Singapore’s Culinary World Cup Team (pictured) is confident that it can pull it off again at the upcoming Expogast Culinary World Cup in November.

To be held in Luxembourg, the Culinary World Cup is one of the five major international culinary competitions sanctioned by the World Association of Chefs Societies (WACS). In the last Culinary World Cup in 2002, Singapore was the overall second runner-up, and won the gold medal for the hot food category. This time round, Singapore is determined to reclaim the overall champion title, which it won in 1998.

Chef Eric Teo (main picture, far right), President of the Singapore Chef’s Association and Executive Chef of Orchard Hotel, believes that the team will make it to the top three spots. "No problem. I have confidence in them," he told AsiaOne at a tea session to present the top chefs today at Orchard Hotel.

This year’s team is led by Randy Chow, Executive Chef of Mount Elizabeth Hospital, and Team Captain Edward Voon, Chef de Cuisine, The Oriental Singapore’s Dolce Vita, who led the Singapore team to overall first place at the Salon Culinaire Mondial in 2005.

The others in the team are Ng Choon Kiat, 31, Sous Chef, Plaza Market Café; Koo Wee Bin, 38, Chef de Cuisine, Oscar, Conrad Centennial Singapore; Jason Low, 34, Culinary Instructor, The Tourism Academy@Sentosa; S. Punniamurti, 42, Executive Banquet Chef, The Oriental Singapore; and Ivy Wong, 28, Junior Sous Chef, Goodwood Park Hotel.

Team Captain Edward Voon spoke about the challenges of working as a team. "We have to work together, speak the same language, try to understand each other's behaviour during cooking... we have a lot of rehearsals, a lot of drills."

"We want to improve as a team and win as a team."

The competition will be on European cuisine. Chef Teo, the team captain of Singapore’s national team which won a total of five gold medals in the 2000 Culinary Olympics, 2002 Culinary World Cup and 2004 Culinary Olympics, hopes that the stellar performance of the Singapore team will be an inspiration to aspiring chefs.

The national team's efforts are supported by WDA (Workforce Development Agency) and the Food and Beverage Industry Skills and Training Council. For more information on skills upgrading, visit http://www.wda.gov.sg/.