Hot Ex-Waku Ghin Chef Serves Incredible Bread From HDB Private Diner

Photogenic chef
He’s right - the articulate American-born Chinese chef boasts boyish good looks worthy of the camera. And his resume is as impressive as his dazzling smile.

He was a teppanyaki chef at Waku Ghin
Chris, as he calls himself, worked the teppan grill at Tetsuya Wakuda’s two-Michelin-starred Waku Ghin for a year. “You had to cook a full meal for chef Tetsuya before he’d hire you. Was he fierce in the kitchen? He didn’t shout, but when he got angry he’d speak in Japanese,” he recalls, grinning.

He also worked with Guy Savoy
Just before joining Waku Ghin in 2014, Chris laboured in the kitchen of Guy Savoy Singapore for two years. He's pictured here with the French chef at the latter’s now-defunct eponymous fine-diner at Marina Bay Sands.

Next, he became sous chef at one-Michelin-starred NoMad, where Beyoncé held her birthday bash
Later, Chris packed his bags for the Big Apple to become sous chef for two years at one-Michelin-starred contemporary American restaurant NoMad New York. It's co-owned by celebrated chef Daniel Humm of famed three-star fine-diner Eleven Madison Park. "While I was at NoMad, Beyoncé booked the entire restaurant for her birthday dinner," reveals Chris. What did he remember most about Queen Bey? "She smelled nice," he chuckles.

Upon returning to Singapore a year ago, he briefly held a stint as executive chef at mod French restaurant, Saint Pierre.

But before all of that, Chris was a zi char cook in Malaysia
The earnest, polite man shares: “I’d been working at my parent's Italian restaurant in Seattle since I was 15. But I didn’t realise immediately that I was going to [choose cooking as a profession]. Then one day, a couple of regulars came into our restaurant for dinner. The guy told me that this date night was going to be special and wanted me to cook them our best meal. After dinner, he proposed to his girlfriend and it was amazing. At 19, I realised that cooking was a special way of being a part of other people's lives. And that has continued to resonate with me today — contributing to people's lives in a positive way through food.”

Soon after graduating with a business degree from Western Washington University, Chris flew to Malaysia to work for three months at his Malaysian-born father’s pal’s zi char restaurant. "I felt that I needed to reconnect with my roots. So in 2010, I went to work at an open-air seafood restaurant in KL. I familiarised myself with Chinese-Malaysian ingredients. I also learned the structure of a Chinese kitchen, from the setup of the stations to the duties of the various chefs. It was very different from the hierarchy of a French kitchen," he muses.

There, he lived with foreign workers in cramped quarters
“Most of the [zi char joint’s] employees lived in a dorm-style building behind the restaurant. There were four people sharing a small bedroom — we'd stand our mattresses up against the wall so we’d have space to move around during the day. At night, we’d lay the mattresses on the floor. We shared a bathroom with 12 other roommates. There was no washing machine; everything was done by hand in a bucket and you'd hang it out to dry on a cloths line. The living experience was one that gave me an insight into the life of a foreign worker — I gained a lot of perspective and gratitude," shares Chris.

Mod American fine-dining, HDB-style
The big question: why is a chef with credentials like Chris’s operating a private diner from home? “Happy things happen in restaurants — birthdays, proposals, anniversaries. But it’s impossible to get to know people when you’re stuck in a kitchen at the back," he reasons. "I thought this was a great way to meet folks who’re interested in food and to form a connection. Sometimes, service can be cold and impersonal. There’s nothing more personal than having people over at your home”.

As for the unusual moniker Dearborn Supper Club…
“There used to be an exit from the highway called Dearborn in Seattle, Washington, where I grew up. It led to the international district where Chinatown was and there was always a queue of cars because there was only one lane and a traffic light at the end of it. As a child waiting to turn into this exit for dim sum on weekends, there was this sense of anticipation of eating with family and friends. And that's the feeling I want to evoke here at Dearborn Supper Club," says Chris.

The setting
Chris lives in a cosy flat in a mature HDB estate with his equally attractive documentary photographer wife (she declined to be featured for this story). “We decided to return to Singapore because a job opportunity had opened up and my wife is Singaporean. We’d been considering moving back for a while — we wanted to start planting roots of our own,” he explains.

Casual yet atas private diner
A small wooden dining table for six sits in front of a simple whitewashed kitchen. Here, Chris works on an island counter in front of his guests. It’s cute that he’s dressed in his full chef’s whites in his home kitchen. It’s quite a treat to watch him work, brows furrowed in concentration as he plates each dish. He usually works alone, but tonight, his wife assists with the serving and some plating. “[After] Dearborn, I’d love to have a small 30-seat restaurant with the same type of open kitchen I have at home, so guests can see me, and me, them,” he asserts.

Homegrown edible flowers and herbs
A small edible garden at the entrance to the flat houses pots of herbs, wheatgrass, and edible blooms like pentas flowers, some of which Chris uses in his cooking.

The food
Dearborn’s website says to “expect a six-course menu designed with a focus on greens, grains and seafood”. It’s $138 nett per head with a welcome drink, still or sparkling water and coffee or tea. There’s no corkage fee if you bring your own booze, as is the norm at private diners. It’s one of the most — if not the most — expensive private dining experiences in Singapore. But we thought it reasonable given Chris’s culinary background — the dude is no mere home cook but a professional chef, and then some.

Mostly vegetarian menu
However, be warned that our dinner consisted almost entirely of just vegetables and grains. Besides a smidgen of chicken liver on the canapés, only one other dish contained seafood — thin slivers of scallop on daikon. “We don’t serve red meat because of environmental issues”, explains Chris. “Dearborn aims to be as responsible to the environment as possible while creating delicious food. This means reducing our carbon footprint by sourcing regional produce and sustainable seafood. There are plans to serve more seafood on the menu, but I’m still educating myself on the sustainable seafood available in the region,” he adds.

Fancy snacks
Dinner begins with an impressive-looking centerpiece of four different canapés, beautifully displayed on a wooden congkak board (a game popular in Southeast Asia; Chris’s wife used to play with it as a child). It’s decorated with greens from Edible Garden Farm. "I used to work for Daniel Humm at the NoMad and we served a carrot tartare there. This carrot tartare tartlet is my homage to and reinterpretation of that,” says Chris. The friable Tunisian brik pastry shell is a texturally interesting vehicle for what another guest aptly describes as “a more delicious coleslaw”.

Chickpea panisse with avocado mousse & preserved Meyer lemon
Among the snacks, we also enjoy this panisse, a fried chickpea flour cake that originated from the South of France. The creamy, nutty characteristics of the legume play well against the grassy avocado mousse and tangy lemon. “Every single element, including the preserved lemon and tarts, are made in house,” says Chris. However, the mini brioche with chicken liver mousse looks better than it tastes: the adorably petite slices of toast are soggy beneath the liver.

Hokkaido scallop crudo with hazelnut, lemon & horseradish
Gently cured slivers of scallop overlaid with films of daikon and Asian pear, the crisp, succulent radish and fruit refreshing counterpoints to the slippery, briny shellfish as well as the crusty hazelnut crumble.

Agnolotti pasta with peas, pecorino & sunflower seeds
“This course is important to me because I grew up eating and making pasta,” says Chris. We don’t know if the chef took too long to plate this dish for the six of us and that the pasta parcels had cooled down and hardened in the process, but we found its texture a bit stiff. However, it’s still quite good thanks to its filling of pureed fresh peas blended with salty pecorino cheese, sunflower seeds, tarragon and mint, all slicked in a satiny butter sauce.

Charred Japanese baby eggplant with sesame, tomato pepper relish & puffed quinoa
A tiny but juicy pan-seared eggplant paired with nutty, slightly bitter homemade goma sauce containing white and black ground sesame seeds. Decent, but not show-stopping.

Roasted Japanese maitake mushroom with wild rice, puffed millet & mushroom consommé
The meaty, frilly shroom here is slightly smoky and sits in a bowl of wild rice and nutty millet. Chris boils the latter then dehydrates it and fries the grains for an airily light crunch. Delicate mushroom broth scented with thyme and garlic is poured over to serve. Reminiscent of a wintertime Japanese ochazuke with contrasting textures. Comforting.

Homemade sourdough bread (8 Days Pick!)
Interestingly, the bread and butter course is served near the close of the meal. And it turns out to be the highlight of our dinner. Chris asks us to gather around the kitchen counter when he’s ready to serve it fresh out of the oven. “This takes me about two days to prepare, so I thought it deserves a show of its own," he opines.

Shatteringly crisp crust
The crackle as Chris saws the loaf is glorious: a deep, sultry shatter as serrated knife hits richly browned crust. We watch, hypnotised as he cracks the orb in half and steam issues from its snowy depths. The crumb is soft, moist and almost creamy, elegantly shot through with the quintessential tang of sourdough levain and a satisfying sprinkle of salt.

So delicious

This sourdough starter is called “Larry”
“In January, I began growing my starter, the natural leavening agent for the bread". A sourdough starter is made by mixing flour with water, and then allowing the wild yeasts and bacteria that live in the flour and air to multiply. The microorganisms ferment when it’s used in bread, producing gas that allows the dough to rise and the molecules that give it flavour. “This is what gives the bread its texture and taste. It’s a living organism that lives off air, water and the flour you ‘feed’ it. So basically, it’s my pet. And I call him Larry,” jokes Chris.

Making levain
The starter, also known as levain in France, is taken out of Chris’s fridge to “wake up” two days before each dinner. “I need to feed it a couple of times until I feel he's strong enough to bake with.” Then there’s lots of mixing, resting, folding of dough, resting it some more to allow it to proof, before finally baking it in a Dutch oven (for a crisper crust and to create a steaming effect) placed in his Electrolux oven.

Home-whipped butter
Such extraordinary bread deserves special butter. Chris makes his own by whipping high-fat cream till its solids separate from the buttermilk. He then further whips it up just before serving so the resulting butter is fluffy, silky and glides on the hot bread like a dream.

Roasted cauliflower plank with anchovies, olives, kelp & egg yolk sauce
We expected fish, or maybe crab for the main course. So we think everyone at the table was slightly crestfallen to discover it was cauliflower ‘steak’. To be fair, it’s competently done — the veggie slabs are pan-seared, baked to soften, then finished with butter on the stove and garnished with anchovy powder. It’s drizzled with a rich egg yolk sauce and dotted with piquant bits of pickled cauliflower and olives. It’s reasonably flavourful and complex-tasting, but not something we’d fantasise about if we woke up hungry in the middle of the night.

Seaweed madeleine with whipped creme fraiche (8 Days Pick!)
This little “pre-dessert” cake is the yummiest thing after that amazing sourdough bread. It contains a trace of Japanese seaweed paste with scallop extract. Interestingly, you don’t actually taste the seaweed, but it adds a delightful umami hint to the tender, buttery, maddeningly fragrant madeleine. We'd gladly buy a boxful of this if we could.

Beetroot granita with pressed yogurt and orange meringue 
A simple dessert of sweetened beetroot juice frozen and shaven, then garnished with airy wafers of meringue made with yogurt and orange. You’ll have to like beetroot to enjoy this.

Brown butter fortune cookies

Handwritten notes inside
Each cookie hides a unique 'fortune', some of which are quite amusing. They’re handwritten by Chris’s wife.

Maple cranberry granola
Every guest gets to take home a jar of homemade granola (as is the custom at Daniel Humm's Eleven Madison Park). This one is sweet and mottled with a modest scattering of slivered almonds and pumpkin seeds. Not bad, though it needs a longer time in the oven for a more assertive crunch.

Verdict
We appreciate the meticulous care that Chris infuses into his semi-fine-dining home cooking experience. Moreover, he and his wife are lovely people to chat with (and look at). However, he alone handles all the complex elements involved in his elegantly plated, labour intensive contemporary American creations — and that inevitably compromises the quality of a couple of the dishes. Also, $138 per person for primarily vegetables is a bit steep. “I missed the wagyu,” lamented a fellow guest as we crowded into the elevator post-dinner. But one thing we could all agree on was this: Chris is a gifted baker — that sourdough bread and madeleine are unforgettable.

The details
A six-course dinner costs $138 a head. For group bookings of six to eight people, e-mail chriskong [at] dearborn.sg (chriskong[at]dearborn[dot]sg) or visit www.dearborn.sg

Photos and video: Ealbert Ho
Selected photos: Christopher Kong/Dearborn Supper Club

Chris at work