Blogs

When the Covid19 pandemic closed hospitality, tourism and entertainment businesses in early 2020, our chefs, tour guides, hosts and others were stranded. Otao Kitchen’s cooking classes, demonstrations and food events were cancelled.

Otao Kitchen turned to social media, where Zoom, Instagram and Facebook Live took the place of kitchen demonstration bench in front of an audience. It was trial and error, as we learned which camera buttons to push, how to control the sound and new ways to present our menu. Almost two years now we are getting the hang of it, prompting Otao Kitchen special ways in cooking and teaching over the internet.

In the past 6 months, we found one trend that’s emerging is cooking along with a kit. We are selling boxes of ingredients that go along with the online recipe that’s being demonstrated on Zoom cook-along classes. We found that we can make up the revenue loss by in-person cooking classes, and offer something more than you can find on Facebook or YouTube.

Chef and owner Ha Nguyen says there are 3 types of classes. The first one is the old school approach, where the instructor simply show how the dish is made, and the video is posted online. This method is crowded as every media outlet.

The second option is live Zoom classes that require registration. These allow us to earn some money by charging a fee with a limit on the number of people on each Zoom call. These classes often allow attendees to ask questions as the cooking is going on, or to follow up once the dish is finished. We did well in this class over the pandemic.

The third option that is rapidly growing for us are classes where participants purchase a kit of ingredients and make the dish at the same time with the chef. This way guests can enjoy closer to real life experience without the need of going out! Otao Kitchen is making the kits from dumplings to ramen and more to come.

We also learn a new way to deal with online cooking classes’ challenges. At a cooking school, we have everything, but not all people have the right pieces of equipment. We have to deal with people cooking while their family is at home. People also want to cook while socialising. We worked to modify the recipe, so we can send the kit with flexible to make the dishes. Even our chefs learned how different these classes can be.

Additionally, chefs can’t cook as much as they might be in a live demonstration, because every step needs to be broken down for the camera. Everything is slower because it’s all online.

Our guests' expectations are rising, so we have to be better with the experience delivery. If someone is a chef, the guests expect their set to look like a proper kitchen studio. At the beginning of the pandemic, guests were more patient with clumsily produced content. Now our guests want to feel like they are getting their money’s worth, and we want to feel like we are giving them more value.

Safe to say, as a small business, your feedback has helped us improve dramatically. At last, we feel like we’re delivering customers’ expectations.

When I became a chef, the power and allure of the food market and grocery stores was so strong that my mum would need to visit them everyday. It was always a great thing that mum bought home - fruits and vegetables, sweet cake and candy and meat or fish. 

In the vegan cooking class you would want to explore vibrant spices, create beautiful sauces, work with fresh vegetables, tofu and beans. Otao Kitchen is specialise in Asian cooking so you can inspire your kitchen with  Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Indian dishes.

THE FOOD OF BALI INDONESIA

Balinese food celebrate Balinese people from the volcanic island of Bali using spices blending with the fresh vegetables, meat and seafood. Balinese food sometime refers to special regional Indonesian cuisine. It demonstrates indigenous traditions and other Indonesian regional cuisine, Chinese and Indian. Bali's culinary traditions are somewhat distinct with the rest of Indonesia. The people Bali celebrate their foods with festivals and celebrations.

INGREDIENTS

Spices such as Kaempferia galanga galangal, shallots, garlic, turmeric, ginger and Kaffir lime are used in Balinese foods. For example popular Balinese 8-spice is made with white and black pepper, coriander, cumin, clove, nutmeg, sesame seed, and candlenut. Other ingredients such as palm sugar, fish paste, and basa gede spice paste are used in everyday dishes.

Many tropical foods are rambutan, mangoes, mangosteen, bananas, jackfruit, rambutan, passion fruit, nangka, pineapple, salak snake fruit, duku, kelengkeng, wani white mango or Mangifera caesia, papaya, longan, melon, oranges, custard-apple, coconut and durian.

Steamed rice is commonly consumed in every meal everyday. Pork, chicken, seafood and vegetables are widely consumed. Because many Balinese follow Hindu tradition so they never or rarely consume beef.

If you keep it simple and buy ingredients at farmers’ markets, the food can pretty much take care of itself. Do as little as possible to the food; consider leaving out an ingredient and relying on instinct. We have a list of shopping streets and farmer markets in Melbourne for you.

Japanese restaurants are our favourite places to explore in Melbourne. Whether it’s a steaming bowl of ramen noodles, freshly sushi or a great kaiseki meal you’re after, you’ll find them on our Japanese restaurants’ list. Create a list of Japanese restaurants in Melbourne is a difficult task. We thought it is a little guide for Japanese restaurants’ lovers in Melbourne. Though they are NOT all the best Japanese restaurants in Melbourne and they are a great reference for you.