Peter Green

Day 5 Lunch With Geoff Lindsay Executive Chef Pearl Restaurant and Bar, Melbourne, Australia Pearl at the Peak, Hong Kong Watermelon, Marinated Feta and Sunflower Shoot Salad With a clear tomato jellly Blue Water Barramundi With Gingered Wong Bok, Lup Cheong and Shiitake Turkish Delight and Rose Petal Ice Cream Pomegranate Seeds and Persian Fairy Floss I was shocked! Shocked, I say! There, on the stage before me, was a very familiar looking box of Turkish Delights. Familiar enough that I still carried the receipt for them in my wallet. I’d picked these up on the way over as a gift for Khun Tatiya, who, along with Lubosh, handles a lot of planning and organization for the Fest from the F&B office. Of greater importance, she always makes sure that my bookings and room reservations are in order. Given this much work on her part above and beyond, some sweets wouldn’t be out of order. But here they were, offered up as part of the class? It seems that Khun Tatiya had the box about when the predatory Aussie, Geoff Lindsay, spotted them. In less time than it takes to say “vegemite” he’d laid claim to them as the perfect ingredient, one he’d been scouring Bangkok to find without luck to this very moment. At least she got to try one piece. I suppose it’s all for a good cause. Geoff’s another of these chefs that does well on stage. He gets on the telly a fair bit in Melbourne and he’s got a couple of books out now. This background makes for a good experience in the class, as he can keep things moving all through. Coming from Melbourne, he’s got a keen interest in different ingredients, drawing upon the Asian population, and upon the middle-eastern influences in the town (Melbourne has one of the largest Egyptian populations outside of Cairo and Alex). The first dish up, the watermelon salad, is a take on the traditional Eastern Med salad of feta, fruit, olive oil, and veg, the classic Levant combination of ingredients. Casual in its manner and consumption. But, just making a salad would be kind of dull, so the challenge is to twist it a bit to make a splash (or a wiggle, in this case). First up, tomato jelly. The trick here is to disguise the tomato. To do that, we draw out the water from the nice, big, fleshy tomatoes he has in a bowl. We drop in a bit of salt to extract the water, then give them a seeing to with Mr. Buzzy. The slurry goes into a cheesecloth, and this drains for a couple of hours into a basin, providing the nice clear water that holds the essence of the tomato. Now, for the sake of getting this class over in an hour, he’s got some water already drawn on the side, but we did go through the steps. Then we take the water and set it into a jelly with some gelatin leaves. These just get dropped into the tomato water after a short minute’s soak in water. Then it’s pour off into molds and it’ll come together on its own. Meanwhile we’ve had the feta marinating in some good extra virgin olive oil. This gets a whipping in the blender in order to lighten it up a little bit. The watermelon (seedless preferred, but I won’t have that option) is cut carefully into even cubes, and a drop of rose water is introduced to sweeten and add aroma. But just a drop. Geoff’s comment here is that the “dish is an exercise in restraint”. A dash of black pepper, and a bit of lemon to cut through the sweetness we’d just brought up. He’s in favour of sunflower shoots. They give a nutty flavour to the mix. And some shredded mint to set off your palate. Construction begins with the melon cubes and some nice big Spanish olives on the bottom; the feta as a medallion on top of this; the sunflower shoots and mint; and then the wobble of the jelly on top of everything. Now that took a little bit, but that’s what you’d expect to see in the restaurant. If, however, you just wanted something to pass a sunny afternoon on the patio, you could just as easily drop a wedge of watermelon, some greens, tomato, lemon, and feta on a plate and dig in. Which is just what he does, and then has the dishes passed around for contrast. Next up, Blue Water Barramundi with gingered wong bok, lup cheong, and shiitake. Now with this, Geoff waxes a bit on the pleasures of Oz. A big part of this, for a cook, is the spread from North to South of the country. You can find just about anything if you look about, given the range of climates. And in Melbourne you have the added extra of seasonal dining, as the region there goes through a definite Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter cycle. This range has driven a lot of the upsurge in cuisine that’s taken place in Australia for the last fifteen or so years. The Barramundi is a fish from the North, found from Cairns to Darwin. Like the salmon it runs into the estuaries from the sea, and like the salmon it’s relatively high in fat. For his money, he’d rather have the sea-caught Barramundi, as the muscle texture is better before they go into the rivers to spawn (hmmm, a similar description of myself before and after marriage). In preparation, he had a nice method. He flensed the skin away, keeping it whole, then cut the fish down lengthwise into tenderloin like pieces. Then he stacked the three of these on top of the skin and rolled it back up in its own skin. Get a bit of string, and presto you’ve got “fish in bondage”. Okay, if I was a fish, I’d be reading this open-mouthed in horror. But the result is very neat (in the tidy sense). You end up with a roll or maki of fish, which can be evenly portioned out in the kitchen, avoiding the problem of who gets the end piece. This would be a neat approach to take with a salmon, and I’ll have to try this when I get back to Vancouver (I avoid experimenting too much here with my limited supply). Cut this into steaks, and marinate overnight in soy, white pepper, and sugar in order to get it to bind together better. The sugar will help it caramelize when the cooking comes. So, that’s already been done for the one we’re going to work with. We get some ginger infused oil heated up in the wok, and slide the fish into the hot oil for five minutes and then remove. There’s no flour involved to suck up the oil, so the result won’t be greasy at all. Now we direct ourselves to the stir fry. In another wok, use a touch of the oil from the fish, and work up some Chinese pork & liver sausage (lup cheong - the one that’s a little sweet); some Chinese cabbage (wom bok) rolled out and cut into bite sized pieces; and some of the dried and reconstituted shiitakes to give that chewy flavour. Toss in some ginger, and add some sugar to the outside of the wok to caramelize and burn slightly to give a nice glaze. Add in the chicken stock, and you’re there. To put it together, make a bed of the cabbage and sausage and nestle the fish on that. Top the fish off with a nice beret of a shiitake, and then spoon the sauce out around the base. And so we come to the larcenous beauty of dessert. Turkish delight and rose petal ice cream with pomegranate seeds and Persian fairy floss. Did I mention Geoff’s predatory nature? One of the Middle Eastern inspired elements that Geoff finds particularly inspiring is the use of flowers in cooking. Roses in particularl. Melbourne is a city of roses. They’re everywhere. In particular, they are to be found all around his restaurant. One the things he tasks his staff with on a daily basis is to “harvest” the odd rose as they come to work. Somewhat akin to locusts scouring the countryside. So, we’ll be doing some things with rose petals. Likewise, Khun Tatiya’s Turkish Delight is another attractive element for him, with it’s softness and strong forward fruit flavours. We start with a custard base for the ice cream custard base (egg, sugar, cream/milk). The milk and cream is brought to the boil with a bit of sugar to retard the boil and stop burning on the bottom, and then the egg yolks are whisked in. We cook it until ti passes the spoon test, where you can blow on it and see the ripples and waves form. We let that cool off over an ice bath, then mixed in a little rose water. “Put a good lug of it in there”. That’s the hard way. The easy way would’ve been to buy some vanilla ice cream and let it soften, then fold in the different flavours we want to develop. The Turkish delight is diced, and the pomegranate is gently opened, and the little jewels are carefully extracted and isolated (careful as otherwise you’ll be wearing pomegranate red for a long, long time). This goes into the ice cream. He then pulls out the most beautiful thing. Persian fairy floss. It’s like cotton candy, only a lot better. There’s no tackiness to it, and while cotton candy always looks so much like a bad hair day, this looks like the sort of thing you just want to reach out and stroke. Geoff constructs it as a tower. The base is a bit of diced candied ginger. The ice cream with it’s pomegranate glints and the chunks from the Turkish giving it form comes next, and then the fairy floss giving it that hydrogen peroxide blonde look. Some rose petals fall around the outside, and damn it looks good. The dishes do the rounds as they pour the Penfold Bin 2 Shiraz – Mouvedre. This is a little bit much for the salad, but on the other hand it tastes really good, so I won’t complain. And the Koonunga Hill Chardonnay from Penfolds is actually the one I’d rather have with the salad. The shiraz-mouvedre works well alongside the heaviness of the fish, which does have a very good, very rich flavour to it. But the dessert is the fun part. I have to try and source some of that candy floss. I looked later around the Arab district on Soi 3 and 5 of Sukhumvit, but didn’t have any luck. Mind you, that area is much more Arab than Persian, so I’m not too surprised. It has no tackiness at all when you touch it, but the taste is a sublime melt of sugars on your tongue. But, this wrapped up lunch. Time for a swim, and then the Gala.

Actually, there's a recent article in the New York Times by the late R.W. Apple Jr. on this topic: NYT Times article There are quite a lot of interesting restaurants and cafes in Singapore now, in terms of location, decor etc. Examples include the Rochester Park cluster (colonial black and white bungalows housing a tapas bar and several restaurants, including a Da Paolo outpost and a Min Jiang outpost); PS Cafe along Harding Road in the bucolic Dempsey Road area; the Greenwood Avenue restaurant cluster; Il Lido on Sentosa island etc. There's even a small Italian restaurant deep in the Rifle Range Road area (off Bukit Timah). Happy exploring. ← I've been to El Lido and was impressed by the room. Unfortunately, we were only there for dessert as part of the Masterchef Safari at the WGS, so we didn't get to linger inside for long (they'd set up tables for us on the first tee). I suspect that next WGS I'm going to have to get out and about beyond just the venue sites. Things are looking interesting.

I take a mixed approach, with a heavy dependence upon stochastic theory and the Laws of Quantum Physics. Effectively, I have come to learn that a cookbook can be in any location in the house at any time. The only sure thing is that it will not be where I'm looking for it at the precise moment I need it.

This is an evil question. It's making my brain hurt.

Day 4 September 13 Dinner Yoshii Ryuichi Yoshii on the Rocks Sydney, Australia I was off to a bad start. For some reason I was on autopilot and so was in a panic to be at the restaurant by 6:30. I met Lubosh in the elevator on the way down, and we chatted and walked together to Shintaro. There they were a little confused, but asked if I’d like to take a drink in the lobby. I was a little confused, as I looked at the 6:30 mark on my watch. We both were a little confused, and then it registered that the dinners weren’t starting until 7:30. There’s a downside to building up regular routines. I made my apologies, and returned upstairs to get out of their way. At the appropriate time, I then went back downstairs, and was now graciously shown to my seat at the bar and offered a glass of the Rosemount Estate Semillon Chardonnay 2005, a nice little thing. As I sipped on that, a thought struck me. One item I had lamented regarding the Four Seasons was the lack of a bar, proper. There is Aqua, and for those that are not perspiratorially challenged it is a lovely setting, but I need something both more intimate and better air conditioned. I gazed up in rapture at the list of sake that was available in Shintaro and thought, this is where I should be coming when I want a tipple. I love the 2001 Obelisk look to their sake menu. It makes me want to throw bones and things. I shook myelf out of that dipsophiliac moment and turned to the menu. Japanese Appetizers Deep Fried Ume Boshi Stuffed with Snapper Mousee Tempura Style Tuna Sashimi Marinated with Soy and Truffle Essence Sauce Smoke Salmon and Peach Wrapped with Kimizu Sauce Sweet Potato Infused in Oragne Juice with Foie Gras Mille-Feuille Style Roasted Wagyu Beef served with XO Sauce and Grated Daikon Dressing Beringer Sparkling White Zinfandel Scallop Carpaccio Served with Ume, Truffle and Grape Seed Oil Wolf Blass ‘Red Label’ Semillion Sauvignon Blanc 2005 Steamed Tomato Stuffed Prawn Mince Served with Lemongrass Bonito Stock Rosemount ‘Show Reserve’ Chardonnay, Hunter Valley 2005 Yusu Miso Lamb Dengaku Rosemount ‘GSM’ Granache – Syrah – Mouvedre, McLaren Vale 2002 Mascarpone Cheese Mousse with Soybean Powder And Black Sesame Powder Once the restaurant was settled a bit (although I was flanked both sides by empty seats) Lubosh stepped forward and took up the reins, introducing Yoshii, and also Sawada and his team who would be supporting in the kitchen. Aaron Ching, the director of operations for Saqura Investment said a couple of words, and then we all settled back to wait for the first courses. While this was going on, there was the usual coming and going of people in safari suits dropping off keys and scuttling about. There was a good hum about the restaurant, but I was slightly discomfited by the open space on either side of me. The staff were very nice, asking if I would like to move, but I was my usual anal Canadian self, and couldn’t bring myself to move beyond where I’d been placed. I sort of felt like a hungry ghost. The appetizers began to arrive. I liked the deep fried ume boshi, that soft pickled plum that’s to be found in almost every Japanese home. But this wasn’t as “plumy” as I’d expected. It was crisp, as expected, and the texture and finish came across much more as if it was a good mushroom. The tuna sashimi was very good indeed, but suffered from the wine. The Zinfandel wasn’t right for this flavour, and I switched over to water (I know, your jaws just dropped) for a bit. The flesh is nicely firm, and lingers in your mouth. I slurped up the juice in proper fashion, taking in the tang of the soy with the truffle as a nice sideline. The salmon came as little cannelloni tubes of fish with roe sparkling on top in the kimizu sauce. The sweet potato mille-feuille looks beautiful, but I find the texture too granular for my taste, although I suspect this is what he was aiming for. And the wagyu comes served on a heart shaped betel nut leaf, which lends a wonderful distraction to the dish as I masticate the leaf with the melt of the wagyu and the light crunch of the diakon dressing. Okay, this was working out well. I was even beginning to appreciate my splendid isolation, as it afforded me room to write as well as a convenient spot for Aaron to come by and sit. He and I chatted a bit about the Yoshii’s restaurant and their aims. This also gave me the opportunity to correct my spelling, as the new restaurant in Paddington is Wasavie, not Wasabi. They’re focus is on the more casual Japanese dining, with kitchen favourites being the emphasis. They also have a third restaurant, Himizu, under their helm. Himizu is interesting, as their focus is on “organic” ingredients, including organic wines. They’ve got a number of other projects on the go, and this should make for some interesting options in the near future. And it becomes more and more obvious that I need to get back down under sometime soon. My problem is just that I make it to Bangkok and never quite get to that connecting flight. The scallop carpaccio comes out next. The scallops are very good, it’s hard to go wrong with a scallop, but there’s a bitterness there in the back somewhere that I can’t nail down, and that perturbs me. With this is the Wolf Blass which would function well here if not for this niggling bitterness….. The next dish was controversial. Steamed tomato with prawn mince. I queried some of my friends that were here on another night, and they dismissed this dish as catfood. For my part, I loved the smell of it. Overall it has a very Italian Thai feel to it. Sweet, thick, everything that your typical tomato-plunked-onto-the-side-of-the-plate-beside-the-beans is not. Forget the mince, just do the meat of the tomato and slurp back the stock. The chardonnay was a good choice with this, but then again, I’ve always been fond of the Hunter Valley. The Show Reserve is crystal clear in the glass, only dimmed by the beads of condensate pearling on the outside. In the palate it lights up the sides and back of the tongue, and has the sensuality of an old lover come back to visit. Aaron came by again, and I asked him about the Australian wagyu. “It’s everywhere now. It’s all over Oz, and you’ll find it on most menus in Japan, China, Oz, everywhere…” They’re using Vic’s Meat as their source, and Aaron passed on the website to me www.vicsmeat.com.au I’ve got it up on the screen, and, as I generally don’t know much, there’s a lot there of interest. I’ll paraphrase some of the relevant parts. There were two classes of wagyu. F1 and F2. F1 is a cross between a wagyu (Wa- Japan, Gyu – cattle) and something else, generally an Angus. The F2 is a further reinforcement of the wagyu bloodline, and is now called “Purebred”, going through multiple generations after the initial cross with no new blood introduced. Recently, they’ve started releasing what are called Fullblood, which is purely derived from Wagyu stock. Okay. To me it seems that the terms should be swapped around, but they’re the ones doing the work. There are three bloodlines they refer to; Fujiyoshi (Shimane) and Kedaka (Tottori) Lines, which give a large framed cow, but inferior marbling. Tajiri (Tajimi) Line, which is the bloodline of choice for the high end Australian product (and the bloodline for Kobe). Vic’s also provides a grading chart showing the scoring for different grades of marbling. This has got me both drooling, and living in anticipated disappointment over my next trip to the meat counter at the commissary here. All we seem to be able to get here now is Brazilian. In a cool aside, Vic’s website will also point you at www.securityfoods.com who are advertising Kurobuta Pork, considered the world’s best quality pork. But Kurobuta is drawn from the Black Berkshire, from Reading in England. Now, in most of the world they’ve almost been bred out of existence, but the Japanese and some Australian enthusiasts have been keeping them going, and they’re on the comeback trail. Okay, let’s get back on topic here. The Granache is poured out, and the nose is good. It just needs a few minutes to wake up to the world. The initial taste puts a lot of fruit (plums) up on the top of my tongue. And the Yuzu Miso Lamb Dengaku is back. But this is a much different course than what we had in the cooking class. There it was about the contrast of the chilis and miso with the (underdone) meat. Here it’s about the meat. The lamb is near perfect, just the right texture for me, not too well done, not too pully, and the flavour is spot on. You taste the lamb, with detailing from the spicing, There are two small piles of shiitake mushrooms on the diagonals of the plate. These impart a slight bitterness to highlight the meat. And the brick of daikon with it’s miniature condiments freshens your palate, taking away the bit of thickness from the miso that you pick up. By now the red has opened up, and it’s a very nice match with this dish. I’m happy. Dessert comes out as a duet of mascarpone. On the right it’s encased in a soy powder, and on the right in black sesame powder. Dab in the middle is a bit of black cherry ice cream. Dotting the plate is a sauce made from sweet beans. This is great. I can combine my dessert and my cheese plate in one go! Being a heathen I wave in a double espresso to go with this, and my joy is complete. The topping is almost more of a dusting, just the thinnest of coats, and it yields to the tines of the fork at the first touch. In the mouth, and you get that lovely full frontal fat experience of the mascarpone. Take a bit of the ice cream to stretch that around, and then a sip through the crema of the coffee to contrast with temperature and bitterness. I waylay the two lovely young things passing out the whiskey chits, and retire to the lobby for a few Macallans. My overall feeling of the meal is positive. Of course, my overall feeling is in part based upon a full tummy and a certain level of inebriation, but that’s part of what it’s all about, isn’t it? As I’d mentioned in the cooking notes, I like Yoshii. He comes across very gentle, with a quiet, stubborn streak in him. That can make for some very good food.

The last comment sums it up. Nigella is very "real", and doesn't pretend to be otherwise. She's had a hard time of it the last few years, losing her husband, but she still keeps on going. I've enjoyed her very much on the BBC Food Channel, and have several of her books. Her hints and tips are extremely functional, and she adds a gentle sense of the pleasant as she explains it. The only time she's caught me out was when she recommended collecting the dregs from her guests' wine glasses after a dinner party, and freezing these in ice cube trays to use later for cooking. That was a little too practical......

Day 4 – September 13 - Lunch with Marco Talamini Morning, time for a swim in the pool after breakfast, and then down for cooking class. Marco Talamini We had three dishes (as usual) to be prepared today, and these would be very particularly Italian. Or, as Signor Talamin says “Italian today. All Italian.” It’s hard not to like the Italians. Marco has that continual smile and chirpiness about him, which goes very well with his Michelin stars. He’s had a number restaurants (it was Cibernetico in Padua that got him his second star). He also teaches regularly at the IAL Hospitality School in Aviano, and is now the Chef de Cuisine at La Torre di Spilimbergo in the northeast of Italy. Now, Marco’s English is limited, but Gianni Costa from the Four Seasons, the new Biscotti manager, was there to translate. His manner could best be described as “ebullient”, so the two of them had the overall charm of a good glass of sparkling wine. Today on the menu: Seabass Tartar on Warm Zucchini Cream with Tomato Caviar Small Tuna Bites Wrapped in Bacon Melon Frappe with Asano Cheese Marco’s experience as a teaching chef from the IAL shines through. He knows how to both execute the technique while maintaining a solid banter as he goes, even if we can only follow 25% of it. In discussing the dishes to begin, there were a couple of notes. One: the best tuna is fished off the coast of Sardinia. No questions. No alternatives. Two: the dessert is a bit special. Melon with a special cow cheese – Asano in a salted marinade, a “200 year old marinade” as the translation came out. This led to some speculation at the table-side as you might expect. I mean, I’ve got things that’ve been sitting in my fridge for a year or so that might cure some diseases at this point, but 200 years?……. Marco slipped easily into his gloves and ran a sideways fillet on the bass, deboning it and then thinly shaving it off, then lengthwise into long strips, and then crossways to cube it, pulling the knife away as he cuts (being inept, I admire people who can cut). We’re admonished from using any machines. It’s important in a tartare to avoid anything that would introduce heat. And the flavours we add – lemon, thyme, soya, olive oil, salt and pepper, and marjoram – are just enough for the dish. The soy should just be the lightest touch. Like most chefs now, you don’t want too many flavours, as then you’ll never taste the product. While this was going on, he had his fish stock heating up. Bones, mirepoix, and some of the Friuli Tesis Pinot Grigio with a bit of the thyme and marjoram. Prior to this he’d roasted the bones, but without the head. When I mention this to my domestic staff (ouch! I just got whacked.) they clamour against anything other than broth as opposed to stock, and denigrate me mercilessly for not roasting the bones and excluding the head. The zucchini, meanwhile, needs to be quickly cooked, and then it goes into a bowl with the fish stock. As this happens, the lemon works its evil wiles upon the seabass, ceviche-ing (is that a verb) the fish slightly. Back to the bowl, Mr. Buzzy comes for a visit and gives the zucchinis a seeing-to. Then we drain things off, set aside the zucching, and add a touch of soy and the extra virgin olive oil. In true Northern fashion, only Tuscan olive oil will do, so there’s a bottle of that at hand, the rich green showing up even from where we sit. A bit of a buzz, and you have something like a vegetarian mayonnaise. After a touch of clowning over tasting the zucchini cream, we turn with practiced savagery upon the tomato. It’s bisected, the seeds removed, the tomato finely diced, and then the skin is julienned. Meanwhile we are lectured upon tomatoes as only an Italian can, with the importance of their sweetness hammered into us. The tartare is ringed, the zucchine cream goes down, the ring is removed, and the fish is topped by the tomato and then a bit of thyme. And then eat it right away. This last is the key. Really, this is an Italian ceviche, and so the trick is to get at the fish when it’s just taking the bit of the citrus. Too long and it’ll suffer, as this recipe is meant to be the flavour of the “product”. To do this at home, I think I may go for a communal tartare. That would allow me to prepare, execute, garnish, and serve so it could be enjoyed at the right moment. Perhaps this next weekend….. Now we turn our attention to the second dish. For this, of course, we need more tomatoes. These are cut into leaves and marinated, and then lightly roasted in the oven. The tuna is cut into medallions, and each is wrapped in the “lardo”, which is a term generally reserved for addressing me, but I’ll let it go this time. The lardo is a slightly salted bacon fat, which gives a very smooth and tender result after you roll the tuna into the bacon. We prepare the olives, mixing with sugar and giving it a “cha cha cha” of a shake. These then go into the oven for a longer roast, the result to be small bits of almost “carbon-looking” stuff. The tuna gets a taste of the olive oil, and then goes into the pan, only the tuna touching the heat for a short sear on both sides. Top with a bit more olive oil, and the put to the oven (or under your handy home salamander) to finish for five to ten minutes. During this I admire again the chef’s tolerance to heat. As Ziebold said before, you learn to tolerate burns. And so to dessert. Chunk the melon and marinate with anise liquor. Ouzo will do the job just fine. Break the cheese up and drop it in with the chunks, and then bring back our friend Mr. Buzzy. At this point Mr. Buzzy makes a stab at Gianni, but he deftly avoids him. We slowly, slowly work over the melon and cheese until smooth, and then take the result to fill a siphon 3/4 full. We test the siphon before doing the dessert, and then we’re ready. Actually, of all the terms, siphon is the one that stumps everyone, until at last one is brought out and everyone goes “aaaaah”. Product ready, the result can be kept for three days in a fridge. My kind of pre-prep. The result is siphoned into a large glass, and topped with a strawberry quartered lengthwise, and top with a bit of toasted almond. The staff brought the dessert by for the formal “oohing” and “aahing”, Marco gave us another of those great smiles, and then we were on our own. The first wine came by, and this was a Fantinel Prosecco Spumante N.V. The Fantinels are a family business, who started up in the late 60’s with 16 hectares. Now they’re up over 300 hectares, and are starting to spread beyond their local niche market in regional hotels and restaurants to Canada and (gasp) Cuba. Now, like a lot of you, I have certain trauma scars in my psyche from drinking way too much bubbly pink stuff as a youngster around campfires on the beach. Okay, it wasn’t really so much a campfire as the ritual torching of a telephone pole that we’d hacked down to see how the creosote would light up. Still, you get the drift. You, you’re heart-mate of the moment, and something with more sugar in it than the cotton candy machine at the Pacific National Exhibition. This didn’t make for good morning-afters. But of recent years I’ve come to love the Italian sparklings. The softness of the bubble field as it comes up on your lips and inside your mouth is a thing of gentleness. This one, the Prosecco came across pleasantly fruity, lingering along the top of my palate, and loosening me up for the food to come. And for the conversation. M and I were discussing properties in town with J, who’s in the business, albeit in Hua Hin down the coast. As this conversation developed, we swept over the rest of the table, and devolved to restaurant talk, trying to pin down where and what to eat. One possibility is the Arun Residence. I’d read about this a few years back in the Post, a small restored home with a few rooms. The young lady at our table (okay, “one of the young ladies” at our table – M isn’t old at all) was their chef, and she described the food there as Franco-Thai, so this sounds very interesting. Taling Pling comes up again as a favourite, and the lady from there, Khun Nid, has opened another restaurant with her daughter Khun Cake…..Savoury. this is neat, as the owner of Taling Pling, Khun Nid, had graduated from the Cordon Bleu School, and had first made her mark with a French restaurant in Bangkok called Savoury on Soi Pan. But, with time, this changed to Taling Pling (which has the most savoury of Thai food). Now her daughter has reopened the French motif (with some Thai and English as well) at Siam Paragon. This one is on the list for a visit. Nittayaa Kai Yam is on the Thonburi side, near the Central over there, which may be too long a haul for me. And there’s Gai Tay over near the Open University. Rat Naan does a very good pork liver in a foie gras style, and for Italian they suggested Calderazzo, which had also been suggested by a Thai American that I’d met up in the Club. However, he cautioned that the servings had been a little small for the dour faced mob of American financiers that he’d taken there the night before. (They sounded way to serious for Bangkok). By now the Fantinel Borgo Tesis Pinot Grigio Friuli DOC 2005 had come out, and it made a pleasant impression, especially with the tartare, which was smooth with the olive oil. I’d written earlier that this was an Italian ceviche, but the impact is much different, not running caustic on the teeth, but rather drawing out the flavour of the fish in a nice smooth finish (I am going to do this on the weekend). Then the tuna came out with the Fantinel Vigneti Sant Helena Cabernet Sauvignon Friuli Grave, DOC, 2000 and we started running through our lists of Italian. As in Japan, Italian is probably the most popular of foreign dining options. Giusto always reviews well, with Fabio’s risotto with foie gras and truffles being one of my favourite dishes. Zanotti is always up in the ratings, and Lemoncello is a place I’d heard of, but hadn’t found a for or against until now. M recommended Basillico on soi 33 for their version of the veal with tuna that Vivalda had done when he was here, and J seconded this as they had great parking (J is very parking conscious). On soi 31 there’s Trattoria Antonio’s, and if you go there you want to reserve the table by the window. And there’s La Piolla, which has no menu, just two big Italians who run the front while their mother cooks in the back. This has mixed reviews, but M gave it a solid thumbs up. Meanwhile, I was disconcerted by the Cabernet Sauvignon. The flavour was reasonable, and good with the tuna (you can’t go wrong if you wrap things in pork fat) but the nose was just so-so. I’m probably too used to Italians where I can bury my nose in the glass and just go dreamy for awhile. The dessert arrived, and I asked for a bit more of the Prosecco. The cheese did not come through very strong, which surprised me. I was expecting more of a smell and a tongue, but the whole blended together with the melon much more apparent. And this brought about, for some reason, discussion of som tam places. The one of choice was in the All Seasons Place but Siam Square also has Papaya Nua on soi 5. For khao soi people felt that the Spice Market in the Four Seasons was still a good choice, and the Peninsula Plaza, in the place in the lobby, also did well, but they’re only there for lunch. If you’re willing to go out to Rama 9, one of the kids from the khao soi place on Thanon Faa Ngaam in Chiang Mai has opened up in one of the sois in a house there. By this point, M needed to meet her friend for tea in the lobby, and I was noticing that the hall was pretty much empty. It was obviously time for a break. After all, there was more eating to be done soon.

One of my friends, in passing, mentioned something about a lot of new "Bohemian" eating spots sprouting up in the corners of Singapore. Anybody heard anything interesting lately?

Most of the time the dried fish is a side dish, eaten on its own in company with the other dishes. Sometimes I've seen the meat shredded off and pounded into pastes and other dishes, but that's always appeared to be more of a seat of the pants thing. Referencing Thai Cuisine in Rattanakosin Era by Wandee Na Songkhla, their only comment is: Phlaa khem - to save partially eaten large salted fish for a long period of time, hang it in a well-ventilated area within the reach of soft sunlight. For smaller fish, keep them in a loosely woven basket, sun-dry periodically. I hope that helps a little. At least this way, if you've got some you've already been gnawing on, you'll know how to make them last.

The land is all crown land, so everything that exists in a lot of the older part of Bangkok is on lease. In this case, the market would like to extend another 30 years, but the money for condo development is looking too good. Of course, if you work in the number of lost jobs and such, it may not be as attractive. As another note, the Suan Lum Night Bazaar over near Lumpini Park is now on short notice. They only had a three or four year let anyways, and now it looks like they may have to be out of there in another month or two. There are some good casual eating spots in there, and with the Lumpini MTR stop now, it's not that hard to get to.

I have two favourite home meals. One is just kim chi jiggae (my transliteration is appalling, I know) which I wrote up on Dinner! The other, which has become more difficult, is so gum gui. the reason it's difficult is that our local butcher here can't shave the beef anymore, and I'm a klutz with a knife. Take a good piece of rib eye, something with fat in it. Shave it thin. Then take your table top grill and put in some sesame oil. Have ready some fresh spring onion seasoned with gochu garu (red pepper powder) and lots of rice. In little dishes, dole out some more sesame oil. Lay the meat into the grill, and crack fresh pepper onto it (and some salt for me). cook it through, drop in the next meat, and eat what you've got by wrapping the meat around the spring onion, dipping on some more sesame oil, and scarfing down some rice. Not only does it taste good, but it keeps the whole table working and talking.

As an alert, I read in the Bangkok Post today (October 1) that they're trying to force out the fish market on Charoen Krung in Bangkok, and open the space up for a condo development. See it now while it's still there. (as a side note, the 96 year old school next door, after 50 years of smelling fish, is kinda looking forward to losing the market)

Hmmm..... Around 90....but should we count also books about food that have the odd recipe in them (like Steingarten?), and what about the magazines that we lift recipes from? And, of course, the internet itself. It's getting hard to keep track of all this.

For layered drinks, have you tried the TKO? Kahlua on the bottom. Ouzo in the middle Tequila on top I may have the tequila and ouzo mixed around. It doesn't sound very appetizing, but the total works well together.

In our Cairo days we had what was referred to as "duty free priviliges". This meant that each month we could drop down to the government store and buy four bottles and one case of beer. Now, if that had been reversed, we'd probably be in better shape today. But we figured that we had to get what we could. After a few years, all of us found that we had enough gins and whiskeys and cognacs and armagnacs, so we'd fill out the bar with the odd bits: parfait d'amour, creme de menthe, things that glowed in the dark. The problem is, around year five, you've sort of silted up with this stuff. So, one night, as we were playing spoons, we came up with the bright idea of having the loser do shots, but he would call the next shot. What started out with tequila quickly changed over to kahluas, ouzos, schnapps, and then....the glow in the darks. It all came to a sorry end (several hours in) when J, after five creme de menthes in a row (you tend to lose more the more you drink) stood bolt upright, declared he had seen God, and fell over. You be careful out there.

I take my time getting back to these things....... Sorry, but I wanted to concentrate on the coup while it was still relevant. And now back to the WGF....... Day 3 – September 12 Michael Mina Michael Mina Bellagio, Seablue, and Nobhill at MGM Grand Las Vegas Kendall-Jackson VR Sauvignon Blanc 2005 Caviar Parfait Crispy Potato Cake, Osetra Caviar Kendall-Jackson GR Chardonnay 2005 Butter Poached Lobster Vanilla Crepe, Sweet Corn Miso Glazed Black Cod Scallop Dumplings, Mushroom Consomme Hartford Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir 2005 Seared Duck Breast and Foie Gras Golden Raisin Couscous, Onion Jus Kendall-Jackson GR Merlot 2003 Roasted Kobe Beef, Braised Short Rib Horseradish Mashed Potatoes, Worcestershire Jus Kendall-Jackson Stature Cabernet Sauvignon 2001 Banana Tart Tatin Cinnamon Ice Cream It was tuxedo time. Black and whites, and a slow stroll to Madison’s. I felt like a piece of foie gras, slowing rendering under a low, wet heat. Come to think of it, I probably looked the part, too. Once into the relative air conditioning of Madison’s, I clutched the Sauvignon Blanc, trying to leach some of my body temperature into the wine, then thought better of that and just drank it. My body heat involves way too much salt. While this moral dilemna raged I worked my way further into the restaurant and the welcome coolness. When I was back in Vancouver in July and touting the WGF, of the names that came up Michael Mina’s was the one that grabbed my friends’ attention. Michael Mina was born in Cairo, but his reputation has been built from his work in San Francisco and Las Vegas. In 2002 he partnered up with Andrew Agassi, and he’s been winning a number of awards since being named California Chef of 2002 by the James Beard Foundation. He does the celebrity circuit, and he’s developed a number of restaurants around his cuisine, all of which work towards the luxury end of ingredients. I’d been hesitant about the meal, but a number of my friends had blocked off a number of tables, so I decided that any qualms I might have would be counterweighted by the company. As is always the case, it’s a good dinner when you can sit with your friends. I love the food crowd in Thailand, it’s really like having an extended family. And, like my waist, it always grows larger. The banter was all of restaurants and new things to eat. Doug Cook gave a short speech on the wines, discussing Kendall-Jackson, how the name came from the husband and wife who founded the winery. She left, but he kept her name and the winery. We’d had a number of Kendall-Jackson’s the year before, particularly at Roy Yamaguchi’s dinner, and prior to that Doug had been the main man over here for Robert Mondavi. I remember when we did the vertical tasting to find out that night that the house of Mondavi had fallen. But, back to the food. Michael started with his trademark caviar parfait. A pretty little tube of a thing that can only but bring a smile to your face. Take a little of the caviar, drive your fork down through the parfait, snag some potato, daub a touch of the sauce, and pop it in your mouth. Salt and soft, with a bit of chew to the potato. The Chardonnay was okay, but just okay. I hate to be a downer in these things, but the dish called for a better wine. I would’ve liked to have had the Rosemount Estate Show Reserve Chardonnay from the Hunter that we had from the Gala, but such is fate. The butter poached lobster that came next was also very well put together. It had a lightness and was cooked just the right amount, pulling only slightly. The vanilla crepe transmitted the flavour appropriately, and I found myself enjoying the dish……I seem to be that way quite often. Looking back, I still like the way that the lobster meat pulled apart with a slight tension, and can taste the crepe folded over as the bite went into my mouth. The bed of sauce that it came on highlighted things very well. Following this was the cod. Now, cod is not a fish that I have fond memories of. As a child, I recall being fed this thing that was purportedly a fish at some time, but was now a slightly different texture in the white, runny mess that my mother would place in front of me. There’s a British boarding school line about “the piece of cod that surpasseth all understanding..” I believe. This fish was no relative to that travesty. Good flesh, with the flavour of cod being brought forward under the cover of the miso. And I found the scallop dumping to be very nice, with just the right tone to settle your mouth with the fish. The mushroom consommé, however, I felt was just in the way. Perhaps a bit of starch on the plate such as a couscous or such to control it would’ve worked, but as was I found it a wet distraction from what was happening with the other ingredients. The Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir came with these dishes. Doug had talked it up a bit as the Seascape vineyard, all exposed to the Pacific and dominated by vertical fields on slopes. My impression was mixed. It’s far better than what I make, but it wasn’t a particularly memorable tipple. Next the duck. I like duck. And this one came with it’s liver on it’s back. I suppose there’s something gruesome in that image (not the photo), given our interruption the night before by the Peta crowd, but I salivated at the sight. The duck was just on the rare side, which was fine by me, but I could see others looking somewhat askance. The couscous underneath did an admirable job of sopping up the jus. The accompanying Merlot opened well, and matured even better, so I was happy enough. Strangely, I seem to get happier as the dinners and wines progress. They must be getting better. I do confess, I like Merlots with meats. They’re straightforward. Some would say insipid, but I’ll enjoy them nonetheless. I liked the beef. Ever since that dinner at Fort Siloso in Singapore during the WGS, I’ve been lusting after more wagyu. For this dish Michael used Kobe beef for the roast. But, I didn’t capture the melt in the mouth feel that I had before. Perhaps it’s just the cut, but the richness in the roast didn’t seem quite there. The braised short ribs, however, were very, very, very good. The meat pulled apart with the fork, and you could feel the fat rising up in globules with the steam. I turned back to my mashed potatoes, and savoured the horseradish worked into them. Move them about a bit, sop up some of the horseradish jus, and then try the beef again. That was better. The Stature Cab Sauvignon worked okay with this. A reasonable nose, and good body. Reassuringly, when I looked back on my notes from Roy Yamaguchi’s dinner last year, I pretty much agreed with this – it’s a good wine with meat. Dessert, the banana tart tatin, was surely best summed up by the other side of the table as “a very Las Vegas dessert”. Rich, with lots to chew on, and plenty of caramelized sugars. I found the bottom of mine a little burnt, but overall it wasn’t a bad finish. The overall verdict? The beef was good, the lobster was very good, and the parfait, like I said….well, it’s hard to go wrong with caviar. The wines were there, but I didn’t come away with the feeling that there’d been a lot of effort put into getting the dinner and the wines to work together. Perhaps I’m being too fussy. Was I happy coming away from the table and making my way to the lobby for the Macallan 12 year old? Heck, yes!

Also from the P.I. - Balut! But does that count as offal? I've had the grilled chicken butts in the UK. They were called "The Bishop's Nose" where I had them (no offense intended)

How can one not enjoy offal? It makes up so much of the animal! We don't kill things to let the majority go to waste. Memorable dishes: Canada 1. any Chinese restaurant worth its salt in Vancouver will have at least one if not more types of tripe on the menu. 2. the Ovaltine at Main and Hastings does very nice liver and kidney dishes. Plus, you get that pat of butter that still has the word "butter" embossed on it, so you don't get confused. Ask politely and they won't include any hypodermics. UK 1. St. John - 'nuff said 2. La Rueda (?) - by the Marble Arch does a very good tripe and beans dish (but be prepared for the consequences later) Italy 2. Trippa florentine is wonderful. It melts in your mouth, just washing away with the first glass of chianti. Bahrain 1. Veal liver at Chico's Egypt 1. the kebabs down by the Khan, with prairie oysters, kidneys, and who knows what else (I said memorable, I didn't say good). Moscow 1. cod liver salad. Cafe Tonya I think it was. Beautiful little jewels. Korea 1. Kop chang - typically have the large intestines stewed in a burning broth of chilis. To wake you up the next day after a hard night's drinking. (my favourite for this, though, was in a Korean restaurant in Hong Kong near the Star Ferry) 2. Kop chang - grilled, and eaten with shots of soju, to give you an excuse to eat the stew the next day China 1. Spicy tripe and bamboo - in Kunming, although this was a Szechuan dish 2. Blood salad - a big bowl of congealed pig's blood laced through with chilis and herbs in Sipsawngbanna. Sort of an extroverted boudin noire 3. Sausages - do these count as tripe? The ones in Lijiang were a wonderful collection of blood and other bits. Cambodia 1. Lots of stuff, but the brains stand out. Pig's brains , either steamed (Hang Neak) or deep fried (Mondulkiri Cafe) 2. Boudin Noire - Comme La Maison behind the monument has wonderful blood sausage. Laos 1. My favourite for a name - from Pakse - stuffed virgin pig uterus. How do we know it was a virgin? 2. Raw pig entrail salad (in Luang Prabang) - the name says it all Thailand 1. Don Muang Airport - the brew house - pig liver wrapped in bacon Okay, I have to go back to work. but these are the ones I can still taste.

After four pages of postings (a majority concerning Tony Bourdain), I thought it would be interesting to look at the original post. Should quotes be verbatim? Should warnings be posted to ward off the too-sensitive? This is the editor's decision. The editor's job is 1) to ensure that the best product is delivered from his writers. Appropriately worded, well structured, and to the point. 2) to ensure that the publication doesn't wander (or hurl itself) into a situation where it loses money, either through lost advertising revenue, decreased circulation, or litigation. More editors get their raises on item 2 than on item 1. Could you sell Bourdain without the profanity (or the smoking for that matter, in this most politically correct of worlds?) If someone is offended, does it matter to you? If yes, edit it down. If no (as in if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it....) then who cares?

The venerable Steingarten, in his first book,The Man Who Ate Everything spends a certain amount of time on the issue of horses as ingredient, in the piece entitled "Fries". I believe he'd started off looking for doing french fries in horse fat, something that is even better than cow fat. I also seem to recall that in Seattle, across from the Pike Place Market, there was a butcher doing horse meat. For the sashimi experience outside of Japan, I very much recommend Uemasa off of Soi Thonglor in Bangkok. An excellent selection of horse sashimi, and at prices that won't hurt.

That looks good!

I heartily recommend Michael Ginor's book on foie gras to one and all. Even if you don't cook anything, you'll drool for hours over the photos. For me, over here (from time to time) we can get Rougier (I think that's the right spelling - my last piece is buried behind a new pile of pig's bellies). With this, my preference is to pan fry slabs while a tenderloin rests, then when the foie is ready, quickly carve steaks off the loin, finish them in the excess fat, and serve the meat with the foie. Alternatively, roasting a whole foie gras is a wonderful thing. When I was home in Vancouver last year, I ordered one through our local deli in Lynn Valley from Quebec. I was cautioned by the folks at Diva to brine the foie a bit, so as to protect against creating an expensive pool of fat in the roasting process. The result, with a bit of rhubarb compote, was excellent. I'm getting hungry again.

As an odd aside, I'd go for the writings of Robert Halliday who wrote under the name of Ung-aang Talaay for years with the Bangkok Post. He's always been a great source for winkling out those corners of Thailand's food culture that are slowly getting pushed aside by the big food chains. I'd hope, at some point, there'll be a compilation of his work culled from the Post. I should've done more clipping when I was young.

For me, the coffee begins shortly after booting in my office door. I drop whatever detritus I've brought with me, take my the carafe from my Black & Decker Thermal Cafe, and take it to the janitor's room to give it a rinse and a fill. The janitor's room is where the sweet water is, as opposed to the briny swill we refer to here as "raw water". Dripping disconsolately, I make my way back to my office, snarling cheerfully as my colleagues straggle in from the heat. I pour the water in the machine and give my attention to the beans. Every year I bring back 40kg of different beans from Canada to support my office addiction. For the moment, I favour the Mexican Blue Mountain. Lighter, nuttier, an uplifting cup. I crack the hermetic seal, pour a flurry of beans into the grinder, reseal the container, and then grind. And everything becomes better. I love the smell of coffee when it's just being ground, and everything goes into the air. As you lift the grounds out of the grinder, you can close your eyes and imagine a nicer place. Then the filter goes in the basket, the coffee goes in the filter, the trap swings shut, and the carafe slides into place. With only a moment of trepidation, I slide the switch to on, and then listen contently to the rumble and hiss as the water pushes through the coffee, clutching and tearing at the flavours in order to bring them to my pot. At this point, everyone else in my corridor hates me. And I don't care.

Ah, there's always time for some Thai. I'll be back there in four weeks.