Blending Asian flavours into western menus

Kota Kinabalu: When a restaurant comes up with a mean scallop with Wasabi and green pea puree, diners can expect its chef to really challenge their taste buds. One such entrepreneur is Veron Ling, a trained chef who brought her proficiency in the kitchen from Sydney, Australia back home, blending some of her signature foods with an Asian twist at a newly-opened restaurant along Australian Lane here.

Chopping Block may be only three months old on the concept restaurant scene in the city, but it is already making quite a buzz as the joint is packed with a steady lunch crowd on weekdays and is proving to be an instant hotspot at dinner time on weekends.

Here, diners would enjoy the Asian-Western style prepared dishes of Chopping Block such as fish, beef and chicken mini burgers called the Bird-Cow-Fish Sliders, Seared Scallops as well as Sambal Chicken Burger.

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The idea to blend Asian flavours into her western menus had to do with keeping health in mind, explained Ling, adding the style of preparing such foods has won quite a following Down Under at present.

Ling's culinary career started over fears of the prospects of ending up with a desk job, if she had completed her business studies in Australia some years ago.

She said it was famous restaurateur cum television personality Gordon Ramsay who gave her the much-needed push to rustle up sumptuous meals.

"It eventually became my passion. I found that the pressures of being in the kitchen were more acceptable than the pressure of working in the office.

"It's a straight forward kind of pressure. Your superior scolds you, you learn from your mistakes, move on and don't repeat the same mistake again," she explained.

Ling said she had enrolled into culinary school Cordon Bleu for two years soon after, and began to work the pans and grills at a restaurant in Sydney of Peruvian proprietorship called "Ceviche" the rest of her remaining time in Sydney.

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By the time she returned, she became chef at the Bunga Raya Resort, where she worked for two and half years and began to plan her own fusion of a Western-Asian restaurant.

"I began to build all my contacts there. Getting to know all the suppliers and built an army of suppliers slowly," said Ling, adding that it was at this point that he decided she had to open her own joint.

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