community in Washington, a state in the US Pacific Northwest, Alyson Lundstrom was raised in a tight-knit community that revolved around the environment. People focused on the seasons, rainfalls, harvests, natural resources and only the freshest produce – it was an environmentally conscious atmosphere that she eventually managed to emulate at The Blissful Carrot, her plant based cafe and community space in Taipa.  Born in 1979, Lundstrom’s mother wore several hats as a homemaker, baker, bail bond agent and nursing home manager, among other roles. Lundstrom, who finds it easy to switch gears in life, attributes her flexible and curious spirit to her mother. Her father was an entrepreneur and, as the owners of a dry-cleaning business, the family was at the centre of the community. “Everybody would bring their school, mascot, police uniforms; there were always wedding dresses around, so it was actually a kind of magical place,” Lundstrom recalls. A shy and introverted child, Lundstrom always felt a strong connection to animals and nature. It was only in 1998 when she went to university in Bellingham in Washington state that she met other people who were “nerdly passionate” about the environment. At Huxley College of the Environment at Western Washington University, one of the earliest environmental colleges in the US, Lundstrom majored in biology, spending a year in England, studying marine biology at the University of Plymouth in 2000. When she returned to Western Washington University in the US, she brought with her a newfound confidence and enthusiasm for international experiences and the scope of marine biology. She then stumbled upon a campus flyer advertising an internship to study sea turtles in Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, in 2002 which would mark the first of several opportunities to research and protect the marine animals.  In Hawai’i, Lundstrom worked with the US National Park Service service on a biotech programme for six months. As part of the programme, the then-23-year-old flew via helicopter to far-flung beaches and conducted sea turtle nesting surveys.  “It was just the best – I got to see these baby sea turtles, and it just felt wild,” she recalls. “A group of us would set up a camp, go out every night on these black sand beaches, and sometimes wear infrared red glasses and watch for hatchlings. It was super exciting.”  Lundstrom graduated with a degree in Environmental Science and a minor in Marine Ecology in 2003, then moved to Texas for her first full-time job. As a biological technician with the National Parks Service, she worked on sea turtle hatcheries and volunteered to rescue and rehabilitate stranded wildlife on Padre Island National Seashore, along the Gulf of Mexico. After two years on the job, Lundstrom set her eyes on Florida where she would have a chance to study loggerhead sea turtles. While working with the Conservancy of SouthWest Florida for a year in 2004, she helped master’s students research loggerheads in the mangroves before deciding it was time for a desk job.  But office life didn’t last long – just a year, in fact. She worked as a stranding coordinator (rescuing and rehabilitating wildlife) at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Half the job was data entry, and the other half involved picking up stranded dead animals including whales, sharks and sea turtles. She would bring them to the lab to research the cause of death and conditions in the sea, evidenced by plastic bags, fishing gear and even disposable cameras found inside the animals’ bodies.  “I had to drive for hours with whole truck-beds loaded with frozen animals that were thawing out quickly in the Florida sun,” she says. “When I stopped at gas stations, people would look around because of the smell. But I didn’t smell it anymore; I was used to it.” Ready to get back into the field, Lundstrom packed up and moved to St Croix in the US Virgin Islands in 2005 to work for The Nature Conservancy on the conservation of two endangered species, hawksbill and leatherback sea turtles.  It was on a scuba diving break in the islands that she met her future husband, Chris Lundstrom, the dive shop manager, who she married in 2009. After getting married, Lundstrom continued her work with The Nature Conservancy and also started a sailing company with her husband.  The couple then settled on St Thomas Island, where Lundstrom began working with sea lions. For the next two years, she learned about animal husbandry and medical care, eventually becoming certified as a veterinary technician.  Then came a call in 2011. Lundstrom was on duty at the hospital when Chris rang with some news: A show in China was looking for underwater technicians like him. Would she be willing to move there?  “At the time I had just been bitten by a big iguana and was holding a puppy who had diarrhea and it was running all over me. I said OK, and hung up.” Two weeks later they moved to Macao when Chris accepted a position as a diver technician on The House of Dancing Water. Soon after arriving in the city, Lundstrom met a kindred spirit in fellow American Marisa Randles. Passionate about the environment, Randles was also married to a House of Dancing Water staff member, so the two women had plenty in common. They quickly became inseparable, taking trips to Hong Kong to buy organic vegetables and dine at plant-based restaurants. These trips sparked a new business idea that would eventually take shape, but not for a few years yet.   During those first three years in Macao, Lundstrom immersed herself in the local community by teaching English and Culture at Emile Montessori Education. “Right off the bat, I was in a school where not a single other person spoke English – not a parent, a teacher, or a kid,” she recalls. “So it really threw me into [local] culture, and I think it was really important to approach Macao that way.” It also shifted Lundstrom’s view of food, waste, and the environment. “I spent a giant portion of my life studying animals and endangered species, but it really took coming here to make that connection between my diet, consumer choices and all the other things I cared about,” she says.  That’s when she realised that The House of Dancing Water was the perfect opportunity to offer sustainable dining options to the show’s 300 health-conscious staff – half of whom need to maintain their physique and fitness for performances. They came to an agreement with management, then started delivering stacks of Tupperware with plant-based food to the stage door every day. The informal arrangement lasted a year, during which Lundstrom continued to teach. In 2014, Lundstrom welcomed a son, and that same year Randles signed the lease on a space in Taipa to establish plant-based eatery The Blissful Carrot. Though she stopped short of taking on a formal role, since she still had an infant to care for, Lundstrom helped Randles open the business, source supplies and set up the cafe.   [caption id="attachment_36640" align="aligncenter" width="2000"]Alyson Lundstrom Alyson Lundstrom outside the Blissful Carrot - Photo by António Sanmarful[/caption] Meanwhile, Randles and her husband Aaron took care of the everyday management, hiring and design – upcycling discarded pieces of wood to create an inviting, eco-friendly space. Come opening day, on 27 April 2014, hundreds of performers, crew members and other staff from The House of Dancing Water showed up to support them. “Looking back, it melts my heart,” says Lundstrom.  When the cafe’s plant-based chef resigned unexpectedly, Lundstrom stepped into the role of baker, making raw vegan desserts. And after two years helping part-time, she officially came on board as a business partner in 2016.  The following year, The Blissful Carrot launched a range of fermented foods, including vegan cheeses, vegan yoghurt, sauerkraut, kimchi and a particularly successful kombucha brand that other stores began carrying.  In 2018, Randles moved to Mexico and Lundstrom took up the reins as sole  owner. Today, she incorporates her scientific background into the menu, exploring microbes (tiny living organisms) and creating new styles of plant-based foods.  “We’re making carrot bacon right now,” she cites as an example. “We’re not trying to make vegetarians out of everybody, but we are trying to give people really tasty solutions so maybe they can avoid meat one day a week, one meal a day, whatever it is.”  She also hopes to raise awareness about environmental issues and sustainable business models in Macao. Growing up in Washington State, Lundstrom understood concepts like environmentalism and sustainability from a young age. And here in Macao, she feels there is room for improvement, particularly when it comes to early education.  ]]> <![CDATA[Andreea Apostol]]> Wed, 30 Dec 2020 09:47:16 +0800 Tanja Wessels 33097 2021-08-13 10:35:24 2020-12-30 09:47:16 One bite from the world of whole food nutrition changed Andreea Apostol’s life. Now she wants to do the same for you. ]]>Raised in a creative family, Andreea Apostol has been imaginative from a young age. She and her younger brother saw firsthand the importance of following one’s passions and learning new skills.  “My grandma was a painter, my mom was a self-taught fashion designer, and my dad was an architect,” says Apostol, who was born on 14 April 1981 in Iasi, known as the cultural capital of Romania. They put a lot of trust in her as a child, encouraging her to pursue every interest, she adds.  When Apostol was three, the family moved from their hometown to Slobozia, a small city close to Bucharest, the capital of Romania, where her father accepted a new job working in construction. Buoyed by her mother’s mantra – "I know you can move mountains if you want!" – Apostol enrolled in an Economics and Public Relations degree at the Bucharest University of Economic Studies in 2000, graduating in 2004. With a knack for spotting business opportunities, she opened her first small business, Harmony, a fashion boutique in Slobozia selling  good value women’s clothing in China. “I enjoyed running Harmony because I travelled a lot, bringing new things into Romania; I like to be unique,” says the entrepreneur.  On her first trip to Beijing in 2004, Apostol, then 23 years old, remembers thinking that the country seemed like a place she would like to live, but never considered it seriously.  Around that time, a friend from her hometown had moved to Macao to work as a casino manager. They reconnected on Apostol’s next trip to Beijing and romance soon followed. “Beijing is our love city,” says Apostol of the rendezvous with her future husband.  In 2007 Apostol moved to Macao to join her partner. It was a challenging time: due to visa restrictions she couldn’t work and had to return to Romania frequently to comply with regulations. However, those same restrictions would prove to be an opportunity in disguise, laying the foundations for her next business endeavour.  While stuck in limbo, Apostol started watching MasterChef, a US-reality cooking competition, which served as a major catalyst in her life.  “MasterChef taught me to believe in the power of food, to be open to playing with spices and ingredients, and to love the colours in food,” Apostol recalls. The show’s competitive angle appealed to that side of her personality, while the creative aspect tapped into her upbringing.
“The passion and the love for food made me believe that being a chef is not only a hard job, but it is also something very special and creative.” 
Soon enough, Apostol could be found emulating the show’s rapid pace and the sophistication in her own kitchen. “Watching MasterChef changed my life a little bit. In time, I understood that I wanted to do this beyond my own kitchen.” Apostol became pregnant in 2012, spending most of her time in Romania, close to friends and family. It was during this period that she enrolled in her first cooking classes – a course sponsored by the European Union. She was one of 10 students in the full-time foundational training course for chefs.  Then 31 years old, Apostol also started running cooking classes for children in Romania. That initial cooking business didn’t succeed, but the idea to “one day run a small academy to teach kids and adults how to eat healthier” stuck.  Apostol welcomed her son in November 2012 and, the following June, they returned to Macao. Apostol married her partner, a casino manager at Sands. With documentation in order, she could now start a business in Macao and soon spotted a gap in the market: delicious, European-style desserts. Apostol started baking with zeal. From birthday cakes to icing fondant cakes, she churned out sweet treats for Macao’s expat community. After taking a cake-decorating course in Hong Kong, Apostol opened her first catering business, Macau Sweet Ideas, at the end of 2013. Her efforts quickly gained recognition. In September that year, Apostol’s Berry CheeseCake was recognised in the “Mouthwatering Dish” category, as part of an online MasterChef competition. Apostol was still focusing on traditional baked goods. But in a bid to shed pregnancy weight, the new mother started paying closer attention to her diet. During a holiday in Romania in 2015, a friend suggested that Apostol try a slice of raw, vegan cake. “Raw vegan cake? What is that?,” she recalls, initially reluctant. “After one bite I said, ‘I think we need this in Macao.” “I wanted to be the first person to bring raw desserts to Macao,” she continues. “The perfect dessert: delicious, healthy and also beautiful.”  Apostol set out to learn all she could about making raw vegan food. Online searches for schools in Macao, Singapore, Hong Kong and Thailand proved fruitless –  the only feasible option was in Bali. Apostol enrolled in Sayuri Healing Food’s two-week course, run by Japanese raw vegan chef Sayuri Tanaka.  Returning to Macao “with a head exploding with ideas” Apostol transformed Macau Sweet Ideas into Rawlicious, a plant-based catering company, in 2016. “I started with [raw and vegan] cakes because they are an easy way to attract people,” she says of her early days.  “I decided to host an event to introduce people to this world, and why we need to eat raw food,” she says. “It wasn’t about turning people into raw vegans, but rather about introducing the concept of raw food – our bodies and digestive systems need it, but no one teaches us these things in Macao. It was something new.”   Teaming up with fitness and wellness coach Cintia Milk, from wellness community ManaVida, Apostol hosted a “Raw Vida” weekend retreat with cooking classes, food and fitness. The event sold out and marked a shift from vegan desserts to savoury plant-based foods, such as raw pizza. Since then, Rawlicious has served a diverse menu of fresh, raw and organic foods made without any additives or refined sugars.  Andreea Apostol Over time, Apostol started collaborating with established coffee shops in the city, such as CuppaCoffee and green lifestyle shop Concept H, to host workshops, private dining and parties. In 2018 a representative from The House Of Dancing Water show at City of Dreams contacted Apostol, inviting Rawlicious to cater plant-based meals for the cast.    One day a week Apostol served her vegan meals in the theatre’s green room, a space where the performers could unwind and relax between shows. “They were people who really understood my food and gave me amazing energy,” she says of the experience, which ended in 2020 when the show shut down.  Interest in plant-based food has skyrocketed around the region over the past two years. And with it, so has recognition for Rawlicious. In 2018, Apostol’s Raw Vegan Carrot Cake won an A.A. Great Taste Award from the Anti Additive Association, a non-profit organisation committed to building an additive-free food system.  As she deepens her skills as a raw food chef, Apostol moves closer to a long held dream – teaching children and adults the importance of good eating habits.  In 2020, she started catering at The International School every Thursday, enabling students from grades 1 to 12 to experience raw, plant-based dishes. In the school’s canteen, meals usually cost MOP 50; Apostol sells her healthy, vegan dishes for MOP 60.  “Students have realised that for an extra MOP 10 they can have a healthy meal,” says the chef. “At first 80 per cent of the people eating my food were teachers. But after two months, 80 per cent were kids.”  Apostol says she is thrilled to see children’s interest in and appreciation for plant-based food. “I’m so happy when they come running, asking if I have kombucha – they eat everything, even tempeh [Indonesian fermented soybeans]!” Through her work with the school, Apostol feels she has the chance to explain the value of organic, plant-based foods. “It is very important to educate our kids to eat healthy, but not by forcing them to do it,” warns the chef. Being too rigid can lead children to protest or “hate” certain foods. “Simply seeing you eating, enjoying the food and talking about its many benefits” is how Apostol wins them over.  Food, says Apostol, is powerful beyond its nutritional value. “Food is about family. It brings us together,” adds the chef. “We have food traditions and recipes that keep them from generation to generation, it is part of our life.”  It was Apostol’s competitive streak and love of creativity that first turned her focus to food, but pure passion has steered her course since.  “I love what I do – raw food is simply living and healing food, it can bring you into balance with nature,” she reflects. “I also want to convince everyone that raw food is not just salad; raw food can be part of any cuisine. Raw food means colours, strong flavours, creativity, balance and happiness.”]]> <![CDATA[Hans Lee Rasmussen]]> Wed, 02 Dec 2020 11:32:06 +0800 Mariana Sa 32400 2021-02-18 17:15:46 2020-12-02 11:32:06 From Denmark to Macao, chef Hans Lee Rasmussen brings his farm to table principles to the dynamic melting pot that is Macao cuisine.]]>Hans Lee Rasmussen is not your typical Macao chef. As the chef de cuisine at the Macao Institute for Tourism Studies’ (IFTM) Educational Restaurant since 2014, Rasmussen has brought a unique Scandinavian point of view to the menu, while innovating and reducing waste at every opportunity.  Born in Macao in 1978 to a Danish father and Macao-born mother, Rasmussen and his family moved to Funen Island, Denmark, a small community with around 4,000 people, “where everybody knew each other,” he remembers. Growing up, Rasmussen spent most of his free time outdoors, bouncing between the ocean and the forests. “My father used to take me fishing and riding on his motorbike... I remember running and cycling around the island,” he recalls. “And we used to grow our produce in the garden – carrots, strawberries, apples, pears. That made me appreciate high-quality produce and the whole cultivation process.”  But it would be years until he would realise that all paths led to cooking. When he was 12, Rasmussen landed his first job as a paper delivery boy and at 15, he left home after his parent’s divorce. In his final years of secondary school, he spent five weeks working at an automobile parts factory and took a job at a deli, earning just enough money to pay for the rental deposit on an apartment in Copenhagen where he moved at the age of 18. 
“I realised early that nothing comes for free. So if you want something, you need to work for it,” he says. 
Soon after, he started working at Sticks'n'Sushi, a Japanese restaurant chain while finishing high school. Rasmussen didn’t exactly pass with flying colours. “But I did pass,” he adds. At the Japanese restaurant, he began as a dishwasher, then gradually moved up the ranks and became a kitchen assistant, before moving on to take a job at a French restaurant. Two years later, in 1999, Rasmussen started a four-year vocational course at Denmark’s Copenhagen Hospitality College. He recalls working gruelling, 15-hour days, long mise en place (kitchen preparation) lists, making consommé sauces, studying  French techniques with a cast of “funny characters”, and staying out late to party, only to wake up early and do it all over again.  “The disciplined environment suited me. I liked the control that came with that. As you know, I moved away from home when I was 15, living alone and things felt all over the place. But when I joined this hospitality environment, it felt like things all made sense, they were consistent, and nothing bad would happen if you stuck within the parameters,” Rasmussen recalls. “It wasn’t so romantic in that sense. I had a flair for cooking, sure, but the passion and obsession followed later.”  After graduating in 2003, he started work in an Italian restaurant owned by a friend. Then, one day, Danish TV host and cookbook author Bo Jacobsen called to offer him a job at Restaurationen, a famous restaurant known for serving a new menu every week. “This was the go-to place in Copenhagen at the time. So I was nervous: Should I take this job? And Bo just asked me: Do you want to go all-in and develop your career, or do you want to be somewhere that’s easy, be complacent with no demands?” Ever ambitious, Rasmussen took the job, starting at the very bottom. “They had me cracking 10 kilogrammes of hazelnuts on the very first day. It made my fingers bleed, but it was like an initial test”, he says. And he passed with flying colours.  Jacobsen took Rasmussen under his wing, becoming something of a mentor to the young chef.   “He said it didn’t matter if I could cook or not; if I was willing to learn, he could teach me,” he says. “So he took everything I learned and deleted it. Then he rebuilt it and made me a better chef. But the most important thing was my attitude, my motivation.”    It was also at Restaurationen, which has since closed, that Rasmussen developed a passion for seasonal farm-to-table dining, supporting local producers and using every last ingredient to reduce waste. “From the neck to the intestines, liver, heart and so forth, we used everything,” he says. “And we always worked with the seasons: asparagus in May, strawberries in August, shrimps in June, rhubarb in September...” After six years at Restaurationen, Rasmusen took a short break before accepting a job on a mining camp in a remote area of Greenland, where he “lost a little bit of his soul” due to the isolation and utilitarian meals. He then returned to Copenhagen and was offered the position as head chef of Restaurant Paustian –  another venture by  Jacobsen –  where he worked from 2010 to 2014.  

Cooking his way to Macao

Growing disenchanted and bored in Copenhagen, Rasmussen turned his attention to Macao. Having visited aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents in the city over the years, he was already deeply familiar with the culture and environment.
“I’ve lived half of my life in Denmark, so I might as well spend the other half here. It has to be yin and yang; it has to be balanced.” He also looked forward to the change of pace in Macao, the weather and the people.  
“When I was a child, we used to visit once or twice a year, usually during the school holidays. I have always loved the small-town feel of Macao, how the same shops are open for decades,” he says. “We used to always go to a sweet shop, where I’d order mango and fresh coconut ice cream. The little old lady always remembered me, calling me “fei zai”, which means ‘fat boy’, and never made me pay. It's that warmth that I love – they treated us like family.”  Rasmussen, who already had permanent residency in Macao through his mother, began setting up interviews with hotels and restaurants big and small, looking for a suitable transition.  “I did a few trial dinners at hotel restaurants, but it was different from the small restaurants I had worked in before,” he says. “Then I learned about the chef de cuisine job at the IFTM and thought it would be a good way to get my bearings since it is only 40-50 seats. It’s easier to execute, and I could focus on quality over quantity.”  That same year, he started his new role, in charge of everything from restructuring the staff to updating the cooking line, streamlining communications between the kitchen and service teams, establishing consistent standards, and introducing new menus. He also works with the school’s Bachelor’s, Master’s and Diploma students, who often have an opportunity to gain practical experience in the restaurant during their internships.   [caption id="attachment_32444" align="alignnone" width="2000"]Hans Lee Rasmussen Chef Hans at the IFTM restaurant - Photo by António Sanmarful[/caption] “It’s all about discipline, working rationally: How do you get from Point A to Point F in the best possible way, in the shortest time, creating the least amount of waste possible without sacrificing quality?” he says of his leadership role. “And then there is menu composition, which ingredients work together? Which don’t? There is a lot of implicit knowledge that you gain through experience or that other chefs passed down to you.”  Trained in French and Scandinavian cooking styles, Rasmussen started incorporating more regional ingredients, but using only local produce is “difficult, since there are no farms in Macao,” as well as a few techniques he’d brought from home, like smoking and fermentation. “Fermentation is very typical in Scandinavian cooking,” he says. “In Denmark, we use leftover strawberries, rhubarb, white asparagus and ferment them before Christmas. So I did something similar here with Asian ingredients, like papaya and bitter melon, using the same techniques.”  He also added more handmade, time-intensive techniques onto the restaurant’s menu, such as house-cured bacon. It’s a lengthy, five-month process: Rasmussen must cure the bacon for 72 hours, dry it 72 hours, smoke it twice for 12 hours each time, then hang it for three to four months.  “Sometimes, people don’t realise how long it takes to make a nice piece of bacon. They think you bought it at the supermarket, cut the bag open with scissors and fried it up. So why do I go through the effort? It’s the satisfaction of looking at your product and knowing you have strived for the highest possible quality,” he says. “Trust me, it is easier to buy outside. But it makes me really happy to create something excellent. This discipline is what drives me, what keeps me going.” Rasmussen also features several classic Macanese dishes on the menu, but he doesn’t touch these too much. “As a government institution, we have to be loyal to Macanese heritage,” he explains. “We can play and tweak them every once in a while, within limits. Usually, I will adjust the ingredients or the plating, but keep the recipe traditional.”  The IFTM Educational Restaurant has gone from strength to strength under Rasmussen’s watch, maintaining a Bib Gourmand status from the Michelin Guide Macau every year since 2013. But crafting noteworthy cuisine is only half the picture. Rasmussen has also been integral in reducing the restaurant’s food waste and increasing awareness in the broader culinary community –  principles he’s developed throughout his career.  “When we standardised and streamlined the kitchen’s processes, this immediately cut down on waste – so that was an important first step. Then we installed a food decomposer, which turns food waste into soil, but I think we need to reduce more waste in the first place,” he says.  “Now we are looking at: how do we install a water filtration system? How do we use AI food waste management systems to analyse our waste? How can we adjust portion sizes? We are always exploring new ways, but it takes time.”  Being a good leader for the next generation of chefs is equally vital to Rasmussen. That’s why Rasmussen, now 42, is pursuing an MBA to enhance his “basic knowledge of management, business and leadership” –  skills he hopes will elevate management abilities. To Rasmussen, it’s essential to continue learning and improving throughout his life and career.  “When I first started, we didn't learn about leadership or psychology or how to manage people. Chefs yell and shout until they get their way, but that’s not how to get what you need or make long-term improvements,” he explains.   “It is about delegating and creating structures. You need to be a leader, but you need to delegate, so the chefs have ownership. When I make a new menu now, I gather everyone and try to have a dialogue and include the team.” One of the most important things he has done at the restaurant, he says, is to put younger chefs in charge. “Even if you have only been at IFTM for five years, you can be a leader if you are hungry and you have a vision and aspirations, and you want to make changes,” he says.  “We always have to be more innovative, more creative – it is a challenging environment.”  He continues to innovate year after year, with plans to introduce a new website and digital menu in early 2021. Essentially, when diners sit down, they can use a QR code to review the menu on their phone, then place an order. A server will then come by to confirm the order and send it to the kitchen.  “We are hoping this will reduce waiting time for guests, while still maintaining that personal service level,” he adds. “We need to adapt. We need to follow the trends and think about the future.”  And when he’s not in the kitchen? Rasmussen enjoys the simple things in life. “When I am off, I like to go running outside, laugh, be silly, drink my beer or my wine,” he says. “I am not a big spender, so I don't have a car or a fancy apartment or a gold watch. I am just a regular gentleman.”  ]]> <![CDATA[Manuela Sales da Silva Ferreira]]> Mon, 03 Jun 2019 16:12:41 +0800 Catarina Brites Soares 18436 2021-02-03 10:31:15 2019-06-03 16:12:41 The secrets of the family have helped make Manuela Ferreira a key figure on the Macao culinary scene.]]>minchi minced meat, bafassá saffron pork and African chicken. “The sauce takes two hours to prepare. I make it at least four times a week in a big pot to meet the demand,” says Manuela, after listing some of the savoury ingredients that are mixed to make it one of the unique specialties of Macanese cooking: “piri-pirichili sauce, coconut, garlic, tomato and curry paste. But it’s light on the palate, not spicy hot.”

Life beyond the kitchen

Manuela inherited the talent of her grandmother Carmen Eugénia Sales da Silva, who despite being the owner had the habit of intervening in the kitchen of the Pousada Hotel, at the time right by the Government Palace. She was the one who taught the chef Américo Ângelo, an expert in Macanese cooking, who later taught Manuela Ferreira at the Hotel Lisboa when she started working in 1975. Her mother also helped hone her skills, teaching her the finer points of longtime family recipes. “When I opened the restaurant, my grandmother had already passed away and my father was the one who would tell me what was right and what wasn’t, so I improved. My family, the Sales da Silva, have been in Macao for more than 400 years. My aunts also helped with the family recipes.” But the life of Manuela Sales da Silva Ferreira is not only dedicated to business. She was born in Macao in 1953 and grew up in the city, studying at the Portuguese School, a background that also led to her involvement in other projects. “I’m also a volunteer at Obra das Mães, a maternal charity organisation, where I’ve been for 19 years,” she states. She began when it was led by the wife of the governor during the Portuguese administration. “They insisted on having Macanese women on the board and I was one of the ones chosen. I can say that nowadays I devote more time to that institution than to the restaurants,” says Manuela, who is now the organisation’s vice-president. Amid so many activities, she also finds time to spend with her three children and five grandchildren. And it seems that her legacy has a future. “Two of my children head the restaurants. They’re learning. I want someone from the family to be in charge of the business.”  ]]>