Posted by Villa Tempest on 2012/02/11 under Uncategorized | Comments are off for this article
With our imminent move to Hamburg, Germany there has been much discussion about what Villa Tempest is and represents. In the past this hasn’t always been clear and this is one of the risks that comes from small business startups that don’t have a clear vision or focus OR change direction mid-stream.
firstly, Villa Tempest started out as an idea, a simple idea, the name of a family home. From that came the desire to build a business around the idea of “Bed and Breakfast.” That this would be a family business opportunity for us in Germany. Alas, housing, schooling, changing market demographics, etc. would eventually see this desire evaporate. Our efforts to, in the interim, consolidate and reposition existing businesses, registered business names and to develop supporting services for the B&B concept have left us in reasonably good shape but, they are support services for a business idea that is no longer a focal and driver. What to do?
Looking at what we have it is clear that we have several concepts, all of which, if managed well, can have independent realization. As such, Villa Tempest, conceptually, has been acting as a seeder and incubator of a number of business ideas and an Aggregator of those businesses. Like a Named city office tower, occupied by many disparate businesses, Villa Tempest, though still principally a family home, business-wise it has been more like the provider of space within which these other business ideas could grow and develop. Making this realisation then we come to a new view of what is Villa Tempest, it’s purpose and its goals, thus:
Villa Tempest is a family owned and run, select Business Aggregation & Hosting Service. It principle business aim is to provide an incubation, research and development space, where select businesses, and not-for-profit organizations, can explore and develop the potential market viability of those business or organizational concepts.
Our portfolio includes:
Kongxi-InterSpace-Zwischenraum Ltd (HK) - Consultancy, Garment Production & Quality Assurance
Posted by Villa Tempest on 2012/01/28 under General | Comments are off for this article
It is sad to say that Villa Tempest will be relocating from Vietnam, but our time in Hanoi, is coming to a close.
If you’re interested in taking up and developing the Villa Tempest Pie Concept in Hanoi, please feel free to contact us for some mutually beneficial offline discussions.
We are happy to note though, that we have finally found a suitable new location in Poppenbuettle, Hamburg, Germany and that we are making the final arrangements neccessary to purchase this site.
For your forward planning, last orders will be fulfilled by the end of May. If you’ve been a past customer, we thank for your patronage and hope it will continue until we leave. If you’ve yet to try one of our excellent Australian-style savoury pastries, then we invite you to place an order, soon.
Posted by Villa Tempest on 2011/10/17 under From The Kitchen, General | Comments are off for this article
One: Recently, after a long term of searching, designing, and being told, “No! Can’t be done in Hanoi” we finally took ownership of a manual dough sheeter (Máy cán bột). Having first sighted such an item in the kitchen of Cafe CCCP, we managed to track down and eventually find not only a supplier who knew what we wanted, but was also willing to have it made within a week. No Problem! And they delivered. Here’s what it looks like:
This device was sourced from Nguyen Khuyen Str., and is hand cranked. The roller gap is adjusted by two screws mounted forward of the rollers. Underneath the rollers are two spring loaded pans that are there to stop the pastry rolling around the rollers, but the current mounting system also tends to catch stick pastry from time to time. The stainless steel catch pan was installed by my favorite sheet metal worker in Hang Thiec Str. With this now in the bakery, We plan to use it for making puff pastry and for finishing pastry shells to the correct, set thickness.
Two: Recently we paid a visit to Phong Nha Farmstay near Dong Hoi, to carry out a bit of in-house instruction in the finer art of pie making and I’m looking forward to the welcome news of tasty pies being available in central Vietnam to hungry trekkers, spelunkers and trail blazers.
As a consequence of this we divested ourselves of a few pie tins, and only later found out that the hanoi supplier was no longer bringing them in. Thus we’ve moved over to a small collection of self-cutting pi tins The Pieman had brought back from Australia, last year. This has resulted in a slight change in shape and appearance of our pies. See for yourself:
A batch of pies baking in the oven in our self-cutting pie tins.
…and of course, while putting up pics of our tasty treats, there’s our ever popular,
If you’d like to place an order, feel free to contact us via email.
Posted by Villa Tempest on 2011/09/25 under Uncategorized | Comments are off for this article
Recently, we’ve been reviewing our time in China and some of the many, many dishes we enjoyed. By doing this we’ve managed to nail down a set of dishes we believe encompasses our experiences and would make the Number One’s list.
This of course begs the question, what dishes would make it onto your, all time favourites, Chinese Banquet Menu?
This is our choice of an all time favourite Chinese Banquet
Starter
Kouweisha, and Liang Bang Huanggua or Chuan La Huanggua
Posted by Villa Tempest on 2011/09/01 under General | Comments are off for this article
Just a brief note to let people know that due to administrative issues, Villa Tempest will not b operating a BBQ at this Saturday’s Weekend Market. As negotiations continue, we may be back in the near future. Watch this space.
…And that’s the latest news from the Kitchens of Villa Tempest.
Posted by ThePieMan on 2011/07/08 under From The Kitchen | Comments are off for this article
One of the core philosophies guiding the selection of ingredients in the Villa Tempest Kitchen is the choice to use the best possible products available at the time. For example through the “Friends” network we have acquired Kampot Black Peppercorns and Kampot White Peppercorns so that we can grind fresh spice when needed.
We use Vietnamese Sea Salt because of it’s outstanding savoury flavour. When the need arises we use Tahitian vanilla beans as a flavouring and flavour-melding agent, we use Rau hữu cơ Thanh Xuân Organic Vegetables, and our meat, supplied by Hanoi Small Goods;, usually is Australian Beef and Lamb, which are Halal certified.
In line with this philosophy to use the best quality ingredients we are proud to announce that we are now purposely selecting our chickens & eggs from Naturally Vietnam. These are wonderful products. They are Free Range birds and are produced according to Fair Trade Principles and are traceable back to the producer.
Here are a couple of flyers about these new products being used in our kitchen and a couple of videos.
Posted by ThePieMan on 2011/07/06 under General | Comments are off for this article
After faffing around with various templates for this blog and trying to find something reasonably friendly and matching our preferred colour scheme we’ve finally settled on this current template.It’s simplicity and “I ain’t screaming in your face” layout kind of jells for us. We hope you like the new look and it’s ease of navigation. We look forward to your feedback and comments.
Posted by ThePieMan on 2011/07/04 under From The Kitchen | Comments are off for this article
Well, I guess it’s well past time for an update of what’s actually been going on in the kitchen.
Nothing.
That’s right. No sadder or truer statement can possibly be made. Reasons. I could give you dozens. In essence: I’ve been sick; I’ve lost several batches of fresh produce and meat through power outages caused by faulty supply equipment; and, my pie press is still no closer to being completed, after eight frustrating weeks. Between that, getting frustrated, angry and depressed over the situation, the family traveling back to Germany for the Summer Break, and a very sick cat, I’ve let it all get away from me and grossly out of hand.
If you have placed an order with me, please accept my sincerest apology for not having fulfilled that order. I will make amends and get this sorted.
Current state of the kitchen? We have the house kitchen, and the pastry space is starting to come along: industrial deck oven with granite slab; marble top benches; a two burner station that still needs connection to gas; temperature controlled water oven; two large sinks but no plumbing as yet; some electrical work that still needs to be done; two freezers; one fridge; another cooling cabinet/refrigerator is desperately needed; Pie Press is partially complete; Dough Sheeter is partially complete; Kitchen Mixer needs to be replaced with a dedicated Mincer and Stand Mixer; need some pallets made up to hold the pi tins as they go into the oven because the sheet pans buckle and warp – providing uneven heating of pies being cooked.
Our ordering system, based on an the Handshake App for Apple IPad, worked nicely but the IPad has somehow been trashed. None of us have any idea how this might have occurred. All orders thankfully are being stored in Handshake’s Cloud so past business data has not been lost. And all of this to be done on a shoestring budget largely funded by the orders you place.
All is not lost, just ever so slowly moving forward, but forward we still move. I will be using this summer break to try and bring order to all of this chaos, with the firm target of having proper systems in place that WILL ALLOW for people to place an order, a week in advance. For pickup and delivery, I will continue to maintain a stall at the Weekend Market , as a kind of once a week shopfront.
In the meantime, if you’d like to place an order, or refresh/change an existing order please feel free to contact me and I will give you a realistic and personal assurance of production and delivery.
Posted by ThePieMan on 2011/07/03 under General | Comments are off for this article
As many of our customers are currently away traveling to escape the Summer heat, and since pies are not so popular at this time of year, we have decided to shorten the menu to our current, “Most Popular” items. This will make it easier for us to supply customers who have chosen, like us, to enjoy the humidity, and also to ensure product quality and food security. With this heat, we feel it is necessary to reduce the risk of product loss, caused by intermittent power supply and under utilization of raw ingredients.
Posted by ThePieMan on under General | Comments are off for this article
Just a quick not to let you know that the Tay Ho Weekend Market has closed its doors for its Summer Break. It should be back up and running by the Aug. 20. We at Villa Tempest would like to thank all those who came to the market and sampled our sausages and hamburgers. If you’re traveling during the Summer ‘School’ break, we wish that you have a safe and pleasant journey and look forward to seeing you when you return.
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