NickLam

Hi Joe, Would there ever be an option to purchase in Singapore dollars so that Singaporeans won't get hit by conversion charges? Also, have you considered hooking up with Japanese magazines like Cafe-Sweets. I think its awesome, here in Bangkok, all these mags cost SGD$20 and above and I'd reather get it online and print it off myself.

Ok, here are the addresses of a few good places and their websites. Hidemi Sugino's Patisserie - 3-6-17 Kyobashi, Chuo-ku (Daiei Building near the bridge.....should be near Kyobashi bridge, not Nihonbashi bridge!) tel: 03-3538-6780 Toraya - http://www.toraya-group.co.jp/english/shops/index.html Pierre Herme - 1st floor, Laporte Aoyama, 5-51-8, Jingumae, Shibuya-ku....there's no map on Laporte's website, but its near omotesando! Pretty big building so should be quite easy to find! Mont St Clair - Translated from the website on babelfish, http://www.ms-clair.co.jp/ Address:The Tokyo Meguro Ku freedom the hill 2-22-4 business 11:00 - 19:00 fixed holiday every week Wednesday, 3rd Tuesday Shunju: http://www.shunju.com/ja/restaurants/ Do a translate on babel fish to get the one closest to you. The original Shunju is pretty far out. Was supposed to go for Xmas dinner there last year.......but my ex broke up with me Peeved me off....coz I was really looking forward to looking at the designs there! Meiji 100% chocoalte cafe: http://open.meiji.co.jp/sweets/choco-cafe/shop.html The address ison the website and more importantly....the only website with a map! If you have a Japanese mobile, you can just send a skymail to a service using the shop's landline and you will get a map sent to you to guide you there. Ahahah was banking on using that service coz I got a Japanese phone.....so......all the best in finding the place! And Robyn, if I'm there same time as you, will defo make arrangements to meet up. However.....my plans have taken a swing for the worst.....late April, Food Hotel Asia in Singapore.....before that, Commodities Fair in Guangzhou. Will make it to Japan, but have to work around those fairs. Cheers!

Thanks everyone! I dunno how you guys can come up with such gems of links using the search option....I always get generic responses whilst doing the search! Anyway, Robyn, I will give you the addresses of the few that I'm going to in a bit. Just finished a mad day of equipment shopping in Singapore and will give you the addresses later when I'm back in Bangkok. Cheers!

Hi, I'm planning a trip to Japan sometime in April to look for ideas and inspiration for our chocolate business in Bangkok and was hoping to get some advice on places worth visiting. Purpose of visit: (1) Dessert/Pastry ideas (Both eastern and western or anywhere else!) (2) Presentation ideas (3) Interior design and architecture ideas (4) New trends and fusions To date, I'll be defo visiting La Maison du chocolat, Toraya, Meiji Chocolate Cafe, Mont St Clair (Hironobu Tsujiguchi), Hidemi Sugino's Patisserie, Pierre Herme and Shunju. Any other good recommendations on places to visit whilst I'm there? Thanks!

Hi Helen, I recall seeing fresh wasabi root being on sale at a sunday shrine flea market in Kyoto. Can't remember the name of the shrine, its famous for its flea market and is to the west of Kyoto station. Well....maybe not a mom and pop store, but that was the first time I saw the actual root. Quality wise....not so sure, but it sure looked good!

Thanks for the info on the 3 books Alanamoana, Kerry and Trishiad. Seems like JPW's book is the one! Remember reading in another thread that one of his ginger-something recipes for a filling was amazing. Looking forward to trying it out!

Hi, I'm looking to purchase a few books on this subject and was just wondering which of the following would you guys suggest: (1) Jean Pierre Wybauw's Fine Chocolates, Great Experience (2) Roger Geert's Belgian Chocolates (3) Ecole Lenotre's Chocolat et Confiserie Tomes 1 and 2 I'm leaning towards JPW's book, only because it was recommended by the guys at Callebaut.....not so sure bout the rest though. Thanks!

Hi CanadianBakin, I tried the updated recipe with the butter mixed into the chocolate mixture and the 1/2C of oil. I'll try the recipe again next week, substituting the oil with clarified butter instead. If no one else is having the plasticky taste, then it must be the soybean oil. I haven't glazed it yet though, and will do so with the Pierre Herme Fauberg Pave caramel recipe. Maybe it'll mask the plasticky taste.

Hi, I tried the recipe last night and it turned out with a good texture, crumb and mouthfeel. However, the only thing I didn't like about it was the taste. I used soy bean oil as I can't find corn oil here....dunno why. Do the rest of you find that the cake has a plasticky kinda taste? The chocolate flavour was good, used Fruibel couverture and Schokinag cocoa. However, the oil caused a compound chocolate like flavour. I've never used a recipe with oil before, and I am using Thai oil....which might be the root cause of the plasticky taste. Does anyone experience this with the better quality oils you have? Cheers!

Anyone ever had Beard Papa cream puffs from Japan? They expanded into USA about 2 or 3 years ago. www.muginohousa.com Thanks to this recipe, I'm gonna try to recreate the taste of Beard Papa cream puffs on chilly winter mid mornings at Shibuya station! Have tried many choux paste recipes but have never been able to recreate the taste and texture of Beard Papa. Heard from Muginoho's master franchisee in China (I sell vanilla beans to them) that their pastry shells are patented in Japan and are seeking patent in America. No idea how or why......but hey, the Japanese tried to patent curry so not that surprising. Also, when asked why the chinese ones don't taste as good as the Japanese ones, they replied that chinese flour is not as tasty as flour from Korea, which they use in Japan. Not sure if the guy was pulling my leg, but one things for sure, the Chinese ones tasted inferior to the Japanese ones coz of the flour and defo the vanilla beans.

Has anyone tried the pressure cooker method yet? I just tried the boiling method on 5 cans and they bulged up slightly and though they are still taking forever to cool down in the tropical heat, they have returned to normal shape. I'm tempted to open it......but hehehe caught the BIG WARNING on the first page. Having a non-existent knowledge in physics.........how safe is pressure cooking it?

GM rice is probably still in field trials in a public sense, but to that I leave to the scientists. A major Japanese car company has dwelved into biotech and currently does lots of research and experimenting in Thailand with a University. As their standards are really really strict, none of these are released for public consumption, only testing purposes. My mate's family has a JV with em up north where they are trying to cultivate short grain rice like hoshihikari to be adaptable to a non-Japanese climate, but taste like it does in Japan. Once you taste hoshihikari in Niigata and the ones grown elsewhere....you can taste and feel the difference. They believe in karma, so are very strict on permanently disposing of rice that has been carded for destruction. However, we do know of lots of backdoor deals in China that go thru to the golden triangle. One of our associates currently grow their own rice in India for pressing oil with but resorted to that only because the cheapest ones they could get their hands on were backdoor ones that were meant to be destroyed. In Asia, most of this info is available only on the ground through networks and getting ones hands dirty. A few bucks here and there goes a long way. Fortunately in Thailand, they grow amazing rice and it is strictly regulated due to great governance by his Majesty the King. One day, I hope to visit the royal farm, if ever the opportunity arises. Most rice grown is either consumed locally or exported to richer countries. What I'm trying to say is that lots of things go on behind the scenes that are not reported or widely known. In these countries, people are so poor and hungry that they won't throw away the rice or destroy it as told. Thats why you still have people in villages eating birds that die of H5N1. You can't really blame them for they are not as fortunate as we are. Seen some pretty disturbing stuff at the producer of chickies for the lyke me fingees people. Can't really compare it to the standards in the west. All those 'undercover' reports exposed in newspapers don't come close to reality. And my apologies if I do not name names as there may be legal issues here for myself and the forum, and that will not lend credibility to my words. Unfortunately, these businesses have the financial means to shut peoples' mouths. If the moderators should feel this is pushing the line a little, I will stop this completely, but I just hope to share more about what I've seen and heard from the ground. Don't mean to scare or offend anyone, but I love food and hate it when unscrupulous businesspeople destroy what is so sacred and dear to us, and give business a bad name.

I would stay away from honey from China. It was a pretty big issue a few years back about honey either being not really honey, but a kinda sugar + chemicals thingy, or the honey being produced by bees with so much 'productivity' hormones and chemicals in them that the honey had dangerous levels of antibiotics and other nasty stuff. I cannot quote accurately a source of this information, for its from a trade report prepared by import agencies that I get from all over the place due to my involvement in vanilla beans then. Anyway, when the chinese stuff was temporarily banned, Taiwan, then Singapore suddenly became the biggest "producer" of honey! Everything was being imported into Singapore, relabeled and sent out again. In Australia, a very big supermarket brand was found by the authorities to be deceiving customers and selling chemicaled honey instead of real honey and were punished heavily. Chances are if you live in SE Asia, you'd have purchased this brand before just like me. Not sure how safe or real chinese honey is now, but just a few months back, they've had another controversy regarding the levels of chemicals, antibiotics and other bad stuff that they put in the water to rear eating fish. Basically, they were selling carcinogen laden fish. Friends in China working for commodities houses report that many farmers grow GM rice there for sale mostly to 3rd world governments whose citizens can't get enough stuff like riboflavins or beta carotenes from their other daily foods. The farmers don't even eat their own produce coz they suspect its nasty. So..........just hope to share the info that was passed on regarding such dodgy produce. China may be cheap, but their quality standards are far from perfect. Veges coming from certain economic zones may contain high levels of carcinogens or pollutants. During a 12 hour train ride from Shanghai to Wenzhou, there are lots of farms blanketed by thick smog overhead. It may be cheap to buy now.......but maybe health cost in the future would be higher? Sounds like a bad return!

Miladyinsanity, the wholesaler is Euraco, they are at Henderson Road, near the old HDB building at Bukit Merah. I'd suggest calling them first to see if they will sell to public. Don't see why they shouldn't, especially since I've not really seen silpats sold elsewhere.

Wow, thanks for the great information and things to look out for. I'd definitely bring these up next time with the supplier when we feel we wanna go with him. Their chocolate is just amazing, with mouthfeel I'd dare compare to Valrhona and the taste is magnificent. Tried one of their special blends which he swears do not contain nuts. However, the beautiful flavour of hazelnuts and almonds peeked behind a very long, intense finish. If anyone is interested, they are Kennedy and Wilson in Yarra Valley. I saw their Macintyre, it was a reallly really noisy thing that looked like a cement mixer. I think by end 2006, their 500kg one will be installed. Thanks again for the info Sebastian.

Hi Hiro, I'm no pastry chef but travel to Japan and Europe and eat my way thru! In Japan, you have amazing traditional wagashi as can be found at Toraya or Minamoto Kitchoan amongst many others. Maybe, you can say they are similar to Fauchon or Lenotre in France.....only that they sell different things. Pierre Herme and many other French chefs have taken Japanese influence into his baking just like Japanese patissiers like Hidemi Sugino have taken lots of his influence from France. You guys have a natural talent and ability to take what is foreign add some twist to it and make it original again. Kasutera, Tempura, Chado and Ramen all have foreign roots, but are all very much Japanese. Also, if you were a pastry student and were given an opportunity to go to France to learn the original European techniques as well as to broaden your horizons to see the world, won't you go? I'm sure there are lots of innovations not only in France, but all over the world, only that we don't hear about them where we are. Geert Renmans, a really sought after chocolatier in here told me last night that he travels to Europe to get new ideas and learn new ways of doing things. His recent innovations include salmon/chocolate and smoked duck/chocolate. He saw these in Europe and just last week, purchased Frederic Bau's chocolate fusion from France. Geert is truly an artist, passionate about what he does and always willing to experiment. And the fact that he's only been in Asia for 5 years and travels back a few times a year should mean that there truly are innovations happening there! But Geert shared a secret with us. Everywhere he goes, if he sees something interesting, he either takes a picture of it or collects it. It may be non-pastry related things. He keeps everything in a scrapbook and goes back to this scrapbook for ideas and inspiration to come up with something new. Just listening to Geert, it tells me very much that its not the technique, but the person. I'd rather eat bland food cooked by someone who did it with all their heart than amazing food cooked by someone without passion.

Hi Sebastian, thanks for pointing out the inaccuracies in that report. Everything I typed was shown to us by the product development manager, who's a chocolatier, amongst other things, from Belgium. Could you please elaborate more on the Macyntire type machines? We are looking at buying from a small artisanal producer who makes amazing chocolate, but with a Macyntire one and were worried bout the metal content. And also, what other type of conches are available in the market? Cheers!

Not really edible floors and displays all over the place. No chocolate river or abnoxious kids. Of their 30 odd factories around the world, this one in Singapore is the smallest and the only one in Asia that manufactures finished chocolate for the Barry Callebaut label. So, included in this range are Sicao and others. The Callebaut we all know is made in Belgium, not in Asia. On entering the factory, we saw a large tank of cocoa mass with a conveyer belt leading to these machines called a 5 wheel refiner. There are like 8 of them in a line. Imagine a tall machine, with 5 large and long solid metal pipes. These pipes are precision engineered to have small gaps from 70 to 20 microns. The cocoa mass gets crushed and mashed through progressively smaller gapped pipes to reach 20 microns. The refined mass than travels via conveyer to large conchs (Or churning machines) where up to 600kgs are conched at the same time for 8 hours. We saw choc conches with choc in them for only 1 hour, and it looked like paste. But the manager assured us that the cocoa fat breaks down and becomes very liquid at the end of 8 hours. This liqiuid is then piped to another set of tanks, where additional cocoa butter and other flavourings are added to be mixed in for 1 hour. This mixture is subsequently pumped to huge holding tanks that hold up to 50 tonnes of chocolate each. We counted 23 tanks, not inclusive of the smaller 20 tonne ones. This chocolat goes thru pipes via gravity to the 1st floor, where the molding and packaging take place. On one side, they have the callet or droplet machine. The chocolate travels to a big machine with a large rectangular dispenser with many small dispensing pipes. The conveyer belt is probably made of silicone and every squirt of chocolate dispenses probably 200 callets. These then go thru a cooling tunnel and are collected at the end in a funnel, much similar to the ones croupiers use at the roulette table to funnel your chips. On the other side, they mould their 6kg blocks. Polycarbonate molds travel on a travelator and a pipe dispenses the exact amount of chocolate. It is just sheer beauty to watch the chocolate flow into the mold, go to a vibration section, thru a freezer that takes 1 hr to totally set the chocolate and into a packaging machine. Oompahloompahs just stack the finished products at the end, wrap it and forklift it away. They also told us that what we hear about 72 hour conching is nonsense. Pretty bold remarks. He said there are 3 kinds of conches. 1st type is theirs, which is industrial. The 2nd type is called a McIntyre (Not sure of the spelling). Its basically a big cement mixer like thing with rotating stainless steel blades that slap against the side of the mixer. The heat generated and slapping motion breaks down the chocolate in 72 hours to give you 20 microns. However, he said lab tests have shown incredulously high amounts of stainless steel and metal particles in them. I'm thinking........some degenerative brain disorders might be linked to aluminum, etc..etc... The 3rd type of conch is one that heats it up and churns it. Unlike Callebaut, who refine their chocolate to 20 microns before conching, some small manufacturers simply churn it and obtain a reasonable mouthfeel because the cocoa crystals, which are originally crystal like, gradually get rounded. Hopefully, anyone who has ever wondered how they make chocolate get a clearer picture of what goes on. I was intrigued all the way, learning so much and feel really priveledged to have visited a real chocolate factory.

Just had a meeting with the importer of Demarle in SE Asia and though they do stock the generic silicone ones, she said the main complaint they've had from hotels here is that the cheap ones tend to curl up in the oven after a short period of time, but the Silpats keep going and going. So short term, its cheap and good, long term not so good. However, if its solely for sugarwork or other stuff that won't really see much serious baking at serious temperatures, the cheap ones are fine. In Singapore, silpats are USD$13 a piece, or SGD$22 for a 600 X 400 one. So, don't think we'll be buying the cheaper ones coz its just marginally cheaper.

I will second Lorna's opinion in Pierre Herme's book. The port soaked cherries make a whole world of difference and the interplay between all the components really taste good!

Ahhh, chatterbox......spent many a dollar there during breaks from uni.....just 10 floors above it! Chatterbox is pretty good, especially the crispy chicken rice. On Bourke Street, next to Bras N Things, there is a small little street (Forgot the name), wher ethey've got lots of food there. There's a place called Chinese Wok or seomthing like that. Really good chicken rice and food there. Changi Village Nasi Lemak is so-so IMO, having had the real thing once too many in Singapore. I actually spoke to the owner, which is the original Changi Nasi Lemak guy's daughter. She and her husband run the place. They've changed the taste a bit to suit western tastes, and I think they still haven't found the perfect moisture balance for the rice yet. The rice is pretty dry and hard, coz Aussie rice is dry grown, but the rice in Asia is mostly wet grown. But........if you ever run in for a teh tarik (Pulled Tea!), tell them to do it Singapore taste and they will. Its a pity they've had to change the taste though, but hey, I guess it sells.

Hi, I've had that same problem whilst doing a chocolate truffle cake (The one with the molten chocolate ganache centre) for my Thai mates, coz they like their stuff sweet. Even using callebaut 56% is too bitter for their tastes. So, I usually substitute around 20% of the dark chocolate with milk chocolate to sweeten it. The flavour suffers a bit, but methinks if they like their chocolate sweet, they may not tell the difference anyway. Sweetening Valrhona is blasphemy IMO..........my heart would hurt.

There's a chef from a 5 star hotel who uses PVC pipes he buys at a hardware shop in Bangkok. When I asked if he lined it with acetate, he said nope and said his method of getting the frozen thingies out was to line em up in a row, and use a blowtorch to quickly go over the pipes. Isn't using unlined pvc dangerous coz of the possiblility of chemicals leaching into the food?

I've just moved to Bangkok for business this January and my mates there have been bringing me to the secret spots that locals go to. Whilst I spent most time closing my eyes whilst they zoom precariously near to other traffic on the roads, here are three that I can remember. (1) Prawn Noodles on Sukumvit Soi 26 (Its the next road up from Emporium, going away from Siam square). Walk down the road past the roadside vendors and you will come to a row of shophouses. There will be 2 stores selling noodles there. Its the 2nd one at the corner. The other one is a copycat. (2) Nam Tok Luer Boatman's noodles. The most amazing noodles I've ever had. If you head up north, you will defo eat it. The best I've eaten was prepared by my friend's maids, but to get close, take the highway towards the airport and get off at the end of the highway and go towards the river. There will be a few boatmen there where you can buy these noodles from! Alternatively...........you can go to the top floor of MBK using the main escalators in the middle of the building. On reaching the top floor, turn right and it is behind you. You can see their kitchen from the outside...and its pretty messy! Have the noodles and the barbecued pork. (3) General seafood Great and affordable seafood with amazing dipping chilli sauce. Enter Soi 24 on Sukhumvit, travel down all the way to the end and you will come to a petrol station. Turn left and continue down and you will see a restaurant on your left with fish tanks on one side. (4) In Pattaya They have giant prawns up there the size of dinner plates. They serve it on rice and you pull the head out, scoop all the good stuff from the head into the rice, cut up the meat, put the 4 condiments and yum! Most of Bangkok's gems are hidden away and seldom patronised by tourists. My mom and my aunts used to bring us to Bangkok to eat and we ate at the expensive restaurants (Well, converted, it was cheap for us) that were hyped up in magazines and newspapers. I will give all that up in a flash for a 20 baht bowl of nam tok luer.

I've just moved to Bangkok for business this January and my mates there have been bringing me to the secret spots that locals go to. Whilst I spent most time closing my eyes whilst they zoom precariously near to other traffic on the roads, here are three that I can remember. (1) Prawn Noodles on Sukumvit Soi 26 (Its the next road up from Emporium, going away from Siam square). Walk down the road past the roadside vendors and you will come to a row of shophouses. There will be 2 stores selling noodles there. Its the 2nd one at the corner. The other one is a copycat. (2) Nam Tok Luer Boatman's noodles. The most amazing noodles I've ever had. If you head up north, you will defo eat it. The best I've eaten was prepared by my friend's maids, but to get close, take the highway towards the airport and get off at the end of the highway and go towards the river. There will be a few boatmen there where you can buy these noodles from! Alternatively...........you can go to the top floor of MBK using the main escalators in the middle of the building. On reaching the top floor, turn right and it is behind you. You can see their kitchen from the outside...and its pretty messy! Have the noodles and the barbecued pork. (3) General seafood Great and affordable seafood with amazing dipping chilli sauce. Enter Soi 24 on Sukhumvit, travel down all the way to the end and you will come to a petrol station. Turn left and continue down and you will see a restaurant on your left with fish tanks on one side. (4) In Pattaya They have giant prawns up there the size of dinner plates. They serve it on rice and you pull the head out, scoop all the good stuff from the head into the rice, cut up the meat, put the 4 condiments and yum!