Dining///Chef Singh
Love all, serve all, fresh and fast By Wayne Chargualaf
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or more than 20 years, Guam has been able to reap the benefits of Chef Kotwal Singh’s years of international culinary experience with everything from a food truck, a nearly two-decade career as executive chef at Hard Rock Café in both Guam and Saipan and, starting in 2015, in the food court of the Micronesia Mall with Singh’s Café Kabab & Curry. “My wife actually owns Kabab & Curry,” Chef Singh says. “I make the recipes, I’ll stop by and taste things and make sure everything’s good. My wife is the force behind it. I just stop by and help out.” After graduating high school and attending culinary school for three years, Chef Singh started his career in 1979 as a dishwasher in India. He ended up travelling and working in Hong Kong and Taiwan, working for companies such as the Ramada Inn, the Peninsula Group, the Sheraton and Gaylord where he learned 24
everything he could, working with chefs from Germany, France, Switzerland and China. His career eventually brought him to Guam in 1994. In 2001 he started working at Hard Rock Café Guam and has been there since. “I like [Hard Rock Café] because I’m happy with what I do,” says Singh. “They trust me because I’ve been there for a long time. I have to follow very strict guidelines with them, but it’s been good.” Singh opened a restaurant called the Grand Taj Curry and Grill in the Grand Plaza Hotel in Tumon in 2012 as well as a food truck called Hotdog and Curry in 2007. Singh eventually sold the restaurant and then sold the food truck when he and his wife decided to open Kabab & Curry in the Micronesia Mall. Kabab & Curry is based on a simple concept: taste good, look good, smell good and be fast. Singh cites this commitment to quality as well as the unique cultural mix of Kabab & Curry’s