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Jeju's banquet hotels aim for unique culinary theaterTraditional themes key success factors for island’s summit banquets |
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| ▲ Photo courtesy Lotte Hotel Jeju |
About 20 minutes after the opening of the Cliff Garden to the invitees, scores of white dinner tables perched on the soccer-field-sized green patch that overlooks the magnificent Pacific Ocean were nearly filled with some 500 starving Independent Business Owners (IBOs) of Amway Korea. Then two sous chefs of the Hyatt Regency Jeju unveiled a surprise.
It was a giant kettle stuffed with all the ingredients that would together make up a standard bibimbap — Korean mixed rice. Holding an oversize spoon, chefs stirred and mixed the colorful variety of foods thrown inside the kettle until they made a huge mound of mixed rice ,enough to serve all the delighted guests. Scores of Amway Korea delegates and their families gathered around the kettle and cheered or took pictures, while more held the spoons and mixed the bibimbap themselves.
The surprise was staged as a symbolic event to show the virtues of mixing together and to promote the bond between Amway Korea and the company’s key sales representatives. However, it was just one of the many culinary events conceived by the hotel’s banquet and catering staff.
“By putting together food, entertainment, and participatory elements in one place, we transformed the banquet to more than just a dinner buffet, turning it to a theater of total culinary experience,” Sohn Young Ho, general manager in charge of the hotel’s banquet service told JEJU MICE.
On the sashimi serving stand were Haenyo preparing and serving raw shell fish and sea foods only found in the island’s shores. Next to this stood a huge traditional steam cooker where Jeju’s indigenous black pork was steamed on the spot and sliced onto the dishes of queuing guests.
Extensive application of Jeju’s traditional themes was also one of the key success factors for many summit banquets prepared by Lotte Hotel Jeju. Park Byung Hwan, the hotel’s award-winning head chef, presented abalone steak tinged with the three key primary colors of Jeju.
However Lotte Hotel Jeju’s top competitive edge is its outdoor catering service, said Kim Min Ji, the hotel’s communications officer.
The hotel has a sophisticated mobile kitchen, specialized cookware, and other catering equipment required for throwing a massive outdoor banquet, making Lotte the only catering service provider in the island that can handle such assignments, Kim said.
“That is why Lotte Hotel Jeju has successfully bid for nearly every large-size outdoor banquet on the island held in the past 10 years, including a dinner for 3,000 at ICC Jeju during the Asian Development Bank’s annual congress and Johnson and Johnson’s OTW Award Night that catered for 1,500 guests,” Kim said.
Haevichi Hotel & Resort Jeju is also highly regarded in terms of sheer dining capacity. hotel’s Grand Ballroom can accommodate up to 1,300 guests, but the real magic happens when the hotel’s eight-floor atrium lobby is turned into a single gigantic banquet hall. “It only happens two to three times a year,” said Choi Dae Deuk, the hotel’s banquet service manager, “since more than 90 percent of guest rooms have to be occupied by the guests of key clients to minimize any potential complaint from other guests.”
The hotel boasts some high-class guest rooms and suites designed by WATG, a Seattle-based hotel design firm. The last time the atrium lobby was turned into a banquet hall and theater was in January 2010, when hundreds of Hyundai and Kia Motors subcontractors were invited to the hotel.
Though mostly top chefs cook for the hotel banquet service team, some junior students of Jeju National University have found a niche in the island’s culinary race by focusing on developing party finger foods themed after Jeju’s pristine nature.
They used a variety of herbs and medicinal plants indigenous to the island to develop unique cookies, pancakes, tea, and drinks. Aptly unveiled for the first Jeju International Green MICE Week held in 2010, the students produced cups filled with Omija tea (tea of five tastes), plants stacked tangerine skin cake and other exotic finger foods and desserts for standing receptions.
There is a fine line to walk for the organizers of corporate banquets and functions held in exotic venues; it requires a delicate balancing act of internalizing the local delicacies and traditions to the top dinners without sacrificing the global culinary standards required by upper-class guests with discerning tastes.
The banquet and catering experts of Jeju hotels seem to have found that coveted sweet spot.
And now they are trying to turn the art of fine dining into a holistic culinary theater on Jeju.
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| ▲ Photo courtesy Hyatt Regency Jeju |
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ⓒ Jeju Weekly 2009 (http://www.jejuweekly.net)
All materials on this site are protected under the Korean Copyright Law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published without the prior consent of Jeju Weekly. |
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Title:The jeju Weekly(제주위클리) | Mail to editor@jejuweekly.net | Phone: +82-64-724-7776 Fax: +82-64-724-7796
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Registration Number: Jeju, Ah01158(제주,아01158) | Date of Registration: November 10,2022 | Publisher&Editor : Hee Tak Ko | Youth policy: Hee Tak Ko
Copyright ⓒ 2009 All materials on this site are protected under the Korean Copyright Law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published
without the prior consent of jeju weekly.com.
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