BACK TO THE KITCHEN

Today, we start the shoot for the second season of our little hit cooking show Dapur Bujang. The cooking series was created to fill a void in the local cooking show scene. Whilst most cooking shows teach viewers elaborate dishes, Dapur Bujang was specifically created for the young who just wants to know how to cook simple quick dishes. The show doesn't assume that everyone is a budding chef - instead we assume that not every even knows how to cook rice, fry eggs or even know the names of vegetables.
The first season was aired unannounced but word of mouth made it a minor hit, so much so that RTM immediately repeated the first series after it ended its run. Lucky for us, the series, even in its second run, became a bigger hit. We were then told to shoot a new 13-episode series, with the same young Chef - Iskandar (pic), who, it seems, now have quite a following amongst young female viewers.

Chef Iskandar of Dapur Bujang (Bachelor's Kitchen)

This is not the first cooking show I helmed. In fact, my first even TV series was a cooking show - Kuali - which I created for TV3 way back in 83. It was the first in-house magazine type production for TV3. Being a big fan of a cult TV cooking show called The Galloping (hosted by Graham Kerr if I remember correctly ) I decided to create a local cooking show that would travel the whole country looking for unique local cuisine created by master Chefs.
I selected a rather beautiful Nazliah Hamid to host the show and it became a hit and went on to become one of TV3's longest running shows. I left the show after one season - after I was asked to created another woman's programme. I created and produced Nona (which went on to become the longest running TV3 programme - I think it has been on air longer than Majallah TV3).
Sitting in the director's chair for Dapur Bujang 2 will be Thorpe Ali, who also directed most of the first season's episodes. I opted out of directing the second season because of my commitment to helm our other TV series Bilik No. 13 which will begin lensing next week.
It's going to be a long April month for me and my team. But I hope the fans of both Dapur Bujang and Bilik No. 13 will be patient with us as we prepare to complete the two series as fast as we possibly can.