This is the Last Time, That I Will Say These Words....

This is the last time, That I will show my face...

(Keane - This Is The Last Time)

The Epilogue

I waited for the phone call. Saturday passed uneventfully. On Sunday, I went to a dinner party hosted by a friend in the pastry program. As we were talking about my exam, different people volunteered different opinions. One said that if I didn't get a call Saturday night then I would be home free. No, said another, the school won't call you until Monday. There was no agreement. Halfway through dinner, I saw that I had a miss call from a French number that I did not recognize. Distraught, I immediately called back and found that the person answered in Chinese. It was my classmate who would be traveling with me to Alsace the next day. "Are we meeting at 8am tomorrow?" You gave me a heart attack Meng.

Monday and Tuesday came and went with no phone call. So did I pass? I wasn't at graduation because I went to Alsace for its Christmas markets (totally worth it), but someone said the chefs called out my name, so I definitely passed! I was so happy that I celebrated by drinking buckets of delicious Vin Chaud / Glühwein, along with Alsacian beer and wine (try to pronounce Gewürztraminer) and Mirabelle Eaux de Vie. That was pretty cool.

So, I have completed the Basic and Intermediate Cuisine courses at Le Cordon Bleu. Check off "attend a full-time cooking school" from my life bucket list please. The program had been nothing short of life transforming. For one, I now see cuisine everywhere. Really:

What?  How did the bus lane turn into the "JUS" lande?
I'm seeing cooking vocabulary even on the street now!

I also went from a cooking neophyte to someone who's first reaction to a restaurant is not "oh nice food" but "hm the plating's a bit unbalanced. And there's not enough sauce!" Not sure if this is a good thing.

Now to be clear, I haven't completed the entire program at Le Cordon Bleu. I haven't even completed the cuisine program. I've merely completed two of the three level cuisine program and have the superior level to complete, not to mention the entire pastry program.

At the moment, I have no interest in taking any more classes at Cordon Bleu. My objective from the get-go was to become proficient at cooking, and I have fulfilled my mission. Though I may enter the food and beverage industry one day, I have no intention of becoming a profession chef.  I therefore see no purpose of taking a few months off, pay the ridiculously high tuition, and subject myself to more "Oui Chef!"s in superior. I might consider taking the pastry classes if I marry a power woman and become a stay-at-home dude, but I personally am not as interested in pastry as I am in cuisine. The pastry program has 1/3 fewer classes than cuisine, so it is more manageable to do the intensive program. I will NEVER do intensive cuisine again.

Was the program what I expected? Well I definitely became proficient in cuisine. I feel very comfortable now in the kitchen and slicing onions / meat / fish / lobsters. One letdown: I wished that we learned more complicated techniques in intermediate, but instead it was more an extension of basic, and focused more on learning how to manage more saucepans at the same time.

I was surprised by the composition of the student population. I knew the school would have a lot of foreigners, but I expected a few more French students. Instead, there were 3 French / Algerian nationals in my 50-person regular class and 2 in my 19-person intensive class. The ages of the students also surprised me. In the regular program, the majority of the students were in the post-high school or post-college range. Though they all enjoyed cooking, most of them treated this purely as a vocational school. There were a few mid-careers or retirees who entered the school to enrich their lives, but they were the distinct minority in the regular program. I had an awkward situation once when I invited a lady classmate and her roommate to dinner at my place one night, only to hear the two girls say "We're so excited to start college!" halfway through dinner. Definitely killed the conversation for me. This was not the last time I had an age-related awkward moment with my classmates.

The intensive program had more quarter-life / mid-life crisis people like me, which made sense since it was only one month long and professionals could afford to take time off for it. People were also more intense. My group mates were all really nice to each other, but I heard in the other group there were cat fights, ingredients hoarding / stealing, turf wars (really?), etc. Some people took cooking very seriously.

So this is good bye. My next steps in live is to move back to Hong Kong to start my job at McKinsey. Please feel free to leave comments if you have any questions for me about the school or my experience, and I'll be glad to answer them. Thank you for all your support. Good luck and good bye!

People I would like to thank:
Mom and Dad- for supporting me to take this detour in my life.
Elaine, Adrian and Clementine- for sharing 4 months of your lives with me
Karen and Orson- for always making fun of me even when you're in California 
Katy- for inspiring me to write this blog
McKinsey GCC office- for giving me the time to fulfill my dream
Chef Stril / Lesourd / Bogen / Andriamanjoka /  Caals / Poupard / Ju / Gui-gui (still forgot your last name, sorry) / Legué / Terrien / Vaca / Mysterious-old-chef-whose-name-I-never-learnt - for your time and dedication to the profession to teach a twit like me
My Basic and Intermediate Group mates- It's been really fun dismembering animals of all sizes and stripes with you. CHAUD!
AND last but not least You, dear readers- for supporting the blog and enduring my sarcasm

Post-blog Readings:
If you want to read more about other people's experience at Le Cordon Bleu, you can follow the blog of my group mate Maria. Deliciousyethealthy. Personally I think it should be called "Maria! You've gotta see her blog!"

Also, I would recommend this book: The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry: Love, Laughter, and Tears in Paris at the World's Most Famous Cooking School. I've never read it, but the author had an interview on NPR when it came out, so it probably is a good read.

Nessun Dorma! Nessun Dorma!

Tramontate, Stelle! All'alba Vincerò!
(Turandot- Nessun Dorma)

Intermediate Practical Exam (!)

Here we go again. Today's the intermediate exam. They staggered our start time so that the kitchens would not be too crowded, and also to ensure that our dish remained hot when the judges taste our product. I was scheduled to start at 11:30am.

 Last Starbucks run as "Ash"

 Pre-exam selfie. Was sharpening my knives one more time

Martin just finished his exam

("How was it?" "Putain de merde!" "Oh...")

Okay, exam time. I drew the Sea Breams wrapped in lettuce. Not too bad right? My strategy for the exam has always been to stay calm and just work at my own pace. The dishes are designed to be finished in 2 hours, and we had 2.5 hours. Plus we've made the dishes before. I therefore just need to follow the steps that I memorized. Cook the Jerusalem artichoke (which again are neither from Jerusalem nor are artichokes) à l'anglaise. Set the oven to 170C. Prep the shrimp to grind to become fillings. Ete. We also had to prepare a béarnaise sauce as our technical dish, so I began reducing the vinegar+ white wine under very very low heat while I minced the shallots, tarragon and chervil stems. I'll come back to the sauce after I'm done filleting and skinning the fish.

Chef Caals was present almost the entire time proctoring the exam, and Adolpho, his trusty teaching assistant from Argentina was there the whole time helping people and dropping hints. "You might not want your saucepan on such high heat." or "Here's some cut shallots from the previous exam. It'll save you some time." Chef Caals also provided very good time guidance the whole time. "One hour left! Ouard? I didn't hear you." "Oui, Chef...."

When we had half an hour left I realized that I was running behind. By the 15-minute mark, I just put the fish into the oven, which would require 7-8 minutes to cook, and then I would still need some time to reduce the sauce. I ended up keeping the fish in the oven for another minute since an undercooked fish is a fail but a slightly overcooked fish isn't. Oh right, I also haven't done my bearnaise sauce yet. Uh oh.

I started picking up speed and running in beast mode, frantically cutting the tomato for the Jerusalem Artichoke puree and the tarragon + chervil leaves for the bearnaise. When the chef yells "You all have one minute left!" I was still reducing my sauce. I began frantically whisking the egg yolks for my bearnaise. Egg yolk was flying everywhere over my bain-marie. I didn't care. When the fish sauce looked like it was reduced enough, I plated my dish in the worst possible manner and sent it to the judges, who were waiting in the basement. The bearnaise sauce was then plated separately, and I sent it to Chef Caals the moment it was done, and he evaluated the sauce.

"Ouard, t'es 15 minutes en retard." (Howard, you're 15 minutes late.) The chef said.
"Oui Chef, je sais"
"Qu'est-ce qui se passe? You know every minute is 2% off your grade."
"I was going as fast as I could Chef."
"Look, I'm going to write 5 minutes on your evaluation. That's the most I can do. I have to put something down. Are you fine with that?"
"Oui Chef, thank you very much."
"Now sign here."

Shit, I was 15 minutes late. Even if he counted only 5 minutes, that's 10% off my exam grade. I knew that at Le Cordon Bleu there's no grade inflation, unlike my college. My basic exam grade, despite the fact that I actually liked it, was in the 60% range. I was definitely not proud of my sea breams today, so I doubt that I would get a higher grade than in my basic exam. And now I would have 10% off? I'm pissed.

Poor Christian, the friendly American college student in our group, whose sauce was accidentally thrown away during the chaotic last few minutes of his exam. Since he started half an hour after us, we were busy cleaning up our stations as he finalized his dish. Before he knew it, his sauce was gone. Props to him for not panicking, but it still sucked since the essence of his whole dish lied in his sauce, which has dissipated. No one admitted to taking his pan away. I swear man, I certainly didn't. I was nowhere near his stoves. Chef Caals said he would go check with the school director and see if they could evaluate his exam dish without his sauce. I hope he passes.

Oh well, the exam was over. I packed up my stuff and left the practical to change. I felt like crap, I smelled like fish and I had eggs all over my uniform and face because I was whisking so hard to get my bearnaise sauce done.

When I met up with a friend near Centre Pompidou afterwards, I realized that I didn't put cream into my fish sauce, which would completely alter the profile of the sauce. "Oh well, maybe I remembered wrong and I didn't need to add the cream." I told my friend. She replied "But you think you might need to add cream right? Well then, you probably needed to but forgot. Sucks." Thanks, I feel so much better now. This is exactly what friends are for. I checked the recipe later that night. I needed to add cream. Uh oh.

I really don't know how my exam dish is going to turn out. If I fail the class, I'd get a phone call in the next day or two notifying me. It's like the Nobel prize, except you DON'T want the phone call. I'm going to be spending the next few days not sleeping and clinching my phone close.

To be. Continued...

Quote from this class:

"Ummm..... where did my sauce go?"

-Christian,

Uttering probably the last thing one would ever

want to say in a French cuisine practical exam

When Will I See You Again? When Will We Share Precious Moments?

Is this my beginning or is this the end?
(The Three Degrees - When Will I See You Again)

Intermediate Lesson 30- Corsica

Today we had the final demonstration class for the Cordon Bleu Intermediate Cuisine program. Similar to the Basic program, the final class in intermediate had no practical, which meant no one was paying attention I wasn't paying attention. Hey at least I was here. 5 people out of our 19 person program didn't even show up for this 8:30am demonstration class.

The region of focus today is Corsica, the beautiful Mediterranean Island north of Sardinia. Poor Corsica, despite its majestic ocean views and pristine mountains, Cordon Bleu relegated it to the last class with no follow-up practical. Let me tell you something about their cuisine.... Actually, I can't for the life of me tell you what we learned today. Sorry. I think they have a lot of tasty black pigs. I've eaten the black pigs in Sardinia, which were delicious, so I bet the Corsican ones must be delish as well.

Oh, we did learn something interesting- Zucchini flowers, which, if my memory serves me correctly, are the flowers of the zucchini plant. Yes. I bet you didn't know that from its name. And it is also... damn, completely forgot everything else about it.

Zucchini flower. Very interesting stuff.

but what did we use this for again?

Oh I remember now, it's excellent for frying, so we used it in the Vegetable Fritters dish. This dish reminded me of the Japanese Tempura fried vegetables.

What I can tell you is we had sparkling wine at the end of the class. This I remember. So much for my last class ever in Le Cordon Bleu.

YAY for celebration!

The end of the class was actually quite touching, because this was the last day that we would definitely see everyone from class today, well at least the people who showed up. Everyone has different start time tomorrow during the final, so we probably won't see each other, and although there's a graduation ceremony next week, a lot of people will be skipping it. After the demonstration, we all huddled and gave each other hugs, drank sparkling wine, and took lots of photographs. This was also the first time that I stood behind the chef's demonstration table.

 Band of Misfits. It has been grand guys and girls. Thank you!

I just want to say that we also will miss the folks who didn't show up.

Christian, Gulnazi, Martin, Meng, and Random-Chinese-Guy-I've-never-talked-to

Once class ended, I went back to my favorite café near school Le Vaugirad and started studying again. We have an afternoon to study before our exams tomorrow morning. Unlike in basic, I've barely practiced most of the dishes for the exam, and I'm just hoping that the muscle memory that I've acquired throughout the last two months will come into handy.

This photo doesn't look staged at all

Hopefully I'll be fine.

Quote from today's class:

"The little blag pig of Corsica. A very pretty little animal. Wears a thick black robe. Not a robe like on a French woman. I mean the skin. It's got grey droopy ears, a bit chubby. You just wanna pick it up, take it in your arms and cuddle with it."

-Demo Chef Caals,

On the Coriscan Black Pigs

"Don't be worried about the exam! See this quote? 'Athlete leave only records behind!' I like the quote, almost as much as the photo."

-Demo Chef Caals,

Showing us one of those motivational pictures from a magazine.

The accompanying photo is of a very sexy scanty clad woman

Not sure how it relates to the quote
or how this is suppose to motivate us for the exam.

I don't care! I love it!

I crashed my car into the bridge. I watched, I let it burn.

(Iconapop- I love it)

Intermediate Lesson 29- Flanders

Today is our last practical class for the intermediate cuisine class. We made a pan-fried cod steak with flemmish style red cabbage and a beer jus vinigrette. Wait what? YES we are cooking with beer! No more of that sissy wine stuff. We are cooking with BEER! Too bad we didn't even have enough beer for everyone to use according to the ingredients, so none were left for us to "dispense" after class.

Boom!

The atmosphere in the classroom was definitely very relaxed. This was the last class of the term. We've all taken our written exam earlier this week. Most importantly, this dish is not on the list of dishes to prepare for the exam, which meant we didn't really need to learn it. I think House said it perfectly:

 

(Hint: No)

Normally we would all be rushing to take out our knives in the beginning of the class, but today we just took it slow and took some photos of each other. Even the chef came late to the class.

Sitting on the table... big nono!

We wiped it when we got back back down. Don't worry.

After checking in with us, Chef Caals stepped out again and disappeared for another 15 minutes. We of course started playing with our red cabbages, which is really tough balls of really hard purple leaves. I really shouldn't tell you what we did in a public blog, but I can assure you that it was hygienic. Plus we washed them afterwards. But we did get a bit rowdy with the cabbages. It was very clear that none of us cared to start cooking until 10 minutes into the class. I love this group.

I was a bit bummed since I didn't do a good job on it and it was my last practical dish at the school. Though I didn't care about my grade, I wanted to do a good job because this was my last practical class in cooking school ever. I have no intention of taking the superior cuisine class because I don't want to be a professional chef, and I'm not interested in pastry. So I was hoping of whipping up something good to celebrate my last class. Chef Caals instructed us to cut the cod steak straight before cooking them, but I decided to be fancy and cut them escalopé, IE at an angle, because I wanted to make them look fancy for my last day. When I seared the pieces of cod, the pieces just collapsed and broke into pieces as I turned them around. And I know for a fact that it wasn't because I held them too hard because after the first piece I flipped the other pieces gently and they all broke regardless. Really a pity.

Quotes from this class:

"This is a recipe of the North, so I don't want to see any of you using olive oil! Only use peanut oil. People from the North have no sense of flavor. They don't know how to enjoy life. They also never smile. "

-Demo Chef Caals,

Who is from Northern France

Student: Will there be worms in the fish?
Demo Chef Caals: What?
Student: Will we find worms in our fish like we did in the Monkfish?
Chef: Ouai (Yeah)..... maybe.... *evil grin*... they would just add to the flavor anyways...
Student's face turns pale...

Work it like a pro-pro-pro, sit and watch it go-go-go...

Down, Down on Me, Put It Down on Me
(Jeremih ft 50 Cents- Down on Me)

Intermediate Lesson 28- Lots and lots of stuff

Today's dish is a seared veal tenderloin served with a creamy risotto and mushroom duxelle and asparagus sauce.

Chef Caals' dish.
The veal's underneath all that garnishes and above the risotto.

Searing the veal was pretty simple, but the garnishes for this dish was a pain in the neck. Chef Caals made all this looked so simple during the demonstration, but that's just because he's a pro and could manage everything  with ease. For me, I know I definitely got a bit disoriented having so many pans cooking at the same time.

You had to prepare the asparagus sauce by boiling the asparagus stems in boiling water, then blend the stems. Meanwhile, you have to cook the mushroom duxcelle, and begin sweating the shallots for the risotto. All ingredients must be served hot, so you can't finish preparing the garnishes too early in advance. There was a point towards the end when we were all using 6 stoves simultaneously: one stove for cooking the risotto (remember to stir constantly), one stove for preparing the Sauce Mornay (remember to stir regularly), one stove for heating the mushroom duxelle (remember to stir regularly), one stove to sear the asparagus heads used for decorating the dish (remember to stir regularly), one stove for making the jus (remember to degrease), and one stove for searing the steak. Good thing our class was in 2GS, a bigger classroom than the standard 1PS / 2PS, because we all had 6-8 stoves to work with, instead of the usual 4.

My dish came out okay. The veal came out very well cooked, but all my elements lacked seasoning. I admit that the risotto came out a bit weak, but the duxelle and the veal I thought tasted just fine. When a teacher consistently gave me the same feedback, my business school / consulting sides start questioning whether I am actually learning from the feedback provided. Perhaps for next class I should put down biblical proportions of salt onto my dish just to see how the chef reacts.

After class today, I ran into Chef Ju in the hallway. She explained to me that she had no more intermediate classes planned to lead, and I won't see her again in class since I am not doing superior cuisine. It was quite a teary-eye moment because Chef Ju has taken really good care of me. More importantly, because we’re constantly being rushed in and out of classrooms, I would always leave some equipments in the room, and Chef Ju, who for whatever reason always had the class after us would find my knives with their distinctive blue indicator tape lying in the drawer. She must have found hundreds of Euros worth of equipment for me over the entire intermediate term, including big knives like my cleaver, which she almost threw at my head for leaving it behind. Merci Chef et bon courage!

Quote of the class:

After a student expressing dismay at how Demo Chef Caals was contradicting himself in class.
Chef Caals: here, read this sign.  *throws out a magnetic sign from his collection of magnets. Sign says: Le chef a toujours raison. (The chef is always right.)
Me: Hey, that's just like what my mom has!

“Wait, no bacon today?”

-Student in demo class,

commenting on the lack of bacon because

we've had bacon as an ingredient

for almost every dish recently.

I Like My Beat Fast and My Bass Down Low.

Wanna get your mitts in my oven?

(Dev- Bass Down Low)

Intermediate Lesson 27- Salt Crusted Fish

Today we made one of the more interesting dishes in Intermediate- Sea bass in a salt crust, served with a vegetable tart.

The sea bass strikes again! To protect humanity from the ill-tempered fish, the French decided to wrap them in a tough salt crust made of coarse sea salt, flour and herbs. The result was an amazing-looking fish mummy wrapped in a very salty dough. The best part? We didn't have to scale the fish! Still need to gut it with our bare fingers though.

 

 Wow! There's a whole fish in this crust.

You put the entire crusted fish in the oven for 25 minutes or more to ensure that it is well cooked. Some of my classmates burnt their crusts, but luckily the fish still came out well. I guess that's what the crust is there for.

In a restaurant, the entire crusted fish would be wheeled to the diner, and the waiter will fillet the fish in front of the diner. It's so tough that one would have to saw through the dough with a serrated knife. Like this:

 

 Opening the crust like a casket.

The scale and skin stick to the dough and come off naturally.

The waiter would then serve the fish to the client with a beurre blanc sauce, along with the vegetable tart. My tart was a bit burnt. Sorry....

 Boom!

That was pretty awesome. I was pretty bummed that my tart was burnt since I'm usually proud of my tart-making skills. But that was that. The flavoring was fantastic though.

Now before we end, I'd like to announce something new to the blog. But first, some context.

Cordon Bleu provides students with standard issued forks and knives to use. We have a nifty pocket on our left arm to carry these around and look professional. Well the non-conformist in me decided to carry chopsticks as well- a nod to my humble Chinese roots. Some of my classmates noticed that I've been eating everything from the demonstration with my chopsticks. It's true, I use them to eat meat, fish, flan, pies, cakes, even soups, mainly because I'm too lazy to wash another utensil afterwards. Apparently, people think that's hilarious. So today, I am happy to announce the latest series in my blog: 

Can He EAt That with Chopsticks (CHEAT-CHOP)?! 
Cue the "Will it Blend" theme song please.

Yes I always carry my bamboo chopsticks

Today our dessert is caramel ice-cream, which the chef kindly showed us how to do even though we weren't going to make it in practical. Caramel ice-cream is prepared a bit different from standard ice-cream. It's not made with a crème anglaise and so it's softer than usual. Most people would elect to use a spoon for this dish, but Can He Eat That with Chopsticks? That is the question:

Photo evidence, with Gulnazi Photo-bombing

She's eating with Chopsticks too!

A little bit of melting ice-cream is nothing to sweat about! Stay tune for more episodes of.... 

Can He EAt That with Chopsticks (CHEAT-CHOP)?!

Quotes from this class:

Student 1: Hey do we need to salt the fish before we fold in the salt crust?
Student 2: Dude.... you're wrapping the entire fish with a thick salt crust, what do you think?

Me: Chef, why is the appetizer called a Fantasy of Two Salmon? What kind of fantasy is it?
Demo Chef Caals: I didn't come up with that name. The chef who created this dish thought it would be a fantasy if he mixed smoked salmon with fresh salmon, and then serve it with a tropical salad. You know, because cuisine chefs are such poets. I don't know how that is a fantasy...

I'm glad you came, So glad you came.

My universe will never be the same.
(The Wanted- Glad you came)

Intermediate Lesson 26- Roast lamb + Sauce Béarnaise review + Butchering(!)

We entered the demonstration room today with a huge surprise in the demo room. Literally. There was a giant piece of dead animal on the chef's table, with an old man sporting the most incredible mustache I've seen since I last watched Casablanca or the old Pink Panther movies. Seriously, he even wore thick round classes and a a tri-color collared shirt. (I think that makes him a MOF, which means he is one of the very best in France) How much more stereotypically French can he look? I bet he rides his vélo to work every day with a baguette in his basket and wears a beret while drinking café as he reads Le Figaro in the morning. Probably owns a dog called Fido or Milou.

His name's Thierry Michaud, which at first I thought he said Tiramisu.

 Monsieur Thierry Michaud
That's a big cleaver.

M. Michaud subsequently meticulously and systematically dismembered the baby lamb (only 5 months old!) into perfectly cut pieces of heavenly lamb meat. That was really cool and I'm glad the school organized this. Thanks for coming!

Students taking photos of the pieces of lamb.

While M. Michaud demonstrated how to butcher a lamb, Grandpa Bear Chef Stril quietly demonstrated the dish for today, but it was clear that nobody was watching him. The translator even complained that he was blocking the video camera, so Stril had to move all his stuff and quietly work in a corner of his own classroom. Don't worry Chef, I was paying attention.

Stril demonstrated how to make a creme Crème Catalane, which we didn't get to make, and began our practical dish, lamb fillet, with dates and dried apricots wrapped inside, served with couscous.

Boom!

We also reviewed how to make a sauce béarnaise in both demonstration and practical. We've theoretically made the sauce before in basic, but I skipped that class to go to my sister's wedding that time. The sauce wasn't that hard to make, but just like hollandaise and mayonnaise, making this sauce almost broke my arm.

We had Grandpa Bear for our practical class too. Honestly I love this chef, and every practical I had with him just felt great. I went into practical totally organized and in control. Fillet the lamb and start cooking the jus, bam. Start cutting the vegetables for the jus, bam. Prep the reduction for the sauce béarnaise, bam. Gather the garnishes for the couscouse, bam. Everything just flowed. My only hiccup was when my water bath for the béarnaise sauce was too hot and I left the sauce on the bath while I walked to the trash can to throw stuff away. Big mistake. My egg yolks almost became scramble eggs. Good thing it was still early in the process and I could save the sauce. All in all the day went well.

Oh our written exam grades are up already. I have to give it to the school for such a fast turnaround. It's true that there's not that many students in the intensive program, but still props to the school. More importantly, I passed. That's all I care anout. Shout out to my friend and old section-mate Vincent Ho-Tin-Noe, who got A HUNDRED in his basic cuisine written exam. Did you know he just graduated from HARVARD?? What a smart guy.

Quote of the day:

"Oh.... nobody is paying attention to me anymore. It's so sad."

-Demo Chef Stril

preparing the Crème Catalane while everyone

was mesmerized by the butcher cutting up the lamb

Demo Chef Stril: Although we are flambéing the sugar on the surface, this is a crème catalane, which is totally different than a crème brûlée. The two dishes are different in the following ways.....*goes on for another minute or two*

Demo Chef Stril: Bon, so now we burn the sugar on the dessert.

Student: Oh, so this is dessert just like a crème brûlée?

Chef Stril gave the student an "Are-you-f-ing-serious??" look...

If you really want to know the difference: crème brûlée is made with a crème anglaise base, and has to go into the oven to solidify. Crème catalane, though has similar ingredients, contains flour and cornstarch, and only needs to be cooled to solidify.