FDE

The World's 50 Best 2010 (11-24) 24. Les Creation de Narisawa 23. Chez Dominique 22. Vendome 21. Steirereek 20. Le Calandre 19. Oud Sluis 18. D.O.M. 17. Hof van Cleve 16. L'Astrance 15. Le Bernardin 14. L'Hotel de Ville 13. Pierre Gagnaire 12. La Colombe 11. Le Chateaubriand

2010 list 50-25... 50. Eleven Madison Park 49. Hibiscus. 48. RyuGin 47. Die Schwarzwaldstube 46. Biko 45. WD50 44. Troisgros 43. St. John 42. Oaxen Krog 41. Alain Ducasse au Plaza Athenee 40. Il Canto 39. Jaan par Andre 38. Tetsuya's 37. De Librije 36. Dal Pescatore 35. Combal Zero 34. Aqua 33. M. Berasategui 32. French Laundry 31. Le Quartier Francais 30. Schloss Schauenstein 29. L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon 28. Iggy's 27. Quay 26. Momofuku Ssam Bar 25. M. Dahlgren

I think it is RyuGin, a restaurant from Japan

Live at Guildhall now. I think there is another restaurant from Japan got into this year's Best50. According to the website, you can follow it live on Twitter.

Just a few pictures from my visit. I agreed that the service is a bit lacking considering the high price. Nothing wrong with the food at all. In fact, all courses were excellent, but I guess everyone of us expected a bit more for a $300+ per head dinner. Bread Le Caviar Lobster More photos HERE!

As I posted before, our lunch was very average. But we only paid £28 for 3-course with a spacious dining room unlike your £65 for 3-course with packed room. I understand your disappointment.

We had lunch there two weeks ago. Just as what we anticipated, every course from amuse bouche to dessert was great but nothing too exciting. For amuse bouche, a spoon with diced Granny Smith topped with sardine, cauliflower mousseline on pastry, chicken liver pâté on a warm crouton, and a puffy cheese stick. Definitely a good start for lunch. Then, a tender breast of quail with a perfectly poached quail egg. It came with a crispy pie stuffed with meat from quail leg, foie gras, and aubergine coulis. For main, a roasted best end of milk lamb with minted hollandaise sauce. For dessert, a chocolate tartlet with banana and mango coated with meringue accompanied by an exotic fruit sorbet. The meal wasn’t too interesting, but guess who sat across from us?!

Yes, Golden Century got superb fresh seafood. It is probably the most famous Chinese restaurant there... many Chinese politicians visited there. Their seafood is comparable to Hong Kong if not better... I mean, lobsters that I had in Hong Kong were imported from Australia.

Yes, my friend just had dinner there last week and had the same comment as you... "with no clear culinary inspiration".

Yes, smart casual for lunch is fine. I've been there for dinner as well, slightly more formal.

Yes. That brioche was one of the reason I bought the cookbook.

During our trip in Seoul, our local friends took us to one of the well-known restaurants in town. Right beside the Secret Garden (Changdukgung), we were in the Biwon branch of the YongSuSan restaurant. This is the place to experience the golden era of Korean imperial cuisine from the Koryo dynasty. We went for the full-blown 20+ courses. Here are few pics: A colourful platter of nine ingredients. Surrounding the plate were finely chopped dried fish, egg white, seaweed, carrot, beef, radish, fugus, and egg yolk. Steamed abalone with bokchoy and a skewer of prawn, squid, and lotus. A deep fried Korean ginseng wrapped with date! A very herby bitter course! Grilled beef rib fillet marinated in a sweet soy sauce. Korean Persimmon Punch. It is a flavoured tea with ginger, cinnamon and honey with dried persimmon soaked overnight (on the left). This meal was by far the highlight of our whole trip!!! More Pics Here.

We had a rather average lunch over the weekend at the Midsummer House. There were only two simple choices of bread, White or Brown. I was hesitant to order the Ox Tongue as my main course, but I did it anyway. It was a big piece of tongue, much bigger than I anticipated! It came with carrot, pumpkin purée, crispy capers and was actually not that bad after I forced myself not to think too much about the tongue! A chocolate and kaffir lime fondant complemented by coconut sorbet. I had a high expectation from the look: But the fondant biscuit itself was very dry, not crispy, but just dry. Plus, the chocolate had kaffir lime flavour which totally ruined the heavenly chocolate. Just wasn't a good dessert at all. I guess we were comparing it to Michel Bras' Coulant de Chocolat. The best part of the meal was actually the petits-fours with this freshly baked pastry from the oven! Well, it was only a £35 lunch, so maybe we shouldn't expect much even though it's a 2-star. But wait....... We had a superb lunch at Sketch in London even though it was also £35! MORE PHOTOS HERE

I totally agreed with UHockey. I thought Oaxen, Muguritz, Michel Bras, and French Laundry were the best, but not after our dinner at Alinea. Enough have been written about the meal, but I just want to highlight the most delicious courses. Don’t get me wrong, every single dish was excellent. Complex mixture of delectable Thai flavour - aromatic coconut, savoury pork belly, sweet banana, spicy curry and exotic basil all wrapped in a crispy lettuce. This course was all about duck: foie, breast, leg, heart, and consommé, along with "chestnut pillow" and honey orange jelly. A sophisticated course with beautiful flavour and wide range of textural contrast. A seductive slice of smoked and seared o-toro accompanied by various types of seaweed. The soft melt-in-mouth fatty tuna with a hint of charcoal finish... OH MY GOD!!! And finally, a crazy but tasty finish to our meal: Click Here For More Pics.

Yes, that's correct. 165euro for the best menu (Tuber Melanosporum). From my truffle experience, it is much better to fly to some regions for a truffle meal. Ducasse in London is charging few hundred pound for a 5-course black truffle menu. It wasn't better or more (it's less actually) truffle, but I guess they charge a high premium because they imported the truffle, and for the fancy ambience and service of course. Similar to white truffle, we used to have it in London every year paying easily few hundred pound per head on a multi-course white truffle dinner. Then one year we decided visit Alba during the season, and they shaved much more than London and cheaper and much more aromatic (especially with the extreme short life for white truffle... it might be already a week old by the time it arrives at your plate in London). So we decided not to have truffle in London again!

Dave, what an entertaining story although it was not entertaining at that time. I am sure you had a memorable meal there, at least the journey was memorable! Chef Ferran Adria once said, "a great meal begins with a great journey". In your case, your memorable meal began with a memorable journey. MichaelCE, oh my god, it was pouring rain for you too! I guess we were lucky, perfect weather for the whole day. Hope you enjoyed your meal as well.

The first two months of each year is always the season for black truffle. This year we were determined to experience the best. The quality of truffle can vary significantly from one to another but who could have better black truffles than the "King of Truffles"? To experience the “black diamond” of the French cuisine, a trip to Chef Clément Bruno’s flagship is unavoidable. Located in Lorgues, a small village about one-hour drive from Nice, this one-Michelin star restaurant is the place to be. Chef Bruno offers menus with various types of black truffles and our server strongly recommended the Tuber Melanosporum menu. A traditional dish of La Brouillade with black truffle was mind-blowing. It was hard to believe a simple combination of warm creamy scrambled egg with truffle aroma would be such a culinary delight. This must be the best egg dish we ever had. What about his signature dish the Black Truffle Feuilleté where you cut open a golden sphere of pastry to find a whole black truffle inside along with foie gras and served in a deep Bordelaise Truffle sauce! The main course consisting of beef tenderloin topped with seared foie gras and crowned with black truffle shavings completely packed my stomach! More Photos/Videos: www.finediningexplorer.com/bruno www.facebook.com/Fine-Dining-Explorer

Your dad paid! Lucky you! I wonder, is D.O.M. the most expensive restaurant in Sao Paulo, or even in Brazil? Yes, I read your posting on World's 50 Best website about D.O.M.'s renovation. But I can't imagine he can charge even a more expensive menu.

We had a fabulous meal at PIC a few weeks ago. We ordered the Generation menu - a highlight of dishes from three generations of the PIC family. Here are some good courses: A superb amuse bouche to start. First bite was an airy macaron with a tangy-sweet creamy beetroot filing. Then, sitting on a flat spoon was a sphere that exploded in the mouth bursting out strong flavour of pumpkin and citrus! Next, chestnut and peanut custard. And last, an intense and velvet foie gras mousse with a honey glazed pistachio on top. It was a complex and stimulating introduction! A colourful salad consisting black truffle, onion, leek, asparagus, bamboo shot, and carrot all resting on a crust base. Hiding inside was a unique looking pocket of almond cream which gave a warm and mild nutty touch to this fresh salad. A recipe from her father in 1971: Line-caught bass covered with Aquitaine caviar in a foamy champagne sauce. It was definitely a wonderful course. For dessert: Enclosed inside rings of chocolate crisps was a crunchy Taïnori chocolate finger all balanced on top of layers of milk and violet chocolate mousse with a dark chocolate spongy base. It was an exceptional finish! It was an expensive menu (€320) but worth it! More photos/videos here: www.finediningexplorer.com/PIC

Four of us had high expectation of Wareings kitchen team from reading previous postings saying how creative they are in making different tasting menus for each individual. Here is what happened to us a few weeks ago… Something is still bothering me and I want to hear your thoughts. In the Gourmand Menu, one of the courses was pan-fried foie gras with blackberry and yogurt. When our waitress was explaining the menu to us, she said, Unfortunately, the pan-fried foie gras dish in the Gourmand Menu has to be replaced by another foie gras dish - a foie gras terrine dish instead! All of us love pan-fried foie gras so we were very disappointed and surprised -- how can a French restaurant, with 2-star, and even had the pan-fried foie gras in the tasting menu, but ran out of it?!!! So we told our waitress that instead of terrine, we will pick something else from the à-la-carte as a substitute. Here is the 2nd surprise: She then told us the kitchen could actually do us pan-fried foie gras as it was in the Gourmand Menu!!! None of us know how to react to her conflicting statements. Two minutes ago she was kind of implying pan-fried foie gras wasn't available but only terrine, but suddenly everything was fine. Its shocking! And to make things more interesting, I did take the terrine just to see how it was different from the pan-fried and below are the pictures: Pan-fried foie gras: Foie gras terrine: I didnt know Wareings restaurant was full of surprises, but I was surprised again, for the 3rd time! Pan-fried foie gras and foie gras terrine are completely different stuff in terms of all 3 Ts: Temperature, Texture, and Taste. So, I expected the kitchen to do something different for the terrine dish, but surprisingly, it was exactly the same except for replacing the foie gras with a terrine!!! I was confused and still confused. Its unlikely that Wareings kitchen was running low on a particular ingredient, let alone on foie gras. My only explanation is that they had leftover terrine from previous nights and needed to get rid of them before they turn bad. But whats worse is that they were too lazy to do something better to complement the terrine and just simply replaced the pan-fried foie. What do you make of this incident? Are we being too picky? I mean, it wasnt a cheap meal, £110 just for food! The rest of the meal is here: www.finediningexplorer.com/london/mwareing

Haven't seen much about D.O.M. in Egullet, so I will start this by sharing my recent experience there. We had the tasting menu for about USD$170! That’s around the price of Fat Duck or Ramsay! We arrived at 7pm but were the only customers there for the first 90min. Locals there eat late I guess. It was full house when we left. The receptionist of the restaurant was very friendly and tried her best to translate most ingredients to us when each course arrived. She started learning English recently. Extremely high ceiling dining room with an 18-feet wooden door! Here are a few excellent courses of the evening: "Citrus green tomato gel with Amazonian herb and flower" It was a colourful and refreshing starter showcasing various flavours from the Amazon like wild coriander seeds, Peruvian corn, and various aromatic herbs. The citrus jelly underneath was quite mild, which had the effect of highlighting his unique ingredients. This is the 2nd best course of the evening. Laying on top of a crunchy paper of palm heart were carpaccio of sea scallop with citronella oil, seaweed puree, local herbs, and pear sticks. The moist scallop's pure freshness and the pear's fruity sweetness, along with the flavours from those exotic herbs, together with the crunchiness from the palm heart. It was superb! AND this was the best of the night: a concentrated veal jus with tucupi and Amazonian herbs. Our server then poured over an intense wild mushroom bisque. Wow, it was like taking flavours from thousands of mushrooms and packed them into this airy soup. Mixing in the savoury veal stock with tucupi from the bottom gave us a further boost on the palate! Really great stuff! They also have aligot there, but nothing compared to Michel Bras. Even though we had a few great dishes, we still think it was on the expensive side. Including just a few glasses of wine and service, it was a USD$500 meal for two of us! I am interested in hearing other opinions about this restaurant. Anyone had a recent visit there?? Full album here: www.finediningexplorer.com/dom

We went there last weekend to check out their 3-course lunch menu (only £28) after they gained their 2nd Michelin Star. Supposed to be a good lunch deal but my friend wasn't feeling too well that day and decided to have mixed juice instead of wine. Each glass was charged £11 and he had three glasses!!! Oh well, it was good value for money at least for the food. Here are some highlight: Started off with beetroot macaron with foie gras mousse. An interesting timing of flavour - the foie gras was dominating initially but then the fruity beetroot started to kick in while the richness from the intense foie was fading away! Cool! 'Risotto of New Potatoes' Instead of actual rice, rice-size potatoes were used for the risotto which gave us a more crunchy texture. Very clever! Accompanying the risotto were a few delicately deep fried crispy frog legs! The main course was a bit a let-down. The dessert was a vanilla creme brulee topped by rhubard sorbet with rhubard on the side served with hibiscus juice. More here: www.finediningexplorer.com/london/ledbury.php

PhilD, I totally agree with you the few top restaurants that I visited in Australia do stack up pretty well against some of the other "Top 50" and definitely the "Top 100". It wasn't my intention to generalize our experience to the whole Australian dining scene. Please read my paragraph as a whole: It is really those few restaurants that I am comparing to and as you mentioned earlier, we are just comparing the best of the best here. Since we have heard of those restaurants for a long while and they are the few best of the country, so it just made sense to compare them with the best of other countries. But I am sure my experience could be quite different if I had the time to dine in say top 30 restaurants in Syndey versus top 30 in London. I will make sure to let you know before I visit Australia (probably late this year or next year) and you can give me a list of 10 suggested restaurants.

As I said, I was only there for few days. We only had a chance to dine at those three. Sure, I can expand. Some of the top places in Europe that I thought of when making the comment: Michel Bras, France(3*) Louis XV, Monte Carlo (3*) Oaxen, Sweden (no star) Etxebarri, Spain (got 1 star just recently) Manoir, U.K. (2*) We had high expectation when we went to each of them for the first time. Not only did they meet our expectations, we have made at least one return trip to each of them. In Tetsuya’s, the oyster in vinaigrette was the only memorable dish out of 15 items that we had. The Quay's “five Sea Pearl” was unique. It looked spectacular but only one of the pearl was actually tasty. These are just a few comments on the food, but of course, there are other aspects that affect our dining experience as well, e.g. from the cutleries to the service to the dining room. (Not to be picky, but we are not talking about cheap meals here. We do pay detailed attention to various items.) Btw, we did enjoy the view in both Quay and Pier. So I guess you kind of agree that they are not on par with the top places in Europe, i.e. say Michelin 3-star.

We only got a few days in Sydney during our 6-month trip. So, we had to do the three big names (Pier along with Quay and Tetsuya’s). Unfortunately, they're not on par with the top places in Europe. If I have to pick one, Pier was our best meal in Sydney. Here are some of the tasty courses from Pier: Reminded us of Chef Keller’s Salmon Tartare Cornette: Carpaccio of coral trout in lime vinaigrette beautifully garnished with diced tomato and soft herbs which included chervil, dill, chives, and tarragon. This was the highlight of the evening: Pan roasted scallops and sautéed veal sweetbreads, with an interesting cauliflower tofu in the center. The rich sweetbreads provided a great depth to taste. Both the texture and flavour were spot on. Well done! A very “spongy” sponge cake More on our Sydney restaurants: www.finediningexplorer.com/rest_of_world