Roger McShane

Shiewie You can't become an expert unless you do!!

I definitely agree with Le Pichet and Matt's in the Market. It is also worth the drive across the lake to Cafe Juanita - probably the best Italian I have eaten on many trips to Seattle. At the high end Campagne is the best I have tried in Seattle and Brasa is also good. Rover's is also OK but Flying Fish, Cascadia, Fandango, Restaurant Zoe etc are all OK but not in the exemplary category. Wild Ginger serves nice food but it isn't very 'Asian' for my palate. Monsoon is a bit better in this category.

Shiewie I am so glad that you have arrived on this forum. It's just so good to have experts helping us to learn about the amazing depth of Asian food. For example, I didn't know it had been cooked with either dried longan or ginseng! It is certainly jelly-like, hence my reference to 'pillows'. There were jelly-like 'blobs' lying lazily on the limpid liquid. It was certainly a cleansing end to a lovely meal.

Of course. What better way to end a meal than a beautiful glass bowl studded with ice cubes with pillows of the secretions of the glands of the snow frog lying languidly over them!

Well, I won't talk about hasma then!

Shiewie The last time I had it was at a restaurant in KL. It was served in a small bowl to be eaten as an accompaniment to a range of small dishes. And I have tried durian pengat and thought it was great!

Chopper - i agree about Magill Estate. My meals there have always been first rate - and being able to try Grange by the glass is a class act. Jango: I also like Hanuman in Darwin - a nice place. But what about Sailors Thai in Sydney?? This is the best Thai food I have eaten outside Bangkok. And can you remember where the Seattle hole-in-the-wall was?

But the flavour is so sublime!!!! It's amazing how the fermentation process transform the original flavours into something that is so beautiful (although I must admit that a friend of mine who was with me when I first tried it thought it was revolting!).

One of the most amazing dishes I have ever eaten is tempoyak - a dish of fermented durian, that wonderful fruit of South East Asia. I tried it at a restaurant in KL a few years ago but can still remember the lingering flavour. I have been unable to find out how to make it. Does anybody know this dish and how to make it?

When people write about Australian restaurants they always give due deference to Sydney and sometimes to Melbourne. However, they rarely recognise the amazing restaurants of the 'city of churches', namely Adelaide. We are fortunate to be able to travel to this great restaurant city very regularly. We think that three of the restaurants rate alongside the best in Sydney. You cannot go here without experiencing the food of Cheong Lieuw at the Grange. His food is unique and he has been a trail-blazing chef in this country. But Bridgewater Mill is in the same league - stunning food by Le Tu Thai . And so is the food at the quiet achiever - Magill Estate Restaurant. Here we have had some memorable food and wine experiences. How about Grange by the glass!!!! Those three are the top end restaurants but the others also thrill the food lover. Jasmin serves great Indian food, Ying Chow serves earthy Chinese regional dishes and the list goes on. Does anyone else have any Adelaide experiences to relate?

Hi Shiewie I'm beginning to think that if I asked for information about restaurants on Easter Island then you would have been there!!! I know the area near the world Trade Centre that you metion so I will make sure I go there. And I promise to give a full report on my eating experiences in Bangkok. It's such a wonderful city! I am very excited that there is now a lot of discussion on this Asian board. For the first couple of years I found it very difficult to get many responses. I was sad because I believe that Asian food is at the pinnacle of world cuisine. But now it is exciting. We are getting information about all of the great cuisines of Asia on this site. It is very nostalgic. In the thirty years that I have been travelling to Asia for my business I have spent time in Singapore (getting to know Singaporean, Indian, Peranaken (love that Ayam Buah Keluak!) and Samsui cuisines. I have worked in Kuala Lumpur for a couple of months revelling in breakfasts of Nasi Lemak and dinners accompanied by hidden delights such as the wonderful tempoyak. In Bangkok I have become addicted to dips made from fermented fish (nam pla ra) and the wonderful hor mok and ma hor and etc etc. I have become addicted to Isaan cuisine and the fabulous fermented sausages. I must stop. It is easy to start raving about such wonderful food! Please everyone - keep posting your Asian food experiences. There are so many people who want to know every detail.

Couldn't agree more David. My meals at Emeril's restaurants have been consistent in their mediocrity. I like Bayona and have had some good dishes at Peristyle. Galatoire is the sort of place I like to go to in the same way I like to go to the museum in Thessaloniki - I get the feeling I have been frozen in a different era! The service is some of the best around even if the food is ordinary. Next visit I must try to get to Brigsten's.

Hi everyone I am off on another eating trip to Bangkok. My last couple of trips have concentrated on restaurants - where I had some wonderful and authentic food. Places like Celadon (at the high end), Ton Po, Vientiane Kitchen and Kaloang Home Kitchen were all wonderful. This time I would like to concentrate more on the best examples of street food. I would like to find the best simmered pork hocks, the best som tum, the perfect 'yam som or' and a killer homok pla. Can anybody point me to great hawker stalls that they have eaten at in Bangkok?

Trillium Your comments are quite valid. Wild Ginger does not claim to be a Thai restautant - and remember that I am only using that restaurant as an example. However, it does claim some of its dishes to be Thai - without qualfication. They don't say that they are Thai-inspired or Thai-like or even 'pale imitations of Thai'. If they claim a dish to be Thai, then it should resemble a Thai dish in flavour and construction. The dishes claimed to be Thai at Wild Ginger don't remind me in any way of the many dishes I have tried in Thailand. They are not even remotely similar in flavour, texture, balance or presentation.

This is a difficult task! I always like to join in an educative process. I am also aware that 'outsiders' who make negative comments about the US can be treated with a great deal of hostility. I am always extremely grateful that my colleagues at MIT in Boston first pointed me to a Thai restaurant (Bangkok) in 1980. I was stunned with the clean, fresh flavours that I had never experienced in Australia at that time. I has been travelling to Singapore for about ten years at the time and had become immersed in Malaysian and Indian flavours but had never tried authentic Thai cuisine. So, I then began my obsession with Thai cuisine. This was helped immensely when David Thompson opened his amazing restaurant called Darley Street Thai in Sydney. He did everything just like he would in Thailand. The coconut milk and cream were fresh. The chillis were the small 'scuds' that are really, really hot. The flavours were uncompromisingly authentic. If you didn't cope - then you were the problem! I soon came to realise that Thai food is one of the most complex and sophisticated in the world. Probably more advanced than French - even though I love everything about that country. And now to Seattle - a city that I really like (except for the freeways)! I will take just one example. I recently (April 2003) had a few meals at Wild Ginger. All of the food I tried here was well cooked and presented beautifully. My only comment is that a Laotian dish should taste like a Laotian dish. A Thai dish should taste like a Thai dish! The food was enjoyable. It was cooked competently. It just didn't taste of Asia. The Thai dishes were muted 'in extremis'. They didn't have that amazing balance of sweet, sour, salty and hot that you expect from the street stalls of Bangkok. I should add that this is not a problem confined to Seattle. I once took a journey into the suburbs of Chicago to try a Thai restaurant that lots of people had recommended as being exemplary. Same problem. It wasn't worth the journey. I would really like to hear about places in the US that provide the same sort of flavours as the Vientiane Kitchen or Ton Po in Bangkok or Sailors Thai in Sydney. I would really like to have them on my visiting list. I just don't want to go to places that provide pale imitations.

Four or five month-long visits over the last three years leads me to the conclusion that Cafe Juanita serves the most "truly-authentic" Italian dishes in town. The soup simmered with Parmesan rind simply sings of Italy! The best French dishes can be found in two restaurants quite close together. Campagne is memorable (and the wine list is good as well). Nearby Le Pichet serves simpler food in simpler surroundings but it is authentic and prepared with care. The salad of pork belly is indistinguishable from similar dishes i have tried at many bistros in country France. The charcuterie plate is a great dish to graze on while trying a selection of their French wines. Someone mentioned Matts in the Market. I thought that this restaurant is really trying to please. On my visit in april 2003 I was on my own. They really looked after me there! And the food was simple but very competently cooked. A nice place. I didn't try Oceanaire but I liked Flying Fish (despite the smokers at the bar), Cascadia, Brasa and Zoe. It was only when I delved into non-Japanese Asian restaurants that I became disappointed with the 'dumbing-down' of flavours.

I totally agree about the lack of good Mexican food in Australia. I think we have done well with incorporating Asian food into the country (the laksa at Penang Coffee House, the Thai food at Sailors Thai, the Vietnamese cuisine at Red Lantern in Sydney and Pho Dzung in Melbourne, the Cantonese food at Flower Drum, the Malaysian food at the various Chinta Ria outlets and the Southern Indian food at Nilgiri's). However we do not do Mexican well! This also shows in the range of tequila available in this country. They are invariably the sub-$40 mass-produced rubbish that are used by youth to get drunk quickly. It is hard to find one of the ethereal aged tequilas that rank alongside cognacs and armagnacs in their complexity. There is also a lack of southern US restaurants - although I don't see that as a problem having experienced Louisiana cooking over a 12 month period - it isn't a great cuisine despite the hype. We seemed to have strayed from the Brit theme - but it has been interesting anyway!

Thanks for those comments Lamington. Your point about the Med influence in Melbourne is very apt. Also I like your point about British v US. I agree entirely. I would much prefer to see Gary Rhodes than the totally and utterly vacuous Emeril as an example of a cooking program. There are very few US cooking shows that have any redeeming features with the exception of the marvellous Rick Bayliss Mexican programs.

An interesting set of suggestions. Although I prefer to indulge in an obsessive amount of research before I arrive in any city, I occasionally get caught out by a sudden change of plans. I would discount the 'look for a line outside' theory otherwise you would end up at Mothers in New Orleans! I really like the short menu suggestion. Restaurants that have the courage only to serve a few appetisers and entrees are more likely to be confident of their ability. Also I like menus that try not to span too many countries on the menu (or even worse in one dish). One of the places that I did not hesitate to immediately walk inside and book dinner was a restaurant in Washington DC. I was attending a conference and went out for a mid-morning walk. Nearby was a restaurant and the staff were carefully cleaning the windows and tables. This was at 11am - but the restaurant only opened for dinner! I walked in and booked for dinner and we had one of the best meals of that trip. It was a place called Rupperts - well worth a try.

There has been a lot of press recently about Australian chefs taking London by storm. Of the many examples quoted, David Thompson's justifiable elevation to a Michelin star is but one. This got me thinking about the contribution of British chefs to Australian cuisine. I remember eating at a long gone restaurant called Max's in Melbourne and hearing a group of British chefs who had only recently arrived enthusing over the freshness of the local produce. This was in the early 1980s. Since then many British chefs have made a contribution, particualrly in Melbourne. But it is Sydney that has stolen the march! Could it be that the contribution of the British chefs has held back innovation and the embracing of Asian flavours that typifies Sydney? I must admit that most of their contributions leave me wondering what all the fuss is about. A recent meal at the Botanical and numerous meals at Ondine are examples. Having said that I would like to mention two outstaning exceptions. Jeremy Strode who set up the wonderfully-named Pomme in South Yarra (he is now at MG Garage in Sydney) has produced some of the best meals I have ever eaten. Similarly Darren Simpson at Aqua Luna in Sydney is turning out food that is truly wonderful. However, when you compare this with the contributions of Neil Perry, Peter Doyle, Phillip Searle etc etc it seems to pale into insignificance. Does anyone else have any thoughts?

Schielke You mention that Nishino is OK but there are better places! As a regular visitor to Seattle I need to know where htey are. Can you enlighten me??

Hello everyone I really want to try to get this discussion into perspective. Earlier today I had coffee at Macrina Bakery in Seattle. This is about as good as coffee gets! Not quite as good as in the coffee palaces in Torino. Maybe not quite as good as the ABN AMRO building in Sydney. But it was certainly up there with the best. So, it is not that I am against a particular country or coffee style. It's just that CDM sucks!!!

I must be losing my grip of the English language - I didn't know that a curmudgeon was a person who wanted good food experiences as opposed to revolting food experiences!!

Rosie One of the secret places that not many people know about is the coffee place in the entrance to the ABN Amro builing which is very close to your hotel. They make some of the best coffee in Sydney - forget about everything else they serve.

I have recorded my general disgust with Cafe du Monde on many other threads. I am also aware that it is a chain as there was an outlet in the Hyatt mall where I was working last year. The discussion about Cafe du Monde gets to the heart of what eGullet should be about. The love of good food should be about precisely that. It should not be about recommending places to hand out when you are drunk or places to hand out to drink really, really bad coffee. How about we all refocus and talk about places that serve good coffee and good food.