Ipoh City will now offer the international standard culinary facility to churn out future world-class chefs.
This is following Crew Skills International Culinary School of Asia, an award-winning and highly acclaimed culinary school who launched their new state-of-the-art training kitchen here.
They hope to provide the best possible culinary education while simulating real-world kitchen conditions. Crew Skills is one of the first culinary schools in the country to have such an advanced training kitchen, which underlines the school’s mission to make itself the culinary school of choice for students who are passionate about cooking and who want to turn this passion into a viable career.
Since its inception, Crew Skills has always made job placements a key priority to complement their training courses, so that students who finish their course there are guaranteed job placements with reputable companies.
This is epitomised by the signing of an agreement during the launch between Crew Skills and Mid Asia Resources that guarantees placements for all the students who sign up and complete a Japanese cuisine course that is developed by Blue Magic Inc, Japan in collaboration with the Japanese Culinary Academy.
“One of the things we’ve been very proud of here at Crew Skills is that we do not leave our students in a lurch once they have completed their courses but instead, we work with industry players to guarantee job placements for these students,” said Suresh Supramanyam, Chief Executive Officer of Crew Skills.
“Both, the launching of our modern training kitchen and the agreement signed today, are testimony to our commitment to this as we know that students who go into the workforce immediately after completing their studies would need to be capable of operating the various new equipment that modern kitchens employ and our new kitchen will give them that experience,” he added.
The new kitchen is equipped with modern induction cookers, the Paco jet, which is known to be able to produce amazing ice creams and the highly versatile Rational Combi Oven, widely regarded as the Rolls Royce of kitchen equipment and currently used in some of the best restaurants in the world.
“This piece of amazing German technology is a marvel of precision cooking and students who get to train using this oven would find themselves in demand as it is predicted to become the industry norm. We have been fortunate and grateful that German manufacturer Rational also believes in what we are doing here by fully sponsoring one of these ovens,” said Supramanyam.
The other equipment worth mentioning is the Blast Chiller, which has quickly become a staple of the modern kitchen due to its many useful functionalities. The Blast Chiller main function is to quickly lower the temperature of food so that its freshness and taste is sealed and preserved over a period of time. This process allows for much creativity in food preparation and at Crew Skills, this equipment is used to make innovative ice creams, experiment with molecular gastronomy and of course, preserve food.
The use of advanced technology in modern kitchens is intended to make things easier for the chef, improve the shelf-life and safety of food and food packaging, as well as ensure quality, consistency and affordability, while being safer to use. For instance, Crew Skills’ new kitchen is equipped with induction woks that will not burn you even when they’re on as they only heat up on contact with another metallic surface. Giving students a hands-on opportunity to work with this new kitchen equipment is intended to provide them with a competitive edge when they finish their courses and begin to explore the market.
Students who sign up for Crew Skills Japanese Cuisine Programme for example, would not only benefit from studying a course whose curriculum was created by the Japanese Culinary Academy based on guidelines from the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, they would also be guaranteed job placements under the agreement signed recently.
“The Japanese Cuisine programme was developed with the joint co-operation between the public and private sector with the intention to create wider acceptance of Japanese Cuisine through the training and development of foreign Japanese chefs who will be well versed in the knowledge and skills required to accurately present Japanese food,” said Dr. Chee Meng Chee, Chief Executive Officer of Mid Asia Resources, which is the Malaysian entity entrusted to promote the course.
“In doing this, we hope to improve the brand recognition towards Japanese food and food culture while expanding the use of Japanese agricultural, forestry and fishery products,” he added.
Together with kitchen technology partners, U Team Food Machinery, the new kitchen was also designed to take into consideration that classrooms and teaching has evolved and today’s students learn differently and more dynamically than before. The new kitchen was therefore redefined to be able to also conduct classes remotely, exposing students to this new technology and preparing them to enter the workforce, where it has become the norm.
Crew Skills currently offers a variety of courses, including the World Chef Culinary Diploma, World Chef Culinary Advanced Diploma, JPK Food Preparation and Production and Japanese Cuisine which are ratified through the school’s international affiliations with City & Guilds (UK), Culinary Solutions Australia and the World Association of Chefs Societies.