Simson Kwan, chef at Café Landmark in Hong Kong, has cooked for more than 40 years and rose at Maxim's Caterers from sandwich chef to Executive Sous Chef. His signature dish is Lobster Linguine.
My name is Simson Kwan, and I'm the chef at Café Landmark. The café is located in a premium Hong Kong shopping mall of the same name, where time runs faster than usual. The café is also filled with the joy of food!
But first I would like to tell you my story, an interesting one rather than the usual boring kind. I was born in January 1955, which means I'm almost 60. That really is a lot, but I know for sure that there are tons of things ahead of me. I've never traveled far from home, and I have achieved considerable success here.
My childhood, though, was not that prosperous. I grew up on a farm raising pigs, geese and chickens, and my family was not rich. We made preserved meat such as lap cheong (Chinese sausages), but we were better known for our sea-salt preserved ducks.
It was one of those ducks that taught me my first valuable lesson in cooking. I was the oldest child, so I was the one who started helping our father in the family business. My sister and two brothers could only babble or play with their toys, while I was already my father's cool assistant.
At that time, I had no faith in culinary traditions and wanted to experiment. I tried making preserved duck with coarse rock salt instead of sea salt, and I changed a few other things too. My father said the duck wouldn't taste good, but why should I listen to his advice? I did everything myself, because I thought I was grown-up, self-sufficient and single-minded.
Of course, the duck tasted bad, and I have never defied my father since then. Even today, I'm still very skilled at marinating and preserving products.
Lesson 1: Respect the traditions handed down from generation to generation, and try not to show off.
I have been cooking for more than 40 years now. In that time, some people manage to travel to space or get divorced three times and end up alone with no one but a Labrador puppy by their side.
I started working very young, and I can't say I had much choice. At 13, I was “two in one”: a textile machine technician during the day and an ordinary pupil in the evening.
There was a girl in our class… And here you might expect a sad love story, but I'll have to disappoint you. Her father had a restaurant in New York, and she was rather talkative, so she told us about it: about prospects, a different standard of living and opportunities. I think you can guess that those talks made me wonder about the restaurant business.
Eight other boys from our class thought about it as well. Perhaps that girl was really attractive and charismatic, because I can't think of any other reason for such great interest. In the end, nine boys from our class took cooking classes, and after a while everyone gave up except me. One started working at that textile factory, one became a lawyer, and one simply dropped out of sight.
I was the only one who persisted. At 18, I became a senior chef in a Western restaurant, teaching others how to cook. Thank you, girl from my class! I may be a bit late, but perhaps she will read this one day.
I joined Maxim's Caterers Ltd in 1977 as a sandwich chef. That might not sound very significant, but within four years I had become Assistant Executive Chef, and in 1986, as Executive Sous Chef, I was fully in charge of the kitchen.
Of course, I've left out a lot of important stages in my story. It sounds so simple when I say I got this and then that, but I think you understand that success doesn't come easily. I had to work hard and be determined, though I think the same could be said of many other people.
Besides my work in the restaurant, I also managed the company's outside catering: the grand opening of Hong Kong International Airport, the launch event for the Tsing Ma Bridge (the world's ninth-longest-span suspension bridge!) and the Airport Express. There were also lots of other posh events for brands that are only slightly known around the world: Giorgio Armani, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Fendi and Yves Saint Laurent. I provided the catering for them.
These are well-known names, but I always remember where my path began. Every day, during and after work, I still try to become a better chef. I believe I can improve the dishes that are already popular in the restaurant.
In 1990, I went to Thailand, thinking I would impress a local Thai chef with 70 years of experience. Can you imagine, seventy years of experience?
She was famous and fabulous, and I expected something new and surprising from her! But my first lesson was to chop garlic. My expression said, “What? This should be a piece of cake!”
Feeling proud and a bit surprised, I chopped the garlic. She took one look at it and threw it into the trash. Something crumpled inside me, and I realized I had been wrong to think I knew how to chop garlic, though I had no idea what had gone wrong.
She picked up a knife and showed me. It was jaw-dropping to see every piece of garlic come out as a finely chopped square, all of them the same size. That was the work of masterly knife skills, and it looked premium in presentation.
It was, to put it mildly, a humbling experience. I spent three hours practicing, and it was perhaps the longest garlic-chopping session of my life.
Lesson 2: Never stop learning.
I'm not very picky. I don't have a favorite dish, or a dish I don't like at all, because I only eat things that taste good, ha-ha.
Whenever I eat out with friends, they always remind me, “Calm down! We're just relaxing, not doing a food tasting.” It's just that a chef will never eat bad food.
I used to like soccer when I was young (not that I'm saying I'm old, of course). Now I play golf. I'm also curious about many different things: Chinese medicine, nutrition, Chinese fortune telling, tarot cards and acupuncture.
I'm an all-round man with tarot cards in my pocket and several nutrition books on the shelf, and why not? What's more, I have a daughter, and she is too precious for words.
My advice to readers of the blog is to cook with your “brain” instead of your “hands.” Think about taste and technique wherever you go and whenever you eat. Learn, adapt, improve and modify.
My second piece of advice to readers is to eat with your “heart” and truly experience dishes from every cuisine around the world. It will enrich you.
The food and beverage industry has been commercializing very rapidly, robbing the business of its soul, and I don't want this to happen. That's why I try to preserve my individuality and creativity as a chef. When the time comes, I'll write a book about my experience to pass on the wisdom to new generations of chefs. It's very important to remember that everything is done with one goal: to enjoy food!
The dish in the photo is Lobster Linguine, our signature culinary delight, and I strongly recommend trying it. It has been around since it was first cooked in 1985, but the recipe has been upgraded ever since, and now it is simply perfect.
The Boston lobster is cooked just right and served out of the shell, and the pasta has a perfect al dente texture. It took me half a year to achieve this result. Guests adore this dish and order it even at tea time.
