Street Food Warms Your Heart: Flee Away Cafe at 70 Dunlop Street S(209398) - Expansion, Menu, Kitchen Ops, Slogan, Differentiation, Invention at Flee Away Cafe

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Flee Away Cafe at 70 Dunlop Street S(209398) - Expansion, Menu, Kitchen Ops, Slogan, Differentiation, Invention at Flee Away Cafe

The Introduction

Flee Away Cafe located at 70 Dunlop Street was conceptualized in June 2013, materialised in Jan 2014, and started operations only in May 2014 by 3 Founding partners who bring with them totalling 60 years food & F&B industry experience: Fan Hui Ling(Ling for short), Dickson Kwek, Wendy Chong.

Expansion plans

Currently Flee Away Cafe is the only outlet that the three Founders are managing. They would love to provide the kiosk version for their Signature Le Char Kuey as they grow & expand.

Ling shares it is difficult to grow Flee Away Cafe into other heartlands as it is not easy to find similiar location with similiar settings & feel.

There are however plans to develop other brands (still under R&D stage) as well as develop Le Char Kuey into a kiosk takeaway version.

Menu Planning

Currently done by Ling with contribution advice from her Executive Chef Adrian Toh. The Menu here changes quarterly, with Chef Adrian Toh tweaking the recipe to adapt to the palates of the customers here. The cafe do occasionally launch ad doc Specialty menu for Special festive celebrations such as Chinese New Year, Children's Day, F1 events, etc, to provide that added festive choice to customers.

Menu 2015

Flee Away serves Brunch, Lunch, Tea, Dinner with about 30 items on its menu under categories : 2 Soups, 6 Small Bites, 4 Salads, 4 Normal Filling Le Char Kuey, 4 Special Filling Le Char Kuey, 4 Pasta, 5 Sweets (Dessert), Drinks which includes 5 Coffee, 2 Tea (Hot or Cold), Bottled drinks, Canned Drinks, 5 Smoothies, 9 Milkshakes.

Set Lunch is available at Flee Away Cafe which includes Le Char Kuey Set. Currently the cafe do not serve Set Dinner.

Kitchen Operations

The Flee Away Cafe Kitchen is helmed by Executive Chef Adrian Toh formerly from Chjimes, who brings with him 20 years' culinary experience. Flee Away Cafe has total 2 Chefs to handle the kitchen operations. Chef Adrian Toh who used to be Ling's colleague from the bar she used to work before she left to start Flee Away Cafe. There is no Central kitchen so the prep work are done at the kitchen here at 70 Dunlop Street.

Food Sources

Food items used at Flee Away Cafe are sourced mainly from the local fresh produce stores located around the area with 100% food items sourced locally.

One of the popular item on the Small Bites Category is the Chicken wings and Chef Adrian Toh uses frozen halal chicken wings in this recipe.

Chef Adrian Toh hand-makes his own beef patty at Flee Away Cafe. For the Beef Hash Pie Tee, Chef Adrian Toh mixes corned beef with some minced beef to enhance the flavor of beef in this recipe.

For the Chicken Luncheon dish, Chef Adrian Toh uses halal chicken luncheon meat.

Though Flee Away Cafe is not halal certified, they do not use pork or lard in their menu. The food here at Flee Away Cafe are prepared ala minute.

Slogan & Mission Statement

Some of the slogans coined by the Founders here at Flee Away Cafe include:

"Flee Or Not"

"Flee For Coffee?"

"Come Flee With Me!"

How Flee Away differs from other Cafes

First of all Flee Away Cafe has a very uniquely Singlish name. It has a Hot Air Balloon depicted as part of its logo designed by yours truly Ling. Ling shared that she envisioned the name Flee Away as "Fly Away" and she wanted to created that whimsical image but with a Singapore twist to it so she added a coffee cup as the basket of the Hot Air Balloon to replace the wicket basket found in most life size commercial hot air balloons.
Unique Signature Invention - Flee Away Cafe is the first, one & only cafe to have a unique Signature invention the "Le Char Kuey" on its menu. The Le Char Kuey is a cross between our local breakfast the elongated dough fritter commonly known as You Tiao & the French baguette.

The Invention of the Le Char Kuey

The Le Char Kuey is a customized You Tiao shaped like a baguette, the exterior of the Le Char Kuey is crispy like the french baguette & soft & fluffy in the interior like the french baguette. To give it a more sophisticated image, Ling & her co-founders coined the term Le in front of the Char Kuey & called it Le Char Kuey giving it a french twist. Le Char Kuey is essentially You Tiao that has the size similiar to a french baguette, with dimension of 10 inch by 3 inch. Le Char Kuey essentially is an invention by the Founders with the of softness inside liken to a French Baguette & a crispiness outside liken to a dough fritter.

Ling & her husband Dickson Kwek was inspired by the local breakfast favorite You Tiao when they invented the Le Char Kuey. They were asking themselves: "Why can't we have this & this ingredient with the You Tiao?" and this went on to spun some unique recipes & filling for their Le Char Kuey invention.

So after talking to food manufacturers Ling & Dickson finally got a food manufacturer to custom make the Le Char Kuey with a fluffy texture on the inside & crispy texture on the outside, based on the specifications that they submitted. When the Le Char Kuey is delivered to the kitchen at Flee Away Cafe, they are already 50% fried.

It is indeed wise that the Founders at Flee Away Cafe actually copyrighted their invention the Le Char Kuey in Singapore to stave off any would be copycats who may steal their concept and attempt to imitate their product selection. Flee Away Brand is trademarked under Gastro Ideals Pte Ltd.

Here at Flee Away Cafe the Le Char Kuey comes in 10 different flavors : with 5 using commonly found ingredients & the other 5 using unique ingredients.

Ordering - Ordering is preferred at the Cashier's Counter, where the order is generated at the POS system & flowed to the kitchen, and customers are served the food later.

But since the cafe is in its first few year of operation, Ling & partners wanted to educate the customers on their specialty products on the menu so a lot of personalized service is offered to diners here in order to find out their tastes & preferences. Hence table service is available for customers who wanted that service.

Payment - Cash, VISA, Mastercard payment is available here at Flee Away Cafe.

Catering - No Catering Service is available at Flee Away Cafe.

Booking of Events & Functions - made available at Flee Away Cafe & can seat up to 30 to 35 pax.

Take Away Service - is available, no minimum order required. Currently in talks with delivery food vendors for delivery service.

Promotional Programs Tie up - none with banks, but ongoing promotion with Groupon.

Lifetime Discount Card Program - Flee Away Cafe gives out 10% Discount Cards to regulars that entitles them to 10% off on food & drinks, for Dine-in as well as Takeaway, but not applicable for Lunch Promotion nor for Specialty Lunch Promotion such as Mother's Day or Father's Day promotions.

Retail Merchandise on Sale - Flee Away Cafe has total of 12 Display Cubes aligned on the left wall from the entrance glass door. Each Display Cube showcase the various handmade trinkets, specialty items, some with nostalgic retro themes from by-gone era, on consignment sale by home based vendors who rent the box space from Flee Away Cafe.

Target Market - Flee Away Cafe hopes to attract students, families with children, couples, and all who love vintage retro trinkets, goods, souvenirs.

Seating Capacity - 33 pax indoors air-con, no al fresco seating at the moment.

The Signatures

Le Char Kuey is essentially You Tiao that has the size similiar to a french baguette, with dimension of 10 inch by 3 inch.