Muhammad Abu Bakar, formally often called Alan Goh, is the pizzaiolo behind the newly parked meals truck pizzeria in Taman Megah. Every day aside from Wednesdays at 4.30pm, Alan handmakes and serves a restricted quantity of Neapolitan pizzas from his meals truck, Uno’s Pizzeria.
Before he began his meals truck pizzeria, he initially operated his pizza enterprise from his dwelling in the course of the pandemic.
He talked about that the house pizza enterprise allowed him to earn sufficient to get extra funds to develop his enterprise and was a very good alternative to observe his craft.
Hailing from Kuching, Sarawak, Alan used to work in gross sales earlier than he jumped into the pizza business. During an organization journey when he labored with a retail firm, he had the chance to go to London the place he discovered his love for making pizzas.
He defined that he was impressed by the historical past of Neapolitan pizza which is first created by baker Raffaele Esposito, who baked and mirrored the primary pizza after the color of the Italian flag for the monarchs in Napoli.
Like the flag, the pizza has its pink tomato base, its white mozzarella cheese, and inexperienced basil leaves. That is what’s now often called the basic Neapolitan pizza right now.
Despite the simplicity of substances, Alan has by no means gotten bored of consuming Neapolitan pizzas and that sparked his inspiration to begin his personal pizzeria whereas preserving the origins and tradition of the pizza.
Currently, he has 5 gadgets on his menu – Marinara, Margherita, Forgmaggi, Beef Salami, and Beef/Chicken Pepperoni. The worth ranges from RM26 to RM45 and prospects have been loving them.
The Margherita is made out of tomato, fior di latte, Grana Padano, basil, and further virgin olive oil, and is appropriate for vegetarians.
You may even benefit from the pizza subsequent to his truck on the wood desk and chair, and Alan recommends the Margherita with freshly-grinded Sarawak black pepper you can regulate relying in your style.
The Formaggi, 4 cheese pizza, is distinctive with fior di latte, Gorgonzola, ricotta, Grana Padano, walnuts, and honey.
It hasn’t all the time been straightforward for Alan. As an individual who’s by no means labored within the meals business, he by no means had the chance for any sizzling kitchen internship attributable to his “lack of kitchen experience”. Nevertheless, Alan by no means gave up cooking, which had all the time been his ardour and aspect pastime.
Food is the linchpin of society and it creates a connection between folks, and meals has all the time all the time been an enormous a part of Alan’s life. Alan goes to cooking lessons to study extra about meals at any time when he can, loves grocery looking for completely different and new substances, and loves understanding and studying about meals.
As an avid watcher of culinary exhibits, Alan’s favorite chef is Gordon Ramsay himself. “I watch most of his cooking shows. That’s where I get most of my inspiration from. I also learn a lot about how to handle things in the kitchen too. That’s how I learn anything, everything about kitchen management and food management. I know I have much to learn and improve so I’ll never stop learning,” defined Alan.
After seeing how the Italians make their Neapolitan pizzas throughout his time in London, he took an Italian pizza-making masterclass to learn to make them when he was 28. Right now, he’s 31 and Alan handles many of the every day preparation whereas his siblings help him in advertising and pondering up new methods to develop the enterprise.
Currently, he solely makes as much as 50 pizzas per day attributable to a restricted quantity of assets, and prioritises sustaining the standard of his pizzas.
Every morning, he wakes up at 6am to begin his preparation and dough administration at dwelling earlier than he begins serving in his meals truck at 4.30pm.
Dough administration is an all-inclusive time period used to embody each kind of labor finished on the pizza dough from mixing the substances till it’s prepped to be opened into pizza skins. Alan even pressured that he has one room in his home only for the prep, and calls it his “fermentation lab”.
According to Alan, the fermentation time and course of are essential for the yeast to interrupt down the enzymes within the flour in order that the pizza is less complicated on and are more healthy for the abdomen. His pizzas are fermented for as much as 48 hours and in comparison with regular dough, the crust on his pizzas are crispier on the surface however mild and ethereal on the within. It’s the distinction between the crispy outdoors and the smooth inside which helps to create an incredible texture expertise.
Alan makes use of Italian 00 flour and Italian dry yeast to make his gut-friendly pizzas to interrupt down the protein and gluten within the pizza dough. Proper fermentation additionally offers the pizza extra depth of flavour and the particular flour that they use has additional fibre in it.
Alan explains that many Malaysians won’t concentrate on the advantages and the way nutritious pizzas may be. “Most Malaysians still consider pizza to be fast food or unhealthy, but pizza can actually be a healthy choice when prepared correctly.”
For Uno’s pizzeria, in addition they use good high quality cheese, hand-milled tomato sauce with no sugar added, and good high quality additional virgin olive oil – all of that are wholesome and a very good supply of diet. Alan believes that the toppings for the pizzas also needs to present equally well-balanced vitamins, identical to a traditional meal.
By utilizing the proper kind of flour that has been designed for Neapolitan fashion pizza cooking, it additionally offers the pizza properties like optimum water absorption and browning. In order to show the meals truck into the proper pizzeria, Alan needed to work with an engineer to customize the truck and imported among the gear from Italy & UK.
Currently, Uno’s Pizzeria makes use of two Gozney Roccbox moveable pizza ovens that attain 500°C, giving them the power to cook dinner a Neapolitan pizza in only a minute.
According to Alan, his pizza dough should be held at a relentless temperature between 21°C – 26°C for 16 to 24 hours as temperature management is a very powerful part of creating the proper pizza.
For Alan, a very good pizza is all about preparation. “Preparation is the 90% hard work of making the pizza. We never skip steps or try to take shortcuts to fasten the process because that would reduce the quality of the ingredients. We actually spend more than 10 hours just on the preparation every day.”
As a Malaysian, meals on wheels isn’t something new to him. “We always see trucks and carts selling tau fu fah or cendol on the side of the road ever since we could remember.” Alan had all the time wished to serve great-tasting and genuine Neapolitan pizza at an inexpensive worth so getting a meals truck was a no brainer.
Of course, sooner or later, Alan hopes to transition his pizzeria right into a sit-down restaurant.
“Right now, anyone craving for Uno’s Pizzeria’s pizzas can only pick up or have their pizzas delivered to their homes, but I hope to expand this food truck into a mobile restaurant in the near future.”
On his Instagram web page, he jokingly calls the CEO of Uno’s Pizzeria Uno, his household cat and the pizzeria was named after his beloved bossy cat.
Find Uno’s Pizzeria parked at SS24/13, Taman Megah, 47301 Petaling Jaya, Selangor and his Instagram @my_unos_pizzeria for updates.
