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Top Chef Paul Qui keeps it real

Singapore — Not too long ago, Chef Paul Qui used to get on his bicycle to hawk his brand of “soulful food” to the good folks of Austin, Texas. Today, the 31-year-old is doing more or less the same thing, but with bigger wheels. The Manila-born chef is the owner of East Side King, a group of three food trucks he co-owns with Moto Utsunomiya, a former colleague from his days as executive chef at Japanese restaurant Uchiko in Austin.

Singapore — Not too long ago, Chef Paul Qui used to get on his bicycle to hawk his brand of “soulful food” to the good folks of Austin, Texas. Today, the 31-year-old is doing more or less the same thing, but with bigger wheels. The Manila-born chef is the owner of East Side King, a group of three food trucks he co-owns with Moto Utsunomiya, a former colleague from his days as executive chef at Japanese restaurant Uchiko in Austin.

While he may be best known as the winner of Top Chef Season 9, Qui clearly has both a notable taste and talent for boldly flavourful street food packed with Asian flavours, from curry buns to inspired dishes such as Sapporo beer bacon miso ramen, or Thai-style steamed chicken on chicken fat rice with chicken jus. Of course, he also does top-notch renditions of traditional Filipino fare, which he serves alongside a progressive menu of globally inspired dishes at his flagship eponymous restaurant he opened in Austin in 2013 after winning the television cooking show.

Many in Singapore got a taste of his fare at the recent World Street Food Congress jamboree, where he served a spicy kinilaw (Filipino ceviche) made with snakehead and an original chicken inasal (a type of roasted chicken) taco with fried chicken skin. Most, however, might be surprised to learn that Filipino food wasn’t Qui’s first choice of cuisine.

“It was the last thing I wanted to cook because I felt every mum and grandma could cook it better,” said Qui, who trained in classic French and Japanese cuisine, adding that he is still too young to know what his cuisine is. “I’m still finding it out.”

Q: What’s the best thing about taking your food to the streets versus running a restaurant?

A: The biggest thing about running a food truck is the freedom. It allows you a little more freedom with food and it allows you to reach a broader audience. It’s more accessible to people and I feel it’s about creating really soulful food that people will understand. Being a chef and making food is about communicating to people and the way I think about a restaurant versus a food truck ... (is that) they’re just different podiums for you to speak on. Having a food truck is like having a bull horn to be able to reach more people.

Q: Can’t you reach people with a restaurant too?

A: A restaurant, for me, has, in a sense, a few more restrictions. You know, presentation and service ... where there is a certain expectation, like, it’s not necessarily always about the food — it’s about the food and service. Of course, service in a food truck or a stall is also very important, but your focus is mainly on the cooking versus wiping the plates clean (before it’s presented to the diner), making sure you serve left to right. You know there are already so many rules with a restaurant.

Q: Does having a food truck enable you to be bolder with your food?

A: A little bit. I mean the restriction with the food truck is the price point. But at the same time, there are some ideas for me that make more sense in a food truck, just because I want to be a little crazier with it. Like we serve beet home fries — fried beetroot karaage style. And for me, that’s never a dish (you can serve) at a restaurant. Or Brussel sprouts with fish sauce.

Q: So why aren’t more chefs doing the same?

A: Because the food truck is a lot of work too. People don’t think about that. You can run out of water, you have to wash pots, you’ve got to scrub down. I mean, with a stall, it’s so easy to clean, you just move everything. You go to the food truck and it has piping and so many things (that are in the way).

Q: Asian cuisine seems to have found a place with food truck concepts, particularly in America. Why do think that is?

A: I feel like because at the heart of a lot of Asian cuisine is flavour; it’s all about the flavour (particularly) with food that comes from poverty. I feel like most of Asia is so poor, you want the most flavour for your money, right? And I think, culturally, that’s the way food evolved on the streets. And if you think about Asian (culinary) techniques, there are a lot of preservation techniques used — there’s a lot of salt, dried fish ... and all that produces a lot of umami — a lot of flavour. A lot of food I truly appreciate are very much peasant food.

Q: Do you feel the same about the inspired Filipino cuisine you serve?

A: Totally. Filipino food still has a colonial mentality. It takes influences from different regions. Maybe at this point, Filipinos are a little more confident, like the way Singaporeans are a lot more confident about their cuisine, like Thai people, the Vietnamese, Indonesians and Malaysians are. We are at a stage where Filipinos are starting to be a lot more proud of what their food is and trying to own it more. It’s (about) understanding that it came from (Asia, Spain and America), and now it’s okay that it’s ours. I think that is the big transition.

Q: What would it take for Singapore cuisine to thrive on that global platform?

A: I’ve always seen Singapore cuisine as already there on the global platform! When you think about food and the world, you think about Singapore, Hong Kong, Paris, New York — at least for me. It’s like if I was going to plan a food trip around the world, those are places I would totally hit. Because you guys are so famous for the hawker stands — and it doesn’t have to be high class food to be very good. I think for the most part, (Singapore’s) street culture is already there; the street culture is what made this town. And the street culture continues to elevate the cuisine around the world and it continues to influence chefs around the world.

Q: What does the success of similarly casual concepts say about the way the world prefers to dine?

A: The world prefers to dine with less rules and restrictions. I don’t feel like the atmosphere always has to be fine-dining to create fine food. Of course, the craftsman in me, as a chef, wants to create fine food because that’s when you can geek out over the technique and truly refine what it is. But as a person, I look for the very soulful food at the end of the day. So I need to have both. But in today’s market, people are starting to realise that you can take fine technique and bring it closer to the street, and it’s okay. But you have to be able to figure that out.

Q: So, really, the key is in making good food affordable?

A: Affordable is a big part of it. Everyone wants to cook with truffles and foie gras and lobster all the time but that’s not always available. As a craftsman I like to cook with those things, but the number of people you can hit with that is very limited.

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