台中高級餐廳

Newsletter

Every event in life can transpire to concrete and precise learning, and with every learning, there is the room for metamorphosis and evolution.
For feuille food lab, this cannot be truer. For those of you who have taken a part in feuille's culinary journey, whether that you are diners or food service members, you understand that feuille does not operate full time even thought its culinary creations are meant to operate on a full time basis. With this format of operation, there are major difficulties.

a) First of all, the ability to acquire sufficient food staff members to ensure a smooth food production. The difficulty been the staff members have a full time job and their schedule is unable to accommodate an on- call basis. Feuille's dinner reservations are therefore required to be booked weeks in advance and do not allow flexibility for its guests and staff member's schedule also cannot be easily maneuvered.

b) Secondly, the staff member's training is insufficient and the fact that everyone learns at different pace requires practice and repetitions for an effective production output. The attention to details cannot be rushed and for every member to be able to breathe, operate, and choreograph their pace together as one individual at the precise moment during service requires more than just memorizations and know- hows. Relating to the first difficulty, additional practice again needs to be scheduled in advance and with early practice gives familiarity though does not guarantee that the staff will remember the correct procedures and cooking methods in the future.

c) Thirdly, ingredient acquisition is always obfuscated and challenging. Specific ingredients are not available on the market although they are commonly ubiquitous. For example, chive flower stalks are common ingredients during the summer, but due to the consumption habit, chive flowers are never allowed to bloom before they are harvested. Acquiring the flower parts of the plant therefore remained elusive and out of reach despite the effort to cultivate them directly on site in feulle's studio. Contract farming is an option; however such operation requires large amount of crop to be purchased solely for the studio. At the current serving ratio, feuille has no output to disgest these additional crops. The consumers' habit has a large impact on the structure, availability, and logistics of the produce to be sold on the market. The proprietor of large produce enterprise limits the accessibility of specific items to the consumers based on the product turn- over rate and large profit margin. Therefore, most items are seen in the fields, but are never able to be purchased directly. When it comes to particular national holidays or festivals, large inventories are removed to make room for holiday or festival related products, such as moon cake, ready-to-be-grilled meat skewers or New Year candies and sticky cake. Condiments, special produce that are generally available suddenly cease to exist and become quite scarce to acquire.

Another interesting consumer habit to be noted is that despite the abundance of supermarkets, there is still an inclination to shop at the traditional markets which often do bear more selections and varieties with noticeable quality than its commercial counterpart. Age group plays a distinguishing factor in the consumer habit stratum: younger generation tends to shop in the supermarkets for a quick fix food whereas the older generation, particularly has a preference to favor the traditional market despite the fact that some traditional stalls clearly have no sanitary practices, such as basic HACCP plans, and butchered meat lacks proper storage practice and refrigeration equipment.

d) Feuille is intended as a premise to share the joy of its researched cuisines. Due to the availability of the sufficient personnel and the time required for the creation and testing of each dish, feuille is often not able to accommodate more guests at one time. Since many dishes draw on feuille's food philosophy to imitate, surprise , and interact with its diners, many tools, staging items, or props have to be created rather than purchased. Some items are just non- existent and to suit feuille's needs, we often have to be creative; for example, plastic molds that resemble the shells of walnuts, oysters, and eggs are something we have to create ourselves.

I have always stressed the fact that feuille is not a restaurant. Its current format allows time to research new dishes so that during each tasting event, there are always new items available on the menu. Such practice relates to my habit of eating new and non repetitive items on a daily basis and I very much would like to keep feuille's dishes renewed based on that concept. Another reason that feuille does not operate full time is to allow my sufficient travelling abroad to acquire new inspirations for new dishes to be created. Travelling has always been an important part of my life that helps shape the flavors, textures, ideas, and stories behind each feuille's dish.

To overcome these difficulties, given the format feuille currently operates, feuille inevitably has to evolve. To stay concurrent with feuille's research focus and to maintain its service output, feuille will transform to the next project.

"Feuille Next" will be the upcoming project where feuille will adopt the operational concept of a "pop up" restaurant and run full time for a duration of thirteen weeks. Full time chefs and service members will be recruited. Formal training, personal enrichment, project participation, and service exposure for all staff members will all be part of feuille's daily task and routine once the project is underway. More space for the reservations will be available to the public along with the long overdue beverage pairings. "Feuille Next" will feature two options for its seasonal menu, allowing its guests more accessibility to feuille's cuisines.

"Feuille Next' will be an important project for feuille in the upcoming months. For those who may be interested in either becoming a staff member or making an inquisition, you are most encouraged to contact the feuile food lab directly.

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