Chef Yip Gian Ding Wins GOLD at Lee Kum Kee International Young Chef Chinese Culinary Challenge 2018
Chef Yip Gian Ding Wins GOLD at Lee Kum Kee International Young Chef Chinese Culinary Challenge 2018
Lee Kum Kee is a household brand in Malaysia since decades ago. Some of their popular sauces include the oyster sauce and the soy sauce. However, most people didn’t know the history of the brand. Lee Kum Kee was established in 1888 when its founder Mr. Lee Kum Sheung invented oyster sauce. With a glorious history of 130 years, Lee Kum Kee has become a household name of Chinese sauces and condiments, as well as an international brand and a symbol of quality and trust.
The Lee Kum Kee International Young Chef Chinese Culinary Challenge (hereinafter referred to as “Challenge” or “Competition”) is an international platform where young Chinese culinary chefs from around the world can challenge themselves and learn and interact with each other in order to elevate their skills and create innovative cuisines. At the same time, the competition will help ensure sustainable development of the industry and enhance global Chinese culinary standards.
The first Lee Kum Kee International Young Chef Chinese Culinary Challenge was held in Hong Kong in 2014 to enthusiastic response. With the aim of promoting Chinese cuisine worldwide, Lee Kum Kee organized the third Lee Kum Kee International Young Chef Chinese Culinary Challenge from 18th – 20th September, 2018, with the World Federation of Chinese Catering Industry being the steering organizer. This competition is held every two years.
“Lee Kum Kee International Young Chef Chinese Culinary Challenge” (LKKIYCCCC) was held in Hong Kong on 19 and 20 September 2018. 42 aspiring young chefs from 17 countries and regions, including Australia, Canada, China, Columbia, Czech Republic, France, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Macau, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, Philippines, the Netherlands and the United States competed for the international championship in a two-day contest by creating one dish in 90 minutes with the designated ingredients paired with Lee Kum Kee sauces and condiments.
Seven influential Asian chefs formed a judging panel for this year’s contest, including Chef Chen Hui Rong, Chef Kondo Shinji, Chef Leung Fai Hung, Chef Li Yao Yun, Chef Lu Ching Lai, Chef Pung Lu Tin and Chef Jacky Yang. The judges evaluated the dishes based on taste, texture, creativity, presentation and hygiene for selecting the world champion of“Lee Kum Kee 130th Anniversary Best Heritage Tasting Award”, and winners of Gold Awards, Silver Awards, Bronze Awards and four excellence awards, including “Most Creative Award”, “Best Sauce Combination Award”, “Best Presentation Award” and “Best Dish Award” (for each main ingredient).
Since its inception in 2014, the LKKIYCCCC has been a biennial contest that demonstrates the Group’s core value of “Si Li Ji Ren” (Considering Others’ Interests), thereby promoting Chinese cuisines for the robust development of global Chinese culinary industry.
Joung Duck Su (Korea) was champion and winner of the “Lee Kum Kee 130th Anniversary Best Heritage Tasting Award” follow by the three Gold Award winners Yip Gian Ding (Malaysia), Yuan Jian Hua (China) and Hikita Shoichiro (Japan).
Chef Yip Gian Ding is a committee representative from Chinese Chef Association of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He has been in Chinese culinary industry since 17 years old (16 years of experience to-date). Now, he is also the head chef for Grand Harbour Restaurant (Fahrenheit 88).
Last week, the Chinese Chef Association of Kuala Lumpur organized a private party to celebrate Chef Yip’s triumph at Lee Kum Kee International Young Chef Chinese Culinary Challenge in Hee Lai Ton Restaurant in Petaling Jaya. It was a gathering of all the top Chinese chefs in Kuala Lumpur and Chef Yip cooked a feast for the dinner.
Beef with Chef’s Special Sauce
Let’s talk about winning dish, Beef with Chef’s Special Sauce. The beef is cooked and coated with chef’s special sauce and the bottom part is pumpkin with pine nuts and topped with ginger. Chef Yip used Lee Kum Kee XO Sauce, Char Siew Sauce and Premium Oyster Sauce in this dish. The flavor of this is memorable. The special sauce didn’t overwhelm the natural taste of the beef and this is really tasty. The texture beef is soft and tender and it complements well with the pumpkin and the pine nuts. The pine nuts create that extra crunchy texture to this dish and the combination of this dish is spot on. honestly, one plate of this is never enough.
Black Fungus Appetizer with duo fried yam and pumpkin.
The black fungus is cooked with braised peanuts. We love the ‘crunchy’ texture of the black fungus with the soft texture of the braised peanuts. You can taste hints of Lee Kum Kee Fine Shrimp Paste.
The duo fried yam and pumpkin is coated with batter and dried fried to perfection. It is then stir fried with the salted egg sauce. The yam and pumpkin are lightly flavoured with Lee Kum Kee Light Soy Sauce.
We love the crunchy outer layer and the soft texture of the pumpkin and yam and the salted egg flavor didn’t overwhelm the taste of both ingredients.
3 Treasure Platter
The huge 3 Treasure Platter comes with Bacon with jellyfish and beancurd skin, Baked Crab Stuffed with Potatoes and Fried Spring Rolls with Otak-otak. The chef uses Lee Kum Kee Plum Sauce and Hoisin Sauce for this platter.
Interesting flavours of Bacon with jellyfish and beancurd skin. Bacon offers hints of saltiness while the jellyfish and beancurd skin offers hints of sweetness. The jellyfish adds more texture too.
The Baked crab stuffed with potatoes is very popular in fish markets in Japan and this is enjoyable. Not forgetting the creamy texture of this too.
The fried spring rolls is crispy on the outside and spicy on the inside thanks to the otak-otak.
Pork Ribs Soup with Scallop
The pork ribs soup is heartwarming. You can taste the sweetness from the corn and scallop. The scallop is huge and the pork ribs is soft and complements well with the soup.
Roast Goose
Roast goose is a very popular dish in Hong Kong. We always look for roast goose when we traveled in Hong Kong. However, there are only a handful of restaurants are offering roast goose in Kuala Lumpur as the price of goose is expensive here.
The beauty of roast goose is the texture of the meat is softer than roast duck and juicier too! The roast goose skin is crispy and the meat is soft and juicy. It complements well with Lee Kum Kee Plum Sauce and Hoisin Sauce.
Steamed White Pomfret with Scallop
Chef Yip’s version of steamed white pomfret comes with scallop is quite unique. Usually, the whole fish is steamed and complement with light soy sauce. For this version, the fish is sliced to pieces and steamed. This is similar to Steamed King Garoupa style. White promfret is a very delicious fish with strong texture and Lee Kum Kee light soy sauce makes the difference in adding the flavours into the fresh taste of the fish.
Peking Style Tiger Prawn
Don’t be distracted by the fisherman catching the fish decoration. The tiger prawn is deep fried to perfection and stir fried in Peking style with Lee Kum Kee Panda Oyster Sauce. The result is tasty tiger prawns with delightful sauce.
Stir Fried Seasoned Vegetables
The feast continues with Stir fried seasoned vegetables using Lee Kum Kee Chili Bean & Guilin Chilli Sauce.
Stir Fried Imperial Noodle with Cuttlefish
We reached our limit for this dish. This is stir fried imperial noodle with cuttlefish and cooked with Lee Kum Kee light soy sauce. We never had cuttlefish with imperial noodle before this and this added texture to this dish.
Where is the best Chinese food in the world? You don’t have to look far as it is right here in Malaysia. We travelled to places for Chinese cuisine and at the end of the day we still prefer the taste of our Chinese food in Malaysia.
If you want to taste Chef Yip’s food, you can visit Grand Harbour Restaurant (Fahrenheit 88) as he is the current head chef. Thank you Lee Kum Kee for the invitation to taste the Lee Kum Kee International Young Chef Chinese Culinary Challenge 2018 celebration at Hee Lai Ton Petaling Jaya.
