Chubby Hubby

For a delicious picture of Asia's restaurant scene, we chatted with the man behind the popular Chubby Hubby blog. Check out what he's been up to offline.

For a delicious picture of Asia's restaurant scene, we chatted with top Singaporean food blogger Aun Koh, the man behind the popular Chubby Hubby blog. Check out what he's been up to offline.

                                            

How's Chubby Hubby—the blogger and the blog—these days?
I'm great. I'm incredibly busy at the moment, which has meant that I've probably not been posting on Chubby Hubby as frequently as I should be. Also, because I've been doing quite a bit of traveling recently—both for work and pleasure—most of my recent posts have been either travel guides or restaurant reviews, as opposed to recipes. Frankly, I've had almost no time in the past few months to cook anything out of the ordinary.

Outside of the blog, what food-related gigs keep you busy?
My wife and I own and run two companies. Ate Consulting is a lifestyle consultancy. We handle everything from ultra-high-end events to hospitality and F&B development. We are the Asia representatives for Mr & Mrs Smith, Europe's number one online aggregator of chic boutique hotels. On the F&B side, our latest project has been the launch of a stunning new restaurant in Singapore called The White Rabbit. This restaurant, which serves re-invented Classic European fare is housed in an old church in the trendy Dempsey Road area. We helped to refine the overall concept for the restaurant; recommended the interior architects and designers; head-hunted the Executive Chef and General Manager; worked with the chef to create the opening menus; and have advised on some of the marketing and public relations strategies. The restaurant has literally just opened.

You're a busy guy! Anything else?
Our other company, Ate Media, is a media firm. We handle website development as well as print publishing. Last year, we helped Singapore's most respected wine collector and consultant, and his wife—a very famous home cook—publish their first cookbook. Later this year, with support from German domestic appliance manufacturer Miele, we will launch the very first truly independent and credible restaurant guide for Asia. The Miele Guide will be an annual publication and our ambition is that it will set a new standard for evaluating restaurants in Asia. Equally important to us is the hope that through The Miele Guide, we can create greater awareness of Asia's top chefs and restaurants internationally.

Do you remember when exactly you became so passionate about food?
I've always loved food. It comes from growing up in a family that was obsessed with good food. We’ve always eaten widely. I think traveling as a child definitely helped me appreciate new flavors and new culinary experiences.

Do you enjoy cooking at home? What dishes do you like to prepare on busy weeknights? On weekends?
We love cooking at home. Unfortunately, with our current workloads, my wife Su-Lyn and I are finding it harder and harder to carve out enough time to really cook these days. Our favourite quick dinner right now is ridiculously simple. We’ve recently taken two separate trips to Spain and Macau. We came back from both with substantial amounts of Jamon Iberico. We’ve also since bought a meat slicer. There is no easier dinner to prepare than a plate of freshly sliced Pata Negra, with some cornichons on the side and some good bread, served with a nice sparkling or crisp white wine. On weekends, we like to cook larger and more elaborate dinners for friends. That’s when we pull out all the stops. We own over 500 cookbooks, so we’re always looking to try out new recipes. One of the things I have realized though is that over the past year or two, S and I have been leaning more towards cooking really authentic and traditional recipes as opposed to overly modern and fussy creations. I think as we’ve gotten older, we’ve begun to appreciate the classics in new ways.

What are your pantry essentials?
How long a list do you want? Seriously, we have a lot of things in our pantry. Some of the things we always have to have are pasta and rice; a good supply of sauces (a few kinds of soy sauce, fish sauce, a couple different chilli sauces, etc); jars of duck fat; nori and konbu; dashi for stock; a couple kinds of flour; cans of duck rillettes for quick snacks; some really amazing quality olive oil; and loads of spices from all over the world. Oh, and dog food. We have two greedy golden retrievers so we always have a healthy supply of kibble.

Your wife, S, is always beautifully woven into your writing. What do you like to cook specially for her?
Whatever she wants to eat! Seriously, S has different cravings on different days. When she’s not feeling too well, I’ll make a nice, rich, yet clean chicken consommé. I’ll add some macaroni and shredded chicken to this. On another day, the best thing I can do is shave some Pata Negra for her. She also really loves my risotto with squid cooked in its own ink. It’s a Harry’s Bar recipe and it’s one of the dishes I’m really, really good at making.

What are some of your favorite places to tuck in in Singapore?
Obviously, I love the menu at The White Rabbit. It is a treasure trove of classics, from chicken a la king to baked Alaska. For a chi-chi meal, you really cannot beat Iggy's, which is probably the most exciting restaurant in Singapore today. For a nice, relaxed meal, the restaurant that S and I go to most often is Torisho Taka, a dark and sexy yakitori and izakaya joint in Gallery Hotel.

In your book, what are the must-eat foods and must-visit restos in Asia now?
This is an almost impossible question because there are so many things to eat here and so many places to go. You could build a whole pan-Asian itinerary just eating variations of one kind of traditional food. You could also go nuts eating at all the avant garde, modern restaurants in our region. The choices and places are limitless. The trick is just finding—or finding someone who can tell you—the best places to visit. For example, if you are on a short holiday in Bali, you want to know where the very best babi gulang (roast suckling pig) is. Or if you are in Fukuoka for just a few days, you will need to know which of the thousands of ramen stalls in town is the best. You don’t want to waste your time eating at places that are only second-rate. That is the difficulty right now for a lot of travelers, knowing where the very best proponents of cultish and classic foods can be found.

What trends, if any, have you noticed in the Asian restaurant scene? What can we expect in the coming months?
I think there are several really interesting things happening across Asia. Two that I am particularly interested in is the greater role being given to regional cuisines and also the attempts by young chefs to take inspiration from their indigenous cuisines and create new flavors. In the former, more and better restaurants are showcasing specific cuisines from various parts of Asia. Instead of just being a Thai, Chinese, or Indian restaurant, now we have, for example, an increasing number of sexy and up-market Isaan restaurants, Teochew restaurants, and Goan restaurants. I hope this trend continues. In the latter, I’m very excited to see young chefs try and create modern versions of their own cuisines. And even if they make a few mistakes along the way, I think it is wonderful to that we have passionate chefs trying to create Modern Filipino, Modern Singaporean, or Modern Malay cuisines the same way that only a few decades earlier chefs in France were recreating and re-imaging French cuisine.

Which Asian city would you recommend for a yummy holiday?
If I had to pick just one city, I'd go to Tokyo. There is so much great food there.


Photography Courtesy of Aun Koh | Interview by Becky Kho


This article was published in the October 2008 issue of Yummy magazine.

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