EP 5: FOOD & COOKING | GROWING PAINS

hi everyone welcome back to growing pains it's me miranda what's up [Music] i know i know i know i know oh god i've been away for so so long thank you for being so patient with me and today we're back with a new episode we're gonna talk about food and cooking and this is something that i would say is one of my passions in life okay i genuinely love love love love food i am the kind that lives to eat eat to live who is that i think food is one of the simplest pleasures that anyone can attain and it's also one of the most satisfying i think there's something so personal and sincere about feeding someone and nourishing someone and utilizing the earth and it's a way to connect people it's a way to connect your culture to share your culture and to really like celebrate living law really it sounds so ridiculous i think for for people who are not foodies it's my one source of comfort you know when everything goes to at least i can look forward to lunch even in school right oh my god i just cannot stop thinking about recess like before recess i'll think about recess and then after recess i'll think about lunch and i'm always thinking about what i want to get and low-key like i'll get very very sad because like there's not enough time and then for me now there's not enough stomach space to like fit everything that i want to eat in because usually i want to get like two or three dishes and not gonna lie like i do attach like sentimental value to food i don't know why maybe like okay like like restaurants and like places to eat and stuff i don't know if you guys saw i'm i'm sure y'all did okay one of my previous videos um for i did like a bugis edition and my friend humid introduced me to this boat noodles place it's just called noodles cafe it's a bloody hole in the ground okay it's in golden mile and they serve the best thai boat noodles i've ever eaten in my life and i ate it very very happily for very long time i would always like get sad when the bowl was like dwindling down because i'm like oh my god i just love you so much i just like never wanted to end and i've never quite known heartbreak as the day that i went down and it tasted different well i thought it was an off day you know kind of situation someone else cooked it never mind i'll go back and every time i go there i always bring new friends right because i just want to share this joy because i don't think people have truly lived until they've tried the thai boat noodles from that day on it was never the same again there was no time to say goodbye i didn't know that they were gonna change obviously so i was like what's happening yeah it gave me like anxiety i'm laughing because it's so dramatic but it's just true i had anxiety and i had to tell my friends like this is not it this is not you think this is nice i'm like oh i apologize i'll be like i'm so sorry i don't know what happened like this is not the boat noodles that i'm talking about and eventually the whole bloody place closed down so okay now i think that they're at sims avenue like they said that they moved but i've never been back because the recipe had already changed before that and i'm like oh my god if you're gonna change location i don't know i can't place a lot of money on the bed that it'll still go back to the same original recipe so you know i've had my fair share of bad dates filled relationships but the boat noodles is the one i'm gonna remember for the longest so i don't know where exactly i got my obsession for food from i think it's a very innate thing like either you love food and you are curious and you want to try everything or you're not curious you know what you like you stick to exactly what it is and sometimes it's a capricorn like i do do that you know like i know you mean works right so anytime i feel like i need a source of stability and comfort like i go for that and uh yeah i don't try new things but now as i'm getting older i i do enjoy um trying weird things and i've always been the kind of person that hasn't been picky about my food so growing up i actually did cook with my mom quite a lot i just really really enjoyed it and i think for her there was still a little bit of like that if you want to be a good wife you need to know how to cook kind of thing so i didn't mind because i think like one of my favorite times um is like making tangerine with her and making like dumplings because i just felt like i was accomplishing a lot and i was like helping her and it felt really great like i remember like we always season the meat with like soy sauce garlic um sesame oil i love the smell of sesame oil if you're looking at the video you can tell that i'm like grinning away like an idiot just because like there's something so intoxicating about sesame oil oh turns me on there were all these seasonings and like components to like a dish that that would really enhance the flavor of meat and just like make it smell and taste amazing and funny enough my mom actually doesn't really season her food she always makes sure to under season because she was like no too much salt is not good for you too much sugar is not good for you we never had soft drinks sodas any kind of fizzy drinks like in the fridge ever like at the max like we were really balling it was like apple juice but that's it yeah so she's like very very health conscious and because of that right like when we went out it was exciting because then i get to eat like salty food or like you know sugary food and stuff like that on the other hand my dad is is kind of like a hawker center aficionado i don't know how he knows so many good sports i guess like you know when you're just an adult and you're like out working like you would just like find different sports and stuff and my dad used to drive me home every day from school so we would literally like go to a different hawker center every time and we'll order like multiple things so that we can try everything obviously like we'll finish everything but i think it was really great to have like a balance of both my mom and my dad like my mom who's a bit more health conscious like when she's brewing soup right pure bones nothing else kind of thing like she doesn't add salt she doesn't add any kind of stock and that was probably so so good for me but at the time i was like doesn't taste like anything kind of thing and then on the other hand like my dad is someone who is quite adventurous when it comes to food and he would introduce me to like quite a lot of dishes and actually moving out has been another like level up in my my journey of discovering food because here's where i know how to cook you know um before this house i was starting the u.s so i was able to have like my own kitchen and i had a fully functional oven it really does feel different because it's all yours you know you don't have anyone sort of like hovering behind you like crossing your path or like telling you and you put stuff back to where they belong or if you don't know where anything is in the first place like even though hey my brothers can attest to this like they love it when i cook in the kitchen like when i was still living at home my fried rice unbelievable maggie me all right but they were just lazy to cook it and i think like their favorite is like sopas that i just like learned how to cook like right before i moved out even my mom was impressed so i was like quite happy about that learning how to cook when you have your own safe space to kind of discover food and you have the ability to stock up on just the things that you like there's something like just quite exciting law about learning how to cook developing your knife skills trying out recipes um when they fail they fail they don't quite always feel it they're still edible you know that's that's the beauty about food la like even if you burn it like you can still kind of scrape it off and eat the non-burnt parts and when the recipes do work you're like oh my god i'm a genius so that's been really really fun for me and that also does save you quite a lot of money if you're in a place that's not singapore that's not like super freaking cheap to eat out and i've just been consistently cooking since i do take breaks you know sometimes the cooking is the fun part but the washing up is like what kills you so i do get like very very tired especially if i'm making something like hummus oh god that's like the blender the cuppies and then you got the blades on i don't know how many times like i've cut like my fingers on it before and then there's like multiple balls and like oh i hate washing containers the most because they're like ridgy and a little flimsy and then you got the little ridges on the freaking cap and i just hate it so when i get very tired of like cleaning up and you know the oil gets everywhere you know if you're frying something or whatever um so then i do just like spend a whole week like tapawing taiwan or something and it'll be fine and then i do get to try other people's food as well and then i can think about what i want to make the next time like i go to the grocery store and as an adult grocery store shopping is very exciting when you don't have to wait for your mom you don't have to wait for like whoever whatever to do whatever and you're just strolling down the aisle and you're just picking up whatever you want it is the best feeling my first grocery run was like so messy i didn't have a plan oh my god when i went to the supermarket for the first time right i spent seventy dollars on like eight items or something it was crazy i didn't know it was gonna cost that much and i was like what the did i buy and then i was looking and then i accidentally got like really expensive organic eggs um because i just didn't see a cheaper option but turns out it's like just like on the bottom kind of thing i've learned my lesson since like you know like i went back obviously so i found all that out um i bought pre-made pasta sauce in a jar that i could have made on my own probably would have tasted better for twelve dollars um yeah like i just bought really random stuff with no plan in mind and then just like oh stuff that i want because i was starting from like ground zero right and if you're on a budget the biggest tip is to not buy like ready-made things especially like pasta sauces because you can make that so so easily so yeah i ended up like wasting a lot of money although those eggs were incredible so definitely like grocery store shopping that does take a little bit of skill and then you also can like compare and see like you know what's on sale what's not what's in season and what's not that's very very important because sometimes the fruits and vegetables like they don't look that good and then they cost a lot and you're like what the is happening they're just not in season so once they're in season like blueberries strawberries um even like mangoes and stuff they can go to as cheap as like one dollar per very ripe very juicy very nice mango instead of like you know paying like four or five dollars for like a really rubbish one even though singapore doesn't have any seasons i i do quite look forward to like the food type of seasons i just really really enjoy like the food that i have now and and the food that i'm able to prepare for myself in case you guys are curious i actually watch a lot of cooking shows like food shows i always have since i was a child i think maybe that's how like it also like cultivated in me because it's just so exciting okay so i think like okay on netflix my favorites are obviously like chef's table but i really want to savor every episode so i'm not even like halfway through it yet i just i just love it so much that i i cannot binge it oh god i have a hoarding problem i do i do i do for things that really really matter to me so i'm hoarding chef's table episodes and i also thought the final table like the cooking competition was pretty okay until like the end i also love salted food okay i used to love bon appetit also before it went to but i still love salted food i think i've been watching them for like nearly seven years now and i still really really enjoy them and i think they also listen to their community their viewers a lot and they've always strived like to improve themselves like the quality of their videos their set their ideas like oh i just i just love salted food so much i think they're so wholesome they're so great and um i've also been watching like a couple of other like netflix shows so like what what is that taco chronicles taco chronicles is pretty good i also enjoyed um salt fat acid heat oh is that correct or not i don't know but sameen like she's really really good and i really enjoyed that series as well so you know if you're interested you can check them out and i know this will come up because now that we're talking about netflix right girl sauce conspiracy still quite recent i would say cowspiracy is also on netflix right so i did ask myself this several times over seven eight years like when i was really thinking about it like could i would i ever be vegan like would i ever be vegetarian i don't know a couple of people who are vegan or vegetarian and i do actually like the food that they're eating like i actually like vegan and vegetarian food and like i said i'm not picky so i did ask myself it was ever able to be full-time vegan vegetarian that sort of thing or even pescetarian like that was what i was thinking of when i was a little younger but i've come to accept that i would never and i think it's because i never want to limit myself off from the foods that i can try especially when you're overseas especially when you are reviewing food like i am a lot of the time and especially when i enjoy it i don't want to just say no to to certain opportunities or you know certain like food items on the menu even when i'm ordering them myself i'm not just saying like when people give me free i just don't want to say no like if there's a really good piece of salmon oh there's a really good piece of steak i want to be able to eat it and i know that i will enjoy it and um it might not be very sustainable of me and and i do admit that but i told this to my brother and his response was like quite epic he said well you're not going to have kids anyways and that's the most sustainable thing you can do so like you're free we can first of all diversify our choices i can still eat vegan and vegetarian food regularly and still just not consider myself vegan i just eat more of that support the businesses yeah i think sometimes it's just really hard to convince someone that like if it's just all plant-based like if there's no meat in it how could it possibly taste good like i know my brothers are kind of like that so you know you just gotta prove them wrong if you choose to see eating meat as like a morally compromising thing and a very unsustainable thing then that's just like a cross that i have to bear and then i'll try to be more sustainable and more conscious about the things that i do like use and you know other stuff like that and so yeah i really do believe that like diversifying our choices if all of us are able to do that it's a lot better than you know having 10 of the world's population like turn strictly vegan of course like you know turning vegan is a good thing but if we are able to still as non-vegans support and eat vegan food and other like plant-based alternatives like it will actually be like a lot more helpful listen i could sit here and talk about food forever and trust me i have but i think it's a little bit better if we like you know bring some friends into the conversation so in a bit i'll be joined by chew and lisa they're the founders of cosmo a restaurant in singapore and they're very different so i'll let them kind of explain what cosmo is about and we'll also be talking about like their journey in food how they got here you know running a restaurant and how like the food industry is like in singapore like from insider's perspective okay it's a lot of food talk it's quite casual and i just want to say sorry about the audio because they're a little bit of like vibrations and like changes in volume because we're all sharing this one mic from three people and we're a little bit like backed away so i've tried my best to salvage it because it's like a really good conversation but yeah no i've never done like three people before and like i'm i'm just a nope sorry so sorry so um earphones and headphones i don't advise it uh i would say just put us on speaker so you can just kind of listen to us and there are quite a lot of pictures as well like because we'll be talking about quite a lot of ingredients and um how the restaurant is like so if you like to visualize it then you can watch this video and also noodles is super excited and he's very scuttly so you can hear like on the floors he's constantly interrupting us and he's like obsessed with chews so just bear with me okay without further ado let's meet you and lisa so now we're joined by lisa and chew hi guys so cosmo is the restaurant that we both co-founded and cosmo is a restaurant based on the concept of thoughtfulness yeah so at our restaurant we use aesthetically filtered foods and vegetables which we get from importers and they could be oddly shaped or designed over stock or overripe produce what does aesthetically filtered mean actually our importers are the first people to handle every food vegetable that comes into singapore and package it for the retailers and wholesalers they come in like cartons containers and then they'll be packed into smaller packets yeah so over there they will filter it based on like what's their specification so for example if the packaging says like tomatoes on those that have already ripened and fallen off the vines will not be able to like fit in that packaging yeah so they were filtering yeah and so sometimes you get bananas you know they're still green at the ends but a little bit yellow in the center this is considered like overripe yeah because uh the retailers uh set bananas they are only like completely green it makes sense like logistically but then um those bananas that were filtered are still like perfectly good to consume yeah yeah so that's something that i didn't know yeah so at cosmo there are like main themes that we are trying to bring across so um one is the aesthetically filtered which is the one that we're talking about now and then we also like to um use each ingredient in its entirety right now we are serving a dessert on the menu that is a preserved lemon olive oil cake from the the peels the juice the pulp so the white part and the pith and all everything goes into salt after juicing them and then it's used in um the olive oil yeah i love it i had it it was damn good it's super fragrant so it is it's no longer a citrus it's more like a perfume citrus that that is salty and slightly savory and sweet also we like to feature um sustainably sauced seafood so it could be locally farmed actually we have a lot of like very good um seafood farms here in singapore now you can get oysters um soft shell crab mussels yeah we're gonna feature um tropical lobsters farm in singapore so wow like spiny lobsters they are without claws oh so there's a lot of meat in the tail i see but we also like to um get those uh from regional fishermen yeah so right now the spanish macro that we are serving right they're actually um caught using this so it's the boo-boo trap the boo-boo trap yeah it's a very funny name it's a more gentle method as compared to you know like those large commercial um cages that would um scrape the seabed yeah so basically the fishermen they just like set up this cage just like just like wait for the fish to swim inside it's the only way that these fishermen know how to fish because like it's a very traditional method it's a very big part of their heritage culture and lively food for a small restaurant like ours that we we can adapt to what's available like since our um concept is primed to do this like uh we thought yeah let's support these uh fishermen and actually even for meat right so sometimes like our customers ask like then the the meat also filtered on like what can't meet your user we try to do an underrated um protein yeah so like we really like that it's very underrated and then we try to like present it in different ways in small snacks in our menu or like um underrated cuts of meat you know that may not be the most like fatty or melt in your mouth but it has a very nice like robust meaty flavor by portioning it in a certain way then it's still very very nice was it the lipstick that i did yes what cut was it what was the tendency we try to like source those that you know like have like very interesting like top points so for those of y'all like who don't know about cosmo like would you like to sort of describe your concept so that people can sort of imagine what cosmo is like yeah so we are very small space that um used to seat 16 people but then in copied times um we sit about eight to ten it's like a large communal table um that that sees a very long island and then it's an open concept kitchen so you'll be able to see lisa cooking plating yeah and then this whole restaurant is just run by the two of us so we handle everything um from uh reservations to social media communication so if you dms is it's us yeah it's not on instagram yeah and we put out our content um our pictures yeah our food prep yeah polishing the glasses sweeping the floor you know guys guys it's all as well so it's a very um lean team of two all the guests will arrive at the same time and then we start at the same time and then i'm soft a standard um sticks cup blanc yeah so uh kablang means blank menu yeah so it's something like i said but then um we don't call it omakase because we're not japanese yeah so actually our style is modern european with asian influencers yeah so for us we serve a six course card blog and which will adapt to the ingredients available that's one of the things that i really like um thought was very unique about cosmo and i really enjoy it because a lot of times like i i think i only think about food in that way when i watch like documentaries or when i see like okay like michelin star restaurants where they want to celebrate each ingredient as opposed to like a lot of restaurants in singapore we're just like okay i want to get this noodles like okay then they'll just you know give it to you like that and you don't really think about like the process of who made your food where your food comes from and celebrating the ingredients that were used to make the dish it's a really like homely space it looks like you went into someone's like dining room like coming to a friend's house yeah like open concept kitchen lisa's like doing her thing she's like preparing and cooking and then there's like books you know there's like kombucha little stations and it's just like you know spices and like different like sauces and i even had like a tour around the kitchen and i saw the very well organized spices so it's like just such a nice and like homey space it feels very very intimate also and like she does go around because she's like the booster so she will like go around and show you okay these were the tomatoes on the vine you know i didn't know that like so much of our food is being like so heavily filtered to the point that like there's so much wastage going on and then there's nothing that like consumers can do about it also because we don't even know for countries that have more agricultural um farms they produce their own food you know like a lot of these ingredients are filtered by the farmers themselves all the oddly uh maybe carrots you know like those that like twist around or they have like two legs yeah yeah they're like super cute like the real the og ugly right it's called yoji like they are filtered um by the farmers themselves and then like in those countries they will have like different like programs to utilize they would like maybe go to a production to be messed made into soups you know or like uh yeah batch roasted you know it's not so good yeah like they have their own ways of handling it for singapore we are more um import um focused um country so that's why we have a lot of like filtering based on fair very like commercial reasons so for example maybe the fruit or vegetable you know it's too big or too long um to fit the packaging um then then they cannot cannot put it in right and then or maybe it's not uniform enough the color is not it's not nice you know sometimes like eggplant that is like maybe like sheltered by the leaves and then they don't become as purple yeah yeah we actually um took home the not so purple eggplant and then another eggplant and then we cooked it in variety of ways yeah just to test the texture the flavor nothing changed yeah so they're all the same yeah it's only the the color that's the that's the problem yeah so like based on these specifications these are filtered like sometimes like the uh maybe the media they will be a bit confused about what kind of ingredients we're actually using so sometimes the media will come in to our restaurant and i was like hey you got uglier vegetables not ugly like like like very nice air like [Music] that they have in my life which is like what we commonly see online that's cool it's so interesting like how did you even come about like setting up cosmo with this kind of a concept like how did you find out about like the the many many steps of like filtering of food yeah i was working in maine in the u.s uh land of the lobsters i was there for my externship so what's that it's like an internship overseas oh it's like internship excellent shape okay okay yeah so i was there working in a restaurant on a farm called primo we grew our own vegetables fruits we have our own layer hands so we have our own eggs that we harvest every day we we take care of pigs as well and then from from little piglets all the way up we try to understand our produce as much as possible if we don't grow them ourselves we source from within a few miles around us yeah so that was where i kind of grew in my appreciation for food and where it comes from so food source and then when i came back to singapore i was wondering what do we take pride in here do we know about the stuff that we can actively or easily grow in singapore locally farmed or even wild edibles i was very curious about what's the food system like here because i can't park and play the restaurant on the farm kind of concept in singapore right yeah it's just a different place all together but then like choose journey was a little bit different i actually uh went on a like a business study mission with my school so we went to scandinavia which is like um norway sweden denmark and these are like the countries that you know are very big on sustainability so over there like we really saw like many many different um systems and different ways of doing things and i think like um back when i returned to singapore like we were just like sharing with each other you know what we both um saw from our trips overseas working in the industry um we sometimes we see our sheriffs you know maybe when they're receiving the ingredients and then they will reject them and then we always wonder like where do these rejected ingredients go to like like what happens to them yeah but then we just like like like lazy lions we're never gonna find out but after like we we've gone out and gotten more perspective like it prompted us to like really like go and find out um some answers to these questions that we always had we actually like co-called a lot of like importers yeah and then of course like not everybody like replied like but then those they were very nice and then like they actually took us on a tour around the facility yeah so as we went around and we were like hey this one is filtered like why why like what's the issue and then we were so like shocked like to find out so like like these are actually like reasons for uh why um this produce will never make it to your plate yeah and it's actually more of a logistic problem because we also like really deeply empathize with the importers yeah so they are in a very difficult spot right like they have to make sure that you know we import enough you know for food security you know and then um you have to make sure that um like this remains profitable you know in a way that um like timing is everything like actually fresh fruits and vegetables they are very time sensitive and then um so if there's like some something went wrong in like the planning or like the ordering or the delivering all the shoes yeah the treatment sometimes a container of like bananas are being stuck out at sea so like a little delay in that like container arriving in singapore like could cause um like a mess ripening of these bananas yeah so so like a lot of factors uh uh are not really in their hands yeah and also the importers they are not in a very good position um to do um like b2c sale just a heads up b2c means business to consumer that's why i didn't know so i had to like find out yeah yeah the importers cannot sell it to the end consumer directly yeah so because like they they would spoil the market you know for their um their clients which are the wholesalers and um retailers yeah so it's like some of our importers they were really like curious to to to meet us like they were just wondering like why you like why why am i there these two young like singaporeans like trying to like like find out more about this yeah and like what we were going to do with this information actually and then we just like look at them just like oh we don't know yet we just like wanted to find out yeah so i think back then after uh we realized it you know we thought hey we want to sell vegetables like do like a similar like a logistic business but then like the tricky thing about these aesthetically filtered fruits and vegetables is that like they're so like volatile uh in singapore fmb basically you order uh everything from fresh fruits and vegetables all the way to like dry goods like you know salt pepper you know all from what you can order them from one supplier so it's like um people value the the convenience it's like more of taking everything on the checklist and submitting it you know i reorder yeah yeah but to handle um the weekly conversations like what's available this week like what's being filtered and then like having to adjust the menu based on that you know that's something that not many people um can do like larger um like chain concepts that could really make a difference by utilizing more of these ingredients right they're not really actually empowered to make these decisions because they follow a lot of standardized recipes everything is being approved by the executive chef or the group chef and then they follow the recipes uh everything down to the plating you know um they uh they cannot change that yeah yeah so like how how how do you ask these concepts to adapt to these um weekly volatile ingredients yeah on the other side it's not so easy to predict what's available because i mean that's the way food waste is right like if you can predict it then there won't be any ways yeah exactly so for us we realized that this is not gonna work out yeah and we also know like other companies that are doing it so i shout out our friends at three dots yeah so like i think like we um also they also from um smu yes yeah and then since true is from smu yeah i'm from yeah so um back back then we also spoke to them and they actually shared with us um like um what they're struggling with which is a lot on um you know on the demand side so we just realized that overall the attraction is not there um the awareness is not there and um we were really i think like there was this like one night we were both like sitting in the living room like in my house and we're just like so both of us were thinking of the same thing so we were thinking like oh man this cannot work no no we had to go back to the drawing board we realized that our skill sets right it's not like logistic business you know we know nothing about it and for us our skill set is in um fmb operations yeah so both lisa and i we uh graduated from domestic body uh canary and catering management yeah so um we we we know like fmb now you know food ops and we thought like let's just try uh this concept sorry that's very loud that's what we thought you know maybe maybe we should do something like like like a restaurant yeah actually opening a restaurant it's not we never dreamed of yeah a lot of people think we are achieving our dreams actually like we didn't see that i would open a restaurant yeah it just it just happened it came about because we wanted to like target this yeah they should have that creative freedom to use the ingredients yeah it's more of making a point that like this this can be done you know so we thought let's do uh six courses you know utilizing uh a lot of these ingredients and then um we turn into a more refined food so that's like more of like a um like a short venue factor yeah it's like it's like hope like these uh are deemed unworthy for the retailers uh to be on the shelves and it's optimal freshness uh actually it's like very very good produce yeah and then uh for us to utilize it in our concept so back then we uh did pop-ups regularly like while we were doing this pop-up thing then uh one day we received a uh like a it was a very random like text yeah hi uh lisa what are you up to these days yeah and then i just told so that was one of the executives we become friends really and then like he approached uh me asking like what's up then i shared film and i was like oh this concept is very interesting so we we had an opportunity to to pitch this idea so yeah yeah it was it was quite it was fast quite intense but the good thing is that because we've been doing the concept the pop-up right and then we had we had a lot of things answered for our concept yeah so we had good information to share with them yeah and also i think like back then we already like talked through how we're gonna like phrase certain things you know like how we're gonna like uh convey convey these messages back then when we were doing the pop-ups we really like saved that last so for all the profits that we got from like running um the pop-ups we just like pulled together to make a seat fan and then from there we used it to um i know like to do r d we try not to take money from our families like yeah so for us we wanted to do this like all by ourselves yes yeah so eventually we uh embarked on a joint venture it's a restaurant that's like just one by two people we had a lot of like tough choices to make such as like whether we want to use um disposable napkins in our place yeah so far we realized that it's just like very difficult to win all battles yeah you have to pick your battles so for us it's a bit difficult to do like uh like like cloth napkins you know to do to launder them it's just like doesn't make economic sense for us so we chose this was one of the necklace that's made by um recycled paper you know sfc certified so empty deforestation all that good stuff like we had to make the decisions that make the most um sense like to us when we were thinking like how we want to present ourselves you know we wanted it to be very clear from the start that we are not going to market ourselves as a sustainable restaurant so this is because like you know sustainability is a very big word you know it's like the best word everyone wants to be sustainable you know every company every restaurant yes like for us it's kind of like lost i mean lost me yeah yeah you have to like label yourself as like like green washing the same way that a lot of people are doing it for like the trend exactly so for us we feel like we don't really know what this word means anymore and then um even for ourselves like we felt a bit like like daunted you just wanted this process to be you know like not so intimidating you know like little steps uh that we call like thoughtfulness whatever that makes uh the most sense uh for you in your in your lifestyle you know you can just like take these um small changes um yeah like it doesn't have to be like a very big overhaul yeah yeah overnight chain yeah of like what you have going on in your life yeah so that's not that's not what what we want yeah so for us we introduced all of these um things in cosmo so like we uh like these um little um scrap pieces of wood so actually back then uh lisa made an electric guitar out of wood an electric guitar yeah play i i can't no i can't cheat a little bit uh she claims i i've never i've never heard anything but she claims that she knows a little bit now yeah slowly it's a little bit my time so she was at the workshop and then over there she saw a lot of these like scrap pieces of wood and just like why why are these not used and uh so some of them my friends there they told me that um these are considered set wood so set wood is a part in in a huge uh tree trunk that is that has grains that are a little bit too complex for using to make like furniture and things like that they are not able to use it but for us we just needed a small little thing so i asked them if they could cut it for me and then i would design it to fit our cutter release yeah so she hand sent everything uh for the shop that i was like for two days remember the one of the plates as well like had like um used was it muscle oyster shells like the mother muscle shells yeah so they have like bits of like muscle shell embedded into a resin eco resin for us we collected um the shells and then we collaborated for a local company and then we made these like plates uh with the little um muscle um shell like like shards or like chips yeah so it's like it's like a terrezzo style um cool resin plate right yeah yeah so far for these this um if you like chip or break them like you know you put um a send it back to them and they would um bring them apart you know melt them they can cast a new plate so this can be um repairable but then the tricky part is to make sure that there's a food safe like a glaze on it yeah because like the the eco resin can be a little bit porous so to make sure that there's no like bacteria like stuck in there and so for us we also use other plates i don't know that are um porcelain yeah so for those um you know when you fire things like pottery or porcelain like they don't uh come out the same each time you know like that could be a bit of a speck or maybe the glaze not even yeah so um for our our supplier like they took all of these plates and then they replaced them they're so in a way that each plate is unique yeah so we was like wow that's the that's the cosmo of the plates and we really wanted to use them in our restaurant yeah so we made like little decisions that make sense for us as a concept yeah and also like um we use like tapal boxes you know so like they are um plastic containers you know like those that you guys will see everywhere yeah or like even feel guilty uh like using about using yeah yeah but actually i think we're here to like like to tell you that it's just like it's a very okay thing yeah like to use disposable as in to use those plastic boxes yeah as long as they're not single used actually we had we have a friend who works with um wwf and then so she was sharing with us that actually like these plastic containers are the next best like packaging uh as compact don't know like bring your own containers i mean that's the best yeah but if you can't if you didn't bring your own container and i think it's best to do is to actually um take those plastic containers and then use them yeah yeah because if you if you use like those like paper packaging or like um like compostable packaging you know like you're not able to reuse them yeah i know i think like during circuit breaker we all saw like how everybody like become bakers you know yeah we all bake like food and then we cook extra like goodies and then we can put in those stapler boxes and we send it to our family and friends so in a way so it's a good way to reuse it yeah so as long as you like can we use it you know those compostable um packaging you know once it's dirty you can currently use it yeah you kind of use it you can kind of recycle it yeah you can only like throw it away and we are not big on on composting like like too much easy cultural focus yeah it's like it takes a lot of um space um a lot of time we want to be able to do composting like like we we try like lisa i've been uh i've been growing some worms oh yeah yeah like worm composting so it's very minimal if not no smell at all yeah and then it's like layers of it yeah like trays right exactly you put a little bit of fluid in there they'll eat through it and then what comes out is good fertilizer for your plants but it's a slower process yeah yeah for a country like ours you know that it's not so focused or big on composting it's best to use them the plastic containers that can be um reused for our restaurant you know those containers like we use it to store like food bread yeah so they are they're clear they're at height you know they're stackable you know you can actually like it's very neat you can see what's in there we don't use plastic you know but minimal and not single use uh we are not zero waste like we do have food scraps as much as me like try to use the entirety of each ingredient you know that i guess for sure gonna be in some ways la yeah so that's why we didn't want to like um turn ourselves to term ourselves as a sustainable restaurant first i feel like it's a very big word and it's a very big thing to commit to that and yeah and if you if it's not like conflict properly you know it's it's gonna backfire yeah yeah it's interpreted yeah then the expectations like when you term yourself as sustainable is a lot higher so yeah like even as an individual like let's say i'm like trying to learn more about sustainability i'm trying to be more sustainable then like the one time that i like take like an ntuc bag instead of like my own bag and it sounds like oh my gosh she's she's a hypocrite she's a liar yeah yeah but they become like bin liners also okay you wanting to be more conscientious about like what you're consuming and what goes to waste and like you know this idea of being perfect and having everything like be no ways yeah exactly when we hit circuit breaker right well it was very tough for us yes yes that we had to like find ways to keep the like restaurant going you know we need to we need to have some revenue we were so unprepared on the packaging but yeah because the food supply like still coming in it's usually no change yeah yeah oh yeah interesting yeah and then we were we were just thinking like because our concept is not something that is um so easily scalable that no can be on your delivery platform like grab food or food banner yeah so we had to like look into other methods of retail then we have our um artisanal bread um spreads yeah and then a bottled kombucha yes that's what we were doing more on that yeah so i think like back when uh right like they have source for a lot of things like locally and just prompted us to think about what about us singaporeans you know like what do we truly take pride in you know like we don't even know what grows in our land yeah so i think like it prompted us to check out more of our local farms yeah so we visited a lot of them and we cold called them like hey can you take us on the 12. no more yeah no more and then we will be like like touring the the farms by things to eat like you think you can just call them and they'll be like yeah i'll come down like it's well it depends if they have yeah yeah some of the farms they have like they already have we really pores to visit but then like it was quite hard to to get through contact then to contact them we came back we found them at another like exhibition yeah like a trade show yes also so there she was our farmer [Laughter] [Music] what's going on yeah and then from there we discover like like new new suppliers you know even like the rice yeah rice supplier that's cool yeah so like shout out to golden sun then yeah yeah like support singaporean companies yeah as much as possible and our local farmers we try to feature more local and locally grown edibles so these grow effortlessly in our tropical climate and they grow everywhere like they could even be weeds that you see maybe yeah avoid that growing around you but then you just never notice them and you're never gonna eat and you never knew them also like we have the wild pepper so it's a very tender and fragrant leaf it's a bit different from the pepper plant which is like can be very thick and coarse so that the wild pepper is really nice actually we've seen it growing like beneath like hdb blocks yes yeah you can check yours maybe your one half what does it look like it looks a little bit like a beetle leaf just then the veins come from the the end of the stem and not from the middle part is it red color unless it's entirely dark green all right the other one is yeah i just saw them yesterday i was very impressed so those are edibles but one of my blog yours from the hdb yeah of course they will have pesticides yeah so we get others from organic farms so basically these species they just like drive very well in our climate and then also like like things like ulam raja you know wow really good uh even the flowers edible and like yeah so they're very pretty and very flavorful and then they grow so easily so why not we support it more things like that and and all these uh native edibles they are very nutritious as well when we present the dish and then we whenever you say oh this is uh um so and so this is an edible beet that you can find just like i've never seen this in my life and then they start talking yeah and then they will start to have little conversations which is what we really wanted so like where do you see yourselves like going with cosmo like what what is your what are you trying to do what's your end game yeah yeah that's a tough one yeah actually we're not so sure of our end game anymore because of the abandonment it's like like understandably it's um it's been it's been harla and we're not too sure like what's gonna happen but earlier when we started out right it was because uh like we were doing we were trying to do the self-esteem business right yeah but it didn't work out uh and then um for us we thought you know there's not enough traction there's not enough awareness and which is why we decided to you know have this a very conversational dining experience which is why we open cosmo so we actually hope that you know us as end consumers you know when we go into supermarket you know to purchase our which is all of these groceries and ingredients we need to understand that well everything else is so beautiful and uniform right this is this is not how large yeah this is not how nature works nature doesn't work this way i mean if everything like grows to look the same then it's quite scary right yeah so like for like we need to understand that there's a filtering process that that goes through before that la and then perhaps that i don't have like no bad habits like you know like don't don't don't just like press press some people like the lady finger and then like pick the next one it's just to be more uh conscious uh when you do your shopping life and then hopefully you know with a lot of the consumers calling for it you know eventually um perhaps the retailers could like loosen their uh filtering yeah yeah so like if that happens then there will be like much less space and i'm sure like a lot of my viewers will be like quite interested and excited to hear more so because this is the side of the food industry that we really don't get to hear about and like we really often take for granted don't forget to check cosmo out i will leave all of the links down below if you're watching the video if you're listening to the audio then it's k a u s m o yeah on instagram yeah so yeah thank you thank you so much thank you and like you know i don't know how to end videos [Music] alright so that was chew and lisa i hope you guys enjoyed the episode i know i did i really enjoy all of my conversations with them it's so exciting we did ramble on for quite a bit and i don't really have the heart to cut it out so there's still more to come so what i'm gonna do is just put it up on youtube as like a bonus and anyone can watch it i've taken down the patreon side i think it was just like not really intuitive and um yeah you can just watch it for free in a few days time it'll be up so stay tuned for it and in that q a you will get to know chill and lisa better as people as well and just like just hang out with us friends law i think it's really really fun so yeah um with that thank you so much for joining us today it's been fun i'll be back hopefully sooner yeah i like really want to switch up the whole like format i think the intro might be a little long i don't know if you guys like actually like me talking or if you just like skip forward because i know when i rewatch like the episodes and stuff i just like skip my butt but let me know let me know what you guys prefer let me know if you would like something a little bit more current a little bit like shorter maybe we can just have like a commentary like you know we can i don't know i don't know let me know what y'all like and then maybe we can like figure something out okay so i'll i'll see you soon i i can't wave it's a podcast bye [Music] the moment you open the hand you will try no no please nobody you're cute no no look at me nobody sit wait okay [Music] you're embarrassing mama stop it if this gets edited out make sure you flip it for me about the traditions please use this so i didn't know that these things were like you just bought me so cute hey i love you too oh my god [Music] great

Channel: Brenda Tan

Views: 1,001

Rating: 4.8709679 out of 5

Keywords: food, cooking, recipe, growing pains, slurp, brenda tan, wordweed, singapore, real talk, eatbook, comfort, kausmo, krusty, les amis, thesmartlocal, waste, sustainability, podcast, chai me, preetipls, netflix, seaspiracy, grwm, chat, lifestyle, foodie, malaysia

Id: AxadiUuE7p8

Length: 51min 57sec (3117 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 30 2021