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Chefs cook for Charity
 Since
5 am today, David Toh the executive sous chef of Raffles
the Plaza and Swisshotel the Stamford, has been working
in the hotel's basement kitchens, preparing a three-course
lunch for some 500 special guests.
The diners are beneficiaries from four charities,
to whom the Singapore Chefs Association will take
their cuisine this inaguaral International Chefs Day.
Toh, 42, is leading the team that concocted and prepared
the menu for the 85 residents of the Singapore Cheshire
Home, which provides care for the seriously disabled.
The other charities are Bright Hill Evergreen Home,
Minds Lee Kong Chian Gardens School and Metta Day
Rehabilitation Centre for The Elderly.
Oct 20 was designated International Chefs Day by the
World Association of Cooks Societies earlier this
year to pay tribute to the culinary profession.
Toh, who has been with the hotel for 16 years, told
Streats on Monday that it took him several days to
plan the menu.
"We had to look at the dietary requirements of
the residents. The home requested for no pork, no
lard and no bones."
His menu for the Singapore Cheshire Home comprises
an appetiser of prawn salad with mango and min, a
main course of chicken stew with morel mushrooms and
carrots served with sweet potato porridge.
The meal will end on a sweet note with a mandarin
orange jelly with vanilla curd and fresh stawberries.
The residents usually have rice with meat and vegetables
for lunch, with the occasional meal of mee siam, fried
rice or fried noodles.
Singapore Cheshire Home social service coordinator
Stella Tang said: "The residents will definitely
enjoy something different. Strawberries, mango and
prawns are not everyday fare for them."
Toh, who oversees the 10 food and beverage outlets
run by the hotel, said: "As a chef, I'm used
to cooking rich dishes, so it's rare that I cook such
simple food. The food is bite sized so it's easy for
them to conume and we try to make sure it's healthy
and nutritional as well.
"Every charity has a different menu, based on
the requirements of the beneficiaries."
For example, the children at the Lee Kong Chian Gardens
School will have fruit salad, fish fingers, hot dogs
and brownies.
Said Toh: "We usually raise funds for charity
by corporate sponsors. But now we try to do something
more meaningful and cook for the beneficiaries."
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