Recently we have been studying the art of alcoholic beverages and running wild with our access to the Menzies Piano Bar by creating old time favourite cocktails!
So here I have collaborated a small concoction of all our favourite drinks! 

Mayuko
Current Favourite:  Spumoni Cocktail

Ingredients:      
30mL Campari
30mL Grapefruit Juice
30mL Tonic Water

Method:
Build with ice. Stir. Garnish with orange wheel.

Gill
Current Favourite:  Manhattan

 Ingredients:     
30mL Jim Beam
30mL Martini Rosso
3 dashes Angostura Bitters

Method:
Build with ice. Stir. Strain into chilled martini glass. Garnish with a cherry.

Danielle
Current Favourite: Fresh Mojito

Ingredients:       
5 lime wedges
8 mint leaves
30mL sugar syrup
60mL Bacardi
Lemonade

Method:
Muddle lime wedges, mint leaves and sugar syrup together in glass. Build with ice on top and Bacardi. Stir. Top with Lemonade or for something different – Ginger Beer! We even tried this with freshly peeled lychees! Very Very Nice!

These practical classes are loads of fun and the easiest way to learn! We hope our little list has excited you for those great nights out in Spring!

Enjoy!
Gill, Danielle & Mayuko

Thomas James Wilson, 12.8.2010

Proud parents Georgie & Ian Wilson. 3.3 kgs, 51 cm, Leo, Year of the Golden Tiger.

Eating, sleeping, playing like a little champion. Very happy baby.

Best wishes from the Hostec team!

I apologise for my absence as I have been very pre-occupied with study and work! I thought I would just drop in a blog to keep you up to date with the happenings around here!

Study is going great. This term has been much more practical and we have been keeping ourselves busy over at our training facilities at the Menzies Sydney. We use the Piano Bar for our bar service training and the Parkside Restaurant for our restaurant service training. We’ve been down to the stock and stores area, helping out with deliveries and stock management and have even been down to the local café to understand how businesses reconcile their daily takings. I’m really enjoying my small, yet intimate class and our mix of cultures allows us to learn language, culture and life from each other every day.

We’ve also been doing some ‘extra practical work’ by indulging in some of Sydney’s best hospitality establishments! We’ve had the privilege of lunching at The Ivy and were even able to celebrate our class mates 21^st birthday at Aria! (Happy Birthday Gilles!) Whilst this sounds like we are making excuses to spoil ourselves, we are really experiencing great service and amazing food from a customers view – allowing us to appreciate and respect what we are actually studying! We have even met some interesting people including Franck Moreau (The worlds 4^th top sommelier!) and Peter Sullivan (Co-owner of Aria).

We really are keeping ourselves busy and thanks to Natasha Bransby, our trainer, we are understanding and appreciating hospitality in a different light!

Take care for now,
Danielle

Add “hostecskype” to your Skype contacts and call to be connected to the Hostec operator, who will direct your call to the appropriate person.

This service operates on standard Australian trading hours – 8.30am to 5.30pm Australian Eastern Standard Time.

“We want to make it as easy as possible for our clients to speak to us,” says Ian Wilson, CEO of Hostec International.

“Through this service, we can direct customer calls to the Hostec staff member they require, even to their mobile phone, which gives customers greater convenience (they don’t have to look up the number) and a completely free service.”

For other ways to connect to Hostec, log on to www.hostec.com or look us up on Facebook!

Hostec Training Solutions have recently facilitated and customised four certified courses in partnership with CRS Australia. In June 2010, over eighty students received training in Western Sydney from a Certificate III in Business Administration to Certificate II in Hospitality. A range of sites accommodated the students to which we proudly led our hospitality students through our flagship commercial cookery kitchen at Crown Plaza Coogee Beach, Coogee. 

Hostec Training Solutions and CRS Australia share a common and fundamental goal to empower unemployed people by providing them skills and training required to enter the workforce with a good understanding of the work environment.

This partnership with CRS Australia has allowed Hostec to better understand the working of the job services industry and as a result provide better training solutions, now and in the future.

So I’m into my third week of holidays and, my gosh, it’s going so fast! I’ve just come back from a gorgeous long weekend away to the beautiful Hunter Valley. I stayed at the overly indulgent Crowne Plaza Resort and enjoyed a nice couple of days tasting wines, running through vineyards, eating amazing food and relaxing with spa treatments. It’s gorgeous up there. I’m not much of a ‘winey’ but I was definitely open to trying everything, from my favourite sparkling to the unknown land of port. And I must admit, I did discover some wines that I didn’t think I would enjoy but I definitely found interesting.

Last Monday night (5^th of July), a group of eight Hostec students and I trekked to the new Australian Hotels Association building to help them cater for their winter drinks function. The event featured drinks and canapés for the influential people in Sydney’s hospitality accommodation industry.

The event entertained representatives from Sydney’s five-star hotels including The Observatory Hotel, Hilton Sydney and Four Points by Sheraton and Sydney’s biggest hospitality suppliers and sponsors including Lion Nathan, Sydney City Lexus and ofcourse Hostec! I was appointed on the front desk in the lobby to ensure people were on the list and had their name tags. Later in the night, however, I was helping the bar staff refill drinks for guests. Other students helped in the kitchen and served canapés.

It was a great night, which allowed students to volunteer and be noticed. Also, the place has amazing 180-degree views of Sydney’s Circular Quay, which we enjoyed all night! I don’t know how they can concentrate over there at AHA with such great views!

I’d like to take this opportunity to congratulate my good friend Tim Gatt on his new job at Tetsuya’s Restaurant! For a second-year apprentice he’s full of passion, enthusiasm and innovation and I know from here on he will only go up.

Also, please feel free to email me at draunjak@hotmail.com if you have any questions or ideas on topics you would like me to blog about – I am always looking for new ideas!

Kind regards
Danielle

Coffee Culture

Hostec will be attending the Sydney Good Food and Wine Show held at the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre, Darling Harbour on Friday 16th-18th of July.

This year celebrity chefs Matt Moran and Pete Evans will be attending. A range of courses will also be offerred in cluding a Barista (Coffee Making) skills course. If you miss out on the course offerred at the show, be sure to enrol at Hostec‘s Coffee Culture course, which teaches everything from selecting the right beans and roast to making coffee art.

Hilton Executive Chef Gary Johnson, Iron Chef Hiroyuki Sakai & Hostec Academy Cookery Student Jiraporn Oneplee

It was the weekend of Iron Chef, as two of the stars of the cult Japanese cooking television show whipped up a feast for almost 400 guests at the Hilton Sydney.

Three hundred episodes of Iron Chef were filmed between 1993 and 1999, when the show ended, but repeats continue to be screened every Saturday night in Australia on SBS. The show was also a cult hit in the US and its popularity led to a spin-off version there in 2004.

Iron Chef Hiroyuki Sakai & Hostec's Remi Descamps

In each episode of the Japanese show, a contestant chef challenges one of the Iron Chefs, who are specialists in certain cuisines, to engage in a “battle” or cook-off. They are then given a mystery ingredient they must use in every dish of a multi-course meal that they produce in one hour.

Chen Kenichi, the master of the spicy Chinese cuisine, has fought 97 “battles” on the show and has won about 75 per cent of them. Hiroyuki Sakai, who specialises in French cooking, has an even more formidable record, winning 70 out of 86 battles.

From the press event on Friday through to the theatrical dinner on Sunday night, the chefs’ performance alone seemed enough to “win the people’s ovation and fame forever”, as the host of the TV show declares in every episode.

Joining the International Academy to the role of Head Teacher, we hope she will be happy in her new role. Gloria joins Hostec after working for AIFE for a number of years. She has a background in both education and hospitality which we are sure will be put to good use.

We hope she will be happy in her new role as we welcome her to the Hostec family this week.

It’s a bit crazy at the moment but organisation is the key. We’ve got three assignments from each subject which is a decent effort of study a week. Then I have three or so shifts a week at work and trying to catch up with mates, see the family, eat, drink, sleep and hopefully give myself a little time to relax! It doesn’t sound like much but there never seems to be enough time in a day to do all you need!

I live out west so unfortunately I have over an hour train ride to and from the city for each day for college and this cold weather makes it very tempting to stay in bed! However, the train does give me time to read over my notes and listen to music or even catch up on sleep! Yes, sadly I am a part of the commuting cult that falls asleep during the journey, occasionally finding a comfy spot on the shoulder of the person next to me.

As eventful and unpredictable as my days are, there is no other way I would rather spend my time learning and working. Working at Crowne Plaza is great as well. It’s such a fun place to start and learn in plus, working within an entertaining team of people makes every shift enjoyable.

I stress and I do struggle with managing everything but we all do because that’s how we learn… and really that is the life of a student in Sydney! Stress. Struggle. Accomplishment. Growth.

Danielle. X