Angola's biggest EVER cake and Olympic Theme Night

Well here it is! After 50Kg flour, 480 Eggs, 25Kg Sugar, 10Kg Butter, 10Lt Cream, 3Kg Coconut, several pints of blood, a bucket of sweat and even a few tears, our 10ft long Olympic running track cake was finally completed and was the finishing touch to our Olympic themed dinner.

We keep setting ourselves new challenges with our theme nights, always endeavoring to give our customers something new and interesting to look at when they come to the dining hall. This time it was particularly challenging as the the only ex-pat chefs here are myself and Murthy so we needed our Angolan colleagues to really step up this time around and they didn't let us down!

The whole team worked their socks off and both the day shift and night shift deserve massive praise for all their hard work. In particular Fernando Angelina who made all the sponges and helped Murthy and I put the monster cake together. Also Antonio Casimiro, Marthinho Domingos, Helena Nuzi Samo and Antonio Capita who all came in on their time off to assist with the preparations.

Olympic web menu from Steve Hooper


We even had some external input for this dinner with Cheg-chai from the Warehouse team making an authentic Thai Noodle Soup which was absolutely delicious.

Its beer o'clock here now in Malongo so I will add more photos tomorrow!

Luanda: The capital of Angola, the most expensive city in the world | Mail Online

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The Warehouse Team Awards!

A few months ago, after a particularly busy period in the Warehouse, the Warehouse team were rewarded with a small celebration and award ceremony for their hard work.

These shows of appreciation are well received by the staff and they value the recognition from the senior management. Not to mention the excellent Thai food cooked by Cheg Chai!  

Without these guys our operation would fall flat on its face. The Supply Chain here throws us different challenges each and every week, but the Project Managers, Warehouse managers and their teams always manage to overcome the all too frequent obstacles. Which is just as well as if they didn't there wouldn't be any food for us to cook leaving a lot of hungry and angry customers!

Eric (wakey wakey), Cheg Chai and Helena.

The Warehouse Bandidos!

'Thank you'

Helena thanking the team for all their hard work - I just managed to sneak into this pic! 

Abroaa receiving his award for always being completely immaculate and never getting his hands dirty! . 

The part the team really looked forward to.......Chop Chop! (Food!).

American Independence Dinner 4th July

Probably one our most successful theme nights to date, this years 4th July Dinner proved to be a big hit with our customers! 

This time we introduced a Hot Dog Stand (soon to be regular dining hall feature), and a Candy buffet! These features, along with our usual home made desserts and novelty cakes, ensured that the entire dinner was a success and a huge thank you goes out to all the staff for making this happen. 

Special thanks go to Juke who brought back all the USA paraphernalia from the UK to decorate the stands and displays, Murthy for his excellent work on the Cakes and Dining Hall, and to Alex for ensuring the meal itself was up to its usual high standard!  

These theme nights, although hard work for the whole team, are very rewarding and we always look forward to them as it give us all a real opportunity to show off! 

We bought all the confectionery from our local suppliers in Cabinda!

Murthy again excelled with his Watermelon carvings

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A great success, the Hot Dog Stand will now make regular appearances in the Dining Hall!

Marthino Domingos! King of Hot Dogs!

The 'Vegas' cake! 

The USA cake. Fantastic.

The Bakery team got involved this time around and did a great job with the bread.

 A lot of the Fresh Fruit is from local suppliers and always enhances our service. 

Force India! 

Paulo Vicente - remembering to put the butter on the corn! 

Juke and Eric - Candy thieves! 

Nelson, Frenchy. Alex, Rafael, Conde, Kulongo, Joao Conde, Paulo Vicente and Matela!

Carvery Theme Night

Some Pictures of our Carvery dinner on Sunday 30th June.

Straight from the front line............

Hahahaha gimping myself up for the camera.

Ninja, Murthy and Mauro - No matter how hard they paddled, they couldn't get the Panella to move!

Chimpolo AKA - Cake Boss!

Stand Up for Safety.........hilarious, apparently. 

Eric Walker (Project Manager and my boss!!) and Alex Gomes my other outstanding Indian kitchen supervisor!

Murthy's Boat Cake

The success of our Big Mama  cake (previous post) has given us a new platform to explore as we are now getting in a few orders for themed cakes! This one was for the Mooring team down at Malongo Dock! 

We are limited to basic butter icing and food colouring so its pretty fun trying to do these and we dont take it too seriously, however the clients are paying for these cakes so we like to do our very best!

Keep watching for more cakes later! 

Making Boerewors! (South African Sausage)

These are two very determined South African gents (Riaan and Grobbies) who came and made a huge batch of Boerwors the other evening. Not only did they bring all their own ingredients, including spice and skins from South Africa, they also designed and made me a Sausage tube for my mincing machine! 

After completing their Safety brief and signing the waver which allowed them to use my butchery without hats on (*Ahem)  they got stuck right in! They also had some assistance from Linda, Emma and Heidi. 

I am going to trial these on our Private Function Menu, and if they go as well as expected we should make a tidy profit! Everyone wins!

The team get stuck in, assisted by Heidi and her radioactive arm! 

The finished article! Delicious! 

Happy Father's Day!

Being away from your Kids is tough but receiving these kind of photos goes a long way to making it easier. Happy Fathers day to all Dads! 

Blanket Man

Sleeping on the flight out here can sometimes be difficult with the uncomfortable seats, noise, light etc. Here is how this guy deals with it! (I woke up to this on the flight out last week!). 

Meet .............Blanket Man! Dun dun dah!