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Roger McShane

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Posts posted by Roger McShane

  1. There is just one sitting. Not sure how far in advance you have to book - there are only about 36 covers, so as long as possible?

    Great pictures Danielle. It is a lovely restaurant. We went in October 2006 and were able to get in with just a few days notice, but it is more difficult in the middle of summer.

  2. Well, to bring us back to the topic of where to eat I think I should put in a plug for L'Ami Jean. The food there is really very soulful. We thoroughly enjoyed the meal we had there recently, especially the garbure.

    The prices are very reasonable and the food is excellent.

    I was going to say L'Ami Jean as well, but felt that I had mentionned it too many times. I think it is a perfect choice for David's request of something casual but better than your average bistro. I was also thinking of L'os à Moelle.

    Hey wait a minute; I thought the rules were to pick one of the four restos David listed.

    If that restriction is off then it opens the competition to Ze Kitchen Galerie, Les Anges, Violin d'Ingres, l'Ecallier du Bistrot, Maison du Jardin and I could go on.

    Sorry about diverting things here, John. It must be my short attention span kicking in! :unsure:

  3. Well, to bring us back to the topic of where to eat I think I should put in a plug for L'Ami Jean. The food there is really very soulful. We thoroughly enjoyed the meal we had there recently, especially the garbure.

    The prices are very reasonable and the food is excellent.

  4. I will be in Paris 5-9 Feb. and am a great lover of pates, terrines, and the like.

    On a reasonable budget, where are the best? Most distinctive? Most different? Most classic? Best mustard?

    My thanks in advance.

    bw

    I had a beautiful blood terrine at La Cave de l'Os a Moelle in the 15th recently. The food here is served family style at shared tables. It is a lovely venue and the food and wine is priced very reasonably.

    A chef who always produces fine terrines is Yves Camdebourde at Le Comptoir in the 6th. The best time to go is for lunch. Arrive at 12 (midday) and you will be able to score a table.

    Happy eating!

  5. There are two or three quite dark Chinese teas that might qualify but the most likely one is known variously as bo lai, po lai or pu-erh. It is often found in compressed 'cakes'. (Pu erh, by the way, is a prefecture of the Yunnan province.)

    We love this tea as it is a great accompaniment to food and a wonderful digestive.

    We have some 20 year old and 40 year old cakes that we have brought home from Shanghai and Hong Kong. Simply break a piece off put it in the teapot and add water. The colour immediately bursts out of the leaves!

    It is also interesting to note that as the tea 'stews' in the pot it gets darker and darker, however, unlike other teas it does not get overly tannic. It is quite mellow.

    The other candidate might be the oily chui chow tea from the northern, coastal part of Canton.

  6. Laidback said:

    Be aware that the street has changed names in the recent past and most guides haven't haqd time to make the correction.

    When we paid another visit to La Merenda is January this year we noticed that the street name had changed from rue Terrasse to rue Raoul Bosio.

  7. Another place in Nice that we always head for the minute we land is Dominique le Stanq's La Merenda. This is a treasure for food lovers.

    It is tiny with only about 8 tables. You can't make reservations (there is no phone) and you sit on stools. There is only one white wine and one red wine (available by the glass).

    However, the food is among the best in France and it certainly isn't expensive. Expect to find authentic Nicoise food cooked perfectly. The stuffed sardines are legendary as is the daube. The tourte de blette is a dessert you must try. It is a sweet tart made with Swiss chard and raisins - sounds strange but it works really well.

    You can read our review of the restaurant here.

  8. Hi,

    Has anyone used Australian olive oils, the premium ones? How does it compare to its expensive European counterparts, in terms taste?

    Any particular brand or estate to look for in Aussie EVOOs?  :smile:

    Thx

    There is one that you have to try. It is from Tasmania. The Ashbolt olive oil has won many awards. It is a very dark green, unctuous, deeply-flavoured oil that muscles up to the best in Tuscany and Spain.

  9. We have immense respect for John’s opinions and regularly follow his advice, especially in Paris, but I don’t think you should completely give up on Corsica just yet.

    We spent about a week in the area around Calvi and in the Balagne villages in the hinterland in September 2004 and ate some quite good meals. We also bought some good cheese, especially sheep milk cheeses (brebis) and charcuterie so you should be able to produce some good picnics.

    Here are some suggestions, some we tried and a few that were on our list but closed because we were there just as the tourist season was shutting down.

    Casa Musicale in the tiny and beautiful village of Pigna. We ate dishes such as carpaccio of beef with an excellent aigre douce sauce, and pasta with shaved boutargue (the variously named salted, pressed fish roe that you find around the Mediterranean that’s a must eat experience). It’s not in the least bit sophisticated but the flavours are good and there can be few better locations. The menu for a Casarella, also in Pigna, looked worth a try as well, but we didn’t make it there.

    We had a memorable night in Feliceto, also in the hills behind Calvi, partly because the very affordable hotel Mare et Monti, was so delightful. The table d’hote menu was basic but quite satisfying and we loved being in the village – sitting on the terrace at the highly downmarket Rigo Bar where everything seemed to cost 1 euro (well the local pastis, and coffee anyway) listening to duelling church bells echoing through the hills as Feliceto and nearby Nessa competed to win the battle to toll the hour first.

    We had a good meal at Le Tire Bouchon, in Calvi, which has a great selection of local wines. We spent some time at a wine bar called A Cantina, where we started to get a sense of the revitalisation of the local wine industry – often by the younger generation. A group of serious young men, some connected with the establishment and some with local vineyards, were doing serious wine tasting and generally were immersed in a wine culture. We also had really good charcuterie and other good snacks here, which from memory included grilled peppers, anchoide, and figatellu (a local sausage). We also had recommendations for U Minellu, but it had already closed for the winter.

    There are also lots of ferme auberge, which are another option. We had robust soup and a mutton ragout, which was definitely not too dry, at a place called Pietra Monetta, which was about 17 kms north of d'Ile-Rousse.

    The wine scene is really interesting – and local wines are very affordable. We especially enjoyed wines from Clos Culombu and were looked after well on a visit to the vineyard – not by the owner, who was working and nowhere in sight (it was autumn after all) but by a family friend who arrived about the same time and decided to look after us. Also look out for Domaine Gentile muscats, and whites from Domaine Antoine Arena

    One thing we would counsel you on is not thinking you can see all of Corsica in a short period. When we started with a week in mind we thought we could see much of the island but gradually commonsense prevailed – possibly because we live in Tasmania, which is a comparable sized island, but with much easier roads, and we are always amused at overseas and interstate visitors who turn up in our state thinking they can see the lot in a few days. So we decided to limit ourselves to the area behind Calvi and weren’t disappointed.

    This meant that we didn’t get to Ferme Campo di Monte, in the hils above Bastia, which sounds especially good. You might like to read this article from Saveur - here - to see if it temps you. It also has lots of good general advice about what to eat.

    Having said all that there were plenty of places that looked fairly dire and not all our meals were a great success so good luck!

    [John, were these any of the places you tried??]

  10. I would also like to recommend La Beaugravière. A salad of ratte potatoes and freshly sliced black Vaucluse truffles that we tried there a few weeks ago was sensational. The wine list is also very impressive.

    Another place we enjoyed on two occasions was La Fourchette in Avignon (which is a good base for exploring the Southern Rhone wine areas). This is the sibling of Hiély-Lucullus. It does authentic Provencal food very well. Try the caillettes, the daube or the wonderful pieds et paquets. You can read a review here.

  11. There are two very good restaurants in Launceston - although I do not know whether they will be open on Christmas day.

    The first is Fee and Me which is an upmarket, fairly formal restaurant that serves great food. The other one is on the edge of the Tamar River. It is called Stillwater and serves Asian inspired dishes of great sophistication.

    Either would be a great place for a Christmas lunch. If they are not open then there is a wonderful place a few kilometres north of Launceston called Daniel Alps at Strathlyn. The food is great and the view over the valley superb.

    Hope this helps.

  12. The suggestions so far have been great! As PCL says, the Tea House in Little Bourke is an emerging favourite.

    In Sydney, Becasse and Marque are both good with Marque being a cut above. If you want a really great meal however I would recommend Quay. If you want French bistro then Bistro Moncur is certainly worth a visit. But, of course, you shouldn't visit Sydney without going to Sailor's Thai. Also, despite the low ratings in the SMH guide, I think that the Vietnamese food at Red Lantern is very good.

    Back in Melbourne, everyone should be warned that if you eat at the Wine Room on a Thursday, Friday or Saturday night, you have to put up with an extraordinary level of noice and cigarette smoke - it is quite unpleasant and does not do the great food any favours. Mrs Jones in Carlton is a good, reasonably priced choice for dining. Shannon Bennet is also a good choice - he probably does better food than some of the places that are unjustifiably lionized by the local food writers.

    If you are going to China Town then Flower Drum is very special. If you can't get in there then the Bamboo House is a very good alternative - however you have to realise that they run two menus. They get a lot of politicians and corporate CEOs therefore they have to have a traditional Cantonese menu. So you will, by default, be given a menu that has sweet and sour pork and deep fried spring rolls - the standard fare.

    However, I dine there regularly and ask for the northern Chinese menu. Start your meal with a platter of jellyfish, vegetarian goose and smoked fish. Follow up with spring onion cakes, oysters in black bean and chilli and mermaid's tresses. Then move on to some fish or to the amazing smoked duck served in bread pancakes. Or have Peking Duck served three ways - in pancakes, then with noodles and finally with soup.

  13. You simply cannot go to San Francisco without trying Zuni Cafe. It is one of the great foodie places in the world. The Wood oven roasted chicken with bread sauce is one of the best dishes you will experience. Every time I arrive in SFO that is the first place I head for.

    Other places are obviously Chez Panisse and then Delfina.

  14. I dined there in the first week of August. I have a problem with US seafood restaurants such as the Fish Club and Kincaids etc where the restaurants are huge and impersonal.

    The service at the Fish Club was clumsy. The quality of the food was 'third league' as far as my expectations were concerned.

    We ended up leaving after two very ordinary and unexciting entrees.

    We thought that this was just another example of critics being too scared to put their opinions on the line when it comes to criticizing a 'celebrity chef'.

    My opinion is that the food is a pale imitation of what you would expect in a cheap restaurant in Nice, France.

    I think that if I am in the area again I will just continue to go to La Pichet or Harvest Vine!

  15. And the great thing about Gentlemans Relish is that it is based on one of the worlds great flavours - anchovies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Vegemite is a love hate relationship for many Australians. It is a traditional and addictive spread. It is only ever used spread sparingly on toast at breakfast time. Most of us miss it significantly when we have been 'overseas' for more than a week or two. It's a bit like someone from New Orleans being deprived of gumbo!

    They also hate the fact that it is now owned by a US company and we no longer know what the ingredients are. In fact, I have made the ultimate sacrifice and stopped eating it because I no longer know whether there are any GM components in it. There is no labelling law which gives me the confidence that I need.

  16. I have to agree that HV is one of the jewels of Seattle (along with Le Pichet).

    I am an occasional, but regular visitor to Seattle (April and recently in August). I usually spend two weeks in the city. This time i tried Hv and was blown away by the quality of the food. I won't go on about it because the posts above do it justice.

    I would just add that it is a great place to sample the Rias Baixas Albarino wines. These are absolute gems and go perfectly with the food.

    We had no problem getting in at around 6:30 pm after a short wait.

  17. Just a quick update. The day after I returned from the US, i was asked to conduct some computer forums in adelaide and managed to spend 5 days in that wonderful city.

    I headed for the Ying Chow on the first night and it was significantly better that on previous visits. It really is the 'cheap and cheerful' star of the city.

    A meal at the Star of Greece for lunch the next day was perfect. Sitting on the cliff top eating sensible food and benefitting from the well-chosen wines.

    Dinner at the Grange was as memorable as always although we detected some tensions in the front-of-house about staffing levels. There were some real gaps in service for which our waiter apologised profusely but was unable to rectify.

    A meal at One Twenty Four on Vine was pleasant-to-good without being the type of meal you would go into raptures about.

    Georges on Waymouth is well-worth a visit for lunch and breakfast. Very professional.

  18. Hi Arunaputri

    Sorry i haven't responded sooner but I have been travelling in the US.

    You make me feel very restless knowing that it is durian season. I wish i could drop into Malaysia and try some of your tempoyak.

    Unfortunately our quarantine laws in Australia are such that I cannot import any such delicacies!!!!

  19. I have been following the discussion with a lot of interest as a devotee of Singapore, Kualur Lumpur and Bangkok variations of Hainanese chicken. But I have to add my comments about the claims relating to the Malay Satay Hut.

    I visit Seattle often. I was there in April and revisted a couple of weeks ago. During that visit I made another visit to the Malay Satay Hut. I was surprised on ordering that the owner moved us to a bigger table and said that he rarely got anyone in the restaurant who ordered the 'genuine' Malay dishes! (We had asked for ikan bilis and fried pigs intestines as well as the chicken and the rendang so we didn't think our order was very unusual.)

    Now the chicken was good and the rendang was OK. The roti was excellent. But you could hardly claim that the chicken even 'touched the raiment' of similar dishes we have tried in Singpaore and Kualur Lumpur (or in Australia for that matter).

    The meal was good, the service was lovely but it was good food not great food.

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