You’ve been involved in the furniture and glassware business that is New Convox and Jia for quite some time now, what inspired you to try out the F&B business?
All this while New Convox has been supplying tableware to many restaurants and hotels around town therefore we were always somewhat connected with the industry. Whenever there was a new establishment we would also always be the first to know about it. Besides that I have always loved food and my partner and I have been toying around the idea for the past 7 years. So after seeing many of my clients opening F&B outlets, I decided to get started on my own.
Tell us about the concept at My CookBook.
What I’ve created with My CookBook is a place that is affordable, beautiful and special. I travel around the world a lot and I see many urban restaurants that serve up local food but with a twist in presentation. We are the very first one to open up the genre modern Malaysian dining into the food scene. What we want to create is a restaurant that has the ambiance, but serves up local fare at a very reasonable price.
Our price bracket is from RM 8.90 to RM 26.90. But for this kind of setting, food presentation and food quality, you’re really getting your money’s worth. The interesting thing about my restaurant is that you’ll find a Spanish lamp and Australian umbrellas outside, Italian glasses, some Danish inspired furniture; there’s a lot of interesting things here, which I don’t see many industry players doing it.
How did you come about to naming it My CookBook?
When you look at the menu, you’ll see that it really does look like a cook book. We’ve put a lot of time and effort into the menu, creating a certain art and food direction, plus taking first class pictures of our dishes. And what you see in the menu is what you will get on your plate – our tagline here is” My CookBook Personally From Our Hearts To Your Plate’. We spent a lot of time doing art direction and photography.
There are a lot of eggs in the menu. Any particular reason to this?
I watch a lot of variety cooking shows especially on AFC, and I noticed a method they use to test out the chef – they will ask the chef to cook an egg. Eggs are common but when you eat it here, we make sure you get a different experience. In our menu we poach our eggs at a very specific temperature for 45 minutes. This allows a perfect texture, and a beautiful egg yolk that does not melt, but is not solid cooked either. To achieve that temperature level, consistency is key. If the egg yolk melts, you have every right to reject the dish as it’s not meant that way. We want to prove to the public that we can do wonders with our eggs.
Will you be adding new items in the menu for us to look forward to?
Currently we are experimenting with the Penang made famous Ochien (Fried Oyster Eggs) which funnily enough, the best seems to be in Klang. We cooked up a prototype to play around with the presentation and taste. When it comes to our food, we do our own interpretation on it. Although you will find the usual Malaysian fare such as Chicken Rice and Fried Kuey Teow, you will not find any similarity in taste or presentation because what we cook up here is original and very simply My CookBook.
What else can we expect from you in the future?
My CookBook has only been running for two months so there’s a lot of ironing out we need to do in terms of operational issues. But in the near future, there are definitely talks of new franchises. One important thing that we need to maintain is quality when opening new outlets, so we’re taking our time and will be ready when we are.
Info:
MY COOKBOOK RESTAURANT
A-12, Sunway Giza,
2 Jalan PJU 5/14, Kota Damansara,
47810 Petaling Jaya,
Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia.
Tel +603-6140 6113
Fax +603-6140 6015
Website
www.mycookbook.com.my
