Joanna Foong Xian Mae beat 19 other participating colleges and universities when she clinched the champion’s trophy for her original creations. To Joanna who is a first year student in the Diploma in Culinary Arts, this is an entirely new experience for her. Joanna elaborated that it was tough juggling between her tight schedule and training for this competition which took up a lot of her time. However, she managed to find her own authentic creations, for one hot coffee beverage and one cold coffee beverage that turned out to be winning recipes.
Joanna named the hot beverage Nasi Lemak after the famous Malaysian dish as it induced similar flavours. She used dried chilli, sugar, dried belacan paste, coconut milk and anchovies that gave the beverage a perfect blend of spiciness, sweetness and added texture from the coconut milk. For her cold beverage, Joanna created the Berry Bliss, where she used blueberries, ginger, basil leaves and coffee to give it a sweet and tannin flavour to the creation.
Natasha Binti Mohd Yusof, a Diploma in Hotel Management student who is in her final semester had previously taken part in this competition in Year 2010. She said, “The contest was more competitive this year as the standards have increased.” Natasha created the Holanaisé for her hot coffee beverage while the cold coffee beverage was named Kamikaze, where a mixture of wasabi for spiciness and lemon and pomegranate was used to create a sweet and sour flavour.
Joanna explained that the whole competition was an eye-opener for her. “It helped me realise that there are many career options culinary arts. This experience might have changed my perception about what I might intend to do in the future,” she said.
Natasha understands the need for exposure in the Hotel Management discipline that she received through various competitions. “Every time I participate in a competition, I am judged for my product and personality. I’ve received many offers to work in hotels. It is through competitions like this that people recognise you and your talent. It sure is a great feeling being recognised the general managers of leading hotels.”
The winners also attributed their success to the support of their coach, Daniel Chong Ka Leong who also was awarded with Best Coach of the Year. Daniel said, “The award is an encouragement to me, but truthfully the best coach in the eye of the participants should be their family, lecturers and friends. I am just a facilitator.” Daniel compliments Joanna’s humbleness and courage to step out of her comfort zone and Natasha’s hard work and commitment as a contributing factor to their achievements.
The Nestle Coffee Competition saw participants and coaches conducting their training at the Nestle headquarters to ensure commitment from both parties. Daniel said, “It was four months of hard work, juggling between lecture hours, student’s timetables and examinations. Two months was spent brainstorming, experimenting and perfecting the ingredients and concoction for the beverages. Our training restaurant was turned into an experiment laboratory in preparation for this competition.”
The competition was held for three days where the first two days were qualifying rounds and the third day was the grand finale. The judges this year were industry and technical experts including the International Chain Hotel general manager, president of MFBEA (Malaysian Food and Beverage Executives Association), hotel F&B directors and food and beverage experts. The participants were judged based on grooming, preparation, hygiene and safety, organisation and presentation, technical skills, measurements, creativity, taste/consistency/texture, appearance/colour and name of the creation.
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| Natasha, Daniel and Joanna with their winning awards from the Nestle Coffee Competition 2012. |
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