Immersion at Airways Hotel, Papua New Guinea

The Airways Hotel is one of the best hotel in Papua New Guinea! It is an independent hotel and has over 500 staff, hotel rooms, apartments, restaurant, bars, cigar lounge, a good gym, retail outlets, a spa and only 2 minutes from the international airport.

The Health and Racquet Club was fitted with stunning décor, good cardio and strength exercise equipment, a lap pool, squash courts, sports massage rooms, saunas and nice beautiful Zen garden that overlooks the mountains, sea and the valley……..I loved the great positioning of the gym – surrounded by serene beautiful landscape with good fresh air. My room was so comfortable but unfortunately I had no time to laze around on the king sized bed with 5 pillows!  I forgot ………….each room had a Nespresso coffee maker with assorted coffee capsules !!!

Chef Arnitha and I were there to train the kitchen staff to cook Asian food and to conduct master cooking classes that were opened to the public. It was one of the most enlightening experiences in my life – working in a sophisticated huge kitchen but with lots of staff who were not hospitality or culinary school trained. This staffs were so quick to understand instructions that at times I thought it puts my staff in my restaurant to shame!

For about 3 days Chef Arnitha and I started work at about 9 in the morning and train and cook with the staff to prepare Asian buffet dishes for the Poolside Café at the Airways Restaurant. The staffs were than expected to replicate the same dishes for dinner or another occasion. My carefully planned kitchen tested recipes were not put to good use there as the genius staffs in the kitchen were able to gauge food ingredients by just lifting it up and then tell the weight! And measuring cups were hardly used as huge ladles were used as measuring cups. We had to substitute ingredients as not all Asian ingredients were available in Papua New Guinea. I realized that not much food is wasted. Even trimmings of vegetables are thrown into the stock pot. There is absolutely no stock powder, MSG or stock cubes used in the kitchen!! Everything is made from basic. The kitchen is well organized under the supervision of Chef Rajiv and Chef Ravi. Chef Rajiv is from India and he heads the Bacchus Fine Dining Restaurant and also conducts master classes. Chef Ravi is from Negri Sembilan, Malaysia and has several years of work experience in Vietnam. Both these very patient chefs had very calm, unassuming personalities. I guess it was the environment they were working. They did have their share of stories to tell of the frustrations of working with staff that are not F & B trained but they have got along well and at the end of the day, work was done and the hotel guests appreciate that.

We conducted a couple of master classes that were attended by the expats and the locals of Papua New Guinea. I enjoyed teaching and working in the well organized Bacchus kitchen – pride of Chef Rajiv! During this trip, I made some wonderful friends and that include the chefs, the cooks and some of the students. Special mention is to George Constantine, one of the owners of family owned Airways Hotel, Pankaj Pandey, Kevin Yaxley, Graham Ablett, Shankar Ghoshal and new girlfriends Ms. Allison Kindelspire and Ms. Debra Lam Murray. Everyone was a joy to work with and know as friends.