Project Dignity

7th Oct

Ms Single Mother and The Blind Boy turn up today. I was very relief. My gut feel tells me that they will succeed in Dignity Kitchen.

The overview of the strategies for starting up Dignity Kitchen is in three phases.

Phase 1 get the food good. I sincerely believe that the food has to be good, real good. Only when it is real good will customer overlook your disabilities. Customer may buy from you the first time out of sympathy but for their second coming or the third coming, the food must be the main attraction. Plan to spend the whole of October to get the food good.

Phase 2 get the food right. The process and the system must be in place to ensure hygiene and food safety. Customer may have a perception that disabled people serve dirty food. Perception has to be overcome. Will spend the month of November getting the food process and hygiene in place. Easier said than done.

Phase 3 get the food promoted. This is the hard part. May have to spend money to get the promotion.

Coming back to the stall happening. Stall No. 2 sells Nasi Lemak. The food has to be good. So for the stall 2, we break down into the various food component and find the best chef to teach them.

First the chicken wings,there were many things to consider - there is the size of chicken wing, the seasoning of the wings and also the final appearance. I eat more chicken in one day than I ever eat in a year, all for the sake of culinary excellence. We were fortunate that we have one of the top chef to marinate and cook the chicken. By the end of the day we have a dilemma - what chicken wing do we want to sell- the traditional wings which is small and dry or the chicken wing which will suit the current customers who are brought up on KFC type and taste. I decided on the latter because of cost and profit factor. Then is the issue of the rice, otah and sambal chili which we decided to stick with the traditional. Next is the EGG. Yes, is it going to be fried egg or sunshine egg, which is easy to cook but not so healthy, boiled egg which is easy to boil and serve but not traditional or cooked egg omelet which has higher margin (put lots of milk) but not attractive.

Whoever tell you that starting a stall is easy, think again. Basically at the end of the day it is a case of trial and error.