Probationary Firefighter at New Ubin Seafood & Chief Oven Cleaner at Garang Grill
“This is like the real shit. Every day you fight fires and it makes you feel more alive.”
There’s a reason why Jeremy calls himself a ‘Probationary Firefighter’ and ‘Chief Oven Cleaner’. Because F&B isn’t always the most glamorous thing.
He’s an engineer with food in his blood.
“I did a Material Science Engineering degree in NTU and went into F&B straight away.
Well, it’s not really a jump. Essentially it comes down to the same thing. It’s all about taking raw materials and processing them into a finished product in the end. It doesn’t matter if it’s organic or not organic, food or not food. It’s all about making things work — like quality control is a big thing in material science, so whether you’re looking at quality control of a batch of sauce versus a batch of sheeted steel, it doesn’t really matter.
I was doing private dining since before University, so I was always dabbling in food. Why food? Because there’s an immediate gratification on the faces of the people that you are cooking for. My whole family cooks, we’ve always been able to feed ourselves, and I just figured out I would rather be in a kitchen than doing stuff in a lab.
I do what I do because there’s nothing else, right? Nothing else that will make you feel happy and satisfied at the end of the day. This is like the real shit. Every day you fight fires and it makes you feel more alive.”
Craziest incident?
“My first place was a shophouse in Kampung Bahru. I came into my shop one day, I opened the door, and it was raining. So I went upstairs to the kitchen and a pipe had burst. So pipe burst never mind right? But then, a floating piece of nonsense had been washed out and blocked the drainage. So the whole place was flooded. So it was seriously raining downstairs…”
Interested in working with Jeremy? Apply for open positions at New Ubin Seafood’s upcoming new outlet at CHIJMES on Rezhelp!
About Rezhelp:
We’re an F&B community for people who love what they do. We believe there’s nothing stronger than inspiration in action.
