Oriental experience

After arriving at Hong Kong's Mandarin Oriental hotel, James McLean and Michael Currie spent an hour in the staff uniform room for a fitting. This was an unexpected diversion for the winners of the UK's 1997 Young Chef/Young Waiter competition and, because they were taller than the average Chinese person, the process took some time.

Once this was sorted out, McLean, who is chef de partie on sauce at London's Interlude restaurant, and Currie - restaurant manager at Paul Heathcote's Longridge restaurant in Lancashire - had time to sit down and study the schedules for their week's work experience.

At first glance, the pair were a little disappointed. Despite the fact that the five-star hotel boasts four restaurants, including Vong (a sister restaurant to the one in London's Berkeley Hotel) and the Mandarin Grill, one of only two restaurants in Hong Kong to be awarded five stars for food and standards, McLean and Currie had been assigned to the hotel's bars and cafés for the week. "We started thinking ‘what are we going to get out of this?'," says McLean.

They expressed their concerns to the hotel's training manager, Karen Webb, on their first morning. Webb advised them to sit down with the restaurant supervisors for a chat to let them know what they wanted to get out of their seven days' work experience.

Webb then arranged for the pair's schedules to be rearranged so that they would benefit from a couple of days each in Vong, Man Wah (the hotel's Chinese restaurant) and the Mandarin Grill. McLean also wanted to spend a day in the Mandarin Oriental's vast pastry section, which produces all the bread, cakes and pastry for the 541-bedroom hotel and its bakery shop.

The second part of their first morning was spent in a food and beverage meeting, where they were introduced to all the hotel's department heads. The heads are debriefed every day on hotel occupancy, average room rate, important guests, special requests, any special visitors - such as health and safety inspectors - and any complaints and compliments.

By the end of the morning, McLean and Currie were more than ready to dive in at the deep end. Having won the Young Chef/Young Waiter competition last October, the two had waited a long time to get to Hong Kong.

Currie, in particular, was keen to see if the service standard in Asia lived up to its reputation. "I wanted to see if the standards were as good as people say and if so, what I could learn from them. In England, people see front of house as not being as strong as in other countries. I wanted to see the style of food as well because I'm very food-oriented. Presentation is a big part of my job."

McLean was keen to get into the kitchen at Vong, which opened at the Mandarin Oriental last September. "I wanted to learn about the different styles of food they cook in the restaurant, and to see if there were differences in the way that the chefs work here. At Interlude we use spices and I wanted to learn more about how to cook Asian styles. I like to have little twists in food."

However, Currie and McLean soon realised that service styles and cooking methods in Hong Kong were similar to those they had experienced back in the UK. They also realised that getting hands-on experience in the hotel's different restaurants was difficult because of the language barrier and because of the already well-established systems. In fact, they spent most of their week just observing.

Despite this frustration, the most memorable part of the week for both was watching the day-to-day running of Man Wah, the 62-seat Chinese restaurant. "They cooked a Chinese wedding banquet for 200 in two huge woks," says McLean, "with the brigade passing the wok chefs all the necessary ingredients. They went from deep-frying to shallow-frying to boiling in a matter of minutes. The heat is controlled by the chefs with their knees - you've really got to have the knack."

The restaurant system that kicks into operation when an order is taken at Man Wah was a new experience for both McLean and Currie. When a check arrives in the kitchen, it goes to one person who calls out the order and puts pegs on to the check representing every section of the kitchen.

The order then goes down the brigade line. Each team member has his own area of responsibility for raw ingredients and is charged with assembling those appropriate for the ordered dish. Once the raw ingredients have been assembled, each brigade member involved removes his peg from the check to show he has completed his task. Then all the ingredients are put into bowls and passed on to a central table.

From the table, they are passed on to the wok chefs and the food is then cooked down the range - separate wok chefs being assigned to cook meat, chicken and fish.

"Back home at Interlude, you all have your set few dishes and you use more than one pan," says McLean. "Here in the Man Wah kitchen, it's one pan to cook a whole dish. It's not much quicker overall than at Interlude, but everything is cooked together in one minute. I don't think I'm ever going to get the experience of being in a Chinese kitchen like that again. It was very disciplined and ran very smoothly."

The duo had another chance to experience Chinese cuisine when Henry Ho, Man Wah's restaurant manager, took them to a traditional Chinese restaurant, serving around 500 covers, on their day off. Unfortunately, the trip followed a heavy karaoke session the night before and local delicacies such as boiled chicken feet didn't go down too well.

Ho also took them on a tour of a food market selling, among other things, frogs in baskets and live fish. In the final three days of their trip, the pair managed to spend some time sightseeing and sampling a little of Hong Kong's night-life.

But although Hong Kong was an experience Currie and McLean will never forget, they returned home with one regret - they would have liked more involvement in the day-to-day operations of the hotel's seven food and beverage outlets.