{"id":2229,"date":"2016-10-22T03:54:35","date_gmt":"2016-10-22T02:54:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www2.ift.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/?p=2229"},"modified":"2021-04-08T11:35:37","modified_gmt":"2021-04-08T03:35:37","slug":"savouring-the-flavours-of-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/savouring-the-flavours-of-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Savouring the flavours of life"},"content":{"rendered":"\u4e2d\u6587\u6458\u8981 \/ Summary in Chinese<\/span>\n

IFT Executive Assistant Manager for Food and Beverage Mr. David Wong has 2 passions in life: eating and drinking. Luckily for him, they go together, and they keep him busy at work and in his spare time. \u201cA whole day related to food and wine is good fun. It\u2019s not really a job,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Mr. Wong oversees the IFT Educational Restaurant on the Mong-H\u00e1 Campus and IFT Caf\u00e9 on the Nam Van Lake waterfront, and teaches courses to do with food and wine at the Institute. Mr. Wong also puts his knowledge of food and wine to work when outside IFT. He is regularly invited to judge food or wine competitions, and he writes restaurant reviews and other sorts of articles about food and wine for several publications.<\/p>\n

The Macau Culinary Association, of which Mr. Wong is a founding member, regularly puts on cooking competitions and training sessions given by chefs brought in from abroad. The association also does charity work, cooking special meals for orphanages in Macao on festive occasions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do I talk about other than wine and food?\u201d Mr. Wong replies when asked. \u201cFootball,\u201d he says. He is a fan of English Premier League side Tottenham Hotspur.<\/p>\n

Life in the kitchen<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mr. Wong was born in Hong Kong. His family moved to Britain when he was 4 years old. It was there that he trained to be a chef. He holds a master degree in hospitality management from the University of Birmingham.<\/p>\n

\u201cI studied and worked as a chef in the United Kingdom for more than 20 years, including some time in France,\u201d he says. \u201cAfter leaving the UK, my goal was to go to Hong Kong and just work there for a year or so, and go back to the UK. But it didn\u2019t happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, Mr. Wong came to Macao, to work at the old Mandarin Oriental hotel, now called the Grand Lapa hotel. Then he went to work in Thailand and Singapore. In 2004, he returned to Macao and joined IFT. When he began working in education, Mr. Wong missed \u201csome of the buzz you get\u201d from being a chef, he says. But now, he adds, he does not miss it so much.<\/p>\n

From the IFT Mong-H\u00e1 Campus, Mr. Wong has witnessed what he calls the \u201camazing\u201d developments in Macao\u2019s hospitality business since the liberalisation of the gaming industry in 2002. Macao now has many good restaurants and puts on a lot of events to do with food, he says. But it still lacks the variety Hong Kong offers, he notes.<\/p>\n

Mr. Wong enjoys keeping himself up to date with Macao\u2019s food and drink scene by visiting new restaurants. He says it is a mistake to think good food and drink are to be had only in the city\u2019s posh places to dine. Good eating and drinking \u201cdoesn\u2019t have to be too expensive\u201d, he says. \u201cIt just has to be good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Wong is quite capable of switching off his expert\u2019s analytical mind and just relaxing and enjoying a meal. \u201cGive me a glass of wine and I\u2019m relaxed,\u201d he says. He particularly enjoys Portuguese wine and Pinot Noir, especially from Burgundy.<\/p>\n

His cooking talent is occasionally put back into service by cooking at home. \u201cBut I don\u2019t like the washing up,\u201d he says. He has 2 children, both studying abroad.<\/p>\n

When Mr. Wong travels \u2013 which he enjoys \u2013 a travelling companion is his passion for food and wine. \u201cI like to go out to visit wineries, to see the nature, the grapes, to enjoy good wine and good food,\u201d he says. South Africa and New Zealand have left a deep impression.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe wine and food, the food and wine: always together,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

IFT Executive Assistant Manager for Food and Beverage Mr. David Wong has 2 passions in life: eating and drinking. Luckily for him, they go together, and they keep him busy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":2230,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[330,150,332,333,185,331,408],"class_list":["post-2229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-utm-life","tag-david-wong","tag-educational-restaurant","tag-executive-assistant-manager","tag-food-and-beverage","tag-hospitality","tag-macau-culinary-association","tag-profile"],"views":383,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2229"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2234,"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2229\/revisions\/2234"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}