AS a young boy growing up in West Malaysia, Azhari Aziz had a dream — to travel and see the world for free.
However, to some of the adults around him, he might as well have asked for the moon as he did not come from a well-to-do family.
“In school, the teacher always asked me what I wanted to be. Every time I answered I wanted to travel around the world and I didn’t want to pay anything.
My teacher laughed at me and asked who would pay for the ticket, accommodation and so on,” the 47-year-old recalled during an interview with thesundaypost.
“But I thought, never mind, I’ll find a way. When I finished my SPM, I realised there were two ways for me to achieve this. One is I become a flight steward but I was too small in size and not handsome also. At that time, options were limited as well because there was only Malaysia Airlines.
“The only other way to go around the world then was to join a merchant navy ship. I applied to join as a deck cadet but I didn’t make it through because I was wearing corrective lenses. So the only way through was through catering, being a chef on board a ship.
“So I went to UiTM (at that time ITM) to pursue a diploma in culinary arts and chef studies. Then I returned to Academy Laut Malaysia for six months. From there, I managed to sail around the world.”
During his eight-year stint on the high seas, Azhari managed to visit every continent and has crossed every major ocean, while getting someone else to pay for his travel and accommodation — quite an achievement for anyone.
His never-say-die attitude helped him to achieve his childhood dream at a relatively young age.
Little did he suspect at that time, that this was just the beginning of his journey into the culinary world and that it would serve him in good stead when he finally moved into the hotel industry.
Azhari is currently the executive chef at Riverside Majestic Hotel, a responsibility that he did not think he would hold when he started out nearly 30 years ago.
It has been a journey full of ups and downs to get to this point, but he has no complaints as he has turned every experience into an opportunity to learn.
Unconventional route
While most of his UTM classmates had gone into the hotel industry after graduation, Azhari chose to work on the high seas. He started working in Malaysia at first before moving to Singapore to continue his career.
Working as a chef on a ship posed a very unique set of challenges compared to working in a hotel kitchen. Among them — finding your sea legs in rough weather, dealing with pots and pans sliding all over the place as you cooked, and adjusting cooking methods and times for cooking with hot plates instead of gas fires.
In addition to this, there was the challenge of catering to the various palates of a multi-national crew.
“For example, when I work on a Singapore ship, not all of the crew were from Singapore. If they are all from the same country, it’s easy. But they are from India, Russia, African countries and so on — their diet and menu are different. That is the challenge. And there’s no guide. You can’t pick up a phone to call your colleague to ask for help as there’s no phone reception in the middle of the ocean,” he shared.
“Wherever you are, you have to adapt to their culture. From there I learned how to cook a variety of dishes. It was a very good experience for me.”
As Malaysians are all too aware of, food can be the catalyst to build rapport and bring people of different backgrounds together. It was the same for Azhari.
“I learned a lot from them (the crew). I asked them what is the food you always eat at home?
Can you share it with me? So they show me and then I cook it back for them. That’s how I learn. I don’t have any chef to teach me.
“Likewise, I also show them how to cook dishes they are not familiar with … like chicken bak kut teh. It’s like a cultural exchange. It makes us more like a family. As I said before, you have to adapt with the culture and environment.”
Culinary journey
After eight years, Azhari left the merchant navy to settle down and start a family. He joined the hotel line. At that time, most of his ex-college mates were already well ahead in their careers as senior staff but Azhari did not see the late start as a disadvantage because of the weight of experience working as a chef on a ship gave him.
“It’s difficult for hotel chefs to adapt to cooking on a ship. On the other hand, for a ship’s chef to adapt to working in a hotel kitchen is an easier switch,” he explained.
Except for a brief stint where he ran his own business, he has worked in the hotel line in various states for about 20 years — four of them in Kuching.
Compared to when he was first starting out, there are more education and career opportunities for chefs, not just in Malaysia but overseas as well, he noted.
Thanks to mass media programming and the popularity of food channels such as the Asian Food Channel and Food Network, public interest in fine dining and the culinary arts has also increased.
Likewise, thousands of Malaysian students are enrolling in culinary courses every year.
However, the drop-out rate for culinary students is very high and most trainees will never make it to chefs because they cannot handle the pressure, he told thesundaypost.
“By my rough estimation, only 10 per cent of trainees will become successful chefs. This is because their expectations don’t match reality.
“They get the perception from TV that being a chef is glamourous but in real life, it is not like that. You can say it is full of sh**t. Only tough individuals can make it through.
“The new generation of chefs are lucky in that they are able to further their studies in universities compared to when I was a trainee when most of the chefs behaved more like gangster.
“Many of them did not go beyond SPM. The way they treat you is like anjing, they can throw plate, knife at you and they don’t control their tempers. Like Gordon Ramsey.
“There’s nothing glamourous about culinary. To get good pay, yes. To become a chef, you must suffer a lot. You lose your social life. I lost my social life.
“When people go karaoke or watch movie, you cannot because you are still working.
If people go clubbing, you cannot because you are tired and have to wake up early. If you are married, you have to go home to take care of your family. So (it’s not surprising) turnover is very high.”
He advised those thinking of joining the culinary line to think carefully about why they wanted to cook before committing.
“Suka masak and becoming a chef are different things.
Culinary world is not easy. No matter if you have a diploma, degree, masters or PhD, you start your career at the bottom. It’s not like other careers where you can become the boss or manager straight out of university.
“School is meant to be the backup to the hotel kitchen, not the other way around. Culinary is all about experience. It’s not about paper. Paper just helps you with the knowledge to climb the ladder faster. You start as a kitchen helper and work your way up to become a chef.”
Recipe for success
When asked what characteristics were necessary to succeed in the culinary line, Azhari said individuals must be disciplined and always open to learning and new experiences.
He added that the most valuable tools a person has were their eyes to observe what the senior chefs did and how they cooked, and after that, their mouth to ask for help or for clarification.
“I have met trainees who assume they have learnt everything they need to know from their lecturers and have the mindset that the way they were taught is the (only) right way. This is not so. All chefs have their own style, their own recipe.
“For example, when you work in a kitchen, you see the chef cooking curry a different way from what you were taught in school. Use your eyes as you do your work. Then when you go home after your shift, you write down what you have seen. The next day, you ask the chef, I noticed you did this when you make curry — is this correct?
“The chef will either tell you yes or no and show you what he did. If you don’t ask, no one will show you, not like in school. And instead of having just one recipe for cooking curry, you now know two recipes. This is what I did when I first started and it has served me well.”
Azhari attributes his ability to persevere through hard times to his humble upbringing.
“I’m just from an average family. Say, for example, I want to quit to do business, if my business collapses, there is no one to help me — there is only myself. I can either go ahead or go back because you have a family to support, you can only go ahead. It’s like a marathon, you can only go in one direction, whether you like it or not,” he explained.
Marathon chef
At first glance, being a chef may seem to have little in common with running marathons but Azhari, an avid long distance runner, feels they complement each other.
“The thing I see in both that I have is discipline and how it is applied. In cooking, I must have discipline to create dishes. You must have passion and be eager, so when you cook, you cook from the heart.
“Like how your mother cooks something for you — she cooks from her heart. Even a simple char kuey tiaw will taste nice because it comes from the heart. Being a chef, you have to do that.
“The same with marathons — you have discipline and you are doing it from the heart because you like it and have passion to finish the race.
“You have discipline to be come a good chef, and likewise to run a marathon. You cannot decide you will stop after just one kilometre You must persevere.
“When I see older runners, I think to myself, if they can run, why not me? Same as last time, if the chef could cook, why not me? I can do anything they can do, as long as I want it.”