We have an Olympics and World Cup winner working in our midst. He is Jason Ong, 28, Acting-Executive Chef of Changi Village Hotel.

Jason and his team members representing Singapore won top medals by coming in second and third in the prestigious National Team category in the International Kochkunst Ausstellung 2000, also known as the IKA Culinary Olympics, and the Culinary World Cup 2002 respectively.

These two competitions are the equivalent of the Olympics and World Cup of the culinary world. In the IKA Culinary Olympics 2000, tens of thousands of fervent fans watched and tasted food prepared by 1000 chefs from 33 different countries who came together quadrennially to compete for top honours.

Besides the distinction of attaining second place at the IKA Culinary Olympics, Jason and team also came in first in Category C (Patisserie) and Category R (Hot Food).

“The Culinary Olympics and World Cup were gruelling events,” Jason said. “We could only train after work during the weekends, working till three or four in the morning. Usually we could only grab a couple of hours of sleep before going back to work on Monday. But that’s good training too as during the actual competition days, we didn’t sleep.”

Jason started cooking at the precocious age of seven. He could still recall the first meal he prepared for his family: rice, black soya bean minced meat, garlic vegetables and pan-fried fish, a dish quite a few of us adults still have trouble with (the trick to keep the fish from sticking to the pan is, Jason disclosed, very hot oil).

Today directing the kitchens of Changi Village Hotel, Jason is still as passionate about food and his work.

He starts work early in the morning and sometimes does not get back home until the next evening. At every meal time, he is out there at Saltwater, Changi Village Hotel’s hip café, supervising, making sure that every dish has been cooked to perfection and beautifully presented.

The signature style at Saltwater is clean and uncluttered food, fresh and rich in natural flavours. The ingredients are ingeniously combined, both visually and taste wise – coconut crusted fillet of grain-fed beef, roast duck with penne pasta, turmeric scented baby chicken breast.

“It is my dream to create a new cuisine - a Global cuisine that combines the best from different cultures and different traditional cooking methods, on one plate. I hope one day people will be able to recognise this signature style with just one bite,” Jason enthused.

Seafood, especially fish, is Jason’s favourite ingredient to experiment with. In fact his first creation that garnered him the top prize at the National Skills Competition 1993 was warm-smoked salmon with coffee crust.

“I love to experiment with seafood. I could cook a seafood ingredient in different temperature and method, take it out and give it a twist by treating it differently using another method and continue to cook it at another different temperature.”

The result is amazing food; simple, fresh, delicious, with full flavour and refreshing appeal.

And you must not leave Changi Village Hotel without trying his fish porridge. This everyday local hawker dish is usually bland and needs a copious amount of soy sauce. But Changi Village Hotel’s fish porridge is heavenly - it does not even need an extra drop of soy sauce. The fish porridge, naturally sweetened by the fish broth, is full of flavour and taste. Smooth and rich, this soul-warming dish is presented in the traditional way, with dishes at the side for your enjoyment.

And you will likely go back for a second or third helping.