Cert III Hospitality (Cuisine)
Cert III Patisserie
First things first, I’m so grateful to have Joshua Tang guides me along the way during my culinary studies in Australia. I once was an ordinary girl graduated from four years higher education study major in Tourism management in Hong Kong. During that time, I have tried a bit of this and that, working in a tourism company for a while and some causal works in hospitality field. But there is always a fantasy in my mind to work in food related industry, to create food, simply saying that I want to become a cook or chef.
I first travelled to Melbourne in 2017, began my culinary journey in Le Cordon Bleu Melbourne Campus. I have enrolled both cuisine and patisserie courses. I did stay a lot longer that others would be expecting by not studied upper level of education right away after my cuisine course but to study patisseries. This mean I will be getting a Grand diplome. It sounds a bit weird to take two same level of study but it’s true. It takes me 2.5 years to finish.
After nine months of study in cuisine, I had a chance to work in Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre as a pantry hand (trainee) for more than a year. I have tried working in hot kitchen, larder section, and pastry section as well. This is one of my toughest period in my life, massive quantities of food and workload to deal with. I worked ten to twelve hours per day with 30 minutes lunch break. The job requires heavy physical demand. This made me physically and mentally exhausted. Luckily, I got paid. Yet, I have learnt many things in there. Not much about technical aspect however in management and organizational aspect.
Then I went back to school for patisseries course for another nine months, it depends on you whether to take the second placement or not. For me, I tend to have more working experience in Australia before I head back to Hong Kong, so I quit my old job and work as a pastry cook in CACAO Chocolate & Macarons company.Year of 2020, is a difficult year for everyone. The coronavirus spins things into crisis. I suddenly deferred my plan because of it, when I tried to reach Joshua and asked him for help at an off-office hour, he immediately replied and tried to help in the first hand. All things are settled now. Big thank you!
Up till now, I cannot imagine how far I ‘ve come and most importantly without Joshua’s generous help I wouldn’t achieve so many. He is a staunch backing of all of his clients. As I do not want to keep the passages so long, so I skipped my early story living in Australia but I truly came through some stressful difficult situations about study, living with others, homesick…, I am very lucky that Joshua not only showing his professionalism and he really treats me as a friend. It helps a lot when you travel alone and step out of your comfort zone.