Saturday May 17, 2008
Bonding over a caviar dish
By DAVID TAN
CORDON Noir Gourmet Society, which recently celebrated its 20th anniversary at Equatorial Hotel in Penang, is a most unusual society.
It has no membership fee or rules but there must be caviar available at every meal attended by its members.
Founder and president Jochen Kern, 58, said the Cordon Noir Gourmet Society was a camaraderie club.
Unusual club: Kern holding the society's 20th anniversary logo design. “I founded it with two other friends in Beijing while we were working there in 1988. At that time, foreigners were not allowed to mixed around with the locals.
“So in order to socialise with the other ex-patriates in Beijing, we decided to form the society,” he said in an interview.
Kern, with 42 years of working experience as a chef, was working at Lido Hotel in Beijing when he founded the society. To become a member is simple.
“All you have to do,” he said, “is to organise and pay for a dinner for six members in the society which must include the executive or founding gourmet and their spouses.
“The dinner must have a caviar dish and meet the high standards of the club,” he said.
Kern said the caviar dish was made compulsory because it was an exclusive item that enhanced the society’s prestige.
From three members when it first started, the society now has 298 members with nine branches in Thailand, Malaysia, Bali, Singapore, China, Germany, Hong Kong, Mexico, and Abu Dhabi.
Now the executive chef at the Equatorial Hotel in Kuala Lumpur, Kern said the society would organise a big anniversary dinner for its members every 10 years which could be held anywhere in the world.
“For the normal yearly anniversary dinner, the members would just celebrate in their respective countries,” he said.
Some 50 members from all over the world attended the society’s recent 20th anniversary dinner at Equatorial Hotel in Penang.
The highlight of the event was the induction of Equatorial Hotel Penang general manager Siegfried Steindl as the society’s newest member. Steindl hosted and cooked the anniversary dinner.
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