How did you get into cooking? “When I was young I helped my mother cook because she was busy looking after other people’s kids and I have nine siblings. I began cooking when I was around nine years old, starting with fried rice and noodles. “My mother used to be a dim sum chef so she taught me how to make dumplings, like steamed shrimp dumplings, and if they looked nice she praised me for it. She also taught me general knowledge about food and drinks. She cooked delicious food so that’s how I got interested in cooking.” Was it a career you were interested in? “In high school I was not academically minded, so I had a choice of either becoming a hairstylist or a chef. I chose the latter because I had been cooking since I was young. “I saw my mother cook and everyone praised her, and I could see they were happy with what she prepared. Sometimes I would help her in the kitchen and it was nice that people praised us. Seeing people happily eating our food satisfied me.” Where did you learn to cook? “I studied at the Vocational Training Council before it evolved into the Chinese Culinary Institute [CCI]. I studied hotel restaurant food and graduated in 1998. I focused on Chinese cuisine. There’s such a big range of things to learn and, maybe because I’m Chinese, I want to cook Chinese food. “I’m back at CCI studying for a master’s degree, but it has taken over two years because of the pandemic. I want to learn more about kitchen operations and management, as well as administration and controlling food costs. Each restaurant or hotel has a different management culture, and as a young person I want to be exposed to more things now so that it will be easier for me later on.” What was your first job like? “It was at the Empire Hotel and it was a big adjustment from cooking at school. When I was in school, we would have to prepare lunch for over 10 people, but in the hotel we had to cook for at least 100 guests and we only had two or three hours to do it. “Also, in school the older instructors were more anxious and hot-tempered. Chinese cuisine can be a profound subject – you need to learn it slowly. “At the Empire Hotel I prepared ingredients for chopping, then helped with the plating and passed the finished dish to the service team. In the morning I pan-fried rice rolls, sorted out noodles, checked the ingredients as they arrived from suppliers.” Where else did you work? “I worked in a few places after that, including Zen in Pacific Place, Royal Plaza Mong Kok and the Hong Kong Cricket Club. But I learned a lot after joining Xi Yan in 2010, working under chef Jacky Yu for over two years.” What did you learn at Xi Yan? “I did a lot of cooking in the kitchen and was exposed to a lot of techniques and styles. Chef Jacky’s dishes have Southeast Asian, Japanese and other Asian influences. He combines them together, along with techniques like slow-cooking and air-drying, and then incorporates them into Chinese food. “The restaurant was a good training ground for me to learn how to manage the kitchen. When chef Jacky was opening his new location in Wong Chuk Hang, I helped him draw up the plans for the kitchen and learned how to write menus. “Then I went to Cuisine Cuisine at the Mira for the first time to help chef Hung Chi-kwong, who is now the chef at Rùn [at St Regis Hong Kong].” My goal is to take classic Cantonese dishes, incorporate what I have learned over the years and put my own spin on them Edwin Tang Tell us about working at Man Wah, in the Mandarin Oriental. “Myself and chef Hung moved to Man Wah together and were there from 2014 to 2016. It was another adjustment for me because at Xi Yan, each of chef Jacky’s dishes is served on a platter, but at Man Wah they were individually plated. So the focus was more on presentation – being more aware of the colours on the plate – but at the same time the food needed to come out fast and hot. For me, this was a new concept.” Now you have returned to Cuisine Cuisine, what do you want to achieve? “My goal is to take classic Cantonese dishes, incorporate what I have learned over the years and put my own spin on them. In particular, I like to cook seafood, partly because my mother likes to eat it. I like the clean flavours of seafood; it is naturally sweet and can be paired with many ingredients. “One dish on the menu combines homestyle cooking with prawns, scrambled egg, char siu, king prawn, ginger and scallions. I remember my mother would cook leftovers and as children we were picky eaters, so she would add scrambled egg to it, which we didn’t pass up. I still do this at home with my children.” Can your children cook? “My kids are 11 and seven years old and I try to take them out as much as I can. They sometimes help me, but they make a mess in the kitchen! We make wontons, but theirs are not very consistent in size. We also make cakes, char siu bao and most recently we have cooked pigeon because my mother bought an air fryer. “They watch lots of food programmes and ask, ‘Daddy, can we cook this?’ So together we figure out how to do it. They don’t think of the limitations, they think anything is possible.”