Julian Teoh

I don't think we can draw any sensible direct correlation, simply because the variation within the class itself is so large. We all know the stories about how Paul Bocuse jumped the shark / nuked the fridge decades ago. Yet my dinner at Taillevent (then three-starred) was easily (objectively!) surpassed by meals at various other two-star restaurants. Same goes in Australia, though I think for sheer excitement on the palate, Rockpool is streets ahead of other three-hatters, Tetsuya's included, except that Rockpool only has two hats. Our three-starred French places, such as Bilsons and Guillaume, pleasant as they are, in my view cannot hold a candle to the cooking of two-starred chefs such as Jean-Francois Piege and Eric Briffard. Service and ambience are assessed on completely different levels. Michelin has a typical standard which it deviates from in choice cases (e.g. L'Astrance). I found even the palaces had much warmer, more informal service than I expected, though of course, it was always correct and occasionally theatrical. If Michelin came to Australia, they would need to assess us on our model, simply because service of the classic French mould is almost nowhere to be found - this is not necessarily a bad thing.

We tried to get a booking at Les Crayeres in December a couple of years back but it was closed for the winter; instead, we visited L'Assiette Champenoise at Tinqueux (**, just outside of Reims) and had a fantastic lunch there. Arnaud Lallement is the chef at the family estate and his food is fresh and innovative, while exhibiting a true sense of generosity, not just in quantity (perhaps just slightly overdone) but also in warmth of service, genuine care and hospitality. He offers a great value lunch menu and as expected, a great selection of Champagnes and other wines / spirits of the region. eGullet thread on L'Assiette Champenoise I can't vouch for the accommodations there, though they do not look as luxurious as those at Les Crayeres. Sethd, sorry if I'm being a little thick but I'm not sure whether you have been to Les Crayeres or whether your post was based on your parents' visit? Didier Elena is cooking at the Raffles Hotel next week and I've booked lunch on Thursday.

Hi Rona, The bus drivers / companies have their personal favourite "stops", where the drivers will get a free meal, kickbacks from the operators of the stops or perhaps even the chance to pick up extra "cash-paying" passengers if the bus isn't full. Case in point is Yew Tee in Johor State, which charges Singapore prices, though the toilets there are so clean they would make a Singaporean blush (well, almost). As for the filthy toilets, if the toilet guy has a captive clientele, he is hardly likely to be motivated enough to clean it! We stopped at one near Slim River this Chinese New Year, where mildew and mould were growing so thickly they were taking on a life of their own; I swear I saw the tap smiling at me. Malaysian KFC is spectacular, though their burgers and sides could do with some work.

Pan, "carrot cake" is the misnomer that is adopted nationwide in Singapore (I think it is also officially endorsed by the Singapore Tourism Board). It's always fun explaining to visitors that it isn't really made of carrot, especially after they make faces about "I thought we were actually having dinner before dessert." Great posts, Rona - keep them coming!

PCL, Could you please go into the song and dance about the wine service? Did they prime the glasses with your premiers crus and bring out the candles? I am sorry to hear about your experience, though I did not encounter the faults you describe during my visit. Yeah, I was a little frustrated at the unadvertised recurring foie gras, but as I pointed out, it was perfectly cooked on both occasions. It was a quiet night when I was there, and Jason Tan and his staff looked after me very well. Lafite's chef has moved to BLU at Shangri-La, Singapore and is now plying his version of the art here. His replacement is French Laundry-trained; again, another great stylistic change at Lafite.

Eternal, Across the road from Chote Chitr, there is a sensational mango sticky rice place called Kao Neeo Korpanich. I don't think it was mentioned in this thread, though I found it elsewhere on eGullet. Link below, with useful information and visuals to help locate the shop, especially if, like me, you can't read Thai: http://importfood.com/thai_vendors/saochin..._korpanich.html Simply amazing stuff. The link says they are only open from June to December, though they were definitely open in May last year, so you may still get lucky!

Pan, You are absolutely right, though the mamak shops in Malaysia and Singapore have greatly diversified their product range. You can see roti canai-stle bread stuffed with various fillings, so popular choices include pisang (banana and honey), planta (local margarine with lots of sugar), sardin (tinned sardines with onions) and bom (condensed milk and planta margarine). You can also see regional deviations such as roti strawberi (insides spread with strawberry jam) in Cameron Highlands.

Sage Restaurant, The Gardens Residences, Mid-Valley City, Kuala Lumpur CILANTRO IS BACK!!! Actually, not really, but this is the closest you are going to get for a while yet. Chef Takashi Kimura quietly opened Sage at The Gardens Residences in September 2008. The Cilantro team are here in all but name, serving the Franco-Japanese fusion food that made Cilantro KL's choice for top-class food. I never had the pleasure of dining at Cilantro, so my impressions here are those of an outsider looking in, a novice monk training in the rigours of the temple. I do not have any attachments to things such as truffle butter (the absence of which apparently continues to be a source of grief for many regulars). I am only here to eat and analyse. This is a pretty big space; I calculated that it must seat at least one hundred, though on the night that I was there, it seated more like ten, with half of them turning up just as I was about to leave. Kimura directs operations from his open kitchen, with a team of at least twelve cooks. The room has very high-ceilings, which gives the impression of spaciousness and freedom. Service is attentive and formal in a Les Amis kind of way, so you won't catch waiters here going "cheers" or anything vaguely slang-y like that, but they are suitably knowledgeable, warm and friendly. Sage offers a la carte options as well as a three-course menu with free choice from the carte, a four-course menu (three courses as above with a daily changing chef's special) for an extra twenty ringgit, and a seven-course chef's table for RM265, where you sit at the counter and the chefs prepare your food in front of you. Bread – decent selection. I'm unsure why you would start with a fried bread liberally laced with garlic. I mean, it's good as a greasy snack to accompany your drinks, but it doesn't exactly hone your palate for what's to come. Entrée – Feuillete of foie gras and anago, with mushroom duxelles and potato mousseline I will admit this is the first time I've had anago. According to our friends at Wikipedia, anago is a saltwater eel with flesh less rich and oily as its more renowned cousin, unagi. Look, I'm pretty sure you could tell without actually tasting this dish that anything with pastry, foie gras and eel is going to taste pretty good, right? Well, yes, but it is the interaction of the mushroom duxelles and the potato that really gets me excited. It's almost as if, and please bollock me if this sounds unbearably pretentious, these two ingredients, true expressions of the soil, match up with a kind of elemental synergy of terroirs. I find myself lusting for more of that potato-ey fungal goodness, well after my appetite for fatty livers and eels has been sated. Main – Muscovy duck confit with shallots and (ahem) foie gras Back with more foie gras. No, it was not listed on the menu and I wish someone had told me about it as I probably would not have ordered this dish otherwise. But all that doesn't stop me from scarfing it all down, you understand. Classic technique, well-cooked, no complaints. The one good thing about the foie gras repetition is that it enables me to appreciate the integrity and the perfectionist streak that marks this restaurant. Both times, the foie came all lovely and caramelised on both sides, texturally changing to a moist and creamy heart. A little digression; I was most disappointed when I recently returned to Saint Pierre and was persuaded by an enthusiastically upselling waitress to order what was apparently Saint Pierre's signature dish, the "classic pan-fried foie gras with old port sauce." I did my old trick and lifted the slab of liver to find that it had only been seared on the up-facing side. Whether that was deliberate is anyone’s guess, though it smacked to me of a short-cut. The sauce had as about as much harmony as a flushing toilet punctuated by nails dragging on a blackboard. People say cooking foie gras is simple but some continue to take liberties for reasons unknown. Sage happens to cook its foie extremely well and I am very glad they do so. Dessert – Roasted kougyoku apple with vanilla ice-cream When I asked them to recommend a dessert, I was gobsmacked that they would recommend a mere roasted half apple with vanilla ice-cream. I mean, this is the stuff that I used to cook up on a frigid winter's night when I curled up in front of the telly. Of course, I didn't have access to kougyoku apples and didn't make my own ice-cream from scratch, which apparently makes all the difference. When roasted, the apple takes on the texture of a hot steamed pudding, and the ice-cream melts into the black cast iron Staub pot to form the perfect sauce. Good stuff. Petits fours - Pistachio macarons My friend Duncan Markham a.k.a. eGullet's Lamington or Le Seigneur des Macarons, may not dignify these with the title of "macaron" given their lack of frilly feet and his perfectionist obsession with the little confections (see www.syrupandtang.com for more). These taste perfectly fine and crumble neatly, so perhaps they are nearer to "macaroons", which Duncan, bless his tolerant heart, will grudgingly accept (after a suitably long pause, of course). They go well with a good strong coffee, regardless. I apprehend that this is more to this place than can be gleaned from one visit, and it's the kind of food that you can devour voraciously on the night and think about for a while afterwards. I get the impression that there is a bit of a fine balancing act going on when you are producing such highly-tuned fusion food. Apart from the combination of French techniques with the mild influence of Asian flavours, Kimura also works interesting textural contrasts in each plate. This is not fusion for the sake of cramming in as many terms from as many different languages as you can, showing how well-travelled and sophisticated the chef is. Each element is there and contributing to the overall finish of the dish. I cannot pronounce a verdict on how close this place is to Cilantro, but I can highly recommend it on its own merits. I will be back, sooner rather than later. PS In a fit of pique back in 2006, I started this thread with a bollocking review of Villa Danieli at the Sheraton Imperial, Kuala Lumpur. I still stand by what I said then, but regardless, I have always believed that Villa Danieli, an actual free-standing Tuscan-style villa built by the poolside, is a beautiful space and deserved much better than the tarnished experience that I had to suffer. I am happy to report that Villa Danieli is now a dining destination truly worthy of praise. Manager Irwan Ismail has brought some much-needed polish and charm to the floor and glides around stylishly, meeting and greeting guests. Executive sous chef Rajesh Kanna is also cooking excellent food, using the restaurant's facilities to make his own breads and pastas. His food is perhaps not of the same regional bent that marks the cuisine of a native-born Italian; in the same way, he eschews much of the theatricality that marked the old menu. However, he delivers boatloads of flavour with sensible use of quality ingredients. Try the tomato and basil soup with rocket oil, classic and simple like the greatest of Italian food, or the fettuccine aglio olio with tiger prawns. I was once told that to fare la scarpetta ("to make a shoe" to mop up the juices from your plate) in a restaurant was intolerably bad form. But with olive oil and chilli mingling delightfully with the juices from two tiger prawns the size of Barack Obama's election fund, I am happy to fare my scarpetta all night. The only downside in the entire experience was that they were serving Anchor unsalted butter in hotel service packets, a legacy of its location and association with the Sheraton Imperial. But it is such a pleasure to be bitching about the little things to give you a semblance of impartiality, when the overall experience is just so darned good.

Prasantrin, Do not tip when there is a service charge - you will spoil the fun for the rest of us. You are correct - for the most part, the staff do not share in the service charge. There was an article in the Straits Times recently about how the service charge was dealt with. Some places use it for providing staff uniforms and training (whatever!!!) and one featured restaurant said it "guaranteed the staff a living wage". If it's a cash tip, it most likely will go to the staff, though credit card tips will likely meet the same end as the service charge. There is no tipping culture here, so you are at liberty not to. I generally do not tip, unless I am feeling generous that evening or I have received truly stellar service deserving of reward. The former occurs with significantly greater regularity than the latter.

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Dave, sorry, what did you really expect? Asia's Top 7 restaurants are European restaurants. What special knowledge could "Asian" inspectors possibly bring to this process? (Dripping with sarcasm)

Another Guide to be thrown back onto the bookshelf (of the roaring fireplace) with the rest of them. I like Gunther's food very much, but there is no way I would rank it as 4th on any list of "Asia's best restaurants." Even then, I would hesitate to say that his food was the "4th best in Asia", whatever that means. Service that is an unthinkingly robotic as it is unhelpful and overstretched (not to mention trained to upsell you to magnums of classified growth Bordeaux), a wine list that is insanely overpriced and decor that is as inspiring as my grandmother's old tea towels. If Gunther's is truly the 4th best restaurant in Asia, we might as well just pack up and go home. And how there is no room for Le Normandie in the top 20 is quite simply beyond me. As for M on the Bund, say no more. I think it is seriously questionable whether it is even arguably the best restaurant on the Bund, let alone Shanghai, China or Asia's Top 20. I am also worried about the very strong Singaporean bias to the Guide. Well may they have tried to avoid it, but when the guide was conceptualised and published by a Singaporean personality (with all the corresponding hoo-ha in the background about how Singapore deserves a Michelin Guide of its own), some things are inevitable. If 4 of Asia's Top 10 restaurants are in Singapore, I think I would have packed on a few more kilos during my stay here! Let's be frank - the Miele Guide is nothing more than an "Asian" knee-jerk response to the disgraceful list produced by Restaurant Magazine and should be regarded accordingly. Interestingly, one of my friends in the industry remarked to me that the Restaurant Magazine list was so weak because it did not have any Japanese restaurants on the list, unless one counts Nobu London (!) How apt it is that there is only a single Japanese restaurant in the Miele Guide's Top 20 (Kyubey slipping in at No. 20). I'm not inclined to treat Nobu HK as qualifying in that category.

Julien, I wasn't accusing you of saying that L'Astrance wasn't worthy of three stars. What I had more in mind was your assertion that "But I think it has nothing to do with the limited choice concept, only with the fact that those chefs forgot the elementary truth that you mention, namely that the point of their job is to please clients. In a word, their fundamental lack of generosity." I've witnessed (and also heard stories of) guest chefs visiting Singapore who appeared at large events and ended up melting down due to the unusual stress of serving a large group (80+ people) in a single sitting - poor quality food, poor finishing, taking highly visible short cuts, etc. Let us not restrict our scope to Singapore - have a look at Taillevent, previously hailed for its magnificent service, and which seems to have now reduced itself to a glorified cash register. The service was clearly run off its feet catering to a huge crowd and the food, beyond being "boring" or "conservative" (not necessarily a fault), ranged from ordinary to poor. But out of the various Michelin-starred guest chefs who have visited Singapore, Barbot seems to have been the first to cap numbers to such a severe extent; he could have easily crammed in an extra 60 people in there. I think that says a lot about the lengths to which Barbot and Rohat went to please their guests. That is what I disagree with. I am not alleging that your or Robert Brown's (sorry, Robert40, my bad) criticism was insincere, merely that your experience does not gel with mine.

I have only ever tasted Barbot's cooking once; not at L'Astrance but when he and Christophe Rohat visited Singapore to cook for a few days at the Raffles Grill in November 2007. From this limited experience, I have to respectfully disagree with what Robert and Julien have been saying about Barbot's lack of generosity. I booked a lunch for 4, and when I tried to change the booking to a table for 8, they told me they couldn't do it; they were solidly booked. This got me a little worried, because the Raffles Grill is quite a large restaurant and I was a little concerned about how that may affect the quality of the food. Imagine my surprise when I arrived and there were only about eight other tables there. The restaurant was more than half-empty, and the tables were very well-spaced. I did a quick headcount of diners - no more than 30 people, our goodselves included. I can only imagine Barbot had insisted that the capacity be kept down to L'Astrance-like numbers so that he could maintain the quality of his cooking. After all, the Raffles Grill has a very large brigade in a very large kitchen and has been known to serve far greater numbers of people at a single sitting, so practicality and ease would have not been relevant considerations. As for the food, we kicked off with toasted brioche and white truffle creme. We had two choices per course - langoustine a la nage or house-smoked Scottish wild salmon, Bresse chicken with parmesan fondant and miso eggplant and some other main course that I can't remember as no one ordered it; hot pepper sorbet, a lovely chocolate dessert and the jasmine-infused lait de poule with lovely chestnut honey madeleines to finish. The bill per person came to around S$110 including service and tax, or 53 Euros. The meal was very, very good, both in gradually building up the flavours and throwing in the odd creative surprise such as the chilli and lemongrass sorbet. The fact that we were dining in the restored colonial comfort of the Raffles Grill was an added bonus, as was Rohat controlling the front-of-house; Singaporean service, especially at the Raffles Grill, is not renowned for anything in particular. Was it the best meal I've had? No. Could Barbot cook any better? I don't know. And I'm also unsure if he was putting his best foot forward on an overseas jaunt. What I do know is that I had an excellent meal and excellent service for which I would have gladly paid more. As Julien said, we may not know people's motivations but we can judge the result.

Nypork, I'm sorry to hear about what happened. It really depends on various factors, e.g. how often the rag is published, the nature of the restaurant and the nature of the writer's retainer. When I was writing freelance for a weekly newspaper, I filed the review within a week of the event and it was often published the following week. However, if I was writing about a restaurant that had been rooted in the same spot and faithfully serving the same food from the same chef under the same owner for the last 26 years, it might be held on to for anything from a few weeks to as few months, the reasoning being that it wasn't about to go anywhere now. Delays will be especially commonplace if the writer is freelance and / or does not have a regular byline. Now I write primarily for a bimonthly food magazine, the turnaround can be anything from 1-4 months. If the article focussed on one restaurant i.e. a pure review, if there was a chef or ownership change etc, my article would probably be binned. But if it's a feature article, say on the dining scene of a particular city and not focussed on one restaurant, I would emphasise that my review was for the place as it was under the old regime, and the old regime can now be found at new location XXX, etc etc. This can obviously cut both ways for a new chef / owner. But if your food is better and you're getting busier, then bollocks to the reviewer, no? True, it still sucks to be put down for something that wasn't your doing, but if word-of-mouth is overwhelmingly positive and your bottom line is doing well, then what's the worry? It won't be the first time a reviewer has been wrong, and it certainly won't be the last. Best of luck with your new venture and I am very glad that you are proving the reviewer wrong.

I thought Passard got his second star at 26 when he was at the Casino d'Enghien?

Saint Pierre, Central Mall, 3 Magazine Road, Singapore Saint Pierre is one of Singapore’s top-ranked restaurants, regardless of cuisine or category. Emmanuel Stroobant, the striking chef-proprietor, is arguably the most well-known face in the Singapore culinary scene. Yes, he has the standard celebrity chef accoutrements such as a restaurant empire (San Marco at The Lighthouse, the Italian fine diner at the top of the Fullerton Hotel; Brussels Sprouts, a mussels and biere joint; and Picotin, a casual French bistro), a range of cookbooks and a television show on the Asian Food Channel titled “Chef in Black.” But he has also crossed the line into mainstream celebrity – if I recall, he has graced the pages of Tatler (which, in my defence, I only ever read when I am burning time in dentists’ waiting rooms) and lifestyle programs on Singaporean television which have nothing to do with food. So much for the publicity fluff. Now, let’s see if Stroobant can cook. I had lunch here a couple of weeks ago. Walking into the ground floor of Central Mall, I am diverted into a small side room. Immediately, I think – Siberia! Well no. The main dining room has been booked for a large sit-down function (around 45 covers from a quick glance) by a multinational cosmetics company. Saint Pierre was inducted into the ranks of Relais & Chateaux last year, making it the only restaurant in Singapore to qualify for the honour. I don’t t exactly know what one needs to be eligible for this group, but in honesty, the room is not the most luxurious I have seen. The cushion on my seat is actually worn down from overuse. And it’s not the only one – a cursory check of some other seats in the dining room yields the same result. Saint Pierre offers three options at lunch – the set lunch menu (if I remember right, S$30 for 2 courses, S$45 for three, and S$55 for 4), the Executive Set Lunch Menu (S$85 for five courses and coffee) and a la carte. The Executive Set Lunch follows a changing monthly theme, and this month’s is chocolate. I am left without any real option. First, an appetiser which has nothing to do with chocolate: Amuse bouche: Seared tuna with parmesan, scrambled egg, caper, anchovy, parmesan We got off to a pretty nightmarish start. Our young French waiter presents the rectangular platter and whispers “Your amuse bouche, sir.” Yeah, I didn’t know that. Can you please tell me what’s in it? He stares at the dish as intently as I do, trying to discern its contents. “Errr…smoked tuna, parmigiaan (sic), anchovy…errr…I’m sorry, sir, I’m French and my English isn’t very good.” Well, I haven’t been studying French for nothing, so I relent. “En français, sil vous plait.” He continues, “Errr…filet de thon… parmigiaan (some things sounds the same in French as in American)…oeuf brouillé… errr…tomate…je suis desolée, monsieur...” Moi aussi. Oh, the food, sorry. Look, it was not unpleasant. I liked the concept of applying different varieties of saltiness to the mildly seasoned tuna, like the parmesan, the anchovy, the caper and the marinated tomato. The tuna was not the best quality cut I’ve had and it’s a pretty chunky serving for an amuse. And the tuna was seared, not smoked, as a cursory visual inspection would have told you. But now we’re on to the main event – the chocolate menu! First Entrée: Wild salmon sweet gravlax, kalamansi sorbet scented with cinnamon and clove, black radish poached in syrup and pepper-infused vanilla bitter chocolate chantilly The salmon is from Scotland, and is a very pleasant starter. The sorbet (not pictured) adds zing and sweet-spicy complexity from the cinnamons and cloves. The chantilly is mildly sweet with the textural and flavour contrast of bitter chocolate shards. It’s not the kind of dish that will get you in raptures, but it is a welcome respite from my earlier amusing service encounter. Second Entrée: Cocoa butter seared king scallop with oba leaves, tomato salsa, pinenut and sweet summer beet foam The king scallop is seared with Mycryo, the innovative cocoa butter product proudly brought to you by Cacao Barry. According to Stroobant, Mycryo and cocoa butter have a higher burning point than normal butter and produce a creamy mouthfeel without the dairy flavour and lactose content, thereby producing a cleaner emphasis on the primary ingredient. Unfortunately, this is all a little overshadowed by the accompaniments, which I am not the biggest fan of. I suspect the tomato salsa had been pre-prepared quite a while ago, as a little puddle of water broke from it at the base of my plate. The scallop, though not overcooked, was cooked more than I would have liked. A leaf of filo pastry lolls out limply like a nonagenarian’s tongue, adding nothing to the composition. Third Entrée: Homemade smoked foie gras terrine with caramelised mango, blanc satin chocolate emulsion and crispy pain d’epice At this point, I am not too sure what to make of the meal, so thank God it’s foie gras time. Saint Pierre is renowned for its foie gras preparations, and this, friends, is why people continue to flock here from across the island. This is foie gras in its purest and best state – three generous slabs of smoked liver terrine (made from whole lobes of the good stuff, no mixing with forcemeat or other adulteratives here), that deliver livery flavour in socking great helpings. The two white knobbly looking things are cylinders of very creamy white chocolate and butter emulsion, so I will need to get a comprehensive health check-up shortly. I call for more of the excellent warm raisin loaf and spread it thickly with the terrine. I lean back, take a mouthful and exhale, satisfied; all is well with the world again. No, scratch that, everything is suddenly supremely bloody good!!! This is indisputably the best foie gras I’ve had since Jean-Francois Piège’s cassoulet-smoked terrine at Les Ambassadeurs. If you come here and order just one dish, look no further than Stroobant’s foie gras[/i} terrine. Main Course: Black miso cod tempura, lobster bisque emulsion, warm leek terrine scented with home-smoked bacon and seaweed roasted rice pearl with chocolate Again, another masterful dish. Wonderfully fresh Atlantic cod (I’ve had superlative cod at three restaurants in Singapore recently, so obviously, some local importer has the inside track). The tempura batter is light and not oily, the “roasted rice pearls” in reality are sago pearls cooked in the style of the risotto. Stroobant used cocoa butter as a base instead of butter and olive oil to prepare the sago, so there is no flavour of chocolate here, just the more desirable cooking properties of the cocoa butter. Dessert: Hugues Pouget Duo: Exotic fruit coulis with Cuba chocolate rice pudding and Szechuan tea / jelly with papouasie chocolate chantilly Hugues Pouget is a Chef Patissier at Cacao Barry, and also the former pastry chef at three-Michelin-starred Guy Savoy and Champion de France des Desserts in 2003. He is also a good friend of Stroobant’s, which explains this collaboration. Through the varying degrees of bitterness and the mouthfeel of the two chocolate toppings, you can appreciate the fine palate that Pouget and Stroobant bring to their chocolate dessert. In the accompaniments, you see how sensitive they are to bringing out the unique aspects of the chocolate they are using. It was a very great pity, then, that the chocolate toppings were placed in the wrong glasses. Funnily enough, the chantilly-fruit coulis pairing works fine, the sweetness of the chantilly cut by the acid streak of tropical fruits. However, the bitter richness of the Cuban chocolate pudding amplifies the tannins in the tea, and it tastes rather unpleasant. I remark on this to the waiter, who apologises and takes the tea jelly away practically untouched. I hear nothing back from him. Petits Fours – Chocolate tart, chocolate cookie, chocolate meringue All told, this was a good – very good meal. The service, while generally good, was not as well-versed as one would like or expect at a restaurant of this calibre. I hated the dessert mix-up more for the missed potential than the actual result. But along with these misses, there were some truly remarkable highs. I also spied a cheese trolley stocked with cheeses from Philippe Olivier and Herve Mons, with a particularly good selection of goat and blue. I couldn’t fit in any but they all looked like they were in excellent condition. Stroobant sat down for a good chat and he kindly brought out a tasting dish of assorted chocolate buttons which he used in the dishes, which he talked me through while sharing a few chocolate-tasting tips. These were all sublime, with a few from Cuba (apparently a finite and rapidly diminishing supply due to trade embargoes) and single estates from Venezuela – very varying body and degrees of bitterness and sweetness, but divine one and all. Stroobant himself is a very charming individual, clearly passionate about his food and able to articulate this. I liked that despite his growing name, he was still here on a weekday lunchtime, cooking and working the room. Saint Pierre is a stalwart and the quality leaves you in no doubt as to why.

Peter, While I am glad as always to see you back and writing in Bangkok, it troubles me no end that strife always seems to erupt when you are there. Care to explain away the coincidences?

I'll have to look for this one. Plus, it made me remember Stephen Chow's The God of Cooking (like you, I have no idea what the characters are). I only have a VCD for that. I'll have to hunt down a DVD and watch it again for the Shaolin cooking scenes. ← I love Chicken and Duck Talk! They used to repeat it quite often on SBS (Australia) back in the mid-90s. I particularly love the running joke about the Buddhist monk who visits the protagonists' shop to eat a meal of rice and vegetables. And any show about warring BBQ meat shops must qualify as a food flick, musn't it? Peter, is The God of Cooking the one about the cooking contests where the women use their magic powers to cook award-winning dishes?

Robyn, some unnamed will pour scorn upon me but I remain a vey big fan of Les Ambassadeurs. They offer two options per course, which vary quite greatly - for example, they offered us venison and fish as main courses. It is currently 88 euros for three courses plus the cheese trolley. John, Julot, I am looking forward to Chef Skin...I mean Chef Soliveres' frozen corn puppies. One never knows, they might be an improvement on his spelt risotto.

I received an email from Hotel Vernet this morning; the replacement for Eric Briffard is Guillaume Ginther, who worked with Briffard, Marc Veyrat and Emile Jung. If it was possible, lunchtime prices have dropped even further. It is now 40E for two courses, "cocktail" and coffee, and 50E for three courses and extras. Four courses (entree, fish , meat and dessert) are now 80E.

Chris, Further to Peter's post, I should add that if you want to do lunch, the dress code is down a couple of notches to "smart casual."

Chris, Reservations are easy - drop them a line on +66 (2) 659 9000 Ext. 7670-1 or an email to orbkk-restaurants@mohg.com. I emailed the week before to secure the reservation, but you could have walked in on the day. There were only four other tables there, and we were all seated on the river side to enjoy the view. The 1000 Bt menu did not include any mineral water, alcohol etc. If you look on the website, it says 1050 Bt plus an additional 17.7% for service charge and GST, but my receipt read "Lunch Menu" and all the other guests were also having the lunch menu, so I don't think they made a mistake.

At the end of our recent trip to Bangkok, the wife and I had lunch at Le Normandie, The Oriental's flagship restaurant and one of the most renowned French restaurants in Asia. We truly did not know what to expect - restaurants with great reputations had disappointed in recent experience, and we were a little 50/50 about whether to come here or go to D'Sens at the Dusit Thani. What we found was a strong contender for the title of the best French meal I've had, almost certainly the finest I've had in Asia. Yes, it was an experience full of Old World charm, such as the requirement at dinnertime for gentlemen to wear jackets and ties, a grand piano in the dining room and a dessert trolley which looks more like a grand gold-plated and timber horsecart. Yes, it also has sensational views of the Chao Phraya river which my camera could simply not do justice to. Yes, it is exclusive and you need to take a private lift to get there. But I am here to praise and exalt to the heavens the wonderfully classic, flavoursome food and formal and gracious service that we enjoyed last Saturday afternoon. We start with an amuse bouche of prawn salad with a tube of beetroot jelly, filled with something tasting like an onion confit. A suitably light and appetising start to the meal. Amuse Bouche For entrees, the wife had an oxtail agnolotti. Details of this dish will remain scant as she refused to share, but judging from the look on her face, it was pretty damn good: Entree No 1: Oxtail Agnolotti I had crayfish bisque, with smoked salmon, mussels, lobster and cauliflower mousseline: Entree No 2: Crayfish Bisque I have two rules that I obey inflexibly (normally) when it comes to dining in restaurants - never order soup and never order chicken. I managed to break them both this day, I don't know why, maybe it was the sunstroke I got when I was walking around the Grand Palace, but this was truly amazing. The salmon was rolled around some little matchsticks of what could have been pickled beetroot, so you had textural contrast (i.e. something to eat) and the liquid itself was not overly creamy and instead tasted strongly of the shellfish, yet you could taste the various other elements in the bowl. For mains, my wife had a New Zealand rack of lamb with coffee crust. This being the last stronghold of old-fashioned tableside service, we had to have the lamb carved at the table: Knowing how much I love lamb, she relented to share a little this time. This rivalled the great lamb I had at Taillevent back in 2003; perfectly cooked to medium as requested and tasty without the rank smell you often find with lamb. I asked myself mid-mouthful 'why can't we get lamb of this quality in Singapore?' I mean, it's imported, so in an ideal world, it would be just as accessible elsewhere, no? Main No. 1: New Zealand Rack of Lamb I had roast chicken (there goes Rule No. 2) - the breast pan-roasted with garlic and the thigh rolled around seasonal mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes. Sauce was reduced chicken juices with rosemary, garlic and mixed herbs Main No 2: Roast local free-range chicken, breast and thigh, with potatoes and olive tapenade Amazing. I took one mouthful and leant back against my chair. I would have gone weak at the knees if I were standing up. The maitre'd tells me that they get the eggs from Bresse and hatch and raise the birds free-range in the Royal Projects, a scheme set up by the King to further agricultural development in Thailand's north. What struck me now, as it did almost every single time I tasted a sliver of ripe fruit or savoured the crunch of a vegetable either raw or in a salad, was how amazingly fresh and flavoursome Thai produce is. I have been in Singapore for the last eight months, I know, but I spent many years in Malaysia and Australia, two great agricultural nations, and I don't recall being so impressed by the quality of fresh produce as I have been in Thailand. I am probably generalising and that somewhere out there, there is someone selling sterile, flavourless produce from his pushcart. I didn't meet that guy, and I certainly didn't taste his wares. Here's part of the view from the dining room: And another: Now comes dessert, and the wife ordered what could be best described as a "Red Plate" - a raspberry and red pepper sorbet, salad of strawberry and tomato topped with fresh herbs, and a savoury yoghurt with tomato compote: Red Dessert Plate This dessert was not overly sweet, instead showing a gentle and sophisticated touch in combining tomato with other elements to provide a very clean, fresh finish to the meal. It was not the outrageously delicious kind of dish that makes you jump on your couch and start proclaiming your love for it, but was more of a thinking person's composition - pleasing to the eye and palate after a classic (and quite heavy) French meal. But I am not a thinking person - I have vulgar tastebuds badly craving a cheap, novel and large sugar hit, and so I opted for the dessert trolley: The famous Le Normandie Dessert Trolley Here's the deal - you get a choice of two items from the selections of cakes and fruit compotes, which your captain will present to you with a rose design on the plate teased out from a little custard sauce, chocolate and fruit coulis: Art by the tableside I selected a fruit tart and chocolate meringue: Selection of cakes from the dessert trolley Good stuff, but after the savoury courses, just about anything would be a let-down. By that scale, this was only a mild disappointment. Petits-fours to end the meal, with a very nice olive oil macaron and piped yam and fruit tartlet deserving of honourable mentions. I haven't bought into the current Singaporean craze for doughnuts, so I must admit a couple of items were wasted on me: Petits Fours The last and certainly another very pleasant surprise - the bill for all this plus coffee came to 1000 Bt per head nett, roughly US$32. In many ways, this was the meal that I was expecting at Taillevent but did not get - great quality produce cooked in a classic fashion, knowledgeable and gracious service in a grand dining room. In fact, Taillevent failed miserably on the first two counts and disappointed on the last (check out what now passes for lighting in the Trianon Room and see what I mean). The wine list, though, is not the largest I've seen and like so much alcohol in Thailand, vastly overpriced. I am told it is the duties that tip the scales. All in all, a sublime experience at an unbelievable price. I know it's based on only one meal, but my experience at Le Normandie could certainly keep company with some of France's rising stars such as Les Ambassadeurs, Les Elysees (previously under Eric Briffard) and Arnaud Lallement. I'll post my comments on other Bangkok experiences elsewhere, but the Le Normandie experience was unequivocally superb. To find a restaurant of such supreme quality in Southeast Asia is truly a boon for lovers of fine French food in the region.

I would second Boon Tong Kee, though down the road, opposite Novena MRT station, you will also find Wee Nam Kee, which is slightly more dingy and dirty. By all accounts, BTK's chicken is better, smoother and more succulent, but I find WNK's rice more flavoursome. BTK's rice is also good but tastes much more "home-style". However, there's not too much between them and they are both very good choices. Sue, I have not tried Tian Tian, but I have heard reports that it has become rather inconsistent and they are coasting along on their fame. The staff members, apparently inspired by the Soup Nazi and Sin Huat, have also become temperamental and generally unhelpful (even by Singapore standards). The queues at lunchtime remain some of the longest I have ever seen, though, so it is obviously still a favourite.