Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Vietnam! The Start of OITP…

Vietnam! The Start of OITP…

Yesterday, I officially started the first day of my Overseas Industrial Training Programme here at Duc Phat Vina Bread Company in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Well, basically now I am typing this bake journal entry using Microsoft Words on my laptop in the hotel room. Later, I will post it on the bake journal when I am out and am able to find an internet café nearby.

Here are some of the interesting finds and happenings of yesterday… Enjoy!

“Vietnamese Subway” – Bahn Mi… (The famous Vietnamese Baguette filled with pickled vegetables, some cold meat and… chilli that will numb your tongue. Mr Kao, the CEO of the company, told us that the incorporation of the chilli was to give the Bahn Mi different taste sensation which would leave you wanting to take yet another and another and another bite.

Being part of the company for the next 7 weeks, we had to make a trip to their warehouse to collect our 3 sets of uniform. Here is a picture of us in the uniform.

Here is a picture of the Vietnamese sweet bun filled with Chocolate. See the difference! In Singapore, we would complain about the miserable amount of filling…


This is the most interesting find for yesterday. What do you think this is…

Pork Flosses! You may ask… why is in white in colour? Haha. We had a taste of it and boy is it very salty. I guess the white colour is due to the high amount of salt used and the chloride from the salt bleach the pork floss white! The pictures below shows the where the pork floss is used. As Mr Ut (prononunced as “Oat”), our supervisor, told us about the Vietnamese taste preference… “The Vietnamese like their food to be Sweet enough, Salty enough”.

Here is one of the company’s famous products. Puff pastry with sugar sprinkled on the top. These are being cooled and will be packed. According to Mr Ut, these can be kept up to 8 months.

How can we forget their ever lovely cream decorations! Here is a picture of a big 3-Dimensional cream Dog specially posted for our friend in Singapore (you know who you are… Haha)

Right, as for today, we were given a day off to familiarize ourselves with our surroundings, getting some daily necessities, finding where the internet café and laundry services are. Work starts for us again on Wednesday. More adventures here in Vietnam await us.