Results tagged “food” from VANTAN.ORG

In my 2 months in France, I managed to check out two Michelin-rated restaurants. This one, Les Pléiades in Barbizon, was the better of the two. I’ll zoom in on my dish, which was most unusual.

Filet du canette migratoire du Canada a la sauce cranberry, puree vitelotte et bouquet de legumes printaniers

The air-flown duck arrived in an ‘Air Mail’ envelope which the waiter cut up. It was then laid out on my plate. It was explained that since we were in Barbizon, the town where many artists and authors resided, this dish represented a palette that we could paint on.

I was given a tube of warm paste which turned out to be more of the purple potato mash with an obvious hint of truffle. I decided to write my name on my plate.

Another dish on the menu that intrigued us, was called ‘Seriole Killer’. Turns out the El Bulli-trained chef has a sense of humour and it is actually a fish dish with a ‘knife’ sticking out.

We could see the El Bulli influence in various dishes, such as this dessert which came with cactus juice. It tasted grassy but not unpleasant.

Escale de fruits des iles avec ses dunes au sesame et sa fraicheur de cactus au citron

Finally the chef, Philippe Geneletti, emerged to chat with us. I told him he deserved his Michelin star. This was a very new restaurant with an obviously young, up and coming chef who still had a lot of ideas and enthusiasm.

The gastronomic restaurant (not to be confused with the more casual brasserie in the same hotel) is located in the newly-built Les Pléiades hotel. For more information, visit the hotel website.

Today I met my family at the Charles de Gaulle airport and drove them to Chablis. There was a big accident on the A6 highway because all cars stopped moving for 30 minutes, and people got out of the cars to see what was happening down the road. Soon, a few ambulances and rescue vehicles arrived and cleared the way.

Because of that, by the time we arrived in Chablis most restaurants were closed. We finally found a bistro. All they had left to offer us was a cheese platter with salad and bread, which we willingly agreed on, and some Chablis wine.

We drove on to Dijon, settled down quickly at the hotel and booked a table at a Michelin 1-star restaurant at the Hostellerie de Chapeau Rouge. I was surprised it was relatively easy to book a place on the day itself. We took a scenic walk through the historical part of town to get to the restaurant.

Overall, the food was good, but initially disappointing. As an Asian, I am not so easily impressed when presented with a row of maki (Japanese rice rolls) and what tasted like fried dough with Indian spices dipped in yoghurt sauce. My own starter was salmon in 3 ways. One tasted like a Vietnamese dumpling, with chopped salmon and mint leaves wrapped in a rice-based dumpling skin with a fish sauce dip. Another was like a wrap with guacamole. The final chunk of salmon was nicely done and I thought that was the most original. I thought it would’ve been fine to stick to French, or a less literal interpretation of ‘fusion’ food. The other starter was a simple rocket salad but nicely done, though I dare say it was nothing unusual.

The wine was excellent and together with the main courses, made up for the unimaginative Asian-style starters. My veal was tender and tasty even though the pieces were thick. The others had beef and swordfish, and the roast pigeon in could’ve been the best dish of all, because it was even more flavourful and succulent than my veal.

We ended the meal with two combinations of various desserts, either laid into one cup or plate. I tasted unsweetened ‘glace’ (ice cream) and it was actually refreshing. The sesame whipped cream was also unsweetened, and similarly easier on my conscience. So were the jelly cubes. Thus I thought the mains and desserts were worth it.

Tomorrow we head to Beaune, another town en route to Geneva.

I have hardly any posts on cooking, but I assure my readers I can help around the kitchen.

This was what we were cooking in the afternoon - fish soup. [All photos taken by iPhone]

First, I chopped up carrots, celery and onions (sniff sniff), then fried them with olive oil in a large pot.

We marinated the fish in white wine, and the prawns in XO sauce.

We had a problem with shrinking scallops the last time we cooked this dish. So this time, we seared the scallops (to lock in their juices) then removed them from the pot, to be added when everything else was cooked.

Separately, we soaked the clams in salt water to remove the fishy smell. Then we steamed them. Only the fresh ones open up, and those are the ones that make it to our soup.

We added fish, and then prawns to the main pot.

We added two cartons of stock.

Final product!

Serve with baked garlic bread (olive oil and garlic only - no butter! Must be healthy).

Tip: To have really finely-sliced bread, put the baguettes in the freezer so they’re firm when you cut them.

Cooking tips and recipe courtesy of my Cordon Bleu-trained grandaunt :)

I used to marvel at the Harrods food hall in my younger days. Somehow, this time I wasn’t wowed very much. In fact, despite the sale the place was relatively empty. It was late morning. We managed to grab seats at the Japanese restaurant.

Check out the caviar! BTW these weren’t even the most expensive … I think the priciest bottle was going for over 3,000 quid.

We had tea at the Illy bar.

I highly recommend the Strawberry Cheesecake. It isn’t too sweet, and has a cookie base.

I haven’t been to Geek Terminal in a while, but Melvin had cleverly suggested revisiting it with our newly-returned Wilson Tan, of Dell Blog fame.

When I arrived, the two guys were chatting to Danny, the owner. We had dinner together. He recommended the soft shell chilli crab pasta, which we all ordered, and we also had a bottle of Spanish red wine.

He let us try the Italian Muscato, a sweet white wine, which was most refreshing.

We also had the chef’s salad and sampled the chicken pie which was very wholesome.

Danny told us all about his coffee exploits and we were really moved by his passion for the subject. In the end, Wilson and I tried his coffee. It was the smoothest coffee we’ve ever tasted.

Me about to sip my coffee, with Danny behind.

[I shot a video of Danny explaining how to make the perfect cup of coffee, but it needs editing]

It was a fantastic dinner with great company and stimulating conversation, ranging from PR and marketing ideas to the F&B industry and my passion for search engine optimisation. We decided we could all be ‘geeks’ as long as we had a passion for something.

It was definitely a night to remember! Thanks guys.

[Update: To Derrick who commented on this post - Danny saw your feedback and would like to invite you over - coffee’s on him.]