FDE

Finally have the chance to post our meal at this out of town 2-star. We enjoyed the meal very much and we even bought a signed copy of both of David’s books! Their warm Gruyère cheese puffs were fantastic! All the courses were great, but if I have to choose one, this is probably the best. Rabbit cannelloni, using turnip instead of pasta, garnished with matchsticks of apple. We were completely full from the tasting menu. I had to ask them to pack our petits-fours! More photos here: www.finediningexplorer.com/ csauvage.php

Got back recently from our months of Asia travel. I read so much about this restaurant which led us to a high expectation, but... This is his famous "lap mei fan" ice cream. Yes, it resembled preserved meat pot rice that I had often when I was young, but it’s just another flavour of ice cream. We had lots of unusual ice cream before including bacon & egg, sea urchin, wood sorrel, and even smoked ice cream. I guess it wasn’t that special for us. According to our server, they dehydrated the foie gras and made it into a powder, then sprinkled onto thinly sliced toro along with freeze dried raspberry. His objective here is to let the dried foie melt together with the toro fat in order to reconstruct foie gras in your mouth. What a lousy plating! We paid full Michelin 2-star (now 1-star) price for it. Come on!!! This must be the messiest plating from all of our fine dining experience! The best creation is probably this Sesame Soda. I love the black sesame paste, and combining it with soda adds another sensation to this traditional Chinese dessert. A simple but brilliant idea! Full Report Here: www.finediningexplorer.com/Asia

Thanks for the comments. Yes, it was fresh wasabi. It was milder with a bit of fine fibrous texture than the usual powdered wasabi. Sake, yes, I did request them to write down the name in English. It is from the region Gifu, Kozaemon junmai ginjo. No offense taken... for uni… during winter season in London, I do buy fresh sea urchin from Borough Market and cut them open myself, but it tasted nothing like the uni in any Japanese restaurant. The uni at Hamadaya was superb already in comparison, but no, it definitely wasn’t the best uni we ever had! But it is on par with the expensive uni I had in Grand Hyatt Hong Kong (about USD$30 per piece) two years ago! Our Japanese colleagues mentioned the best Uni are from Hokkaido, which we may be visiting this year.

Just came back recently from our few months travel in Asia and Australia. As usual, we visited many top rated restaurants during our journey. Maybe because of the spacious private tatami room overlooking a traditional garden, or the flawless service adhering to the strict Japanese etiquette, or the beautiful work of art on each plate, or simply tasty food, Hamadaya was THE restaurant of our trip! We went there for lunch as they sometimes charge a room hiring fee for dinner. It is an all-private-room restaurant. This colourful masterpiece composed of six types of jelly: prawn, lily bulb, okra (ladyfinger), wakame seaweed with herring roe, egg custard, and foie gras. Top-notch sea urchin with eggplant! Sashimi plate: “Melt-on-the-tongue” braised pork with miso paste… Impressive stuff! Disappointed about the Michelin downgrade (now 2*), but I think it still worth a journey! Full Report Here: www.finediningexplorer.com/Asia

We were there a few months ago. I did try to look for some guided tours for a more behind the scene actions, but no luck. The Tsukiji Market doesn’t encourage tourists so there are very few tours available during trading hours. We ended up going there by ourselves and here are some pictures: This is the auction. Basically this guy was screaming, shouting, and jumping all over the place for about 10min before concluding with a final buyer. We walked around the Inner market and we were shocked by the size of some live abalones. They were huge -- some of them are about 10 inches across in diameter: You will probably see a bit more from the tours that Hiroyuki suggested above. More info here: www.finediningexplorer.com/other_collections

Sorry for this long overdue report (busy in planning a 6-month world trip starting in June!) BRAS - We were there once already in 2007 and it was one of our best dining experiences. So we decided to go back and stay for one night this time. For €300+ a night, we got a reasonable size room with a walkout open garden offering a panoramic view of the countryside. Quick highlight from the dinner: Of course, Gargouillou... Aligot was served as a side dish last time, but they made it its own course along with an intense truffle cream this time. This combination was even better! A modern interpretation of the 1981 Bras coulant, a pumpkin coulant! Next morning For the Fine French Breakfast (€27), it had baguette, slice of "fouace" (regional speciality), bread with milk, cake with Thubiès walnuts, croissant, and chocolatine. Three kinds of spread: cherry, chocolate, and local honey.... For the Aveyronnais Breakfast (€35), it is a plate of mountain delicatessen (raw ham, dry sausage matured in ash, and liver pâté), and a bottle of Marcillac! Never had that much food and wine, and paid that much for a breakfast! But we enjoyed every second of our experience in Bras! FULL REPORT HERE

Totally agree with PhilD’s “reinforcing” point. So the list now turns into the “World’s 50 Most Famous Restaurants” rather than “World’s 50 Best Restaurants”. I will be in Australia this September and guess which two restaurants I am going to book now?! I have to admit that I have been following this list too closely in the past few years and have now visited most of the restaurants on that list. I don't disagree that some of the top 10 are the best restaurants, but it also contains disappointing jokes like Hakkasan being the best Chinese restaurant (and being a Chinese myself) or Nobu being the best Japanese restaurant in the world. Well, at least my favourites (Bras, Etxebarri and Oaxen) are still on that list.

Just a quick update on my recent visit… Nothing to “wow” about other than the price tag: A Premium Wine Pairing of €10,000 per person and requires a minimum of 2 people!!!! This artwork is interesting, illustrating a mouse on the right going through a maze for the cheese on the left. But it’s more for show only. Full Meal Here

Yes, I am pretty sure it is always on their menu. Only seasonal ingredients, e.g. baby eel, are not available everyday.

For some reason, whenever I thought of grill, I could only think of dry and overcooked meat from a barbecue and grilling seafood was totally a waste. But my visit in October re-defined what grill is all about to me. We were amazed by the smokiness and the freshness of the ingredient! That's what this restaurant is all about. For this type of cooking, there is no sauce or anything to hide an imperfect ingredient. It was hard to believe someone could grill such a delicate ingredient - a light smokiness was beautifully carried throughout. Nice charcoalness to this smoked butter! Grilled egg yolk is out of this world! It had smokiness even inside the egg yolk. Smoked ice cream! Shockingly delicious and again, it had a nice charcoal aroma! We had a long chat with Chef Lennox from Australia and we are going back there this weekend for the caviar and baby eel. See More Here

Yes, we went to Chez Dominique last month. It was definitely an excellent meal, but I have to say our two meals at Oaxen (yes, we went back to Oaxen again) are much more interesting and delicious. We had the 9-course surprise menu at Chez Dominique. There were interesting items like Foamy Greek Salad and Bacon Ice Cream. In addition, these two dishes are worth mentioning: An arrangement of crisp, mousse, ice cream, foam, and pasta made with asparagus and parmesan: Terrine of oyster, salmon, and octopus garnished with sweet pepper, garlic sorbet and saffron ice cream: CLICK HERE FOR FULL DETAIL

Just got back from China, mainly Shanghai and Beijing for the Olympics. I did lots of research on high-end places. Click here for full details, but below is a quick summary: I couldn’t find anything like Fat Duck nor El Bulli, but South Beauty, a Sichuan cuisine (i.e. spicy!), is a leader in the modern Chinese culinary culture. It now branched out all over China. Hot sauce is served on the side for most dishes, so it is suitable for people who can't take spice. They have “tofu - 6 types of sauce” and a culinary interpretation of the “Four Treasures of Chinese Scholar”: Paper, Brush, Inkstick, and Inkstone ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- One place you must visit in Beijing is Laoshe’s Teahouse. It’s a museum, art gallery, tea house, theatre for performing art, restaurant for traditional Beijing dishes, and a luxurious restaurant upstairs. We went to the tea house / restaurant on ground floor. They have a large selection of tea-based dishes and authentic atmosphere of the old Beijing days. We then went upstairs for a full 2-hour entertaining performance (booked 2-wks in advance) including comedians, singers, musicians, magicians, acrobats and opera performers and the famous "face-changing". Traditional Beijing tea snack was served to accompany the show. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “Climb Great Wall and eat Peking Duck!” Of course you will go to Made in China. There are few famous places for duck, but after talking to many local friends, seems like this is “the place”. We had the Peking Duck and the Beggar’s Chicken. Two of us can finish both - it’s really not that big. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- But it turns out that Bai Family Courtyard is the most memorable dining experience of the trip, if not in our life! Once you walk in, it’s a dream world! It took us back in time to experience the Qing Dynasty. It was the actual palace for Prince Li few hundred years ago. Every palace girl passed by stopped and bowed with words "Nin Ji Xiang" meaning "Good Luck to You" - a proper greeting in the Qing Palace as if we were the Emperor and Empress. A team of 200+ palace girls divided into 7 levels, distinguished by their uniforms based on similar structure in the Forbidden City in Qing dynasty. We booked a private room for two with 3 girls standing by. They accompanied us for the whole evening. Trust me, the service here is impeccable… she removed all bones for us from our steamed whole fish. They would probably spoon-feed us if we requested! We ordered one of the 10 Famous Chinese Tea served in an Emperor cup – “Tie Guan Yin” from “Ai Xi FuJian” for ¥80/cup. If you are careful enough, you can come out from this place with ¥400 for two. But it can easily be ¥4000+. With the architecture, garden, music, painting, calligraphy, food, culture... this place is like a living movie!! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now Shanghai, We visited both the legendary Family Li cuisine in Beijing and Shanghai. Long story short, math professor Li attracted enormous attention after winning a culinary competition among 2800 candidates using his secret recipes retrieved from Forbidden City by his grandfather. Strongly suggested by many supporters, they cleaned up their dining room and started serving one table each night. Initially, diners had to bring their own chopsticks and napkins. With visitors like Bill Gates, Mohammed Ali, Jackie Chan, and many ambassadors, Li was able to expand from his house in Beijing. The Beijing version is basically Mr. Li’s house. But they charged the same price for this odd location, no décor, unacceptable lavatory, and pretty much no service at all! If you really want to visit his Beijing home, just go for the cheapest menu and save the ¥2000 for a marvellous royal treatment at the Shanghai branch. MORE PHOTOS / PRICE / RESTAURANT INFO OF ALL ABOVE MEALS HERE

It has been a while since someone post an update on this Michelin 3-star. We were there last month, about 1 hr drive from Venice. We tried both tasting menu: Grand Classics and In.gredienti. The Grand Classics was a better choice as In.gredienti was sort of hit-and-miss. Good selection of bread One of their signatures - "Cuttlefish Black Cappuccino" One of the best dishes of the evening - chopped venison with black truffle shavings As a unique after-dessert refreshment, our server arrived and asked each of us to open up our mouth, he then spray grappa onto our tongue! FULL REPORT here.

Our top three, dinner for two: L'Arpege, Paris - 960 Euro (disappointing meal) Marc Veyrat, Annecy - 910 Euro Alain Ducasse, Paris - 800 Euro Each time, we spent about 200 Euro on wine.

Thanks for letting me know, but I just checked the 2008 Michelin Guide Europe, Allegro is the only Michelin star there. Maze Prague opened in Nov 2007, it probably missed the cut-off for 2008.

We had dinner at the three best restaurants in Prague according to Zagat. All three meals were mediocre, nothing memorable. Allegro – An Italian restaurant, the only Michelin star in Eastern Europe: David – A more traditional local food V Zatisi – A modern local food Nonetheless, we documented all three meals with photos here: www.finediningexplorer.com/other

I am around that area few times a week and always want something quick and tasty. So, I have been there more than 15 times since their opening week. Since the portion isn't that big and I had friends with me few times, I already tried everything on their menu at least once and most of their drinks too. I have been there so often that I notice some items had slightly deviated already from the first few weeks. Few items resemble what I had in those noodle shops in small alley ways in Hong Kong. Best items in my opinion are Taiwan Beef noodle (less beef than the first few times) and Crispy Duck lo mein. Beef Ho Fun and Seafood Ho Fun is not bad either. But there are few items that I would never order again. Service are similar to Wagamama. But only £3.5 per item - definitely a bargain in Central London.

Just visited Deanes few weeks ago. It was just a casual dinner, nothing impressive. Good meal and not expensive all. Here are the photos FYI: Fine Dining Explorer / Rest of UK

Michelin's coverage in Sweden is only limited to Stockholm. Otherwise, many top Swedish chefs would easily agree that this place would be at least a 2-star equivalent. Oaxen is a hidden culinary treasure! It is as impressive as Fat Duck or El Bulli, and the food in Oaxen actually tastes better! In short, delicious food, innovative meal, awesome plating, entertaining demonstrations, top-notch service, unique location... Simply the most memorable meal in our life! I rarely say this, but this place is strongly recommended if you are in Sweden! After about 1hr+ drive and a 5-min ferry ride from Stockholm, we arrived at this small island, Oaxen. It was a long meal consisted of 2 amuse bouches, 5 courses, 2 desserts, and many petits-fours. Here is a just a quick highlight: Meticulous attention to details even for an Amuse Bouche: Demonstration of their smoking technique with clam and lobster: Crab terrine with black pudding: Foie gras with cardamom sugar and fried ink: Our server cracked open the clay and there was pork inside: Honey ice cream with brioche blanketed with a raspberry jelly: One of the desserts composed of a cream cake of pears squeezed in between two slices of spiced sugar, a browned butter ice cream, a terrine of peach, and salty pistachio: Full meal here: www.finediningexplorer.com/rest_of_europe

MPW was a bit weird... He said a lot of stuff not related to the original question. There were times that after a few minutes into his answer, he suddenly stopped and said, "oh, I forgot what I was trying to say, and I forgot your original question. Please repeat your question again." Anyway, here are a few points that I remember when he was answering about dining trends. - He thinks many young chefs nowadays use a lot of fancy strategies to cover up the their lack of technical skills in cooking. - He doesn't understand why restaurants need to do 12, 24, or even 30+ course meals. He was in a Chicago restaurant last month and the waiter said he got a choice of 12 or 24 courses. Obviously he went for the less, 12 courses. But then the dish kept coming one after another and he had about 20 courses at the end. So he confirmed again with the waiter that he ordered 12, not 24 courses. But the waiter said that the chef created a few extra courses just for him. MPW got upset. - He doesn't understand why Heston needs to use blow torch when roasting meat. He hopes this won't start a trend that chefs will start to blow torch on everything. - He said these kind of molecular trends will last for a bit longer and people will soon (many of them have already) go back to the basics: fresh ingredients with simple cooking techniques. Other stuff that he said: - young chefs back in his time was just focused on learning skills; nowadays, the first question they ask is how much per hour and how many hours per week. Many young chefs go into this industry to get famous instead of to learn skills. He emphasized skill is your passport, once you have it, you can go anywhere. Don't try to run before you can walk. - MPW participated in the Hell's Kitchen because he thinks the previous chefs gave a wrong impression about restaurants to the public. He wants to change the image. He still thinks that Adele should be the winner. He doesn't understand how the public voted. But he said the truth is that none of them know how to cook even though they think they do, but Adele is the best of the worst. Other pics: www.finediningexplorer.com/Other

Here is a quick report on the 2008 London Chef Conference. It was a full day of talks, interviews, demos, plus breakfast, lunch, and a gala dinner created by a stellar line-up of chefs. Speakers included Marco Pierre White talking about his career and dining trends in general: Marcus Waring was there to sign his books: One of the most talked about 2-star chef in Denmark, René Redzepi. He showed us more than 30 wild herbs and demonstrated a few of his signature dishes: After lunch, an interview with two female chefs: Ramsay’s Angela Hartnett and French Laundry’s head pastry chef Claire Clark talking about their experience aboard: Also, a demo by Arbutus and Wild Honey’s Antony Demetre: One of the mini-masterclass was a demo of making a water-based chocolate mousse by Damian Allsop. He worked in both Can Roca and El Bulli before. Gala dinner: René Redzepi – Noma (2-star), Copenhagen: Sat Bains - Restaurant Sat Bains (1-star), Nottingham: Jason Atherton - Maze (1-star), London: Claude Bosi - Hibiscus (rising 2-star), London: Claire Clark - French Laundry (3-star), California: Damian Allsop’s water-based ganaches: More details here: www.finediningexplorer.com/Other

Just visited few months ago, 2hrs+ drive from Copenhagen. Quail Egg and Truffle Overall, the meal was okay, but nothing too exciting. www.finediningexplorer.com/Falsled

So each member wrote a list of 5 best restaurants and then all the lists from 682 members were summed up to come up with top 100? So, the ones in odd locations (e.g. Oaxen or Marc Veyrat) would get less votes, because less members dined in those restaurants, NOT necessarily because they are worse than others. Unless you are the famous ones (e.g. El Bulli, Fat Duck - both are Michelin 3-star) or the ones in big cities (e.g. Paris, London, NYC), in which case you would definitely have more visits and hence more votes. Basically, the Academy forgot to divide by the number of visits. E.g. if there are a total of 100 members visiting El Bulli but it only had 50 votes, then a score of 50%. And say Oaxen, only 20 members visited but it got 19 votes, then a score of 95%. It indicates Oaxen is much better, however, looking at the absolute amount of votes, El Bulli is much better than Oaxen, 50 votes vs 19 votes! Does anyone know if they divided by the number of visits before doing the ranking? If not, it is simply a mistake unless all their members have visited all 50 restaurants. I am not surprised if most of the members haven’t even been to more than 10 restaurants on that list!

Fischers Fritz Here is our recent visit to the only Michelin 2-star in Berlin, Fishchers Fritz, a seafood restaurant. A bit disappointed though… Foie gras with smoked eel underneath, best course of the evening. Shrimp was way too salty. Lime and parsley dominated the course, can’t taste the scallop at all. Creamy curry ice cream as dessert… very intense! Full details here: www.finediningexplorer.com/fischers.

Totally agree. It was fun, but we spent £50+ per person. Won't do it again this year.