Peter Green

For the fourth year in a row, it's time for me to get serious about eating. 11 a.m. to midnight. Seven nights, six days. It'll be gruelling (although I don't expect to see any gruel). The World Gourmet Fest at the Four Seasons in Bangkok will kick off this Sunday with Sarah Scaffer from Frisson in San Francisco. After that it's 6 more nights of a combination of Peter Gordon from The Providores in London, Fatima Hal from Mansouria and William Ledeuil from Ze Kitchen, both of Paris, Yoshii Ryuichi from his place in Sydney, Michael Mina from his group in the US, Ruth Van Waerebeek from Concho Y Toro in Chile, Marco Talamini from La Torra di Spimbergo in Italy, Geoff Lindsay of Melbourne's Pearls, Emily Luchetti from Farallon in San Francisco, and Vincent Bourdin from Valrhona for the chocolates. Khun Pitak is coming down from the Four Seasons in Chiang Mai, and Philippe Agnese from the Bangkok operation will be doing more desserts. Mina's dinner on the 12th should be something. The Chaine des Rotisseurs has booked him out for that evening. And, as a follow up on last year, Michael Ginor of Hudson Valley Foie Gras and Nicholas Schneller (executive chef for the Four Seasons, Bangkok) are going to do another champagne and foie gras menu. It is my avowed intent to be there for each and every night. If anyone else is around for the meals or classes, give me a shout. I'll post my ramblings for each of these as I recover from the headaches.

I'd go first for the C's....the odd and abstract around the edge of things. Then it'd be a tough call. Of primary concern, is it my money or someone else's? If it's my money, I might go for the Class B, and look for the rising stars, the people who do one or two things really well with what they can get. A class A can either be euphoric, or else disappointing in the extreme. Not that they don't deliver, but that they leave you wondering if you missed something. Put another way, I've found it easier to forgive a flaw in a $100 meal, whereas at a $500 sitting I expect things to be perfect.

Khmer food, when it's good, has all of the herbal wonderfullness of Thai food, but without the burn of the chili. Those addicted to the heat will come away somewhat disappointed, but for me it's akin to dropping a cube of distilled ice into a good cognac, and finding the soft smells of grasses and leaves there, hidden under your noise. I first went to Cambodia back in '97 to do the tourist thing, and came away, after a rushed couple of evenings in Penh, thinking that it was a town with a lot more to offer. A couple of years later I lucked out and a friend of mine was posted there on official business. This made for an excellent reason to return - villa, kitchen, armed security, all the thrills. My assumptions with regards to Penh were correct, there are some wonderful gems buried therein. At the time, the late 90's, early 0's the best of the Khmer food was (and may still be) Khmer Surin over beyond the monument as far as the expat community was concerned. Their Luklak (marinated beef, similar to Korean bulgoki) is well presented, and there’s a small dish usually used for sweets that they do a nice hor mok (fish pate) style appetizer on. The dish, with it’s little ceramic covers, is reminiscent of a Morrocan tangine. Pon Lok on Sisowath Quay is a monstrosity of a building, but has beautiful Khmer and Chinese dishes buried in its phone book of a menu (I liked the "road frogs") - as a comment, it's been erroneously reported that the place opened in the late 90's. Mr. Pon Lok was there in Penh in ‘85 and started up with three tables on the sidewalk. It was ’93 and UNTAC when he had his chance to go big. In comparison, the FCC (Foreign Correspondents’ Club) didn’t open until 96/97 (when they got the bats out). He does have some history (and my respect for his kitchen). Up the River there's a string of waterside venues, all with caberets and plenty of noise. Of these, Hang Neak has consistently served some wonderful meals, and is still one of the favourites of the embassy circle. (I would recommend their steamed pigs brains). And, one of the benefits of the French, Penh has some of the best baguettes I've ever eaten. Late at night, on a corner, surrounded by beggars, there are few things as delicious as a good piece of bread stuffed with that mystery spam that the Vietnamese produce. I would put the bread in Penh well ahead of Saigon or Vientiane. Just as I'd left in 97 thinking I was missing something, it was this Gallic connection that troubled me. So, last October, while in Thailand on other matters, I took the opportunity to return to return to Phnom Penh for a few nights, with my primary target being Comme La Maison, and their boudin noir. Ever since I'd read Steingarten's "it takes a village to kill a pig" I'd had cravings for blood sausage, and Comme La Maison had this very thing on their menu. But I'm getting too far into details. That's for another writing. Oh, and lest I forget, good French wine is not expensive in Penh. Wandering through the wine section of Lucky Mart will make any tax-abused Canadian shiver at the knees. The FCC (Foreign Correspondents’ Club) isn’t so much of a place to eat, as it is to sit and take in the “colonialism” of it all. Still, if you want to see the bats come out of the Royal Museum at dusk, you need to be eating in the back. The Boullonvillier Hotel has a good menu. Pork pate, cod “doughnuts”, a nice steak with wild mushrooms. There’s the steak tartare, but the meat is Khmer, so it might be a bit of a gastrointestinal-adventure. I had a class of Spanish Cavas to start, and then a Languedoc. I spent one night just dining up Sisowath Quay (where I was staying). Rastaurant Taboo had a very nice version of the classic fish amok, somewhat more peanuty and oilier than I remembered from Siem Reab, and a wide selection of Belgian beers. I popped up the stairs after and took a balcony seat in Pon Lok and had ox tongue with pepper and lime, fried frogs with spices, crab with tamarind, and a blood warm chardonnay……the Asians don’t believe in cold drinks in warm weather. Oh, and don’t be put off by dessert. The nyan bai, chi nyan, and nyma pi setr are all little secrets hidden within sweet coconut gel and banana leaves. The Riverside is German. I took in a Swiss dish of pork strips in a sour cream sauce, and admired their list of 10-16 year single malts – Glengoyne, Talisker, Laphroig, Cordhu, Cragganmoire, Bowmere, Glennfiddich, Oban, and Glenroths, Aberlour and Lagarulen (pardon my misspellings, my notes get more atrocious as the night went on). La Croissette had Tiger beer on tap, and a home cooked ham, as well as Le Cheeseburger (which I passed on….I was beginning to fill up). Breakfast along the Mekong is always near perfect. A croissette stuffed with country pate, a good espresso, and a cold beer. What I had dubbed in 1997 as The Blade Runner Café (not their name, it was something like Café 63) is now reworked as the Mondolkiri Café. The stylish linoleum has been replaced by faux sandstone, but the menu is still ardently khmer, with a good selection of items such as beef penis with traditional herb soup, boiled spicy duck, khmer fish soup, and “deep fried break with fish past” – which I never did get explained. Oh, and under “French Food” they have luklak. Friend's Restaurant is a couple of streets back from the Quay. It's a project to get kids off the street and into the kitchens (where they belong, say I!). Some interesting fusion approaches, and reworkings of some of the stall food, such as the large plump noodles to be found by the statue places across from the museum, similar to yaki udon. As in Thailand, the clubs can have very good local snack food. The Spark, a monstrous thing of metal and glass, where everyone who’s anyone comes to to be seen and shot at, Prab Sovath, one of the most famous singers was there, as I recall. Meanwhile, I had very good frogs, and other bits of finger food. Another old favourite I took in again was Irina’s. It had moved, but after an hour I rediscovered it. This is a Russian restaurant that has been around for a bit. They specialize in the stews of the truck stops of the open steps, and do very good casserole type dishes. They also do blinis with salmon caviar, and keep your bottle of Russian Standard vodka in the freezer for you. And Topaz. This is the NGO expense account joint. Excellent French cuisine, wonderful cheeses, I had a perfectly executed braised veal shank. The service is impeccable, up to the point where they all want to run outside and watch the fireworks. But then, this is still Indochine. And, let us not forget, there’s still the street. Roast small birds, sweet rice in bamboo, small fish, and cold beer Lao. I’ll have to write in more detail later.

I do love St. John (I must post that write up sometime soon), but is it a place I'd take my dearest for a romantic meal? Perhaps if I was Hannibal Lector out with Jodie Foster for a nice dinner....

Going through my notes from last year's trip, my five would be: Morte Subite - Sudden Death, a Belgian game of chance actually, but also a great name for a great beer Leffe Blonde - always an easy choice Hapkin Blonde - recommended by Michael Jackson, and a nice counterpoint to the easy-to-find Leffe. Pauwel Kwak - for the wooden contraption to hold the glass if nothing else Cantillon Rose de Gambrinus for a framboise The beer circus in Brussels is a great place to graze through things. Plus, they have a wonderful hamhock with mustard. If you're buying for the room, the Temple of Beer is a pleasant place of worship.

A very good piece. It's far better to enjoy one very fine drink and the experience that goes with it, than to promiscuously tip back anything at hand is what drinking should be about (and many other things)

Man, a new Bourdain series. That'd almost be enough for me to buy a satellite.

I'll write more, but I just returned from business in London, and ate two of my four meals at St. John. Plus, I got to chat with Mr. Henderson a bit. That day I took the salted duck hearts, the roast marrow salad, and the faggot and mash. This was washed down with some four pints of 6X Ale. After my first meal at St. John, I was committed to returning. It meant a mad rush across London from the Arch to Smithfield's in order to get checked out and catch the flight, but the razor clams, smoked eel, and lamb sweetbreads in bacon were worth it. Looking back, if I compare either of my meals at St. John with the meal at the Square (that cost twice as much as the two St. John meals combined), I can remember all the details of St. John, whereas the Square fades into a dim recollection (except for that haunting credit card receipt). I'll write more once I collect myself. Oh, and the book is excellent.

Oh dear! I so would llike to enter, but I'm in Saudi. Would it be safe to review a restaurant in Bangkok? It's sort of just around the corner?

Regarding the fruit sex issue (which is a title impossible to ignore), isn't the sex related to the plant and not the fruit? By definition the fruit is an ovary, a seed surrounded by a "womb". My food science wife grossed out a nephew eating an apple once with this bit of information.