Renaissance Mumbai IBDP Project Based Learning 2021

Renaissance Mumbai IBDP Project Based Learning 2021

On Friday, the 3oth of July, Nilesh Vaidya, a Sous Chef at Renaissance Mumbai Convention Centre Hotel and Marriott Executive Apartments hosted a Project Based Learning workshop for the IBDP Students at HFS International. Strongly believing and following in the mantra, “Nothing changes if nothing changes”, Nilesh Vaidya always aims to exceed guest experience and handles the All day dining restaurant, Lake View.

Showcasing his immense and incomparable talent, he hosted his Project Based Learning Workshop, wherein he cooked a vegetarian tikka. He showed us all the steps involved in cooking a tikka, while also explaining each and every step s0 we could follow what was happening (for us to replicate the recipe at our own time). He then proceeded to answer questions about the recipe, while also informing us on common rookie mistakes that we must avoid making (like, adding water where it’s unnecessary, and often detrimental).

After he finished cooking and answering questions related to the dish, some students from IBDP-1 had prepared a series of questions to ask the highly respectable chef.

Some of the questions and answers were as follows:

*  What is the busiest day for you and how many customers do you get, on average?
→ Sunday is the busiest day for the restaurant but they receive 120-200 guests - which is what they call the customers at hotels - on average, every day. What is the busiest day for you and how many customers do you get, on average?
→ Sunday is the busiest day for the restaurant but they receive 120-200 guests - which is what they call the customers at hotels - on average, every day.

*  Does your hotel offer home delivery and do you think home delivery is safe during the pandemic?
→ The home delivery option is called Marrott on Wheels, and delivers food of the same quality as that provided in the actual hotel, with the correct sanitary measures taken. It is for that reason, Home Delivery of food is quite safe, provided other measures are also taken. However, it is better to cook your own food at home, and to never give up even if the dish doesn’t come out exactly like the recipe initially!

*  What do you do with the leftover food?
→ There are two aspects to this. They believe in using food sustainably in the kitchen, meaning they try to use the entire ingredient, in a variety of dishes so that nothing get’s wasted bu chef’s themselves. However, when it gets to the guests, not a lot can be done in terms of food wastage as they must throw away food that’s been put on the plate (which is why they try to encourage guests to only take on their plate how much they can actually eat). However, they store food that’s not been eaten and try to serve it the next mealtime. But there are some regulations to follow for this; if the food’s been out for 0-2 hours, but it must be consumed the same day. But if the food has been out for longer than 3.5 hours, then they must discard it, to abide by sanitary measures.

This was an extremely insightful hour spent with Sous Chef Nilesh Vaidya!

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