Shinboners

That's a very big call. The HKJC have released a cookbook with Cooke's recipes. It's called "Food Art" and you should be able to get it from the HKJC.

It's a shame that you're not in Australia because I've seen "Balance and Harmony" for sale at $40 at Target.

You could get "The Essential Madhur Jaffrey" for a taster, and then get her other books as your intereste develops.

Even if he did present the alleged comments as facts, the thing is, Ripert has run the kitchen of one of the world's best restaurants. I would have thought that would make him a pretty good candidate to present a TV cooking show. And anyway, when it comes to "facts", how many TV chefs go on about "browning your meat to seal in the juices" when Harold Mcgee has shown this not to be true?

The other thing that needs to be considered is what was the context in which he made that comment? He may have been serious, but then again, he may have said it in a way to ridicule some of the things he had been taught during his early training.

Please refer to my earlier post, as quoted below: Both verions are hardcover. The Australian version has a red cover with gold lettering, whilst the UK version has the "Australian box design" as its cover.

I'm always baffled when people assert that nouvelle cuisine had no lasting effect on culinary culture. It's not like we've all taken a reactionary stance against nouvelle cuisine by eliminating reduced sauces from our repertoire and returning to the wisdom of roux-thickened sauces! ← I don't know whether you're including me as one of those who is asserting that nouvelle cuisine had no lasting effecxt on culinary culture, but I was thinking more along the lines that nouvelle cuisine had become a parody of itself, and that molecular gastronomy could head in the same direction. Any worthwhile contributions may be forgotten as people (and it's the general public) only remember and mock the excesses. But even with the jokes aimed at nouvelle cuisine, chefs like Bocuse, Troisgros, Verge, and co. are still revered because their contributions had substance. If molecular gastronomy ends up in the popular culture as something to be laughed at, I'm sure that the likes of Adria, Blumenthal, Achatz, and co. will still be revered due to the value of their work.

In twenty to thirty years time, will people look at molecular gastronomy with the same bemused eyes that we do with nouvelle cuisine? It's just an advert, and it's humourous.....but like a few others, it's just a shame that it's done for the terrible tasting diet coke.

Amarantha, It might just be easier if you start a new thread and just copy your review onto it. Now that Kevin Rudd is handing out $900 to nearly every taxpayer in Australia, nobody should have any excuse not to splash out on dinner at a good restaurant.

I've flicked through that book a few times, but unfortunately, like a few other cookbooks released by Phaidon, it's a case of style over substance.

Thanks for the excellent review Amarantha. Some of your descriptions made my mouth water. I was down on Gertrude Street today, and I tried to find Cutler And Co. just to check out the menu. The only problem was that I couldn't find the restaurant. It'll be interesting to see what they do with the pricing. Restaurants will often open with lower pricing, and then raise prices as they build up a following - and I'm pretty sure that McConnell has used this strategy at Diningroom 211, Mrs. Jones, and Three One Two. But if the prices are already up at Three One Two level, then I don't know how he can go higher in price, especially in the current economic conditions.

I hope Amarantha will post a report. As for me, I probably won't get to Cutler and Co until April. The restaurant doesn't do dinner on a Sunday, and that's the night my pal has set aside for dinner. However, we may go to Embrasse, which is the restaurant that has taken over the old Three One Two premises. The menu looks interesting, with an emphasis on vegetables. The chef, Nick Poelaert, has worked under Michel Bras in France (which would explain some of the vegetable dishes) and Shannon Bennett from Vue de Monde.

And then there's "My Restaurant Rules" from Australia. It's been around awhile too. ← There were only two seasons of My Restaurant Rules. It was okay, but hardly essential viewing. There's also another show here called "The Chopping Block". It's similar to "Kitchen Nightmares" except you have two struggling restaurants that need to be turned around, and the winner gets a cash prize.

Over here in Melbourne, Australia, a number of fine dining places have opened up less expensive versions of the flagship restaurant. A few were shrewd (or lucky) enough to have opened their cheaper options well before the financial crisis hit late last year. At the very least, they'll get some cash flow which will hopefully help their flagship restaurants survive. However, I do think a lot of restaurants will close in Melbourne. There was a report recently that said that we had too many restaurants for a city of 3million. Complicating the issue at the high end of restuarants is the Crown Casino. Like their Las Vegas counterparts, they have lured high end restaurants to their location. We have a Nobu, but it's owned by Crown - and without the Crown money behind it, I think there would be a good chance that it would close.

A couple of years ago, we had booked in for Vue de Monde for my birthday. But in the weeks leading up to the date, we cancelled as I just wanted something simpler - and we went to a French bistro instead. The prospect of a 7 courses of cutting edge food over 5 hours just didn't appeal as much as a simple steak frites.

Maybe you were right the first time around. I stumbled upon this review of Vue de Monde, and it's all a bit, "Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore". I don't know how anyone could be so keen to go to a restaurant, spend so much money at it, and yet not realise what food it serves before going there....."We were expecting modern French food. We were in for a very rude surprise." http://ezinearticles.com/?Vue-De-Monde---I...rous&id=1237869

Anthony Bourdain reckons that we've got restaurants and chefs that can match it with the best in the world and I like to think that he's right. Unless Michelin do an Australian guide, we could probably only go by anecdotes. Several years ago when Donovan Cooke was running Ondine, it got 3 chefs hats. Gordon Ramsay (who knew him from their Marco Pierre White days) had dinner there and said it was about 2 Michelin star standard. Tetsuya's in Sydney (3 chefs hats) was at one stage rated the 3rd best restaurant in the world by Restaurant magazine, and Rockpool was in the top 50. An acquaintance of mine showed one of the Restaurant Magazine reviewers around Melbourne, and the reviewer raved about Vue de Monde saying that it was as good as anywhere in Europe or the United States. It would be interesting if Michelin do an Australian guide as the arguments over who gets or didn't get stars would be an entertaining way to kill a bit of time.

I think you get into a very messy area if you start talking about who can or cannot go to certain restaurants. Certainly for myself, I was hopelessly out of my depth the first few times I went to high end restaurants. I suppose the point I was trying to make in my previous post (probably a bit clumsily) is that there are people who feel obliged to enjoy something simply due to price and/or reputation. And then there are those will be happy just as long as they've got a big pile of food in front of them, no matter how good or bad it is.

It's salads in my household. Get some good quality cured meats, some salad leaves with tomatoes, olives, artichoke hearts, and some mustard, olive oil, and lemon juice, and I'm happy. Oh, and a beer or two goes down well too.

Really? That's hilarious. Anyway, the Chopping Block was okay without being great - it was never essential food TV for me. There were two episodes that I would have loved to have seen, both involving a fall in grace by the chef. The first had a chef that once held a chefs hat from the Age Good Food Guide. The second had a chef that used to work for Matt Moran at Aria, but walked out during service one night, and never returned. I haven't been as keen on Food Safari as I have been in previous years. I think they're running out of cuisines to cover. If you're covering a culture that doesn't have a large presence in Australia, you're unlikely to find some top quality food. We did catch the edition on U.S. food in Australia, and as a result, we went to one of the restaurants featured. What looked great on TV turned out to be somewhat disappointing when we ate there a week later. We did have a chat to the owner, and she said that the exposure on Food Safari resulted in a significant increase in her business - especially from ex-pat Americans looking for a hit of diner food. For Meave O'Meara fans, you should also check out her previous show, Food Lovers Guide To Australia.

Anthony Bourdain has recently shot an episode of No Reservations in Melbourne, Australia. It's gives me a good dose of the warm fuzzies that he enjoys my town so much. Matt Preston seems to have done a better job of bonding with Bourdain than John Lethlean did in a previous visit. Looking at the list of places that Bourdain visited, he ate very well from the top end (Royal Mail) to the street food (A1) - but I do wonder if he made it to the Queen Victoria Market for one of those bratwurst sausages. For those who follow the linages of chefs, Preston mentions a chef named Joe Abboud. He was trained by Donovan Cooke, who was trained by Marco Pierre White. Matt Preston on Bourdain: http://www.theage.com.au/news/entertainmen...3423402141.html John Lethlean on Bourdain (from Bourdain's first visit to Melbourne a few years ago) http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/04/...0172798982.html And here's a few pictures of Bourdain playing a game called Trugo. http://blog.trugo.org.au/2009/01/anthony-b...ations-has.html

McConnell's new restaurant, Cutler And Co., opens tomorrow night. I've got a friend coming over from London next month, so hopefully we'll be able to get a table there.

In Eric Ripert's book, "On The Line", there's a chapter about developing new recipes. He gave two examples, one of which they put onto the menu with little modifications. In a second, iirc, they were trying to get the balance of flavours and textures right, spent about six months on it, but they couldn't get it to work so they ditched the dish. But the other side of the argument is how and why customer responds to the food? From what I can gather, Tender Trap does pretty well. If Lethlean's review is right, do people who go to the restaurant simply like the quantity of the food, and don't really care about the quality of the cooking or how the components of the dish fit together? Even if you go to the high end of dining (like Melbourne's Vue de Monde), there would be diners who are there because "it's the place to be seen" and/or they're too intimidated to admit, "I don't get this dish" or "I don't like it". It's interesting to read in Heston Blumenthal's "Big Fat Duck" on how he tries to tie in his food to earlier eating experiences that his clients would have had - to give them a point of reference on the dishes they are about to enjoy.

I spent a quiet evening yesterday looking through various Australian cookbooks, and it occured to me that we're unlikely to see a McConnell, Sibley, or Martini book that is related to restaurant cooking over the next year or two. If you think about books like the ones released for the Botanical or the Lake House, their RRP was around the $80 mark. I think the market for these kinds of books won't be as large as it once was. Despite Rudd's handouts, the lower interest rates, and falling petrol prices, people won't splash out on high end books until they feel more comfortable about their long term financial prospects.

If you've got time, you should come over one day on the weekend. I'll get a pigs head and we can have fun cooking it.