Street Food Warms Your Heart: Vintage Chef at 1008 Toa Payoh North - The Beginning The Chef Owner The Ambience The Menu The Signature The Promotions

The Beginning

The Vintage Chef is a restaurant located in a coffee-shop, serving affordable Italian Cuisine such as Soups, Salad, Pasta, Pizza.

It is started by two Secondary schoolmates & best of pals : 25 year old Chef Junior (Chef Ong Jun Rong) & 24 year old Chef Lim Gui Ruan. It has always been their childhood dream to start a business together, so with this in mind they started a kitchen and named it Vintage Chef - in an industrial canteen located at Blk 1008, Toa Payoh North, Singapore 318998 on 2 September 2013.

Their Culinary Training

Chef Junior is not the only Chef in the family. His mother works as a chef in Secret Recipe. Chef Junior receive on the job training in the kitchen at Bonta Italian restaurant for 6 months (after completing his NS) and trained personally under Executive Chef Owner Luca Pezzera, before moving on to District 10 for a year. It was at District 10 where he picked up the finer points in Italian Cuisine from his mentor & teacher Executive Chef Owner Luca Pezzera. Chef Junior then went on to join Les Saveurs at St Regis Singapore, immersing himself into serving authentic French Cuisine for 3 years whilst working under Chef Julien Royer (who is currently with JAAN, Swissotel the Stamford). Chef Junior stopped kitchen work for a little while & went into sales for a short stint before coming back to the kitchen to start an Vintage Chef, an Italian Cafe serving authentic Italian fare with his buddy Chef Lim.

Chef Lim started with Shatec in 2007, graduated from Shatec in 2010 with training in cold kitchen & hot kitchen. Chef Lim is the only Chef in the family, none of his family members are in the food business. He was a trainee at Bonta Italian restaurant and trained under Executive Chef & Owner Luca Pezzera who inspired him to cook authentic Italian Cuisine. After he graduated from Shatec, he went to NS. Upon completion of his NS he worked at Changi Village Hotel at the Saltwater Cafe for 6 months under Chef William Soh who also happens to be the Executive Chef at Shatec & his teacher at Shatec as well. But Chef Lim could not contain his passion for Italian Cuisine, so he head back to Bonta Italian restaurant under Executive Chef Luca Pezzera and work with him for a good 8 to 9 months before moving to Ristorante Amarone (Amarone Restaurant) at Tanjong Pagar. He worked under Executive Chef Osfalu Ferdinand at Italian Restaurant called Ristorante Amarone for 6 months before moving to Ola (a Spanish restaurant under the Amarone Group) and later to Italian Restaurant Dalaura for 3 months. During this time Chef Lim managed to find a stall for rent at Blk 1008 Toa Payoh and he started Vintage Chef with a 50:50 share with Chef Junior as equal partners.

Chef Lim pondering what to cook for dinner

Chef Junior & Chef Lim - buddies together in business

Chef Lim & Chef Junior busy in the kitchen.

The hungry crowd during lunch hour at Vintage Chef.

The Vintage Chef Menu

The Vintage Chef Signatures

This is the Signature Pan fried Dory Fish with Red wine Sauce priced at $6 at Vintage Chef, served with sauteed cherry tomatoes, diced sauteed potatoes & garnished on top with rocket salad, drizzled with red wine sauce.

How it is done - The fish is first marinated ala minute with Rosemary & Thyme, dipped into Parmesan & egg batter, then pan fried in medium fire, served with potato. The diced potato is parboiled in 7 minutes in hot water, then sauteed using olive oil salt pepper till well done. The cherry tomato is sauteed as well.

Tasting Notes - Red wine sauce lends a lightly salty savoury flavor to this dish. The Dory Fish is tender & soft, coated with a thin cheesy batter layer. When you dip it into the red wine sauce, the latter lends a lightly salty taste to the fish. The cherry tomato lends tarty sweet flavor. The crispy rocket salad on top lends fresh crunch to this dish.

This is the Cheesy Pork Piccata served with potato cubes, rocket salad, crispy potato strips & drizzled with black pepper sauce, priced at $8 at Vintage Chef.

Core Ingredients - This dish is made up of two pieces of pork loin and comes with a layer of Parmesan cheese that is fried & laid on top of the grilled potato cubes that are flavored with crushed black pepper.

How it is done - The frozen Indonesian pork loin is carefully soaked (marinated ala minute) into eggs & Parmesan cheese batter, then pan-fried in medium fire for 3-4 minutes to enable the flavors to be sealed in the meat. Chef Lim adds the cheese & eggs & pepper to form a batter. The potato cubes are sauteed till well done. Chef Lim uses peeler to peel the potato into strips, roll it in flour, then deep fried the potato strips to get that crispy curly shape.

The top is garnished with rocket salad, whilst the side is garnished with crispy fried potato strips, & beautifully decorated with a dash of the black pepper sauce.

Tasting Notes - The pork loin is both juicy, tender & chewy, not overly dry. The after taste is of a cheesy, buttery, peppery flavor. The Parmesan cheese lends a pretty nice cheesy peppery aroma. The potato cubes are nicely sauteed to perfection, and the crushed black pepper bits lend a fragrant peppery flavor to the potato cubes. Chef Lim separates the black pepper sauce for easy dipping. The potato strips are thinly julienned & deep fried in healthy bite size portion. Chef Lim makes his own black pepper sauce at the kitchen here using black pepper olive oil, salt, butter to thicken the sauce and he prepares this sauce fresh daily.

This is the Pan fried Chicken Salad at $5.50 prepared by Chef Junior.

Core Ingredients - frozen Chicken breast cubes that are pan seared, rocket salad, lettuce, cherry tomatoes halved, salt & pepper, drizzled with Balsamic vinegar.

How it is done - The chicken cubes are marinated overnight using Tabasco sauce, Balsamic Vinegar, Rosemary & Thyme & Sage. Chef Junior uses fresh herbs when available. He pan-fried the diced marinated chicken using low fire for about 6-7 minutes. Uses salt pepper & Balsamic Vinegar to make the Balsamic Vinegarette Sauce. The vegetable is seasoned using salt & pepper then the Balsamic Vinegar sauce is drizzled onto it.

Tasting Notes - The chicken is cooked just right, tender, still moist & juicy, & goes very well with the Balsamic Vinegar. The crisp salad gives a crunchy bite. Cherry tomatoes are sweet & fresh.

This is the Signature Seafood Soup at $5.50 at Vintage Chef made using Core ingredients - clams, fish, prawns, pasta, garlic, squid.

How it is done - The seafood, garlic onion, is first sauteed with white wine for 30 secs. Once reduced, to it is then added the tomato sauce, salt & pepper & chili flakes. Chef Lim prepares the soup from scratch in a batch quantity that can last for 2 to 3 weeks. To make the soup stock, Chef Lim uses 1.5 kg of prawn heads, thrown into cast iron pots, water, then add red wine for 1.5 hrs on medium fire on gas stove. After which he blend the stock, sieve it, & later pack the sieved blended soup into smaller cup portions. Chef Lim makes the other core ingredient - tomato sauce from scratch, using onion & garlic that are first sauteed for 5 minutes in medium fire, then to it is add the 2 cans of tomato (whole, peeled), the tomato mixture is blended. To the blended mixture is added Basil Oil to allow the mixture to be infused with Basil Oil. Chef Lim usually make a batch of tomato sauce that can last for 2.5 weeks. Chef Lim adds tomato sauce to prawn bisque soup base to give it that tarty sweet flavor.

Tasting Notes - The orange color soup taste like a lighter diluted version of lobster bisque. When I first tasted it, I gathered that the soup is likely /made using shells of prawns. Flavor is savoury spicy of the lobster bisque range. I like it in that it is not too salty, has has a distinct tinge of savory spicy flavor. It makes a heartwarming light starter for lunch.

This is the Signature Mixed Green Salad with Sweet honey dressing & Citrus Segment created by Chef Junior, priced at $6, made using core ingredients citrus fruits such as grapefruit, orange, rocket salad, special sweet honey dressing.

How it is done - Chef Junior uses a mix of mustard & honey to make the special sweet honey dressing enough for use for a week. He infuses the citrus fruits in pure honey fresh daily to give it a sweet flavor. Generally he prefers not to leave the infused fruits overnight as they may become bitter overnight.

Tasting Notes - This salad tastes sweet citrus with a lightly sourly flavor, a very appetising flavor indeed as the tinge of sourliness comes mainly from the grapefruit flesh which is fresh and juicy.

This is the Signature Spaghetti Vongole served with white wine sauce created by Chef Lim, priced at $7, made using core ingredients spaghetti, fresh Malaysian farmed white clams, garlic, black pepper corns, Chardonnay, unsalted butter, dried parsley, dried chili flakes.

How it is done - The garlic is first sauteed, then to it is added the fresh white clams, followed by the Chardonnay, salt & pepper, unsalted butter, and spaghetti. Chef Lim first parboil the spaghetti in salt for 3 minutes ready for use for the day. For every new order, he cooks the dish ala minute & is pretty generous in using the ingredients, prefers to use half a cup of the Chardonnay and does not wink an eye in dishing out cupful of the fresh juicy clams.

Tasting Notes - This dish has a distinct peppery chili spicy flavor coming from the crush whole black peppers as well as fresh chilies used, Chef Lim cooked the spaghetti just right to give it a nice & chewy texture consistency, not al dente, and added a generous serving of clams that are chewy, fresh & sweet. The clams absorb the white wine pretty well, lending a sweet taste as you chew on it. There is a tinge of spiciness after taste in part due to the chili flakes Chef Lim added.