Going With My Gut

London: Whizz Over to Pizarro

 

I'm still sitting on a stack of photos and a post on Jose, Spanish chef Jose Pizarro's cosy and much beloved tapas bar on Bermondsey Street. But for right now I thought it more urgent to tell you about Pizarro, his brand new sit-down restaurant just a few doors down the same street, as they are offering a 50% soft launch discount until Sunday. And dress rehearsal or not, the food is pretty bloody stellar.

Babs and I sneaked out to Pizarro for a cheeky lunch yesterday (in part to celebrate Edible Experiences' first corporate gig sale, but really, I was going to snatch at any excuse) and the lovely renovated rustic space that used to be Bermondsey Kitchen had a first-day-of-opening nervous charm about it -- There was a guy fixing the door; Handsome Herve (front of house chief and Chef Jose's business partner) regularly briefing waiters and barmen with tips big and small, and Chef Jose himself making it a point to personally welcome anyone he recognised and regularly asking them for feedback as the meal progressed, in between goading his kitchen team on like a veteran cox.

We opened with ham and prawn croquettas (above). Be sure to eat them hot! I like these better than the blue-cheese spiked ones at Jose. And when I say I like them, what I mean is you could lay out a Hansel-and-Gretel trail of these croquettas between me and Hell, tell me where it leads, and I probably wouldn't resist.

We absolutely loved this beetroot cured salmon, served with capers and egg yolk. I have no idea if this is at all traditionally Spanish, but it's a spark of bloody genius between a pescatarian steak tartare and a very sophisticated Eggs Royale. The guy sitting across the bar from us loved this dish so much as well that he had to pipe up about it too: "I've known Jose for 6, 7 years now, and he just keep pulling them out of a hat!"

 

 

Our 3rd starter (I know, we're weak): Squid, potatos and allioli. When pushed for feedback the only thing I could come up with was that this dish could do with a sprinkle of parsley or paprika, but more for prettiness rather than taste. The squid hit that sweet spot of crunchiness just before the descent into chewiness that very few eateries manage.

 

 

And now to the mains. Babs had an absolutely stellar salt cod with potatos, vizcaina and capers. One of those moments where after you bite into it and and it's SO GOOD you can't even hog it, you turn to your partner and say "Holy shit you need to try this."

The meat was wonderfully firm, springy and bitey and had that wonderful seafood sweet-saltiness (I find a lot of restaurant fish fillets to be farmed and pre-processed to the point of blandness by the time they hit the dining table).

Chef Jose once told me that Spanish cooking is very easy, the magic is really to get good ingredients. I always take a chef's humility with a pinch of salt, but nevertheless I will definitely need to find out where he buys his cod...

 

 

Drawn in by the black cabbage and clams, I had the hake. I suspect some diners might find the gravy over salty, but I find hake to be a naturally bland fish, so the strongly flavoured gravy was a good balance for me.

And they definitely kept a hawkeye on those clams. All perfectly cooked but still tender, rather than chewy. Well done.

 

 

Back in August before renovation works kicked off, we snuck in for a training-period dinner, and tried the iberico fillet with mash and piquillo peppers. I remember absolutely loving the the deep flavour of the pork, but wasn't feeling any magic in the bog-standard looking mash. This dish was on the menu yesterday so I'd love to hear from someone who's tried it more recently.

 

 

And now onto desserts. Firstly, I am delighted to note that there are 5 desserts on the menu, compared to the usual 1 or at most 2 at Jose (and 1 of them is usually rice pudding with does absolutely nothing to get my pulse racing).

We had the chocolate, toast and hazelnut ice-cream. My grin got more and more idiotic as I watched Maria make it in front of us at her station at the bar. The menu description was already an easy sell for Babs. The realisation that this was going to be something really special despite its simplicity was watching Maria sprinkle on the salt flakes then drizzle on the olive oil.

At this point I really can't decide between telling you to keep reading or to just hurry up and drop everything and just bloody get over to Pizarro already...

 

 

Well for those of your who stayed: An irresistable Cava with pear sorbet. I was expecting maybe a splash or a spike, but no, Maria (the lovely lady in the background) just kept pouring and pouring and pouring! Lovely, light, bittersweet, naughty. I hope they experiment with berry and soft fruit sorbets in summer because this is going to be HUGE on a warm day.

 

 

Ok. Enough. NOW GO. Really.

 

Pizarro
194 Bermondsey Street
London SE1 3TQ
United Kingdom

No reservations, except for private room. 

Bargain Bliss at St John Bread & Wine

Above: Smoked fish mash with duck egg on toast. Golden.

 

I might as well tell you. Babs and I spent our house downpayment gallavanting around the world for 15 months. And now we're trying to finance our foodie startup without external investment. And pay the rent without going back to full time jobs (so we can spend time on said start up).

The result? We're lucky, and doing ok. I love where we live. I'm quickly cementing my status as a fashion disaster, but it won't kill me. Most interestingly, we're probably eating better now than we ever did on full time paychecks. Working at home means I get to cook a lot more from scratch, and a combination of a tighter budget and unrelenting foodie standards means that the quality on anything we eat now has to at least match, if not outpace the pound we spend on it.

A recent week-long visit from Dan & Mei -- 2 very dear and foodie friends from Singapore -- was a great way to crystallise my current value-for-money London Eats list.

First stop when they showed up? St John Bread and Wine, the Spitalfields little sister restaurant to Fergus Henderson's HQ St John in Farringdon.

On this particular Sunday the 4 of us ate like kings (or maybe just very posh peasants) for ~£20 per person, which got us great produce, a regularly season-refreshed menu, and clean and simple though not at all simplistic flavours. Which upholds a long-loved belief that you don't gotta be fancy to be classy.

 

Globe artichoke with dip. The St John empire is known for what they call honest food. Maybe sometimes more honest than we can easily handle! I realised I'd never eaten an artichoke whole before. It took us a while to figure out what to do with this baby here. We got there in the end. (I won't ruin it for you, and maybe we actually muppeted it up, who knows...)

 

 

Peas and ticklemore, a kind of goat's cheese. A self-confessed borrow from former head chef James Lowe. Tis the season for fresh peas, and Mei realised she'd only ever had them frozen. She was hooked. We ate peas fresh for the rest of the week whenever we could. She even brought 2kg home to Singapore with her!

 

 

Devilled rabbit kidneys on toast. Utterly superb. Like fat savoury jellybeans for grownups.

 

 

Sweetbreads. I really like it that these were cooked through and firm. I confess to being a bit squeamish about the squishier medium rare treatment more loved by other more hardcore offal veterans.

 

 

Pig's head stew. Sooooooo comforting. Hopefully it's a mainstay on the menu now that it's forecast to rain every day for the next 2 months!

 

 

Sprats with horseradish. Be sure to crunch down on them, head, tail, et al!

 

 

Also from the fish list but from a previous meal Babs and I had there: Bright red crayfish, and sardines with salsa verde. A lovely memory of sunnier days in London.

 

 

Ah yes. And now to the highlight of this particular Sunday afternoon. The smoked fish mash with duck egg on toast. That yolk is Nigella-style borderline obscene!

 

 

I fully expected it to explode and leak everwhere upon first touch. But tadah! The clever clogs in the kitchen slow cooked the egg, so instead you get a velvety eggy custard to go on top of the velvety smoked fish mash. This is exactly my point. You don't always need to spend a fortune to enjoy luxury.

 

And now to desserts. Once again, a flashback to a meal we had during the slightly earlier days of plotting the startup: Lemon sorbet with a shot of vodka (sometimes they also do apple sorbet with vodka. Be still my beating heart!); and chocolate pudding with prunes.

 

 

The notorious Eccles cake (kinda like a very dense raisin scone) with Lancashire cheese. Lovely for those who prefer a more savoury dessert. My mate Goz who runs the Plusixfive Singapore Supperclub claims this combination made him react rather rudely when he first tried it. (Rude is good, the fashionable kids tell me!)

 

 

And to make sure we finish on a high (and it's a tough one with this post). Little St John incarnations of heaven on earth: Madeleines fresh from the oven. Feathery light, gently sweet, eggy, toasty.... they really should call these Maddenings.

 

 

Many thanks to chefs Lee Tiernan and Lillie O'Brien, their kitchen teams, and the always charming Daniel at front of house for supplying so much bliss at such a bargain. We'll be back. Often.

 

St John Bread and Wine
94-96 Commercial Street
London E1 6LZ
United Kingdom
+44 20 3301 8069

 

Singapore: Getting Our Just Desserts at the 2am Dessert Bar / NOMA Mashup

Above: Queens of the Desserts -- Singapore's 2am Dessert Bar's chef owner Janice Wong (left), and Copenhagen's NOMA's pastry chef Rosio Sanchez

 

Singapore's annual World Gourmet Summit coincided with Babs's and my recent family-visit trip. The fortnight heralds a dizzying array of international chefs, flown in to hook up with local chefs to present a sparkling suite of special menu dinners, demonstrations and masterclasses.

I usually find most of the events ruinously expensive, and so usually just pass over the schedule page wistfully. But this time I couldn't resist checking out the 2am Dessert Bar - NOMA dessert mashup, led by 2 very accomplished 20something women.

2am Dessert Bar, nestled in Singapore's very chi chi Holland Village, is owned and run by a mere slip of a girl, 27-year-old Janice Wong. But she's slight like, y'know, a stick of dynamite is slight. In local lingo we'd call her a "chilli padi", a small but scalp-tingly hot chilli.

 

 

The story goes, Janice was studying economics at university in Singapore, went on an exchange programme in Melbourne, Australia, and was so taken by the fresh produce there that she decided that food was to be her life. She finished her degree, blazed through the pastry course at Cordon Bleu in Paris, and then hustled her way into a series of stints including Les Amis in Singapore, Per Se and WD-50 in New York and Alinea in Chicago. In 2007 she set up 2am, an avant garde dessert-only restaurant with lots of wine pairings. The stick of dynamite proves to be quite a keg. Since then Janice has become quite the appointed ambassador for modern Singapore cuisine, launched a lab in partnership with Republic Polytechnic to create and study the chemical structures of dessert concoctions, and is in the process of publishing and launching a book due out this summer.

It was at WD-50 that Janice and Rosio crossed paths (Chicago-born Ms Sanchez is also a Cordon Bleu pastry alum, but from their Chicago campus). In fact, it was Rosio -- the sous pastry chef at WD-50 at the time -- that took Janice in. The 2 obviously got on famously, and stayed in touch. The very personable Rosio is currently the pastry chef at NOMA, and from what I can tell of her dishes and what I've heard and "seen" of NOMA from my lucky friends' accounts, she "got" what the place was about, quickly and quite entirely.

 

 

For the week of 3 May, the mashup menu offered 4 desserts by 2am and 4 by NOMA, priced at S$60 and S$98 respectively if you went for the degustation option. Thanks to the very sporting company of SL, P Diddy, Tones, Team Criddle-Cock (long story), we could indeed go for the whole menu together and not feel too pauperous after.

It might be worth stating at this point that ultimately, I haven't decided whether I am an absolute fangirl of these desserts yet. The odds aren't great. My penchant for desserts has dwindled over the years. And the more places I eat, the more I realise that I actually like what some may call "peasant" food, much more than overwrought fancy food. But, I daresay I am quite the fangirl of the creators of these desserts. Because boy do I love women with cahones.

So here we go. One dessert from each house was served at the same time.

 

NOMA: "Bitters dessert, Winter Version". Whey discs, bitters syrup, milk crumbs and sorrel.

See what I mean about cahones? Rosio's opening salvo looked like a white hockey puck in an algae moat. But maaaan, the combination of dairy and herbs and salty milk crumbs underneath was exquisite. I think this one was SL's favourite.

 

 

2am: "Shades of Purple". Purple potato, cassis parfait, lavender and marshmallow.

In contrast, Janice went for an explosion of colour. What looks like a string of pink ice-cream pearls had an array of textures and temperatures. By the way, if this actually was a necklace or a bracelet, I think I wouldn't mind wearing it.

 

 

NOMA: "Hay parfait and strawberries". Chamomile broth, lemon balm, oregano and bronze fennel.

NOMA is well known for dishes that recreate the way the ingredients were found in nature. The story behind this dessert is that when Rosio went foraging for wild strawberries, she often found chamomile growing alongside. In a more industrial setting, she found that strawberries are often packed in hay to keep them unbruised and moist.

Cute, and once again elegant. The wild strawberries were quite the treat, densely packed with flavour compared to their watery industrially grown frankensteiny cousins. These ones evoked childhood memories of picking strawberries on the cool slopes of Cameron Highlands in Malaysia. I wonder if they still grow there...

 

 

2am: "Basil White Chocolate". Textures of passionfruit.

A whopping 7 textures going on here, including passion fruit leather, coconut ice-cream and a tiny cluster of sea grapes! This one was Bab's favourite -- he especially liked the passionfruit leather. For me personally, there were just too many elements going on at the same time. But I was really taken by the sea grapes (I think I ate an unfair share... sorry!). Sea grapes are apparently a kind of seaweed, grapey in shape and tobiko (flying fish egg) -esque in taste. The Japanese people of Okinawa call it green caviar. Delightful. Where oh where do I find some more please?!

 

 

NOMA: "Milk and Grains". Milk ice-cream, and biodynamic grains.

This was my favourite of the evening because it was cute and inventive and subtly sweet. Also it just boggled my mind that so much white on a white plate still somehow worked. When you "hack" into the ice-cream log, out seeps a dark golden syrup (birch, I think?). Very evocative of the experience of the roving NOMA team tapping birch water to make homebrewed beers and syrups.

 

 

2am: "Cheese Avalanche". With biscotti, marinated figs and cantaloupe.

Again, a heady mix of sweet and savoury, fruity and dairy tastes, and crunchy and creamy textures. P Diddy liked this one so much he ordered a whole other one to eat by himself!

 

 

NOMA: "Huldreost brown cheese and beet". Brown cheese custard, beet granite and licorice.

I don't have strong memories of the cheese now, I really like the subtle natural sweetness from the beetroot. A good reminder that I've been meaning to experiment with making beetroot sorbet this summer, after discovering roasted and raw beetroot of all sorts of colours with a vengeance all this past winter.

 

 

2am: "Chocolate H20". A flourless, creamless, butterless chocolate cake, paired with caramel truffle and yuzu sorbet.

A dessert first dreamt up for those watching their figures, apparently. Surprisingly delicious for a "diet" dessert. And very refreshing despite my sceptism about the chocolate and citrusy yuzu pairing.

 

 

All in all it was a fun delightful evening trading stories and updates and reactions to the desserts with friends. Thanks so much to Janice, Rosio and the 2am army. In some instances I don't get your style, but I sure as heck get your passion and dedication. Keep on keeping on.

 

 

2am Dessert Bar
21a Lorong Liput
Singapore 277733
+65 6291 9727

London: Pigging out at St John Bar & Restaurant

 

I can't think of any good reason for having waited this long to dine at Fergus Henderson's St John Bar & Restaurant.

I can only be thankful that sometimes, good things really do come to those who wait.

When the occasion finally came to eat at the legendary nose-to-tail restaurant, it was quite a fitting one. My brilliantly batty fellow food geek friend Goz was turning 30, and he was determined to celebrate with a whole roast suckling pig.

Actually, I'm pretty sure he was determined to eat as much of the pig as possible himself as well. He ensured that we showed up to dinner in the worst shape possible, having spent the afternoon trying not to smash our faces on treacherous floor of the Hyde Park Winter Wonderland ice-rink, then trying not to throw up our insides, nose-to-tail et al, after a particularly diabolical fairground ride that felt like you were being spun inside a washing machine that got caught up in a tornado.

(Goz said he had nightmares of falling that night. No sympathy from me, buddy. None.)

But just walking into St John started the process of soothing my frayed centre of gravity. The white and grey walls and plain concrete floors and weathered wooden tables may make the place look a touch factory-like to some -- the building used to be a ham and bacon smokehouse -- but it signalled to me that we were going to be in very good hands food-wise. They certainly weren't trying to distract me with anything else in the room.

 

 

Well. Maybe with just a few wee drinkies, while we earlybirds waited by the bar.

 

 

Eventually we reach a quorum and pile into our private dining room, and tuck into some dense gorgeous-smelling bread... somewhere between rustic and sourdough. Such a good choice at the time... but such regret later when the volume of food just wouldn't stop.

 

 

And so it begins. We start with how all big meals at St John should start -- with its world famous roast bone marrow and parsley salad. Use little steel scoops on sticks provided to extract the wobbly grainy-protein marrow globs out of the shanks, spread on toast, sprinkle salt, and bring a refreshing lift to the ultra-rich marrow with a tuft of very lovely vinegar-dressed parsley. Such decadence from such simplicity.

In Singapore where I grew up, us friends would sit around a table at an all-night prata (Indian savoury pancake) place talking trash, and order Indian mutton tulang (bone marrow) soup. When only the bones were left we'd each take a bone and THWACK THWACK THWACK on the table until those little globules of marrow yield and gloop out into our waiting mouths.

The St John rendition is a much more genteel experience, but let's face it, it's just not as fun without the thwack thwack thwack.

 

 

It took a lot of self-control not to plow into this plate immediately, but I just wanted to show you the nutty jerusalem artichoke and sweet red onion and briny green olive and peppery cress salad. I really need to try this at home at some point.

 

 

And then our headline act arrives. By the time I unwedge myself from the far end of the table to go out into the holding area to take a photo, there's a neat nose and tail plate carved out. This bugger is much larger than what I usually see at Chinese weddings. Definitely worthy of Goz's food lunacy. The folly of scarfing so much bread before starts to sink like a brick. Literally.

 

 

The birthday boy has an intimate moment with the pig, before we pass the plate around, and like the true Chinese we are, dig into the cheeks and chew on its ears and tail. There's not much other than a skull left to hand back to our waitress by the time it does a tour around the table.

 

 

Three massive platters of meat and skin and bread and onion stuffing get set out, along with some really gorgeous potatoes and greens cooked in I don't really want to know how much butter. The pork was superbly tender and moist and sufficiently seasoned that I didn't feel the need to grate salt and pepper all over it. Gorgeous.

 

 

One of our friends -- clearly with eyes bigger than the meat platters and our collective stomachs -- orders for the table some sweetbreads and langoustines. I can't remember what I thought specifically about the sweetbreads (in general they're not my favourite things) but I was really blown away by the langoustines. They went so fast I failed to get a photo. All that had been done to them was boiling and then chilling, but my god they were amazingly fat and firm and meaty and oh so sweet. Mr Henderson has clearly got some fisherman mafia behind him, and I want to know who, dammit.

 

 

Yet another example of sublime simplicity -- the best madeleines I've ever had. Warm crust, feathery light not too sweet insides. There was a fair amount of groaning around the table by this time, after the pig and Goz's birthday apple pie. But for these madeleines, quite a few of us pushed through the pain to nibble... on... just... one... more.

 

 

The cutest not-so-little doggy bag you ever did see.

 

 

Appetites over-sated, friendships teased and then reaffirmed over birthday toasts, we finally waddled home, vowing to come back and try other dishes on the menu like venison heart. Except that since then I got word from a very credible chef source that a better bite-for-buck bet was to try sister establishment St John Bread and Wine.

It'll be a pretty damn hard act to top. But hey, I don't believe in being pigheaded about such things -- not when it would be delightful to be proven wrong.

 

St John Bar & Restaurant
26 St John Street
London EC1M 4AY
United Kingdom

Swiss Cottage, London: I Say Ya Ya Ya to Sushi Bar Atari-ya

 

There are old-school professional restaurant critics who insist on eating at any given place 3 times before they write their review. That's exactly what I did before this review of Sushi Bar Atari-ya Swiss Cottage. But only because the pace of my cravings outran the pace of my writing.

Atari-ya is the premier sushi-grade fish supplier to many of London's Japanese restaurants. I've made expeditions to their West Acton store to buy fish for DIY sashimi feasts at home, and would've visited their take-away shop behind Selfriges more often, if only it stayed open later in the evening.

So when my foodie pal Melf offered to take me to Atari-ya's newest sit-down outlet in Swiss Cottage the weekend I got back to London after 15 months on the road, I stapped on a jet pack to hurry the process along.

I wasn't disappointed. The £10 chirashi bowl (above) is the most generous one I've tried in London, in terms of expensive-ness of seafood used as well as quantity. And Melf tells me her friends who are regular diners there reckon it used to be even more generous when the eatery just opened this past Spring.

All I know is, I had a bit of seafood left over after I got through all the rice. How often does that happen?

I was still thinking about that chirashi the next day (I'm still thinking about it now), so when I had a subsequent catch-up lunch with my friend Jim -- who used to live in Japan and sent me on a semi-religious quest for jiro ramen when I visited Tokyo this past April -- I was thrilled when he suggested that we meet at Atari-ya. It was another shot at their chirashi, and it was also a reassurance to me that I wasn't going bonkers about the place only because I'd been mucking around in South America (Sao Paolo notwithstanding) for the last 2 months.

My 3rd visit was last Saturday, just as London was starting to properly freeze over. I love udon in any weather, but a bowl of steaming hot udon (preferably a Nabeyaki-style cauldron with a raw egg sitting on top) is one of my favourite antidotes for the Atlantic winter.

Atari-ya sadly doesn't serve nabeyaki udon, and I've never understood the point of tempura udon -- if the prawn's in the bowl its batter gets horrible and soggy; if it's out of the bowl all you have is a prawn and a bowl of plain noodles; no alchemy there -- so I decided to try the usually very simple Kitsune udon, with aburaage, sweetened and deep fried tofu pockets. I didn't have high expectations, to be honest. I figured it'd just be a filler dish so that I could snack on low-carb treats and still leave the place feeling full. But DAMN this simple dish blew me away. Aburaage I've had in most other places tends to be quite tasteless and worse, slightly watery because it's been soaking in a bucket to stay moist. This one was full of a soybeanysaltysweet-mirin flavour. Lovely. And what a deep pocket it was!

The udon noodles -- Sanuki udon from the Kagawa prefecture where Japanese people first started to eat udon -- were a good balance of softness, elasticity and biteyness. I'll be back for more. A lot more.

 

 

Other bloggers such as Pig Pig's Corner, London Eater, and Mr Foodie have already written plenty about Atari-ya's sushi and sashimi offerings, so I'll leave you in their good hands. Instead I'd like to share with you a couple of humble but delightful vegetable dishes I really enjoyed.

Ohitashi -- boiled spinach chilled and flavoured with soy sauce, sesame seeds, and bonito flakes -- was tiny to look at, but quite a generous portion when decompressed. We ate this by the metric ton when we volunteered on an organic rice farm near Osaka, and Atari-ya's ohitashi brought me right back to that memory of fresh-from-the-veggie-patch sweetness.

 

 

Another gorgeous vegetable offering: miso-grilled eggplant. If satin were edible, I reckon this might be what it would taste like.

 

 

My favourite place to sit at Atari-ya, or any good Japanese restaurant, really, is at the bar. It's the best way to eyeball the daily specials as they leave the counter and figure out what you really want to punt on. Tip: If ever you see seared razor clam on the specials board, get it. It's roughly chopped and blow-torched to a springy and sweet medium rare, and seasoned with a subtle yuzu citrus sauce which does a good job of not bullying the natural sweetness of the clam.

Oh razor clam how do I love thee? I love thee to the point of lunatic foodie altruism. When the guy next to me at the bar on Saturday looked at my razor clam with much curiosity, and continued to look doubtful even after I told him it was really good, I actually gave him a little piece to try. Imagine that. The love of shellfish moving me to unselfishness! And I've been known to stab with a fork unauthorised hands which have tried to sneak away some of my food!

 

 

So if ever given the opportunity, say ya ya ya to going to Atari-ya, before the mainstream publications catch on and current ridiculously good-value prices adjust accordingly. As it is, pacing and coordination of the waitstaff and chefs feels strained at peak hours -- what more when the rest of London finds out that there is a feast of industry standard-setting ingredients to be had here for under £30 per person. Even when sake and beer get added to the mix.

 

Sushi Bar Atari-ya Swiss Cottage
75 Fairfax Road
London NW6 4EE
United Kingdom
+ 44 20 7328 5338

Xin Ji Shi, Shanghai

I spent some time today putting together a concise list of my favourite Shanghai Eats for friends who are soon Bund-bound. Going over my notes and photos, I realised that somehow I had forgotten to write about Xin Ji Shi, my first real food find in Shanghai, and probably still my favourite eatery in the city.

I will now seek to correct this travesty.

I first stumbled into Xin Ji Shi while on a business trip to Shanghai back in 2006. It was a frosty February lunctime, and back then the glitzy F&B entertainment and retail complex Xin Tian Di (New Heaven and Earth) was indeed "xin". Many restaurant and shop spaces were still empty or else in mid-fit-out. I remember peeking into a restored but slightly dusty Chinese house, unsure if the sign outside meant that it was actually a restaurant. Yes it was, and soon my then-boss and I were seated at a round rosewood table with round rosewood stools. I fumbled my way through the Chinese menu and hoped for the best. Luckily for me, what followed was (in my opinion anyway) the single best meal on that expense-account-friendly trip, and also one of the cheapest.

Four years, the doubling of city subway network lines from 6 to 12, and a debut World Expo on home turf later, my parents meet Babs and me in Shanghai this past May as part of our 15-month round-the-world backpacking honeymoon. I'm eager to take them all to Xin Ji Shi, and mostly, I confess, to recreate that gorgeous lunch that girded me for the rest of that wintry day back in 2006.

But I'm nervous. Appetite for destruction in the name of progress is rife in China's cities. Did Xin Ji Shi age well? Did it still exist at all?

Much like China, especially Shanghai, it marched forward in a way that left me feeling ambivalent.

I'm glad I called to make a reservation, because it turned out they were fully booked for their prime dinner slots. We were to be seated at 8.30pm (luckily the Chinese eat early). Xin Tian Di is now fully fitted out and then some -- you have to elbow your way around to get anywhere, and the place is chockablock with ultra-stylish locals, corporate-suit and chinoed-cowboy expats and tourists alike. I could barely breathe on this humid May evening.

Xin Ji Shi, like the rest of the city, was spilling over with people. There are a lot more glass enclosure walls than I remember. Through the glass I see that many many many more people have now made the same discovery I did -- the restaurant now has 6 branches in Shanghai and has also expanded to Beijing, Hong Kong and Taipei. Disturbingly I also see the waitstaff joshing around, 2 waiters mock wrestling each other while their colleages stand around watching.

I am pleased to report, however, that the food at Xin Ji Shi is as gob-smackingly good as ever. Perhaps not as magical on a summer's night compared to a wintry day, but I think this is still the first place I'd send any of my friends visiting Shanghai.

Behold, reason number 1: Melt-in-your-mouth hongxao rou, pork belly stewed in a sweet-savoury red sauce. Let's just take a moment to enjoy the afterglow of that first mouthful, shall we?

 

 

And now to blow a little hot and cold, in the most delicious way possible. This smoked whole-chicken soup is so sweet and so light on the tongue but warm on the gut. I could eat this all day -- and God knows I tried, after everyone else had given up. If dining in summer, you might prefer the poached chicken marinated in Chinese wine, served at room temperature. But growing up in Singapore, I personally have been trained to chug nuclear-hot soup in equatorial heat.

 

 

Another hot and cold pairing: Dou miao (snowpea shoots) stir fried in broth with bits of ham and garlic cloves cooked until they are soft and gentle. I love the delicate sweet silkenness of dou miao and given it was that time of year where everything was budding, I was ordering it anywhere and everywhere I could. A lot of chefs in China tend to over-grease their dishes, but I'm glad the doumiao here was spared. Below: A cold just ever so slightly pickled crunchy cucumber salad, garnished with a pinch of punchy raw garlic. Absolutely lovely for summer -- I keep meaning to try this at home.

 

 

Deep fried frog buried in dried chili and garlic was crispy and hot hot hot, but it left my slightly food-squeamish Dad cold cold cold.

 

 

And to bookend the meal, another porky triumph -- coffee-flavoured ribs. Ribs-lips-everyotherbodypart-sticking goodness.

 

 

So the setting is nowhere near as rustic and cosy as it once was, and the once shy and eager-to-please waitstaff now tell you to order everything you might want on your first go "or else later there might not be any left". But in the end I take my lead from the stubborn, almost transcendental Chinese ability to concentrate only on their food no matter what else is going on around them, even if the food at hand is a cup of instant noodles, and the "around them" is an overbooked long-distance train. What more when the food at hand is a chunky morsel of pork belly or bowl of ambrosial broth?

Ohm... nomnomnomnomnom.

P.S. If you'd like a copy of my Shanghai eats list, drop me an email at wenlin_soh (at) yahoo.com

 

Xin Ji Shi (Xin Tian Di)
Unit 4, Building 9, 169 Taicang Lu (by Huangpi Lu)
Shanghai, China
+86 21 6336 4746

London: Great Scots! Here's a Blueprint for a Lovely Lunch

 

This is a long overdue writeup about our American Express 10-10-10 lunch at Blueprint Cafe at London's Design Museum, a wee bit east of the southern end of Tower Bridge, and thank you note to our friends Dom & El for organising the booking while we were still on the road.

The event was part of a month-long London Restaurant Festival, and the 10-10-10 event in particular paired 10 London host chefs with 10 out-of-London UK chefs to create a set of bespoke Sunday lunches, for 10 October 2010. Blueprint Cafe's Scottish head chef Jeremy Lee -- well known for gorgeous unfussy food -- teamed up with fellow Scot Michael Smith from The Three Chimneys in The Isle of Skye. The 2 Scotsman had worked together before -- a decade and then some ago, Smith had worked as Lee's senior sous chef right here at Blueprint Cafe. I imagine it must have felt pretty good for Lee to now return as a chef-collaborator.

It was a crisp sunny day on October 10, a perfect day to be seated by the window-wall. The minimalist, sunlight-flooded dining room was packed and very buzzy. We settled in with some bubbly, caught up a touch with our friends after not having seen them for 15 months, and took turns checking out the riverside view with the cafe's toy binoculars.

Service began with baked salsify, parmesan chanterelles, girolles and goat's curd flory. So light, so crispy, so savoury! We were served 2 such small plates initially, so thought it was just going to be 1 mushroom canape and 1 salsify cigar each. Imagine our utter delight when another 2 platters appeared some 10 minutes later, long after our initial plates had been cleared!

Was service slow, or did they forget that we had already been served, and gave us extra?

"Eat fast and don't say anything," I decided, "I don't want to find out!"

 

 

Next up was a single Colchester native oyster, served naked, paired with a grape-sized black pudding (first photo above). Did they make the black pudding themselves or source it from Scotland, I wonder. I could've sworn the DIY morcilla pack from Brindisa looks exactly the same.

Everyone else at my table wolfed this down quickly, one then the other, commenting on the oyster's sweetness and the black pudding's rich savouriness. Meanwhile, I was (as usual) fiddling with my camera. I'm glad I did, because it gave me time to think about how best to eat this dish. I have previously very much enjoyed oysters with chorizo at Rick Stein's in Padstowe, and oysters with beef and ale pie at Wheelers in Whitstable (read about it here). There is something about the sea-sweetness of oysters that pairs perfectly with slightly greasy pork or beef.

So what if I... place the black pudding on top of the oyster... and nudge both into my mouth ... and bite down on both at the same time?

Fireworks go off. A marching band starts up at full volume. Glitter and confetti explode and rain down from the sky. The entire museum melts like a Dali painting into the ground.

Oh wait. That was just in my head.

I pick myself up off the floor and rejoin the conversation at our table.

Could anything top that last mouthful? Should I just go home now?

But Chef Lee and Smith were damn well going to try to keep me seated. And they did. Next up was a ridiculously understated "clam and mussel broth". Whoever made this must have watched the shellfish like a hawk because they were still sweet and tender compared to the usual lifeless chewy bits you usually find in such dishes elsewhere. The broth was sweetened further by onions, celery and leeks, and fine-chopped parsley was a refreshing garnish. I wonder what contributed to the cloudiness of the broth. Was it just clam brine, or was there a touch of evaporated milk, the same way some famed fish-soup hawkers in Singapore make their signature dish?

 

 

Between the last 2 dishes, I think it might be time to do a seafood expedition in Scotland. Meanwhile, El demonstrates the best way to eat this soup.

 

 

The meat of the day was rump of venison, with pickled prunes, damson and sloe, garnished with a pinch of cress. Or maybe it wasn't just a pinch -- just that the three slabs of venison were Midwest American-sized in comparison. And all a very respectable shade of pink. Impressive when you're serving over 100 diners all at the same time. The earthy sweetness of the prunes and the tartness of the damson and sloe really helped me to get through all my meat. Personally I think the chefs could have gotten away with just 2 slices per serving, but I don't believe in faulting a restaurant for being over generous.

If this is how people eat far up north, it may explain their ability to stand around in kilts in the bitter Scottish cold.

 

 

On the side: crispy golden roasted potatos with rosemary and roast garlic (mine mine mine mine MINE!) and a plate of golden beetroot, chard and carrots to share. The latter was the meal's ugly duckling in the plating department compared to every other dish, but boy was it tasty and fresh. See how it's still a lively green as opposed to a sad drowned shade of swampy muck, seen too often at many other restaurants?

 

 

To maintain the symmetry of 3 starters, we now start on the third act of 3 desserts.

I really enjoyed the very light lemon posset with blaeberries, even though the compote coloured the curd a scary shade of fresh lung.

I could've been happy stopping right there, but up next was a monster-wedge of a hot marmalade pudding with way-too-much-Drambuie Drambuie custard. Bloody hell, generous is one thing, but my wedge of pudding wouldn't look out of place next to the pyramids of Giza. I surrendered after a few mouthfuls (oh the shame).

 

 

Last but not least, home-made chocolates with a much needed coffee.

 

 

There are a few nitpicks here and there, but that's all that they are. You know the true extent of how much I enjoyed my meal? Just last week my new-found foodie friend Sue told me about a scuffle that broke out during that lunch between a rather grumpy food critic and some Italian dude. Something about somebody leaning too far back in their chair and accidentally touching the other, more than once. There was apparently some shouting and gesticulating and huffing and puffing and then one of them eventually stormed off, meal unfinished.

I was sat in the far corner of the dining room, facing the entrance, and therefore had a view of the entire space. How did I not catch any of this drama?

I can only surmise that it must have happened at the exact same time I was biting down on my oyster and black pudding.

 

Blueprint Cafe
28 Shad Thames
London SE1 2YD
United Kingdom
+44 20 7357 8810

The Hawksmoor Burger: Kimchi Kraze Comes to London

 

Hawksmoor makes me feel like a slightly degenerate final-year student in the middle of freshers week.

There. That took only about 2 years to write.

To be clear, within its short history The Hawksmoor has quickly become a fiercely loved steak and cocktails institution among London foodies and many of my City pals. What's not to like? Their meat is from The Ginger Pig, a highly regarded London butcher. Their cocktails are wide ranging, expertly made, and some have cute anecdotes attached. The ambience is smart without tripping over into poncy. The staff are disarmingly friendly despite their uber hipster outfits. And Hawksmoor's management sets the standard, frankly, in engaging and charming and winning over its community -- partnering well networked London food bloggers such as Eat Like a Girl to host a very buzzy Blaggers' Banquet fundraising dinner last year, as well as the Majumdar brothers of Dos Hermanos to publicise their new Covent Garden branch. According The Hawksmoor's website, you can even set up your own steak club, with a whole set of amusingly worded rules. Very savvy PR and marketing.

So what's my beef, so to speak?

The first time I dined at Hawksmoor -- at their original Commercial Road site -- I witnessed two of my dining companions ordering a quite dearly priced porterhouse medium rare, only to have it arrive a heartbreaking shade of cooked-through brown-grey. I had no complaints about my ribeye (my favourite cut for a steak since I took Ginger Pig's butchery course) but the disappointment and irritation on my friends' faces was tougher to stomach than their overcooked hunk of meat.

And then, while Babs and I were on the road, another dear friend who knows her beef emailed me with a similar lament. A Hawksmoor medium rare porterhouse arrived well done! It obviously riled her enough to write to me about it (though perhaps she should have written to Hawksmoor instead).

So amid the increasingly massive and raucuous Hawksmoor love-in, my attention span quietly drifted on to other things.

Until word wound down the grapevine that Hawksmoor was offering a kimchi burger.

Korean food and its subsequent K-pop cusine infusions have been on the rise for the last 5 years or so. In Asia, interest in edible Korea was set ablaze after the airing of Jewel in the Palace, a Korean drama serial about a female cook and later physician serving in the Chosun imperial palace. Bon Chon and Momofuko in New York led the next big charge -- birthing cult followings behind offerings such as Korean-style fried chicken and steak and rice lettuce wraps, topped with kimchee puree. (I'm going to guess that the Hawksmoor team encountered at least some of this during their research trip to New York last year.) Our own small effort in this movement: My last couple of visits back to Singapore involved several verrrry entertaining experiments with soju and frozen yoghurt.

Fastforward to this September: My friends Kopibren & Si recreate Momofuko's steak and rice lettuce wraps topped with kimchee puree. Bloody gorgeous. It was one of those moments where everyone around the table swore: "Why the hell didn't we think to do this before?!" The heat from the chilli paste and raw pickling garlic in the cabbagey mix gives an amazing lift to the richness of the beef (also from The Ginger Pig). This in particular was what piqued my interest in The Hawksmoor's kimchi burger.

 

 

Fast forward some more, and there I am at last day of The Hawksmoor's Covent Garden soft launch (i.e., 50% discount on food and wine, with generous gifts of lobster side dishes and extra chips and sauces etc when some items on the menu were no longer available). The kimchi burger isn't on the menu, but by now it is the worst kept secret in London's gluttonous circles, so I'm just going to ask for it, and probably throw a little fit if they tell me something like "we serve it only at the bar".

But they don't, obviously. Hipsters are more anal about the diagonal of their plaid than where you care to eat what. Thankfully.

There is some perhaps mandatory banter, however -- our waiter faux gasps, smirks and asks, "How did you hear about our kimchi burger? It's quite a hush hush thing."

I like banter, so I play along, replying coyly that I just know such things (probably the last person in town, really). Which then encourages our waiter to keep going, telling us that others who have tried the kimchi burger swear that there must be heroin in it, it's so good. I believe him. I've heard the goss about diners going back many more times than they are comfortable admitting; eyes rolling back with pleasure at the first bite; getting the shakes (not the milk kind) in between visits.

So. Fix me up.

While waiting I inspect the filet steaks around the table (we'd ordered late so missed the macho bone-in cuts). The rares were a lovely shade of purple and the medium rares were a lovely pink. Good. The salads -- which I do need to mention because how often do you notice a salad in a steak joint -- were sweet and crisp, with a pleasant touch of heat from chopped spring onions. We did a taste test of the triple cooked chips vs the beef dripping chips. I prefer the crunch of the former; the drippings in the latter weren't distinguishable enough to make it really special.

And now. To the kimchi burger.

In short, enjoyable. Full flavoured, juicy and drippy and decadently messy (don't wear white when eating this) without being over-greasy. Handsomely sized without crossing over into gross-me-out Man vs Food proportions. I like the crisp and the tinge of sweetness of the toasted and sesame-ed brioche bun, the salty charred crust of the patty that holds together but gives way to the juicy pink ground beef blend within. The inclusion of marrow in the patty mix is a better demonstration of arbitrage than I've seen in all of Canary Wharf and the City in a while -- it boosts the savouriness of the patty so that it doesn't just taste pink, for so little cost. The best burger in London I've had thus far (though I'll let you know when I make it to Goodman).

And the kimchi? Add a nice crunch and structure to the bite. Adds a nice gentle heat, an intriguing deviation from the traditional sharpness of raw onion and the tang of pickles.

But that's the thing. There's just too much "nice" in that last paragraph. Too little of the eye-rolling escatsy so many others seemed to have experienced. I want more chilli paste. A punch of raw garlic. Maybe a few more days in the fermenting jar. More heat. More stink.

So as much as I want to feel that same freshers-like enthusiasm and euphoria I've heard about from so many quarters, what I really want to do is ditch the happy frenzy, slink into the kitchen, and inquire out the side of my mouth about where they keep the hard stuff. Or, could we maybe get together and brew some shit up. It wouldn't be to everyone's taste, but I'm just talking about a small reserve batch, for which I bet I could find at least a few other equally degenerate hardcore kimchi users. I said as much to co-owner Will Beckett, who seemed happy to engage, as always.

So we'll see -- now that The Hawksmoor has kimchi-ed up its beef -- whether they can be moved to beef up their kimchi.

 

The Hawksmoor (Covent Garden)
11 Langley St
WC2H 9JG, London, UK
+44 20 7856 2154

London: Bocca di Lupo Makes Me Eat Like I Was Raised By Wolves

While Babs and I were still mucking about in South America, my very lovely foodie girlfriends Kopibren and Melf were already hatching a plot for the weekend that I got back to London, sans Babs, who was jetting straight off to Amsterdam for a stag do (yeah. I know. But you already hate us anyway). In particular, they wanted to take me out for a belated birthday dinner and were quite excited about an Italian place called Bocca di Lupo in Soho.

Soho? Really? I'd all but given up on Italian restaurants in London, frankly. The cheap outfits tend to taste and feel like canteen fast food, and the upmarket restaurants -- while very tasty -- still always leave me feeling like I could whip up something just as luxe for far less money in my own kitchen. Also, I don't remember ever having a meal of note in Soho. Rent requires tenants there to put forth more glitz than gourmet, perhaps? I had noted that while we were away, however, the recession had brought some renewal to the usually awful tourist-tat eatery belt that is Soho-Leceister Square-Covent Garden. From afar, I watched the London foodie Twitterati buzz about the arrivals of Polpo and Hawksmoor and Wright Brothers and Ottolenghi, all outfits whose main customers were food-fussy locals rather than hapless tourists fueling up before their West End show.

More importantly, Bocca di Lupo was recommended by our very reliable foodie friend Goz, who apparently would have to pull some strings with the maitre D' to get us in at all on a Friday night.

Ok, let's see if this wolf has teeth.

We sat down at 9.45pm to a little saucer of very fat green olives from Puglia. They were meaty and briny and not over-vinegared as many antipasti olives tend to be -- a taste I've managed to get only at The Fat Duck and Le Cafe Anglais before. They were gone before I remembered to whip out my camera.

Instead of traditional starters and mains, Bocca di Lupo simply lists a small or large size for every dish. Genius. Mostly because food-commitment phobics like us would get to try many more dishes than usual without (necessarily) invoking armageddon on our wallets. The effect is multiplied because we Chinese have grown up with a culture of sharing food and poking a fork into one another's plates, even at Western restaurants -- causing our Anglo Saxon compatriots, who seem to value hygiene over food promiscuity, varying levels of squeamishness.

The first dish of the evening damn near knocked me off my chair. The restaurant now had my full attention. The Burrida -- fish and shellfish stew with olives and basil -- was chockablock with a generous amount of bits and bobs of mussels, clams, fish and shell-on prawns. Although this dish hails from Liguria, the coastal north-western corner of Italy, it brought me right back to a very unexpectedly delightful lunch across the Italian peninsula in Bari, where seafood and fresh tomatoes and herbs were put together to cause a rustic but heavenly experience.

The broth, the broth (and I say again) the broth tasted like the entire Ligurian Sea had been boiled down to this little soup plate. Also, it was peppery enough on its own such that I didn't need to add any extra pepper, which just about never happens for me. There was some discussion at the table about whether it might be better to dilute the broth a bit if it meant there'd be more soup for everyone. The consensus in the end was a resounding noooooooooo. (So don't you dare, Chef Jacob Kennedy.)

 

 

Another starter -- Black fig, bresaola and stracchino, drizzled with a touch of honey -- hit all the sweet-salty-fatty pleasure buttons. Both hailing from Lombardia in the Italian Alps, bresaola is very lean air-dried salted beef, and stracchino is a young and creamy cow's milk cheese. The best way to eat this is to take a wedge of perfectly sweet ripe fig, smear a wodge (yes of course that is the technical term) of stracchino on it and then wrap it in a strip of bresaola. Pop the pleasure parcel into your mouth and tune out from social conversation for a few minutes. Try to keep your volume down when making embarassing noises of pleasure.

 

 

The third of our starters was fried artichoke and lamb sweetbreads, from Lazio, a little bit south of Rome. I can handle only small tastes of sweetbreads -- made from the animal's thymus and pancreas -- due to its richness, so am happy to work on the artichokes while the more sophisticated palattes of Kopibren and Melf feast on the sweetbreads. Kudos to the batter, however. Extremely light and non greasy.

 

 

And now onto the "mains". Behold, Girolles and pied de mouton mushrooms, trifolati, another dish from Lazio. Fried with bits of garlic and parsley. I'm a mushroom fiend, so I knew I was going to be a big fan of this unless they mucked it up royally, but they didn't. I probably ate an unfair share of this while Kopibren and Melf picked on other plates. They tasted like... how on earth does one describe the taste of a good mushroom? Meaty, is the shortcut answer. Melf once mistook a really good porcini for foie gras in San Sebastien. Imagine that. Meat-lite, due to the mushroom's high levels of amino acids. For you mycophiles out there dissatisfied with my probably too simplistic description, my research on how to describe the taste of mushrooms turned up this 9-page paper. Enjoy.

My only question is, why does Bocca di Luppo classify this as a side dish? I could eat a whole plate of this as a meal. It might bankrupt me, but that's a separate issue.

 

 

Here we have sardines, cooked in a Sicilian style with breadcrumbs, pinenuts and raisins. I had eaten a gorgeous pasta version of this dish this past July at Alice Waters' Chez Panisse in Berkeley Califonia (still need to work on that post) so I was keen to taste the no-carb version. Again, the sea-savouriness of the sardines and the sweetness of the raisins made for an odd but ultimately lovely couple. The peppery salad leaves on top were perfect for keeping the dish light.

 

 

We Chinese are very serious about our pork, and Melf and I trust only a few other groups of people to do it justice, especially when it comes to roast suckling pig. The Filipinos and Spanish make that very short list for Melf and me, even though we had a "meh" taste of this dish at Michelin starred Kursaal in San Sebastien. Suckling pig group dinners seem to be quite the rage in London over the last year, but after a shamefully bland suckling pig at The Albion in Islington, the English still have some case to make before they make it onto my suckling pig list.

Chef Kennedy is, however, helping to make that case for both the English and the Italians. The crackling was spot on -- crispy on the top and still just moist enough underneath. The meat was sufficiently salted and gorgeously moist and tender, falling away easily with each pull of the pork. It might do with some five spice and plum sauce or mustard, but that's just my Chinese upbringing talking smack.

I'm told this dish goes very quickly each day. Goz had to reserve a portion of this for us along with our table for us to get any at all. What a knight in crackling armour, eh.

 

 

The weakest dishes of the evening for me were the 2 pastas we tried -- pork and veal agnolotti with butter and sage from Peidmont (left), and, allegedly, pappardelle with ox cheek, black pepper and tomato from Tuscany (right). The noodle was fresh and soft and obviously handmade and all, but: 1) Can you spot any of the meats mentioned; and 2) Can you tell the difference between the two dishes? I can't. I know this is just my first weekend back after 15 months on the road. I'm still in my raggedy travel clothes and hiking boots. Had my palatte gone raggedy as well? Or did we get two of the same pastas by mistake?

 

 

Well, not something to stress out about for too long, cos here come the desserts. I go for the amazing milk-free expresso gelato, which I decide is not an exaggeration. Kopibren goes for a Bicerin -- hot chocolate with coffee and cream. I'm curious about Bocca di Lupo's other gelato offerings, so after dinner we nip across the little lane to Gelupo, the restaurant's takeaway gelato bar and deli.

 

 

I ogle at the flavours and strike up a conversation with the woman behind the counter about how and where the gelatos are made and where the various fruits are from. The figs are apparently from Turkey. I start to wonder what mix of the restaurant's ingredients are from the UK or Italy, vs everywhere else. Bocca di Lupo's menu lovingly states the region each dish comes from. But to what extent does the procurement process walk the menu's terroir-ist talk? I wonder.

I tell the woman I'll be back when I have better infrastructure for storing gelato. She replies: "Or you could try some now." She's clearly very good at her job, and I tell her so. So she takes me through a swath of samples: peach, melon, the very unusual grape leaf, and a couple of others I can't remember.

Kopibren snags a bucket of those amazing fat olives, so we get to treat of snacking on more of them the next day at hers. Her little fugu looks like it ate one too, python style. Teehee.

 

 

I'll be back to Bocca di Lupo, hopefully soon. And the gelato is just one of the many more things I'll be looking to wolf down. I reckon next time I'll try and get a seat at the bar, so I can watch the kitchen in action.

 

 

Dinner was a gift from my wonderful girlfriends, but for the sake of research I did sneak a peak and noted that the bill came to about £40 per person, for the food above and a bottle of wine.

 

Bocca di Lupo
12 Archer Street
London W1D 7BB
United Kingdom
+44 20 7734 2223

When in Hanoi, Be Sure to Eat a Buncha Bun Cha

 

In this post: A brief break from the Hakka Homecoming chronicles, to wish the city of Hanoi in Vietnam a happy 1,000th anniversary by paying homage to bun cha, my most delicious discovery while we were there earlier this year

 

"When you get to Hanoi, eat some bun cha for me," quipped Robyn Eckhart of Eating Asia nonchalantly when I had the good fortune of sharing a good chinwag about Asian food with her over a cup of coffee in Luang Prabang, Laos this past March.

Sure thing, I promised, having no clue about what bun cha even was.

Still, bun cha signs were easy enough to spot when we were prowling around the Old Quarter of Hanoi near Hoan Kiem Lake, looking for brunch. We finally decided to take a punt on Bun Cha Nem Cua Be Kinh Moi, the most crowded of 4 stalls we walked past that morning.

We sat-squatted on the last 2 available stools, with our knees just about up to our shoulders, and -- noticing that everyone else at the stall was eating the same thing -- trusted the waitstaff to eventually notice us and bring out 2 more portions of whatever they were making.

And so they did. Whisked onto our knee-high table: A large slitted basket piled high with lettuce leaves, coriander, bean sprouts, basil, spring onion and an assortment of other fresh herbs. Two mountainous platters of fat rice noodles. Two bowls of clear brown broth, cradling a pile of BBQ pork patties interlaced with pinkish brown BBQ pork slices.

 

 

At the bottom of the bowl of broth was a bed of sliced... I try to place the taste as I nibble... green apple? Green papaya? Radish?... Kohlrabi? Yes kohlrabi!

On the side: a saucer with 2 deep fried spring rolls. And a jar of sliced red chilli and chopped raw garlic.

 

 

With all these different and bounteous elements going on simultaneously, it takes a few mouthfuls to get the full bun cha experience. But once I do, I start cursing and swearing fairly violently -- about how I've tasted bun cha for the first time only now; that none of my Vietnamese friends (you know who you are! *shake fist*) have ever mentioned bun cha to me; that they've kept me out of their "we-who-know-about-bun-cha" inner sanctum all this time.

The pork patties were hot and sweet and smokey and had these charred crumbs from the marinade caramelised from cooking on a charcoal fire. The broth had the sweetness of pork bone and fish sauce and soy sauce and vinegar and lime and time -- a decadent but not yet cloying flavour for the always comforting rice noodles. The kohlrabi, herbs, chili and garlic lent crunch, zest, heat and a wake-up call just in case the meat and carbs caused too much wooziness. The spring roll didn't stand out next to everything else; I just remember that I could barely bite into it because it was still nuclear-hot from being very freshly deep fried.

You try it. You will realise that I am not being overdramatic. You will probably in turn demand to know what the hell else was so important in my life that I waited 7 months to write this post.

 

 

And so as Hanoi celebrates its 1,000th year, let me -- in the Chinese tradition -- wish it 10,000 more. May all its days, and all of you, be filled with a buncha bun cha. (Check out Sticky Rice and Noodle Pie for more bun cha leads)

And thank you Robyn for ending my bun cha ignorance.

 

 

Bun Cha Nem Cua Be Kinh Moi
43 Cau Go
Hanoi, Vietnam
Does a roaring trade at ~11am; packed up and gone when we walked past again at ~3pm

Buenos Aires: Behind Treintasillas' Closed Doors

Above: The dining room and bar at Treintasillas

"Supperclubs", "underground restaurants", "closed door restaurants" and "private kitchens" have been buzzwords in major foodie cities during the entire time we were on the road. A blend between a restaurant and a dinner party, these underground eateries seek to create a more intimate and titillating dining experience by being located at the chef's home. Some provide a delicious space in which to meet other adventurous foodies, by seating the evening's motley crew at 1 large table. Many of them operate for a few evenings a week only, take in diners only by reservations, and feed these same diners according to some mix of their creative whim and the providence of that week's seasonal market bounty.

I was keen to get in on the underground dining action at least once while we were travelling. We passed through Paris, Berlin and Hong Kong unsuccessful on this front -- either because the asking price was too rich for our backpacking blood, or else because we couldn't make the dates work. But finally, good timing and reasonable pricing came together in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

After debating with Babs and South America travel companion and longtime fellow foodie Jas about whether we wanted a local chef -- who might more likely draw a Spanish-speaking only crowd -- or an expat chef that was more likely to attract fellow gringos, we decided to punt on a more "local" experience. Through a not overly scientific scan I decided to book us into Trentasillas (30 Chairs). The closed-door restaurant is located in the working class neighbourhood of Colegiales, and is helmed by chef Ezequiel Gallardo. At the time of dining dinner cost a fixed price of ARS 120, or ARS 170 with wine pairing -- pricey by Buenos Aires standards but still reasonable by big global city standards.

We went with the wine pairing option. I will list the wines we tried here, but need to share a quick disclaimer that I'm very much unschooled in describing wines, so won't go into credible detail on reviewing them here. All I can say is that the pairings were all pleasant enough, but none really jumped out at me in terms of obviously accentuating a dish.

Our group was the first to arrive that Friday evening, and we were greeted by boyish looking chef himself. Chef Gallardo ushered us into a cosy dining room (above). I was slightly disappointed upon realising that Trentasillas was not one of the more socialable 1-big-table outfits, but shrugged it off quickly. Later that evening I would poke my head into the backyard of the property, where I spied a gorgeous parrilla (grill). The dinners are held outside during Argentina's warmer months, I'm told. Very gaucho chic.

Chef Gallardo started us off with a scrumptious minced beef spring roll. The skin was light and crispy and the filling flavourful. A cute Asian twist on the carne empanadas we'd be sampling almost religiously everywhere else on the continent. The pairing wine was a Festivo 2009 rose from Mendoza's Uco Valley. Roses for me always signal impending fun with a touch of silliness, so we were off to a good start.

Our first proper course was beef carpaccio dressed with a thread of oil and herbs, a bangle of tiny sweet cherry tomatos, a pinch of rocket and 2 crackers of fried cheese.

Argentina is famous for its superb beef and this was a fantastic platform to showcase the stuff. The dressing gave the dish a lift but there was no threat of or need to cover up the inherent beefy taste of the carpaccio (as might sometimes be the case with steak tartate). To say that this was my favourite dish of the evening is an understatement -- I reckon there is a special place in heaven for this beef carpaccio.

Our 2nd course was a tasting-size quiche. My head is still woozy from carpaccio bliss at this point, but I remember liking the smoky quality of the quiche (from the bacon bits if I remember right) and I also enjoyed the texture and bite of the thin potato strips hiding under the velvety blanket of cheese.

Our two meaty starters were paried with a glass of D.V. Catena, a 2005 Syrah by Catena Zapata -- a lovely medium-weight red that didn't bully the lightness of the carpaccio.

Next up was the main -- a scallop and pea risotto paired with a Zuccardi 2008 Chardonnay from Mendoza. I had high hopes for this dish. Aside from trout and the occasional surubi (catfish), seafood was for us a rare find on an Argentinean menu.

Sadly the risotto was the disappointment of the evening. The scallops were sweet and the rice sufficiently flavoured, but ultimately too al dente for a risotto. The unanimous feedback from our table was that our batch of risotto needed 5 more minutes on the stove. It pained me to tell Chef Gallardo this -- I hope I was sufficiently gentle and constructive, because we enjoyed his evening's work otherwise.

And finally, for dessert: a masterfully made souffle with raspberry compote, arriving as hot, rich, sweet and tart as the best of any Buenos Aires estancia heiress. To bookend the evening, the final pairing wine was a Del Fin Del Mundo (End of the World) Extra Brut Pinot Noir + Chardonnay Rose from Patagonia.

Souffles -- as I understand it -- are a notoriously stressful dish to make, given their propensity to collapse and deflate. I do wonder if Chef Gallardo was keeping such a close eye on his souffles that he let slip on the risotto.

All in all it was an enjoyable multi-course meal and a delicious adventure. The taste-memory of that beautiful carpaccio still haunts -- I hope the rest of Chef Gallardo's dishes one day all reach that same sublime standard. After this experience I'd like to continue trying underground restaurants in other cities, especially those with communal tables to see what the socialising-with-strangers element brings to the meal.

In the meantime, if you are interested in trying an underground eatery in Buenos Aires, listings can be found on Buenos Aires Foodies (thanks for the tip @paulscooking!), A Gringo in Buenos Aires, BA Tips and Boston Globe.

Treintasillas
+54 15 4492 7046

Damascus Syria: Iftar at Al Khawali

Eid Mubarak, folks! And for Malay speakers closer to my native Singapore, Selemat Hari Raya!

We're currently in Sao Paolo, Brazil, but I just wanted to share a quick postcard from when we marked the last iftar (break-fast meal) of Ramadan in Damascus, Syria last year.

Al Khawali was our eatery of choice for the evening feast. Word on the (Straight) Street was that it was much beloved by locals and visitors alike, and wasn't likely to need selling an organ to finance the meal, unlike the uber-hip, uber-posh Naranj nearby.

I popped into Al Khawali in the morning to ask for any table at any time slot they could spare that evening. I was quickly turned away. It was (understandably) a big night and they were full. I slunk back onto Straight Street downcast to give Babs the bad news.

We decided that we'd try our luck for a table for the following night, and this time Babs went back in make the booking. He emerged smiling, very pleased with himself, and told me that he got us a table for that night, no problem.

The Shamsuddin name may sometimes garner extra checks at US airports, but here in Syria all it seems to garner is wide smiles, spontaneous hugs, enthusiastic handshakes, and now special-favour tables.

We came back that evening and -- in the style of traditional Arabic houses -- walked through the dark narrow entrance passage to enter into a vast, beautifully restored mansion.

Our table was perched on a balcony, a great vantage point to view huge extended families celebrating in the main courtyard dining room below.

The iftar at Al Khawali (and I suspect) many other restaurants was a set menu, with the first course of many mezzes all set out and ready to go in the late afternoon, so that all guests can tuck (dive?) in all at the same time immediately after the evening call to prayer.

We sat down to a table full of (from right, anti-clockwise) dates, hummus, fatoush (a salad of tomatos, lettuce, sometimes purslane and fried pita pieces), a mushroom and lettuce salad, and a bowl of chickpeas and broadbeans in oil, vinegar and garnished with chopped tomato and parsley.

The evening call to prayer comes and goes, and the clinking of silverware begins throughout the restaurant. A waiter comes by to dole out cream of mushroom soup to everyone. In the tradition of Prophet Muhammed, we start the feast with a date.

As we make our way through the mezzes, more treats show up. We each get a kibbe, a fried torpedo-shaped shell of bulgur filled with spiced mincemeat, rice and cashews. We also get a large bowl of unphotogenic but very comforting meatballs doused in a thin yoghurt and spiked with paprika, and garnished with more fried pita pieces.

Babs and I now come to a very familiar point in any great Middle Eastern meal we've had. We've made decent progress with the mezzes and we're feeling sensibly full. So it's of course time for the main dishes to arrive. Tonight, it' a giant platter of savoury rice and chicken pieces, topped with rice noodle (I think) segments and cashews.

And just in case that wasn't enough, a separate plate of rice for buffer.

Like many a meal we've had at Goldmine, our favourite Chinese diner in London, we've now run out of space on the table, and the waiters do some strategic stacking.

How on earth are we going to do this justice?

Um. We do, somehow, as we tend to do. Our current roundness bears (a lot of) evidence. Here's Bab's mirroring my sheepishness.

But I do surrender by the time dessert arrives -- a plate of baklava (filo with LOTS of honey and pistachios), grapes and watermelon.

I don't know if the meal reflects the usual palette of Al Khawali's chef, or the difference between the cuisine of Damascus and Aleppo, or if that night's dishes were designed especially for diners who want a gentle segue into meal after fasting all day. Except for the tartness of the lemon juice in many of the mezzes, I was surprised by the very mild taste of all the dishes. The meal had very little of the seductive fragrance or scintillating spices of the lunch we had at Beit Sissi in Aleppo. This was more akin to tucking into one's favourite Mum-cooked dish of choice -- say soup or congee -- when one is a tad under the weather. The place was packed to the gills so the cuisine is obviously popular, but personally I think for a such a celebratory meal I prefer more kick than Khawali.

Al Khawali
Off Straight Street, on corner of Maazanet al-Shahim
Damascus, Syria
+963 11 222 5808

My Favourite Singapore Eats List

Visiting Singapore soon? Living in Singapore, but feeling a little list-less about Singapore food?

If so, now you can have mine. List of Singapore eats, that is.

It was the impending visits of 2 fellow food bloggers to my native food-mad country that prodded me to commit my list of favourite Singapore eats to paper.

Once the word got out, a bunch of friends from home put their hands up for a copy of the list as well. My ego was elated. Then it quickly deflated into a cesspool of anxiety just as I hit the "send" button.

The thing is, arguing about food is the great Singapore pastime. About 95% of all conversations between Singaporeans involve arguments about where the best place is to eat <insert any kind of food>. Another 3% involves discussing logistics to conduct a once-and-for-all taste test of competing food locations in question. Sometimes flights are involved. This is really just to set a new location to continue the argument. The last 2% is when we talk about everything else. Politics, sex, etc. (When was the last time you read a news report about us Singaporeans being prolific about politics or sex?)

Our unofficial national anthemn is "Anywhere you can eat, I can eat better".

Really. Even if the topic at hand is about that time you ate ... let's say... hákarl (Icelandic fermented shark) and how foul it tasted, the Singaporean you're having the conversation with will probably say something like, "Orh, that's because you haven't tried the hákarl at this hawker centre in Balestier. Yah, started by this Icelandic guy who married a Singaporean girl. Buries the shark at some secret spot on East Coast Park, dries it in his own HDB flat. Serves it with sambal. Daaaaamn chow (smelly) but daaaaaamn tok kong (superb) man!"

So when I sent out my list, I fully expected a long multi-directional tirade of "Eh why isn't <insert best place in the universe> for <insert any kind of food> on your list? CHEH!"

But they were gracious. Some said thank you. Some nodded. Some even sent the list on to their friends with kind words. Some at the very least said nothing. One friend bravely bore the bad news that my favourite prata place had shut down, but there was no hint of "hah, beat you to the food scoop!" malice in his email.

So, before they change their minds, I'm riding the wave of goodwill and sharing my list with you all. The easy-to-print list is downloadable at the bottom of the post. Here are a few photo teasers along the way.

Make laksa not war. Roxy Laksa at East Coast Lagoon stayed out of Singapore's bitter "laksa wars", quietly keeping its gravy oh so lemak (rich) and its cockles oh so bloody.

Feeling crabby? Red House is where I get that sort of mood sorted out. I've tried their chili crab, black pepper crab and (more recently) salted egg crab and I love them all.

Got the late night muchies? Hop over to Geylang Lorong 9 for frog porridge, beef kway teow, oyster omelette and possibly other late night snacks best discussed on some other blog.

With any luck, my star chef Damian D'Silva will continue to serve up almost-lost-to-history dishes such as Peranakan-style prawns and balembeng (from his mother's tree, apparently!) at his new digs, Soul Kitchen at Singapore's National Museum.

There is no such thing as a free lunch, but believe it or not, there is such as thing as free steak sandwiches, and half-price martinis at Mortons Bar. The cuisine may not be Singaporean, but the stubborn instinct to spread the news about a bargain certainly is!

I hope you enjoy the list. If you do download it, or decide you want to share it with others, I'd be delighted. I just ask that you drop me a note here or cc me on the outgoing email. This is just so I get some sense of where the list spreads to, and also potentially connect with a few new fellow foodies.

It'll also make it much easier for your friends to direct their "you should have included this much better eating place" tirade.

 

 

Download GOINGWITHMYGUT Singapore Eats

Shanghai: Fab Frontier Food at Southern Barbarian

Above: Yunnan eatery Southern Barbarian's simple mint leaf salad -- with a hint of acid and chilli heat -- is a gorgeously refreshing diversion from Shanghai's usually heavy, greasy cuisine.

It was inevitable. My friends are on to me. My friend Brian in Hong Kong was the first to actually call me on it: "So. You go around the world. You look up all your friends. They take you to to all their favourite, secret, food places."

Um. Yes.

Case in point, so goes my text message conversation with my friend Shin in Shanghai:

Me: I'm in town! Dinner tomorrow? You pick where.

Shin: Tomorrow ok. 7pm? You want classy or slummy?

Shin is an architect in Shanghai. And for the 12 years(!) we've known each other -- as newspaper interns in Singapore, undergrads in the US, housemates for a fortnight in New York, or party organisers / attendees in Singapore and Shanghai since -- Shin has consistently brought truckloads of ideas, spark and humour to any (always too short) conversation we've had.

So there's only 1 answer that I know will guarantee a great tasting dinner with a vibe that's edgier than its pricelist.

Me: Let's go to your favourite slummy place.

How else would I have found Southern Barbarian?

For a start, it's one of those hip places where it takes a bit of work finding the entrance (if your back is facing the street, it's a couple of doors left and upstairs of where you think it should be... it's not down the alleyway.)

And then there are the gastronomical discoveries. Tip: Best done when you simply refuse to open the menu, and ask your friend-slash-guide to go ahead and order for the table.

Would I ever have guessed that a salad of just mint leaves (above) could be so delicious? Would I have known to pick sauteed pomergranate flowers from the menu? Very light and crunchy, by the way, and the best part, just so damn unexpected.

And who knew the Chinese ate cheese? Well apparently the Yunnanese do. Goat cheese, fried, no less. Very much like a mild Greek hallumi.

Potatoes may have originated from South America, but China is now the world's largest producer of spuds (oh the random facts you learn at the Friet Museum in Bruge). The Yunnanese shoestring their spuds, pancake them and then deep fry them lightly. Babs -- very much a chips man -- couldn't get enough of this.

And did I mention the beer selection? One of the best in the city, I'm told.

How Shin started coming to Southern Barbarian is a story in itself. Year after year, his parents would vacation in Yunnan, much to Shin's curiosity and slight consternation. Who keeps going back to the same place for fun? And why?

"Then I finally had to do a trip there for work. And then it was 'Ok. I get it'," he said.

And now Southern Barbarian is where he seeks solace from Shanghai's sweet gravies and clinging frying oils.

Perhaps there's more street cred in making food discoveries on my own. But when a guide leads the guided to something delicious, doesn't the delight in the room tend to double?

What do you think? I'll take your lead.

Southern Barbarian
2nd floor, Ju'Roshine Life Arts Space
169 Jinxian Lu, near Maoming Nan Lu
Shanghai, China
+86 1362 1797 634

Edible Art at Wu Li Xiang (Art Salon Restaurant), Shanghai

Can one space do both art on the walls AND food on the table well? Sounds like a tall order to me.

I picture artists as slightly emaciated beings willing to sublimate their poverty and hunger in order to paint a table of food rather than eat it. On the other hand, I picture purist food obsessives as willing to crouch on a stool or stand in line at a food truck in a dank, fumes-filled parking lot, if the food is sufficiently legend.

Shall the twain ever meet? Indeed they do, at Wu Li Xiang (Art Salon Restaurant) in Shanghai's old French Concession. Judging by the number of awards jostling with paintings for space on the walls (as per photo below), I suspect I won't be the first person to tell you this. (If interested, read this detailed review in Best Food in China and a pithy one in shanghai.unlike, for example.)

Besides their uber high-backed dining chairs, I enjoyed these geometric canvases more expected in a hip Korean bar -- twas an eye catching departure from the usual maroons and mustards of Chinois chic.

But I enjoy even more art of the edible kind, and so stopped paying attention to the paintings the minute the food arrived, served up by the owners(?), a couple of muscly t-shirted ponytailed dudes who could probably get away with their own Shanghai Ink TV franchise. Perhaps I really need to rethink my artsy crowd stereotypes.

And now to the food! In Shanghai it's usual to start a meal with a few small plates of room-temperature appetizers before getting to the hot mains. But each plate's smallness is deceptive. The little cubes of ground up salted egg yolk sitting atop a sweet-savoury green bean paste were a diabolical combination -- so rich it took only 1 or 2 mouthfuls to satisfy. For balance, we tucked into a bowl of chopped up soft and silken tofu, laced with tiny dried shrimp to prevent things from getting too bland.

Another great balancing act between delicate tints and bold brush strokes of flavour: River shrimp -- sweeter than their briny ocean cousins -- sauteed with ginko nuts; and tender duck slivers stewed in sticky sweet and salty sauce.

But the bold and the beautiful won out by the time we got to the main dishes. This braised whole yellow croaker, native to the waters around Shanghai, had wonderfully sweet and soft flesh but its many intricate bones require a surgical touch with one's chopsticks.

And finally, an imperial rendition of a bolognese sauce, made of crab meat, crab roe and salted egg. So rich it could bail out Greece. Amazing on steamed plain white rice. Bet it would be heaven on earth, mixed onto a bowl of blanched Japanese somen.

I'm not much of a wine expert, but I reckon the best (or at least most interesting) wine at Wu Li Xiang is their homemade huang jiu (yellow wine), made from fermented glutinous rice. (The Foochows make a red version of this rice wine, which I learnt how to make from my mother and grandmother earlier this year.)

Wu Li Xiang's huang jiu was smoky and much much much mellower and more flavourful than the shots of bai jiu Babs and I downed with newly found family in Guangdong. The best way to drink this is to have it warmed up, then sipped with food on a chilly evening.

On that note, a toast to Mum and Dad who hosted dinner, and our Shanghai host Nicholas for recommending the restaurant. And to the muscly mustachioed crew of Wu Li Xiang, for such a masterful exhibition of my favourite art genre.

Wu Li Xiang (Art Salon Restaurant)
Nanchang Lu 164
Between Yandang Lu and Sinan Lu
Shanghai, China
+86 21 5306 5462 (Reservations recommended)

Noodle Loft: A Posh Perch for Comfort Food in Beijing

Above: You need 2 chopsticks to pick up these noodles, but apparently only 1 to make them

There are oodles caboodles of noodle shops all over China. On just about every street there is at least one humble one-outdoor-burner mom and pop stall with a couple of tables and stools in a literal hole in a wall (the best I came across during our time in China were in my ancestral Hakka village in Guangdong province, but more on that later). There is also a growing array of noodle fastfood chains such as Li Xian Sheng Niu Rou Mian (Mr Li Beef Noodles), and the mystifyingly named but sufficiently tasty Mei Guo Jia Zhou Niu Rou Mian (America California Beef Noodles).

For those meals where the budget in Beijing get to breathe just a tad without letting it all go, there is Noodle Loft, a Shaanxi-style noodle boutique (nootique?) recommended to me by @mitchtan and @limliken.

Noodle Loft is perched on the 2nd floor of the very swish Fairmont Tower office block and its adjacent service apartment complex in Wangjing. It overlooks what looks like an up and coming high-rise Korean neighbourhood and is flanked by a distinctly expat and China yuppie-friendly shopping mall managed by the Capitaland group.

As you watch the evening rushour go by, you can pick your noodles from a list that sounds more like a circus programme than a menu.

Behold, the amazing elasticity of the hand-pulled noodles! See for yourself the death-defying knife-cut noodles! Be not afraid...they taste better than they look... cat-ear noodles! And yes, the legends are true, ladies and gentlemen, I give you.... the daredevil noodles made with one single chopstick!

A cautionary aside here, hungry travelers! When visiting China make sure you do and download all your China food blog research BEFORE you enter the country. Censorship in the Middle Kingdom is as blanket as icing on a Krispy Kreme. Unless you have an overseas VPN service, or are skilled at working with proxies, you won't be able to send out those "where should I eat" SOS-es on Facebook and Twitter, and you won't be able to access entire blog platforms (e.g., any blog hosted by Google), even blogs that extol the wonders of China cuisine.

So it wasn't until I came out from behind the Great Firewall of China that I learned from blogs such as Appetite for China and World Foodie Guide that I missed out on some noodle open-kitchen acrobatics done by Noodle Loft's chefs. And also, apparently, a bar of noodle sauces and accompaniments. (They may been talking about the flagship Xi Da Wang Road restaurant. I didn't notice any open kitchen viewing area in the brance we went to. But now I'll never know!) So there we were, our noodles served just as we ordered them, sans the Cirque de Bowl-eil. Bah!

I had the very delicious one-chopstick noodles in hot and sour soup, pictured above. The softness of the relatively thin noodles together with the spiciness and tartness of the thick soup hit all my comfort food spots. Babs, who likes a more al dente bite in his noodles, had the much thicker, flatter, knife-cut noodles with chunks of beef in broth. This proved to be a very heavy combination, and he left some of his noodles behind.

And now to confess the real reason I schlepped all the way out to this northeastern neighbourhood of Beijing, a 20-minute walk from Wangjing West metro station, past dusty construction sites and city-blocks of unsold flats.

Shredded ass meat.

Well that's what @limliken's email said. How could I not go check it out?

Turns out he meant donkey. And what a yummy first taste of donkey it was. Shredded fine, slightly brined sweet and sour, and mixed in with slivers of cucumber and coriander and peppered with sesame.

For something green, I picked cold dish made of two of my favourite vegetables -- spinach and enoki mushrooms. A lovely light counter balance to the carby noodles and my meaty ass (that was less of a joke than I'd like it to be...).

The most expensive dish in our meal was also the most disappointing. A whole deep fried chicken stuffed with sticky rice and salted egg. Sounds amazing on paper, but that's about where it ends. The whole thing -- even with the salted egg, was bland and meh overall. I'll stick to cheaper experiments the next time I go punting.

Other than the chicken, however, Noodle Loft was one the best meals we had in Beijing. It's a great location to try the cuisine of Shaanxi while taking a break from the dust and smog outside. Top your meal off with one of the many exotic fruit drinks on the menu. The sea buckthorn juice was as delightful as it was luridly eggyolk-orange.

Noodle Loft
33 Guang Shun Bei Da Jie (Guang Shun North Main Road)
Fairmont Office Tower 2nd floor
Chaoyang District
Beijing, China
+86 8472 4700

From Wanjing West metro station, walk down (about 20 minutes) or take a quick taxi ride down Hu Guang Zhong Lu (Hu Guang Middle Road) until you reach the corner of Guang Shun Bei Da Jie (Guang Shun North Main Street).

20 Xi Da Wang Lu
Chaoyang District
Beijing, China
+86 6774 9950

Authentic Beijing Duck: Li Qun vs Da Dong

Where does one go to find an authentic Beijing duck experience in Beijing?

As it turns out, this may involve not just one expedition, but two. This was urged by @limliken and @mitchtan, both Singapore foodie friends, the latter of whom spent some time cutting her teeth in the hotel industry in Beijing.

"Go to Li Qun AND Da Dong. And then tell me what you think," she said.

You gotta love a debate where you engage by ducking the issue.

And so on our first evening in Beijing we trooped from our hostel past Tiananmen Square, onward south to Qianmen. Where after an entire city of government buildings, we came up against what felt like a virtual edge of a cliff -- beyond which one would fall and float into an eerie grey concrete wilderness of a largely abandoned hutong, a warren of traditional Chinese courtyard houses.

The only people out and about on this balmy May evening were the trishaw drivers trying to sell a pricey ride to Li Qun, Anthony Bourdain's pick when he visited Beijing. Everyone else, it seemed, had long relocated or else been evicted out into the neverending skyrise suburbs of new Beijing. At least these ghost-town trishaw drivers were a sign we were on the right track, we figured.

Preservere, pedestrians. Just a few steps beyond the tourist-trap transporters, you can simply read the writing on the wall to Li Qun.

Red lanterns -- the last rebel lights of this hutong -- and murals welcoming foreign visitors signal that you've arrived.

Enroute to your table, sneak a peek (and a long whiff) at the woodfired roasting oven. If you keep your eyes open you might just spot the duck drying closet in the main dining room.

Whatever heyday Li Qun may have once had, I suspect it's since experienced the Curse of the Tourist Tsunami. The setting in this old Chinese house is quaint enough. But duck prices had doubled since indications given in our pre-Olympics travel guide, and you have to order at least 1 whole duck regardless of the size of your dining party. Not a complete disaster for a couple of gluttons like Babs and myself, but pretty punishing for the solo diner already seated at our shared table.

This single Asian male traveller, obviously on a lonely culinary quest, had his 2 plates of duck slices before him. He religiously photographed every other duck roll he folded, and doggedly doggedly doggedly kept chewing in between.

I glanced sideways at Mr Party of One as we started to dig into our own duck, which came with all the traditional accompaniments -- a stack of paper-thin pancake sheets, plum sauce, cucumber spears and sprigs of spicy spring onion. Our duck rolls were heavy, fatty, greasy, more meaty than I'm used to for Beijing duck, and the skin not particularly crispy. Mr Party of One was still chewing, leaning back in his chair, his eyes closed, I suspect not with escatsy. If his duck had gone through death by a thousand cuts, Mr Part of One looked like he was quickly approaching death by a thousand mouthfuls.

By the time we were done with our own duck, our chests were tight with duck fat. Some Chinese tea to unclog, methinks -- a Yellow River's worth.

As we walked out into the quiet dimly lit streets of Qianmen, we cross paths with 2 trishaws of Western tourists. I hope they enjoy the ride they're getting taken on.

Da Dong

We bookended our Beijing stop by lunching at Da Dong just before we were due to leave the capital. It was clear we were in for a very different experience the minute we got spat out of Tuan Jie Hu metro station, into a visibly middle class highrise neighbourhood dotted with shopping malls. Da Dong's formidable and fancy 2-storey fortress was nestled up against a cliff of one of these housing blocks.

Its massive main dining room was filled with chattering well dressed Chinese people from a whole range of age groups; every one of them with a dish of duck on their tables. A good sign. Word on the street was that Da Dong took on board the feedback that old-school Beijing duck was too greasy, and developed a "super lean" duck that had proven a hit with locals. Also, it allows patrons to order half-duck portions with no disproportionate jack-up in price, a sure sign that its target market was no-nonsense Beijingers vs captive and scalpable pilgrims from afar.

My favourite part about Da Dong is that you can watch the deft duck carving action all around the dining room. My not so favourite part is the surcharge for Beijing duck condiments -- really, is anyone going to refuse at this point? Ah well, at least it's a pleasantly surprising array of experimental condiments, such as pickled-pink radish, raw mashed garlic and sugar, and 2 kinds of chye-por (preserved vegetable bits).

All of which combine into quite a delightful new Beijing duck experience. The skin here is crispy without the throat-clenching layer of fat underneath, and the various pickled vegetables together with a sprinkle of sugar and sweet sauce produce a few different layers of sweetness, but kept in check by a dab of raw minced garlic.

Another experimental accompaniment is this sesame seed-studded shell. A lovely crispy bite with a tinge of smoky toastiness, but its round shape is rather awkward for the rectagular slivers of everything else. A cheeky concession to the odd Western visitor looking for a hamburger fix, perhaps.

Riding on the success of its signature duck dish, Chef Dong has also extended his menu into high-end seafood dishes well heeled Chinese diners are so fond of (e.g. lobster and other exotic shellfish and sea slugs plated any number of ways) and all sorts of artistic looking meat and vegetable dishes. We try the spinach balls with mustard, and the broccoli with egg tofu garnished with crushed and caramelised dried shrimp. The former was a delicious and delightful way to clear out your sinuses, and the latter an interesting twist on 2 sometimes staid ingredients.

But what makes Da Dong so authentically Beijing for me is its still-slightly-awkward classiness. With every meal comes complimentary sorbet and a plate of fruit chilled on dry ice. Lovely. Except that the waitstaff serve up said sorbet and fruit at the same time as the rest of your meal. So the sorbet sits on the table and sweats as you eat, and is a puddle by the time you're actually ready for dessert. And if the table runs out of space, the staff -- more akin of the style of homey diners of their native provinces -- simply stack plates on their edges.

So there you have it. One, a fraying-at-the-edges entity that leaves you ambivalent about whether it's shaking a fist at the capital's relentless redevelopment of communities and cuisines alike, or simply milking tourists with a death grip on its outdated reputation. The other, an up and coming maverick still buffing his rough-around-the-edges team. Both for me emcompass all that is Beijing. Their ducks too.

Li Qun Roast Duck Restaurant
11 Bei Xiang Feng Hutong
Zheng Yi Road
Chongwen District, Beijing, China
+86 10 6705 5578

Da Dong Roast Duck
Tuan Jie Hu Bei Kou Building 3
East side of East 3rd Ring Road
Southeast corner of Changhong Bridge,
North of Tuan Jie Hu Park
Chaoyang District, Beijing, China
+86 10 6582 2892

Wild Boar Udon at Kurusu, Nose, Osaka, Japan

Above: Udon ala Kurusu. Shall I boar you with the details?

When we went rooting around for bamboo shoots while WWOOFing in Japan, we came home with a disappointing harvest. The local wild boars had gotten to them first -- evident in the clusters of ruts we found in the ground.

But what goes around comes around. Our disappointment quickly faded when our WWOOF host Shigemi suggested that we try Udon Kurusu on our day off. People from many towns around travel into Nose (pronounced Nose-say) to eat at Kurusu, she said. Especially those with a nose for wild boar, or shi-shi niku.

"The local hunters like going there especially in the winter months, for wild boar shabu shabu," she said.

Is there a more delicious way to pass a winter evening?

Turns out, the late spring lunch experience is not to be knocked either.

We had walked past Kurusu quite a few times during our week on the farm when we ran errands in town. From the far end of its parking lot I had always been confused about whether it was a restaurant or a taxidermist, given the slightly tired looking stuffed bear, deer and wild boar in the glass showcase at its entrance.

It all made sense when we realised that Kurusu specialied in game meats. In addition the more domestic, chicken, duck and pork, Nakamura Mitsugu -- who has owned and run Kurusu for more than 30 years -- also serves up wild boar, pheasant, deer, and yes, bear.

Here's what Kurusu looks like inside -- a quaint rustic wooden interior with shabu-shabu ready tables.

My wild boar udon came in a little lidded cauldron with beautifully fresh raw napa cabbage, leeks, bean sprouts, enoki mushrooms, soup stock, and a few gorgeous deep-red-and-white streaked sliced of wild boar, peeking out from under the lid.

Having it cook right in front of you is (a large) part of the fun.

Things start to get very hot and steamy.

This was the 2nd time in my life I've had wild boar. The first time was a wild boar ragu with pasta at Italian restaurant Oso in Singapore. As before, the wild boar tasted of pork but with much more personality -- no doubt from the hog spending its life running around at will outdoors, eating a wide variety of roots (e.g., bamboo!), flowers, fruits, acorns, mushrooms, worms etc. According to our WWOOF hosts in Spain, wild boars are crafty enough to root or wriggle their way through veg and flower bed wire fences. They're even apparently wily enough to shake the fruit of a tree, to the despair of many a farmer!

When farmers get fed up enough, they call in the local hunters, and a delicious quest begins. In Andalucia where we WWOOFed, the boar-sighter apparently gets the first choice of cuts if the hunt goes well.

Before I boar you to tears... For those who prefer rice to noodles, Kurusu also does a wild boar katsu set, with a little bowl of udon on the side. Not as fun as the cookalong-live udon, in my opinion, but no doubt just as delish.

If you're not the gun-toting type but would like to go on this little boar hunt to Kurusu as a day trip from Osaka...

• Get on the Hankyu-Takarazuka train from Umeda station in Osaka (~25 minutes)
• Change at Kawanishi-noseguchi station and get onto the Nose train line (~25 minutes)
• Get off at Yamashita, the end of the line
• Walk outside to the bus stop, and take bus 73 to Yamabeguchi (~25 minutes)
• After you alight from the bus, take the first left at the intersection. Kurusu is about a 5-minute walk up the street, on your right

Happy hunting!

Udon Kurusu
Nose-cho, Toyono-gun, Osaka 12-1
+81 72 734 0652

Farm-fresh Food on the Garden Route, South Africa

Above: Drivers of too-fast cars while wearing their too-stylish shades are likely to zip right past Red Barn Restaurant and its delectable treats at Fern Gully Farm near Knysna. Lucky for you if they do.

Please don't speed when driving along the highways of South Africa's Garden Route.

This has got nothing to do with road safety. It's got everything to do with you potentially missing the quaint hand-painted signs and the tiny-lane turnoffs to some of the freshest, most delicious breakfasts, lunches and snacks you could hope for on a road trip.

Take Finebush Farmbush Farmstall and Country Kitchen, for example. Its address is listed simply as "Off the N2 highway, east of Stormsriver Bridge between Plettenberg Bay and Humansdorp". Go by too fast, however, and you would miss the treats from Carla's kitchen, such as this cheese and cured meats platter -- arranged as such if you're hanging out for a while, or packable into a picnic basket if you are on the run.

But really, why run when you've got such charming indoor and alfresco space to choose from?

If you time it right (or dawdle long enough) Carla might even offer you a pinch of whatever dessert she's making fresh that day. If it's a chocolate brownie (right), do not, under any circumtances, resist. Not that you'll be able to, because you'll have been smelling its maddening fragrance for about 15 minutes before it slides seductively out of the oven in the open kitchen right next to the dining room.

Over by Knysna, if you've had enough of the over-built up waterfront, drive towards the hills to Red Barn Restaurant, find a spot on its shaded patio, and tuck into meals where many of the ingredients are sourced onsite and from nearby farms.

Babs and I chowed down one morning on french toast with bananas and an English breakfast fry-up, with a couple of excellently made cappuchinos. The breakfast of chubby champions.

Finebush Farmstall and Country Kitchen
Off the N2 highway, East of Stormsriver bridge between Plettenberg Bay and Humansdorp
Tsitsikamma, South Africa
+27 42 280 3503

Red Barn Restaurant, Fern Gully Farm
Rheenendal, Knysna, South Africa
8km from N2 turn off
GPS coordinates: -33.978325, 22.96437
+27 82 739 0962

If interested, here's a longer list of farm shops, markets and kitchens on the Garden Route.

Ile de Pain, Knysna, South Africa

A brief break from delicious tales of Japan, to share a few more food finds in South Africa for those of you heading to the World Cup shortly.

My favourite meal while we were in South Africa last November was a tough toss up between lunch at Fynboshoek Cheese in Tsitsikamma and lunch at Ile de Pain in Knysna, the latter town a popular midway stop if you're driving the Garden Route as part of your trip.

A vibrant and breezy breakfast-and-lunch bistro started in 2002 by chef Liezie Mulder and surfer-baker Markus Farbinger, Ile de Pain is proof that ludicrously fresh, delicious, seasonal and local produce can be sourced and served up as sensational meals without breaking the bank.

For the commitment-phobic -- and there will be more of you than you think, once you take a gander at their menu -- I recommend the tasting platter, which includes a big dollop of melty mozzerella, bright-red tomatoes in various styles and a lovely duck rillette on an array of breads freshly-baked onsite.

Those in the know about South Africa's excellent beef will likely be pleased with Ms Mulder's steak sandwich. This is, in my mind, the best steak sandwich on earth (although I will revert after we've been through Argentina). Luckily Babs and I had a share-everything deal already agreed before he tasted it.

I am not kidding about the "best" bit.

We had resolved not to have dessert, but who were we kidding? Especially when a smiley waitstaff saunters up to every table with a 3-tier tray of tempting treats. We caved in to this chocolate tart, with no regrets.

No better way to finish than to sip on a coffee and soak in the earthy vibe of the place and watch the comings and goings and air-kissings of the mostly preppy white patrons.

I could stand to be shipwrecked on this island of bread for a while.

Ile de Pain
10, The Boathouse
Thesen Island, Knysna, South Africa
+27 44 302 5707

Open Sunday 9am - 1.30pm
Open Tuesdays - Saturdays 8am - 3pm
Closed on Mondays, May and August

Tokyo: Jiro Ramen Gives Plenty to Noodle On

So there I was, thinking I that I was a bit of a ramen addict.

I had started the habit early, as photographic evidence suggests, and by the time I was at university in the US I was hand-carrying cartons of my favourite available-in-Asia-only flavours of the stuff onto the plane at the end of every term break, because offerings available on US supermarket shelves just didn't cut it.

Then last month I went to Japan. Where obsessives (of any kind) invariably meet their match, and masters.

If in Tokyo, try Jiro ramen, said my friend and Japan veteran @jimbonner. It was, and I quote Jim, "a semi-religious experience".

What the hell does that mean? And, back up, what the hell is Jiro Ramen? Why the hell haven't I ever heard of Jiro Ramen before? My own religious experience with this stuff was starting, it seemed.

I started digging. Other intriguing soundbites emerged.

"It's a marathon, not a sprint", said Ramen Tokyo's Bob, in his wonderfully detailed and endearingly earnest primer on the subject.

"It's ugly. It's mean... This is not a pretty bowl of noodles; it will taunt you, it will tease you, and after 5 minutes of eating the crap out of this thing it will somehow breed more noodles, more bean sprouts, more cabbage, more melty, fatty, juicy chunks of days-cooked pork, more chopped garlic, more soup, more..." declared the riproariously eloquent Ben et Nate: The Gaping Maw.

Quite the perversely appealing evangelical message. Clearly this warranted investigation.

So there we were, that balmy spring night in Tokyo's Ikebukero neighbourhood, with scraps of paper with scrawled directions and hand-copied maps now being stuffed into pockets as we joined in the 20-minute line outside the Jiro Ramen shop and its bumblebee-yellow lightbox signage.

Everyone else in the line is quiet. Focused. Meditative?

Meanwhile, I -- the new acolyte -- am trying to remind my dining companions Babs, Chris, Helen, Sandy, and myself how to say basic Japanese words such as big (dai) and small (shou). I'm also tiptoeing and craning my neck to peek inside the noodle bar to try and get a sense of what small or big actually mean in that hallowed space. On one successful sneak-peek, I see this monster of a bowl being handed over, and another looming in the back. But what size is that? What if that's small?

We're finally up against the vending machine where you place your orders. I uncharacteristically opt for the basic small bowl for about 700 yen. Everyone else is getting trigger happy and hitting a bunch of the extra-this and extra-that buttons. The eagerness of new dabblers. I suspect what they'll need in the end is extra help.

We hand over our order coupons, get seated, and in no time at all, the ramen cometh.

Eating the stuff is a like going on an archeological dig. Like a series of civilisations buried one on top of the other in the sand, here a mound chopped raw garlic sits on a mound of blanched bean sprouts sits on a mound of blanched chopped cabbage sits on a mountain of rough hewn wheaty noodles -- a denser, leaner, uncouth country or yakuza-foot-soldier cousin of the more refined udon. Thick terraced slabs of deeply marinated tender slow-cooked pork and the dome of an egg with the promise of a still-runny yolk inside peek out from the glistening bog of ludicrously rich salty-sweet pork stock, a colloid straddling the grey-line between broth and gravy.

A moment more to meditate on the soup, if you will indulge. What is this stuff? It's like they stuck a whole pig in a pot and simmered it until the whole animal liquified and reduced by half, and then they stuck in another one, because -- in typical Japanese obsession towards excellence -- going the whole (just one) hog is not enough.

There is no conversation around the noodle bar. Even among the young couples who are clearly on a date. Only loud slurping. Said to be the appropriate way to show appreciation to the chef, and also enhance the flavour of the noodles (though I suspect it's just to introduce airflow to cool the noodles down to a temperature where you can actually taste what's going on). And so we slurp as best we can -- amateurishly -- given our British and Singaporean table-manners breeding.

And slurp.

And slurp.

Hearing the sermon on the subject is one thing, but it finally hits home only now that the jiro ramen pilgrimage is not so much about finding your way to one of these cult-status noodle bars. It's finding the way to the bottom of your bowl.

On that note, our group finishes with mixed results. Some succeed in making it all the way to read their fortunes in the powdered pepper swirls at the bottom of their bowls (the consenus prediction being mild tummyaches). Others, who shall remain unnamed, leave noodles behind, even after they've palmed some of their bowl off to others.

We stumble out into the cool night air, rosy-cheeked and round-bellied from what just transpired. The line is just as long as when we first arrived. But the faces in the queue have taken on a slightly different air. While before they may have been competitors for a seat at the table, now they feel a little more like fellow pilgrims to be wished well.

Come judgement day of this so-called semi-religion, the tally will read: Jim, Bob, Ben and Nate and all the ramen rectors and soupy saints who have gone before: 1. This foodie who got reminded that there is always more to noodle on: a big fat jiro.

Jiro Ramen, Ikebukero East Exit
2-27-17 Minami-Ikebukuro, Toshima-ku
Tokyo, Japan

From Ikebukuro metro station, take exit 43, hang a right at the corner, walk past 2 streets and turn right at the 3rd street. The Jiro Ramen shop will be on your right, on the ground floor of the Coi Minami Building.
Map with directions here

If interested, read Tokyo Ramen's detailed write up on the shop

Dinner with Tony and the Soh-pranos At Bistrot du Sommelier, Singapore

The thing about Bistrot du Sommelier is... how do I put it... is that if there were a French version of Tony Soprano and friends, they would eat here.

Or maybe the Singapore version osso can -- after all it was my Dad's friend An(thony) who first put this bistro on our radar screen, and my Dad is after all Godfather to 'Tony's youngest son.

No mincing about with stereotypically French too-petite portions on too-large plates here, trotted by too-snooty waitstaff into a too-hushed dining room punctuated only by the clinking of cutlery on plate (only because there's not enough food on the plate to mute the clinking, see).

Here, the waitstaff are immensely warm and helpful, the mood (at least at our table of 10 Soh-pranos and friends that night) raucuous, and the food -- on portion-size and taste alike -- the walloping kind that Tony Soprano and friends can dig into with gusto, so that after dinner they can dig with equal gusto the hole in the ground for their latest victim.

It's been a month since my first meal at Bistrot du Sommelier. And even though I've feasted on a gamut of Singaporean and Japanese delicacies since then, every now and again -- amid chili crab or sushi or okonomiyaki -- a taste-memory of this velvety molten Vacherin spiked with bacon and onion bits below kicks me in the head like a friendly neighbourhood loanshark reminder, leaving me in pain only because I don't when I'll get my next instalment.

Our other starters that night -- a platter of rillette, pate, onion chutney and cornichons -- were by no means runty either. Having slices of the house baguette underneath each little gob was a lovely canvas to hold all the fabulously rich flavours, rather than an eating-in-polite-company obligation.

That meant, however, that by the time my brother and I were up against our cote de beouf for 2, we were admittedly not at our fighting fittest. We slugged our way through the wall of perfect-medium-rare, taking no quarter with the divine caramelised onions and soft garlic bulbs. But we were sweating and breathless by the end, and I was forced to admit that I might have been better off with some beefy backup from my homies "Knife Skillz" Melf or "Hollow Legs" Jas.

Babs had his own battle that night. He now knows what it means to catch a tartar(e). The chunkiest one I've ever crossed paths with, at that.

Mum's usually the good Christian example in our family, but that night she ate the other (beef) cheek instead of turning it. Cute usage of a claypot, by the way.

Our mains finally done, we decided that the duck confit was he only dodgy dish of the evening. Quite a bit too much salt of the earth, unfortunately.

Finally, a couple of knuckle sanwiches -- fist-sized profiteroles, to send us rolling home.

It was one of those meals where you're not sure just whom went to work on whom. Let's call it an uneasy truce. Which of course calls for rematch. Or a Soh-prano encore.

Bistrot du Sommelier
44 Prinsep Street
Singapore 188673
+65 6333 1982

Sushi Breakfast at Tsukiji Fish Market: No Better Way to End The Day in Tokyo

Prologue: Babs and Dave, one of Babs's best mates from school, are both turning 30 this April. About a year ago I pitched to the gang of 'em that Tokyo would be quite the place for the boys to turn 30. The utter fabulousness of the city worked its magic and convinced a group of 6 from the UK, Netherlands and Hong Kong to come join us for various bits of fun in Japan. Wahey!

Above: Pieces of sushi are hand-made and placed one by one on a wooden board between the diner and the elevated sushi chef, with short intervals in between. This was about as many pieces as I could stand to leave for a sushi group photo before my photographic resolve dissolved

If there is anything better than starting your day in Tokyo with a sushi breakfast at Tsukiji fish market, the big Daddy of all fish markets, it is, as I found out, ending your day there.

7.30am: Breakfast of Champions

My face is pressed up against Daiwa Sushi's window, to gauge our waiting time. The sushi chef closest to the window half-smiles with pity but gently beckons me to back away from the glass. I do. I pace. I babble semi-deliriously to Babs, Chris and Helen, my breakfast companions. I've looked at a lot of tuna through glass today.

A few diners make their way out, but there is the eternity of the next 2 minutes while their spots are cleared and wiped down. I'm hopping on one foot then the other. I wonder if this is how and why so many Japanese people pursue Zen Buddism.

And we're in! We're sat as 2 separate pairs at the extreme ends of the L-shaped counter, but no one minds. We didn't come here for the conversation.

An empty wooden block is placed between each of us and the elevated sushi chef.

"Mix?" he says. We nod.

And so he does, throwing a series of shapes and layers and textures more sublime than the best of my favourite DJs. Maguro (tuna) and ikura (salmon eggs) maki. A fat raw prawn. Ika (squid). And -- as my eyebrows jump and my heart stops -- toro (already fatty tuna belly) and chu toro (even more fatty tuna belly). This was going to be financial hari-kiri. But what a worthy death.

Babs and I make semi-obscene little noises of profound enjoyment as we chomp down on each piece of sushi. I don't understand how the 2 American women next to us are managing to carry on a full conversation about something that is not about sushi. Or any kind of conversation at all. No one else is talking. Not the Japanese businessmen, not the other tourists. Only one bald gaijin with his Japanese friend, but at least he's talking to the chef about the fish, in fluent Japanese. (I don't know what about, I just hear the key fish words).

6.30am: Gawking At The Goods

We wander through the labyrinth of some 1,700 stalls selling some 450 species of seafood, dodging handpulled and auto carts and forklifts as we go. Separate post to come on this section. Too many photos!

5.30am: Tiptoeing Around Tuna

We're prowling about the perimeters of Tsukiji's famed tuna auction warehouse at the back end of the complex, right on the water. Reports in our group's array of guide books had been mixed about whether visitors were still banned from the auction room or allowed back in, so we peered through whatever open doors and glass panels we could to try and gauge the situation.

In quieter sections I would nip in for a few minutes to get a closer look at the proceedings. It's nowhere near as loud or as boisterous as I thought it would be. I watch buyers peruse rows upon rows of iced-over tuna torpedos, throwing their scythe-like hooks into shortlisted tails, and hacking out a pinch of raw meat to chew on for the all-important taste-test. Pretty pink pieces of tuna on slabs of rice is one thing. But a warehouse full of tuna carcasses does, I admit, conjure images of casualties of war or some other disaster, laid out for identification and burial.

Inevitably a security guard shows up and nudges me back out the door, apologising all the way. I sure am glad this is Japan rather than Germany, where I've seen bouncers super-efficiently pitch over-rowdy Oktoberfesters out of beer tents...

Later I find out that unless you're in a prebooked school group, visitors these days are not allowed into the tuna auction room. Doh!

We finally stumble into the little area where visitors are shepherded into to observe the auction proceedings from a distance. This is just one of many ongoing auctions all along the length of the warehouse (I suspect grouped into tuna-size batches).

3.30am: Singing in Shinjuku

The group decided that the only way to stay awake for the last hour until it was time to pile into a cab and head east to Tsukiji was to sing at the top of our lungs. Babs scored points for decoding the huge Japanese remote control. Then lost them again as he deliberately experimented with changing the key to a song midway. Three times.

By this time I'm having a splitting headache so right after taking these photos I take a very strategic 30 minute disco nap on the far end of our karaoke room. It made all the difference.

As we leave, Babs and I marvel at all the establishments still open: pachinko bars, karaoke bars, girlie bars, noodle bars, sushi bars, donburi bars, and 24hr internet + magazine + DVD cafes that are a cheap option (compared to taking a taxi home to the suburbs) for partygoers to hang out and nap until the metro system wakes up again. Like New York, this city never sleeps. And as much as I love New York, it's hard to deny that there's a lot less trash on the streets and less stress about potentially getting mugged while walking around at night here. I kinda like it that both the police and the yakuza see to that.

11pm: Boys Just Havana Have Fun

Dave and Colin decide they're in the mood for cuban cigars, so we take shelter from the cold at Havana Bar somewhere in Shinjuku.

Before that we stumble down into a basement bar called God Bar Jazz, where we're the only people in there and drinks are horrendously overpriced. The jazz comes from a CD rather than a band (I don't see any space for any kind of band to perform at the best of times). The bar's saving grace: chocolate covered potato crisps.

8.30pm: Shinjuku Shabu-Shabu

The group was in the mood for shabu shabu for dinner. I didn't have any leads on where to go for this in Shinjuku, so we had to employ our usual "stare at the menu and stick your head in the doorway" method. This wasn't our luckiest of discoveries. The hotpot was sufficiently tasty but clearly priced for punters more interested in the pretty waitresses in midriffs and miniskirts rather than the food.

3.30pm: Checking Out Cherry Blossoms

We're in the thick of cherry blossom season, and one of Tokyo's favourite viewing sites in Ueno Park. There are a couple of fun ways to engage in this breathtakingly beautiful activity (if simply walking under the canopy of a boulevard of cherry trees isn't thrilling enough for you).

1) Rent a boat at the pond on the south side of the park. The pink swan boats match the cherry blossoms perfectly.

2) Pack a picnic lunch and mat and spend the afternoon under the blossoms making up haikus.

1.30pm: Ravishing Ramen

By pure luck we stumble into Kyushu Jangara Ramen right in front of Harajuku metro station for lunch. I find out later that this is one of Tokyo's most popular ramen purveyors.

The pork bone broth (the first thing I always test with any bowl of ramen, I've realised) is beautifully rich, and the slabs of lean pork belly have their marinade seeped right through. The hard boiled egg has a lovely just slightly runny yolk (think egg fondant), a magic trick all chefs I've crossed chopsticks with in Tokyo so far seem to have mastered.

10.30am: Meetup at the Meiji Shrine

We start the day by walking around the Meiji Shrine gardens.

Some 3 million people worship at this Shinto spiritual centre of Tokyo during the major holidays. Many buy these 500-yen wooden blocks below to record their wishes and prayers.

I like this one below.

And on that fitting note, I bid you and this 22-hour day good morning, and good night. I need a nap.

Daiwa Sushi
Tsukiji Market Building 6
5-2-1 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, Tokyo
+81 3 3547 6807
(5.30am -1:30pm; closed Sunday)

Kyushu Jangara Ramen
Meiji Jingumae "Harajuku" metro station
Come out of Exit 3, and it's on the left

And the 100th Post Goes to... Le Cafe Anglais, London

The first 99 posts of Going With My Gut have been a great ride. Mostly because I'm writing again (thanks for the nags. You know who you are). Eating my way around the world is quite a bonus too.

Highlights so far:

• Writing a guest piece for Guardian UK's Been There on my Top 10 Eats from my first 6 months of travel in Europe, the Middle East and Africa
• My Kenyan Goat Feast post coming in among the top 3 for the Farewell Floyd blogging event (in spite of, or due to, grossing out quite a few readers along the way!)
• My evil eye cookies taking 2nd place in Istanbul Eats's debut photo competition
• Sharing my Mum's Singapore Hainanese chicken rice recipe with In the Bag, and my mushroom soup and tom yum soup recipes with Tasty Tools.
• Tickling a few of my friends pink, recounting the late-night adventures of a Hyderabadi Evil Eye Goat. (Yes evil eyes and goats are following me)

Looking ahead, I'm just getting started (still). There's tons to write, and even more to learn from the vast food and travel writing community out there about writing better posts, taking better photos and assembling a better blog. Overall, a great way to stay out of mischief... or at least write about it.

I'm dedicating the rest of this 100th post to my favourite overall restaurant in London: Le Cafe Anglais in Bayswater. I'm not there every week for a shot of comfort food (that honour belongs squarely to Goldmine down the street) but it's my favourite in the sense that it's always such a treat to eat there and just be there. Its big, ballsy, classy-without-being-poncy approach to its food as well as its space encapsulates my favourite traits about any endeavour.

Le Cafe Anglais opened in late 2007 just a few months after I moved to London. It took over a cavernous space in Whiteleys mall previously occupied by McDonalds. With the acclaimed Rowley Leigh at the helm of a mammoth part-seasonal menu and a double-height rotisserie, it promised to be a signficant break from its Chinese diner and kebab shop neighbours. What a fabulous act of urban renewal! Cause or coincidence, I was pleasantly unsurprised to see upmarket food players such as Hereford Road, El Piratas de Tapas and the Whiteleys food hall spring up in the neighbourhood soon after.

The meals I've had at Le Cafe Anglais in the 2+ years since have always been wonderfully delicious and served up by a well-informed and friendly crew well tuned in to the rhythm of a meal. This is regardless of whether it's a splash-out evening -- where Babs and I indulged in a soup on raw oysters perched atop atolls of stringy onions before you the diner pour in a jug of steaming beef broth, and a massive properly-medium-rare long-horm prime rib for 2 -- or one of those days I'm feeling skint but nip into the bar anyway, and scarf a bargainous tender, juicy, saucy and garlicky roast chicken leg and chase it with a refreshing watermelon and ginger juice.

I suspect, however, that what makes the restaurant the accolade hoover it is, is its ability to bring a splash of class to an otherwise simple dish; enough to give it a subtle but impossible-to-ignore makeover, but stopping short at booting it into an alienating price bracket.

I am probably the last person on earth to tell you about its anchovy soldiers and parmesan custard -- a regal riff on marmite soldiers dipped in soft boiled egg. Also, don't miss its other deceptively simple delights, like its fairy-light courgette tempura...

... a pasta ragu made with flaked rabbit and, when that magical time of the year is neigh...

... a mushroom omelette made with whole girolles. So simple, but what a wallop of flavour. Topped in its category only by San Sebastien's La Cepa's smoky grilled boleta dipped in raw egg, I reckon.

In dating parlance, Le Cafe Anglais is that winner you can take home to your family with confidence. It's so put together there's no need to do anything outlandish to impress, and its radiates a shine from the core rather than shimmers with a more frivolous sparkle, warming everyone at the table and putting them at ease.

So that's what I did. I brought Le Cafe Anglais to my family (the other way around, really, but you know what I mean). And Babs's. All 12 of us, sitting down to our first meal together as a joint family the day after we got married, a year and a bit ago now. Back then this was still a nerve-wrecking cross-cultural event -- for me at least -- because they had met only the day before at the registry itself, outside Marylebone town hall. I wanted today -- without the buffer of friends -- to not get tripped up but some dish poorly done, or by shoddy service, or some jarring aspect of the ambience of the place, so that everyone could just focus on getting a little more relaxed around each other.

The verdict? Like what happened in that stately Marylebone room that day and everything after, I'd do it all over again, in a heartbeat.

Le Cafe Anglais
8 Porchester Gardens
London W2 4DB
United Kingdom
+44 20 7221 1415

Haunted by Hummus ala Beit Sissi, Aleppo

If there is any downside to travel, it's that I find myself feeling increasingly haunted by ghosts.

Not ghosts of people long gone, but of dishes long digested. Full sensory hallucinations of treats prepared in a very specific way in lands far far away. I -- pale, wild-haired, gaunt (ok fine, not gaunt) -- cut off from their delicious realms, call out into the dark trying to channel them: "Manoooooooolo Fernandez pooooooollo... Zemmmmmmmaciai pork rib boooorrrrrrscht... Gelateria del Teatrooooo watermelon granitaaaaaaaa..."

And now add to that list Beit Sissi's hummus with grilled lamb chunks and toasted pine nuts, thanks to a quick visit this past September. Creamy. Smoky. Juicy. And maddeningly far away in Aleppo in Syria, tucked into a discreet alleyway in the city's charming and labyrinthian Al-Jdeida neighbourhood.

Once you're through the multiple arches and the door, however, the restored 17th century Arab-style mansion-turned-restaurant throws open a double-storey sundrenched dining room, complete with resident violinist.

Babs and I opened with a mess of mezzes: the hummus as mentioned above, a slightly tart but refreshing eggplant rattatouille, and a dish of silky mallow leaves. All mopped up with a lot of pita bread and even more gusto.

Just as we were feeling pleasantly and sensibly full (as is always the case when we go to Middle Eastern eateries) the main meat dishes arrive.

Cherry kebab -- cooked in a lurid purple cherry sauce and garnished with yet more toasted pine nuts -- is the signature dish of this region. For me anyway, the celebrity cherry sauce tasted too tart, and messed too much with -- rather than complemented or lifted -- the natural taste of the meat.

The house-style kebabs, however, unadorned except for a flap of pita soaking in kebab juice, were gorgeous in the nude and voluptuous in flavour. Beautiful like Botticelli's Venus. Another strong candidate for the haunting list. Wooooooooooo......

Beit Sissi (aka Sissi House)
Sharia as-Sissi, Al-Jdeida
Aleppo, Damascus
+963 21 212 4362

Thali Christmas and Henna New Year

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and all your loved ones.

Thank you to all of you who have spent time with Babs and me here, following our shenanigans, contributing your comments, reactions, encouraging words and ideas, and being patient with all my typos and experiments during this blog's infant phase.

Please forgive the recent silence. We spent the last week and a bit in Bangalore, India, not at all to celebrate Christmas. Rather, Babs's Mum (a native Bangalorean) organised a belated wedding reception for Babs and me, his brother and his Chicago-born Indian wife, and his sister and her Polish husband -- all visiting India for the first time since getting married over the last 18 months.

The ~400 guests -- considered small by Indian wedding standards -- hailed from Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mysore, Mangalore, Kerala, Mumbai, Delhi, the UAE, UK, US and Singapore. (More on the event later.)

So the lead-up to D-Day (on Boxing Day) was a nonstop flurry of introductions to my new relatives, me cajoling them for their recipes for their most delicious dishes (I've had some success, so stay tuned!), plunging into the bowels of Crawford Market in Mumbai and Commercial Street in Bangalore to procure fabric for shalwar khameez (Punjabi suits) and saris and Kashmiri shawls and all the accompanying bangles and sandals and purses (oh my), trips to the tailor to get said Indian outfits made, getting my hands henna-ed up for the first time, and multiple late-night airport runs to pick up loved ones flying in from far away.

*Exhale"

Well. And a fresh tender coconut and pomegranates bursting with rubies of every shade of purple, red and pink every day. And briyani. Oil-tankers full it. Enough briyani to feed and fatten all of India and then some for lunch the day after.

*Burp*

It occured to me at some point that this was my first Christmas ever away from home in Singapore. Away from Mum's turkey. An uncle's home-baked ham. An aunt's Hockchew wonton soup. Another aunt's fried beehoon (rice noodles) and lohr ak (braised duck). A cousin's attempt at sushi. Grandma's delectable agar jellies. About 100 aunts, uncles, cousins and their children all trying to remember each other's names. And then there are friends. Rubbing elbows with them while having the one-th too many cocktail. Bumping knees with them waiting for Christmas service to be done.

Instead, for Christmas lunch this year I find myself at Sundeheri at Woodlands Hotel in Bangalore, tucking into a vegetarian thali of (clockwise from top left below) carrot, lentil and coconut salad, coconut and red chili chutney, okra fried with coconut, spiced taro, mallow with lentil, yellow dhal, puri (diabolical deep fried dough pillow cases) and eggplant curry. All served -- in the proper old school South Indian way -- on a banana leaf.

It's all terribly tasty, and I do have Mum and Dad in from Singapore at the table, but it still doesn't feel like Christmas. I guess for me Christmas needs to be spent around not just a familiar set of people (that's some of you reading this), but also a familiar set of food. And -- as much as I hate to admit it -- a playlist of saccharine-sweet Christmas jingles. Just a few. The limit being remix version 4 of "Last Christmas" by Wham!.

This New Year will be spent in Hyderabad, attending Babs's sister-in-law's cousin's wedding. Far away from the New Year's Eve party I've hosted each year since 1995, which I've missed only once before in 2003, when I spent a poorly-thought-out week running around Eastern Europe, filling my lungs with icicles which took a couple of months after to properly dislodge. My sinuses have never been the same since.

Ah well. Nothing like stepping out from the routine of home to make you appreciate it all the more.

I hope you'll continue to drop by here in 2010. Babs and I will be poking around more of India, Ghana(!), Southeast and Northeast Asia, maybe Australia and New Zealand (depending on our cash situation) and South America before we decide where to hunker down and set up camp for the next few years.

In the meantime, my very best wishes to you for the new year. May all our days be delicious ones.

Sundeheri at Woodlands Hotel
5 Rajaram Mohan Roy Road
Richmond Circle, Bengalore
Karnataka, India

Game to Meat Up in Cape Town?

Let's face it. I'm lousy company on a safari or a dive trip.

Mostly because, in the group chat afterwards, when all the wildlife lovers are cooing "Wasn't that majestic... wasn't that just soooo cute..." I will inevitably blurt out "I wonder what that tastes like."

And then a "whoompf" of silence will descend, and everyone will wonder with raised eyebrows wondering "Who brought her?"

Eventually one of the more sociable ones will play along, and the group will discuss what they would and wouldn't eat, and someone will always end up saying "Oh but I couldn't eat that, they're just too cute!"

I've never understood this not eating cute animals business. What does that even mean? They'll eat only ugly schmugly animals? How would animals qualify for the life-saving cute category? If they've done enough Disney roles to qualify for health insurance with SAG?

I tend to think this out loud. More raised eyebrows.

If you're still reading this, and chuckling along, I think we understand each other. Read on. Otherwise, you might want to read some other post. And probably not the one about the Kenyan Goat Feast.

===

So I decided that while we were in Africa, we had to try some game meat. The farmed, rather than endangered variety. (Yes, I will eat cute, but not endangered)

The first and most obvious lead was Carnivore in Nairobi, Kenya, but we found out that Kenya had banned the sale of game meat. (Research suggests that Carnivore also has a branch in Johannesburg, South Africa, which still serves a rotation of game meats.)

Luckily, Long Street in Cape Town, South Africa -- the city's backpacker and entertainment ground zero -- offers 2 delicious and affordable options for those game for game.

Royale Eatery

Hipster-chic Royale Eatery also serves pizzas and very impressive salads, but it is first and foremost a gourmet burger joint, with offerings of beef, chicken, fish and -- what I came for -- ostrich.

South Africa pioneered ostrich farming over 150 years ago, and posh neighbourhoods in ostrich central Oudtshoorn are said to be built upon the feather fortunes. Today, vehicle manufacturers still buy ostrich feathers to be used in the late stages of the vehicle-painting process. Ostrich hides are turned into an array of leather products, eggs are made into monster omelettes and their shells painted and sold as decorations.

Ostrich meat, as it turns out, is a red meat. The best way to describe its taste? You know how Diet Coke tastes like a subtly different version of regular Coke? Ostrich -- similar to kangaroo but with a different twang -- tastes like diet beef. Lovely flavour and bite, with much less of the heaviness afterwards.

The beetroot chutney was a lovely lift to the taste and colour of the well made burger platter. The sweet potato fries were superb, especially with aioli, and sweet chili sauce.

Do also sample Royale Eatery's formidable milkshake menu. I took a shot at the Jack Daniels and Peanut Butter shake. Geeeeeenius. Even more genius than the time I chucked some JD into my 7-Eleven Coke slurpee. I should experiment with chucking JD into more stuff. Recommendations?

Khaya Nyama (House of Meat)

Khaya Nyama, which specialises in game meat, is open only for dinner and describes its ambience as "bushman cave". I guess that means this.

To sample a range of game without committing to an expensive steak portion of something you might not like, try the venison carpaccio platter, with a slice of crocodile, ostrich, springbok and kudu (2 kinds of deer).

The 3 red meats, while very tasty, posssibly had too much spices and brine to really bring out the differences between the different meat flavours. The more interesting experience was the crocodile. It looks mostly like a slice of smoked chicken or turkey, but has that slight translucent sheen of fish. Its taste had the same unusual fishy-chickeny combination.

I followed with a whopping serving of grilled warthog ribs. As somewhat expected, it tasted like a more full bodied version of pork (a beefier version of pork?). Lovely. The sides -- maize mash, broccoli, and rice, were hearty but could probably do with slightly prettier plating to match up with the restaurant's fine dining pitch.

Overall, a successful savoury safari. Thanks for keeping me company!

Royale Eatery
273 Long Street
Cape Town, South Africa
+21 21 422 4536

Khaya Nyama (House of Meat)
267 Long St
Cape Town, South Africa
+27 21 424 2917

Discovering Gold at Fynboshoek Cheese, Tsitsikamma, South Africa

"Cross the bridge... follow the detour for 4km... look for the church and the school... look for the turnoff 1.2km from the school... go 1.5km... past the neighbour's farm... left at the fork... then go to the end of the road."

We were on a treasure hunt for Fynboshoek Cheese, a South Africa Garden Route locavore haven by award winning cheesemaker Alje van Deemder, who has been personally serving lunches for more than a decade, with just about everything served being grown and / or made onsite.

I trust this is the right way...

Success! We drive up to a mustard house garlanded with many a flowering tree, and get ushered into a breathtaking sunroom, where classical music is softly playing. If they had divans here I could dawdle with a book for many afternoons on end.

There's no menu at Fynboshoek. (The set lunch costs ZAR 110 per person. Drinks are extra.) So we wait, soaking in the view. Then the opening act arrives, with quite a bang: Fried goat cheese canapes, with a dab of jam and sprigs of fresh thyme.

Next, salad caprese, with a sunny homemade mozzerella. And rosemary focaccia, fresh from the oven. Combine with a giant bowl of vibrantly coloured salad leaves for a soul-cleansing gorge.

The headline act: The Fynboshoek cheese platter, with 3 goat cheeses of varying maturity, a couple of cheddars, a smoked provolone ball, and my favourite (on the far left) a cow's milk cheese with cumin. Not being a class-A curd nerd, I sometimes find the taste of goat cheese to be too overwhelming, but the ones put forward here were gentle and gorgeously creamy.

I've never had a meal of cheese, bread and leaves this satisfying.

You can read about the health and environmental merits of eating locally -- where ingredients are grown and sourced from as close to the dining table as possible -- but it's so much more seductive to experience the difference with all five senses.

Out bread was finger-singeing hot, with salty dough and rosemary wafting about the table. The salad leaves were surprisingly sweet, having been spared nitrogen and that awful bitter plastic infusion that comes with supermarket packaging. If you have time after lunch, you can go stroll on the grounds outside the house, and say hello to the goats and cows that provided the milk for your cheese.

The other diners in the sunroom and at a long table outside were quite uniformly of the pastel shirt and shoulder-slung sweater and posh leather loafer variety. So Mr van Deemder -- possibly pleasantly surprised by the diversity of a scrubby Chinese and Indian couple -- tarried over expressos, asking what we were doing way out here in Tsitsikamma.

He was quite amused with our casual quest of eating our way around the world, and he visibly perked up when we said we focused especially on eateries that showcased local ingredients and traditional recipes. We shared laments about how so much of South Africa's best produce (especially seafood) is sent overseas while locals lap up cheaper but lower quality imports. I told him about our frustrated quest to sample Knysna oysters, and he rejoined: "Our squid and cuttlefish is top quality, so it all goes to Europe and Asia. All the squid you find here is from South America."

Tragedy! How does one hijack a South African squid boat I wonder...

The music switches to a jaunty ragtime jazz tune. Do we really have to go?

But I take heart. Fynboshoek is that kind of treasure trove that is more likely to keep keeping on if you spread, rather than hoard, the word. So go. Off-map, off-GPS, to where cheese marks, and hits, the spot.

Fynboshoek Cheese
Off the N2 Highway across from Tsitsikamma Lodge
Calling ahead for reservations and directions is essential
+27 42 280 3879

Wheeling and Mealing at Khan's BBQ, Arusha, Tanzania

How ever the town of Arusha, Tanzania may pitch itself to the world (one reference is apparently "The Geneva of Africa") it is in essence a pit stop. Arusha is where travellers from all over the world break their journey on the overland route between Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam (as we did in late October), or else camp for the night before forging onward to Serengeti National Park or Mount Kilimanjaro.

As such, Arusha's streets are chockablock with buses, safari vans and giant SUVs owned by flush tour operators. And hungry pedestrians in transit.

One enterprise that has embraced this situation with some delicious genius is wheeler mealer Zubeda Auto Spares / Khan's Barbeque. By day, it sells auto parts to vehicles trundling through town. By night, it sells some of the best damn Pakistani-style BBQ chicken parts I've tasted anywhere for the travellers pouring out of said vehicles.

Slot yourself into one of the long bench tables (or simply lower your SUV window if you want to eat in your plush vehicle), place your order, then go build your own salad that comes with each meal. I particularly liked the green tomato achar (pickle) salad.

Beware: this is one of the few eateries in East Africa where when they tell you something is spicy, they mean it's spicy (I learned this the hard teary-sweaty-snotty way).

The other thing the more sensible among you need to be aware of, is that 1 order of chicken at Khan's means 1 whole chicken. We unknowingly ordered 2. Which meant we had the most badass snacks on the bus to Dar Es Salaam the next day.

Twas the proverbial dark and stormy night when we ate at Khan's. In these parts, this often means that power cuts out for hours on end.

So while waiting for Khan's backup generator to kick in, we dined by Maglite and SUV headlight... same way the grill chefs soldiered on.

Having lived in London, I had full appreciation of their stoicism while BBQing in the rain. So we made another pit stop at Khan's on the road back to Nairobi a week later.

As tender, juicy, spicy and smoky as the chicken was, I was glad to be moving on. If Khan's were in my neighbourhood I'd find myself there embarassingly often. Eat frequently enough at a place like this, and you're bound to eventually get a spare tyre for free. And I don't mean the type you can run your car on.

Khan's Barbeque / Zubeda Auto Spares
Mosque St
Arusha, Tanzania
+255 27 2500 458 / 2544 925
Mobile: +255 713 / 754 / 784 652747

(Note: The 3 digit prefix numbers are for different mobile network providers. Calls within the same network are sometimes discounted or free)

Tasty Tallinn: Olde Hansa, AED, and Bonaparte Deli

Picking up where I left off chronologically on this journey, we found ouselves in Tallinn, Estonia for my August birthday weekend. The day itself was celebrated at Restaurant Ö, but Tallinn proved to be quite a tasty town at large. Here are a few highlights, if you are headed that way.

Olde Hansa

Olde Hansa -- a medieval themed restaurant named after the Hanseatic League of merchants -- might lure you in for the first time with touristy gimmicks such as waiters in Robin-Hood-style tights, lute-playing waitresses, elaborate script-font menus, and a sink that uses a tipping kettle for a tap. But it will lure you back because of the sheer quality of its cuisine.

It's a small gesture, but you can usually judge the quality of a restaurant by the bread they serve before the arrival of the meal. Here, the bread here is served not with butter, but with a generous blob of some kind of soft, creamy, savoury whipped cheese. A good omen. Food portions here are large and the cuisine is hefty, so you're going to have to wrestle with how much of that yummy cheese and bread to scarf.

Babs orders a spectacular fish platter called "Neptune's Feast". Old Hansa trumps its own whipped cheese opener by adding fish eggs to it. Medieval magic.

I order a "Game Pot" (I think some minced mix of wild boar and deer / elk), which comes with pickles, berries, cabbage, butternut squash and...just in case everything else wasn't filling enough... a pastry cement bag filled with some kind of chickpea mash or spelt. My point is, my advice above about the bread and cheese comes from experience, not preaching.

If you're dining in a group, you can apparently pre-book a medieval feast. Yet another place where we'll need to come back to with reinforcements! If you make it there before I do, I'd love to hear how it went!

Restoran AED

Call it deja vu. Jump forward a few centuries to Restoran AED (also known as Embassy of Pure Food), one of the most modern and stylish eateries in town, and what you'll find is a seasonal all-organic menu, i.e. food that was grown in ways much more akin to medieval times compared to all the chemical hocus pocus used now.

The dinner menu was out of our budget, but they have some delightful lunch bargains, best enjoyed at an outside table while basking in the Nordic sun and the fragrance of AED's herb hedge.

AED was having a carrot festival at the time. We tried the carrot and sea-buckthorn smoothie, which was an absolutely delicious and slightly less acidic twist on my much-loved carrot-and-orange juice mix. We also tried the carrot cappuchino -- a very clever take on how a drinkable carrot-and-coffee cake might taste.

AED's salads are great to look at, and deliver on taste (don't just push away the flower petal garnish; they're edible too). I can't pass up a smoked duck salad when I see one, and paired it with a beautiful beetroot soup, which I mentioned in my post on Souperb Finds in Eastern Europe.

Babs goes for their smoked trout salad, followed by a spelt pasta with rabbit. YUM.

Bonaporte Deli

Tallin's camera-friendly Nordic sunlight and its heady mix of Scandinavian, Russian, Baltic and medieval architecture make for a great day of walking around its old town. If your feet prove too itchy to sit down to eat, consider grabbing a treat to go at Bonaparte Deli (whose big brother Bonaparte is another very well known stylish restaurant in town we couldn't afford this time around).

Deli patrons -- who wouldn't look at all out of place in New York's Upper East Side trust-fund-financed apartments -- were nipping in and out collecting cake orders the entire time we were browsing. We eventually set out with a very well made anchovy and egg sandwich, and a pretty looking chicken wrap.

Snapped just in the nick of time! A very yummy Bornaparte Deli chocolate roll. Now, to walk some of this off.

Olde Hansa
Vana turg 1
10146 Tallinn, Estonia
+372 627 9040

AED (Embassy of Pure Food)
Rataskaevu 8,
10123 Tallinn, Estonia
+372 626 9088

Bonaparte Deli
Pikk 47
Tallinn, Estonia
+372 646 4024

Empire of the Sun in London: Dinings, Cafe Japan and Atari-ya

If you've been to Japan, you might agree that the apex of its charm and allure is how it manages to have both age-old traditions and cutting-edge modernity co-exist vibrantly, neither falling into the shadow of the other. It's the kimono-clad geisha on her mobile phone with enough features to control satellites. It's the businessmen who dine at sushi and noodle parlours that have cooking methods that go back centuries, who then proceed to karaoke clubs with control panels more complex than Captain Kirk's SS Enterprise.

Fittingly, I have two favourite Japanese restaurants in London, and try as I might, I can't choose either one over the other.

 

New School: Dinings

For a wildly succesful example of avant garde Japanese cuisine that is a knockout on both beauty and bite, go to Dinings, helmed by Nobu alum Tomanari Chiba.

It was my friend from work Macaloony who first brought me here. She loves Dinings to the extent that she made me promise not to tell anyone where we were going, and storms around the office like a Kabuki demon every time there's a rave review about the place in one of the London papers, cursing at what it'll do to her already strained ability to get a table at short notice.

It's possible she'll disown me or at least disinvite me to her upcoming wedding upon reading this post, but let's face it, by this point I'm nowhere near being the flag-planter and early loudhailer for Dinings.

Ah well, at least we'll always have that farewell dinner this past summer. Good girly times.

Fabulous fish: Seabass carpaccio with summer truffle and ponzu (citrus juice) jelly; Mackeral sushi...made with...egg fried rice?

 

 

Meat that melts in your mouth while you melt in your knees: Stewed pork belly (Iberian pate negra, if you're lucky); and wagyu beef sushi, also with ponzu jelly.

 

 

If you're not watchful, a session at Dinings can quickly turn into a protein and carb fest. The fruit and vegetable balancers are not to be ignored. I'm a big fan of the beetroot, and avocado...a great cover for the razor clams underneath.

 

 

Right. Veggie guilt taken care of. Now for main event.

Foie gras sushi.

I'm not otherwise much of a foie gras fan. It's too rich even for me, and sometimes has too much of a raw livery smell. Combined with humble sushi rice to soak up its richness, however, is clearly one of those loud "Eureka" moments in the kitchen lab.

And then, the encore! Trump the foie gras sushi, by adding unagi (grilled eel) and shaved truffles.

The less innocent among you will know that Japanese porn does nothing in moderation. This evidently extends to the food porn genre. The foie-gras-unagi-truffle sushi orgy leaves you in a puddle of pleasure and with a vague sense of guilt after.

 

 

Old School: Cafe Japan

For a traditional hole-in-the-wall experience, go to Cafe Japan on Finchley Road, right by the Golders Green tube station.

Go on a rainy day (and given it's London, there will be many) and slurp up a steaming cauldron of nabeyaki udon. Go at lunch time (because there is never any left by dinner time), and pick at a grilled yellow tail collar, oozing in its own luxurious fish oils. Go at dinner time (because it's brought out only then) and order a slab of grilled butter fish. Go any time, sit at the bar, and have the chef build you a sushi or sashimi platter.

Go twice in the same day, ditching a rainy and muddy jazz concert at Hampstead House in between, much to the disbelief, amusement and slight envy of your more stubborn friends, scrunched between their mats and umbrellas, less willing to cut their losses.

The only disjointed detail in the lways-blissful experience at Cafe Japan is hearing the chef talk to his helpers in English -- because they speak Mandarin otherwise -- but the quality of the food will keep you sufficiently zen to not really care.

 

Home School: Atari-ya

For the DIY cuisine crew among you, may I suggestAtari-ya, a tipoff from kopibren and Silas. Atari-ya's sushi from their tiny James St Counter is fabulous and good value for money, but the metallic cafe tables and flourescent lights just doesn't cut it for me for atmosphere (and I'm not one to usually harp on about atmosphere while I'm eating).

Much more fun to buy sashimi sliced from giant market-counter slabs, from their larger markets in Finchley or West Acton. If you already know how, you can also buy rice and other relevant sushi and miso soup apparatus and make it all at home. If you don't, all you need is some soy sauce and ready-mixed wasabi for a sashimi feast at home.

 

Dinings
22 Harcourt Street
London W1H 4HH, UK
+44 20 7723 0666

Cafe Japan
626 Finchley Road
London NW11 7RR, UK
+44 20 8455 6854 

The Thais That Bind at Khao San, London

"Here at Khao San we serve only Thai food. We no serve fusion food. Fusion food is confusion food. Here at Khao San we no like to confuse our customers."

So said Pan, the lovely chatty owner of Khao San Thai Restaurant in London, on my first visit to her restaurant, about a year ago now.

With the utterance of Pan's better-than-fiction quip, I knew right away that after 2 years of searching, and tolerating watery curries in the Thai-only-in-concept kitchens above English pubs, and trying to make myself believe the decent but ultimately too-sugary and too-flashy concoctions of the Busaba Eathai chain, I had finally found my place in London to get my fixes for proper Thai food.

In the few months that followed, I was commuting weekly to the Netherlands for work. Babs and I fell into a Thursday night routine. He'd pick me up at Heathrow and I'd call Pan to say we'd be around in 20 minutes.

The order never varied greatly. 2 portions of tom yum seafood soup. Thai fishcakes. Morning glory fried with garlic and chilli. Pad Thai with seafood. Khao San house special noodle -- seafood dry-fried with a very thin rice noodle we Chinese call mee sua.

My joke after ordering, embarrasingly, never varied either: "But Babs, what are you going to eat?"

Above: Khao San's tom yum talay is my best-in-category find in London so far

Above: Khao San's fish cakes, and house special noodles made with mee sua

Khao San's tom yum soup especially -- with just the right level of fire and acidity from chili, ginger, lemongrass and lime, and without the over-sugariness at less authentic establishments (who use sugar to mitigate the heat) -- was always a great antidote to the week of work-canteen lunches, with alarmingly processed meat and soups made from flavoured powder.

Their morning glory was always a bright green, rather than the olive-y brown when an inexperienced cook has fried it too long. And the seafood mee sua was a tasty and lighter alternative to pad thai, which in some places can be too greasy and over-sauced.

If dining with friends at Khao San, eat family-style to try the more indulgent dishes such as their shredded green papaya or green mango salad with dried shrimp, curries (rich with coconut milk) and a whole fish steamed Thai style. Wash down with Thai ice-tea -- its slightly sickly sweetness (from using condensed milk) will help to manage the chili if needed. If in season, try Pan's baby pumpkins baked whole with custard for dessert.

And tell Pan I stopped dropping by not because I got confused, but because I got on the road. And I'll be back as soon as I can.

Khao San
108 Chepstow Road
London, W2 5QS, UK
+22 20 7221 9984

Food Finds in Vilnius, Lithuania

The culinary highlight of our Vilnius visit back in mid August was without a doubt Restaurant Zemaiciai (mentioned in a standalone feature and my soupy roundup of Eastern Europe), which in my mind might just be the nirvana of tavern cuisine. But I thought to also quickly share a few other food finds if you're planning to visit.

Busi Trecias, which translates to "And You're The Third", is Vilnius's first microbrewery. It offers a plethora of flavoured beers while maintaining economies of scale, by ingeniously (or sneakily?) having just a light and a dark brew, then adding a shot of the appropriate syrup for the flavour ordered. We sampled honey, lime and pink grapefruit beer, and enjoyed all 3.

The food menu has dishes with enticing names like "Witch's Tears", which eventually translates to various well-flavoured combinations of meat and stodge. Babs did have, however, a lovely grilled whole trout.

Come to think of it, for all this talk of meat and stodge, Babs and I had plenty of fish in Vilnius. There was a lot of smoked and cured herring about, and it being the start of mushroom season, there were soused girolles aplenty to go with the fish. This particular dish below was the highlight for us at Chaplin Bar (yes, named after Charlie), which had an otherwise ho-hum menu.

Another good place for herring (and food in general) is Cozy, which manages to add a splash of flash and style without compromising on the quality and generosity of the food. Cozy's renditions of the usually unphotogenic pork and mash, and lasagne (below) aren't just pretty to look at, kudos to them. There's also free WIFI, and a DJ bar at night.

Busi Trecias (And You're The Third)
Totoriu g. 18
Vilnius, Lithuania
+37...

Chaplin Bar
Labdariv g. 7/11
Vilnius, Lithuania

Cozy
Dominikony g.10
01120 Vilnius, Lithuania
+37...

My Goldmine in London

To Liz, with much thanks and affection.

It's not many restaurants that recognise me on the phone before I identify myself, have met my entire immediate family, know not to seat Babs and me at a table for 2 because of the amount of food we inevitably end up ordering, been the last stop of my hen night, hosted my office's Chinese New Year dinner, and been known to say (even if it's a PR line, it's still a good one): "We thought you and your friends might show up tonight. Yes we have a table for you."

All that and the food, the food, the food, is why Goldmine in London is (officially, I've decided) the one restaurant I miss most in the world while we're on the road.

Ironically it's also the reason I don't have any Goldmine photos, as I recently discovered with horror. I always thought "well of course I'll be there again soon". And then suddenly you're on a bus to Bruges (read posts on Bruges here and here) and you're not scheduled to be back in London till Fall 2010. I'm still kicking myself. Food bloggers, let this be a morality tale to you all.

My Goldmine story, like its own, begins at Four Seasons.

Spring 2005. Work sends me to London for training. I get in touch with Liz, an old friend from school. She says let's catch up over Chinese food at Four Seasons.

Like a Blighty Bumpkin, I jump into a taxi and head to the The Four Seasons Hotel, wondering if Liz always eats at such swank places. Obviously, she meant the Chinese restaurant Four Seasons on Queensway in Bayswater, where we finally meet, a phone call and much laughter and embarrassment later.

Fall 2006. Work sends me to London for a 3-month project, and leaves me to sort out my own housing. I decide easy access to comfort food is a high priority if I'm going to be a stranger in a strange land for a while. (Now I know it's always a priority in any personal real estate decision.) The budget just about covers a studio in Bayswater, a 5 minute walk from Four Seasons. Huzzah!

So once a week for about 2 months I shout down the phone as I leave the office to pre-order my Four Seasons takeaway box. I jump on the tube, elbow my way through the eternal eat-in queue, do a song and dance to try (in vain) to get the attention of the dragon lady who runs front-of-house, and eventually, get my box (now cold), elbow my way back out the door and scamper off home.

At one of those parties where it seems like every Singaporean, Malaysian and Hong Konger laywer and banker in London gathers, I let on to Liz that I credit my pick of my neighbourhood to her, and her introducing me to Four Seasons.

"Oh God, you don't still eat at Four Seasons, do you?" she exclaims, "the chef's not even there any more. Went down the street to Goldmine. We all eat at Goldmine now. Leave Four Seasons to the tourists."

The Blighty Bumpkin neon sign above my head glows brighter than my 5th gin and tonic on my cheeks.

Any given Sunday, 2008. Babs has since popped up in my life in a big way, and I've transferred to the London office and moved back to Bayswater. Sometimes it's a text message that goes around in the afternoon. Sometimes it's a decision taken at the end of a weekend trip with friends. Sometimes it's even a spontaneous gathering of various parties that showed up at the same time. But its purpose and destination is always the same. Sunday dinner at Goldmine.

Like so many Indiana Joneses sneaking past the Germans to the real X-marks-the-spot in Raiders Of The Lost Ark, we slink as quietly as we can past the crowd at Four Seasons a few doors down to Goldmine, chit chat with the ever cheerful waiter Jeffrey, and get down to the business of hoovering the inventory.

The staples are of course the roast duck (more flavourful and moist than Four Seasons) and crispy pork belly (does this really need further description?). In case you're not dining with someone who knows all the items on, and off, the menu, here are a few of my favourite Goldmine gems:

• Crispy salt, pepper and chilli squid
• Ah-mah chow siew yoke, literally translated as Grandma's fried pork belly. Pork belly chunks refried with dark soy sauce, garlic and preserved vegetables
• Siew yoke mui choi: Pork belly stewed with sweet and salty preserved vegetables. The closest version to how we make it at my parent's house. Heaven when eaten with plain steamed rice.
• Steamed egg with seafood
• Hot plate tofu with minced pork
• Claypot eggplant with minced pork
• Dou miao (snow pea shoots) with broth and 3 types of egg. Absolutely exquisite when they have it
• If you feel like splashing out, try the prawns fried with oatmeal
• If you manage to snag a table during the 15 days of Chinese New Year, pre-order a yu-sheng platter to partake in a quintissential Singapore-Malaysian tradition of ringing in prosperity for the new year. A raw fish salad is tossed (high as you can) as dining companions chant auspicious wishes.
• Wash down with Tiger beer. The Chinese restaurant label might suggest a Qingdao beer pairing, but really the culinary style is Singapore-Malaysian

All I ask is that you tell Jeffrey and team that I say hi, I miss them, and I'll be back as soon as I can.

Goldmine
102 Queensway
London W2 3RR, UK
+44 20 7792 8331

A Few Prague-tical Food Tips

Ah, Prague. A city so breathtakingly beautiful that you could almost wander around all day and forget to think about food, and just revel in the fresh air and romance of it all.

Well. Only almost.

But that's what I had to tell myself at the time. Prague has a thriving gourmet scene, but many of the marquee players were well out our budget this time around. And we got unlucky at 2 Bavarian eateries we tried -- one wasn't serving food in the mid afternoon, and the other served food that was distinctly....meh.

Above: Prague by day -- view from the gardens of Prague Castle

Above: Prague by night -- view from Charles Bridge

Above: Babs peering at the Astronomical Clock in Old Town; St Vitus Cathedral at dusk

Ah well. Aside from sights, Prague did at least deliver on that one other thing for which it's known for the world over: cheap beer.

Touristy bars will charge €2-3 or more for a pint, but locals will not be caught dead paying more than €1. Apparently if you head out into the suburbs, the price keeps dropping every 20 metres.

Staropramen is the beer that's brewed in Prague itself, and after some wandering around we managed to find a basement bar that served €1 pints.

Pivnice Pod Petrinem isn't the prettiest bar, but it's fiercely local. The bar crew look like bikers, the patrons are dressed in an even mix of office clothes and paint-splattered work overalls, and everyone is chain smoking. And judging by the event flyers at the entrance and the posters on the wall, the bar is very well plugged into the local underground scene.

Perhaps a little too well plugged in for my taste.

Most first-time visitors will invariably end up at one of the atmospheric underground taverns around Old Town serving steins of beer with meat and stodge.

If you want beautifully executed Czech cuisine at a great bite-for-buck price, head over to Bar Bar. We were peering at the menu outside when an evidently regular diner said to us "just go in, it's really really good".

Even through there's African themed art on the wall and a few amusing Golem TV-light box installations (left), the restaurant has a lovely understated vibe. As does the food. Until you put it in your mouth.

The duck leg with potato dumpling was excellent -- crispy on the outside, moist and well seasoned on the inside. But the real surprise of the evening was the spaghetti. When's the last time you ordered spaghetti with tomato sauce, herbs and parmesan, and said to your dining companion, "Holy crap you have to try this" ?

Another find was Chabad Kosher Shelanu Restaurant & Deli, a good place to fortify yourself with pastrami and corned beef sandwiches as you're exploring the Jewish ghetto. (If you're going to be in Prague on a Friday night, call ahead if you'd like to partake of their Shabbat dinner.) When out and about, don't miss the heart-wrenching Jewish cemetary, a gothic mess of gravestones because people were buried 12-layers deep.

Admittedly, I've had better pastrami in New York, but yet again, this site in Prague presented its own sight to behold: a Chinese guy managing the restaurant.

A Prague-tical Travel Tip

If you're taking a train to Prague, it's worth checking to see if a JLV service is available from your originating city.

We went to Prague from Zagreb, and paid €100 each for seat-only tickets for a 14-hour overnight journey. We were told we would have to switch carriages (I can't even remember where) as our train would split at 3am. The best part was that our tickets were the old-school completely (illegibly) handwritten kind.

I had pretty much given up on sleep and comfort for the night, and was just hoping we'd get to the right carriages to actually end up in Prague.

Evidently higher beings were feeling generous. When it came time to board, we asked a train conductor to decode our tickets and point us to the right carriage. He said "well actually for just €20 more per person you can get a 2-person sleeper carriage all the way to Prague. None of this changing carriages nonsense". (Pictured left)

With A/C, power sockets, a private sink, and a shared toilet and (fully-functioning) shower to boot.

I couldn't have been happier to hear in the morning that there had been track delays overnight and we'd be a couple of hours late for our arrival.

Pivnice Pod Petrinem
Hellichova 5
Prague 1, Malá Strana, Czech Republic
+420 257 007 327

Bar Bar
Všehrdova 17,
Prague 1, Újezd, Czech Republic
+420 257 312 246

Chabad Kosher Shelanu Restaurant & Deli
Brehova 8
Prague 1, Czech Republic
+420 221 665 141

Restaurant Ö, Tallinn, Estonia

This is a "thank you" post to my parents, who generously sponsored my birthday dinner in Tallinn, Estonia, last weekend.

Not wanting to squander the opportunity to wander off our normal travel budget, I did some digging around before picking Restaurant Ö, based on a recommendation by Estonian food blog Nami-Nami.

Restaurant Ö is an up and coming establishment cheffed by Roman Zastserinski, who is dedicated to bold and beautiful experiments based on what's local and seasonal in Estonia and among its Nordic neighbours. The experiments are evidently successful -- he and the restaurant have been picking up accolades like the locals pick up mushrooms this time of year.

We open with a Poltsamaa martini -- an apple martini with an orange rind twist. I'm liking this place already.

A bread basket comes around, along with a dollop of lovely herby soft cheese.

A little pre-starter from the house: White-fish caviar with cauliflower cream; and beetroot broth. The briny fish eggs were a brilliant splash against the (in this case appropriately) bland cauliflower canvas.

Starters: Scallops with beetroot and fried cheese; amazing king crab with quail eggs (with diabolically soft boiled yolks!) and rhubarb batons.

Intermission: A little palette cleanser from the house -- green apple and pine shoot sorbet. We throw a little local Viiru Valge vodka into the mix.

Absolutely superb. A spa treatment in a saucer. I was tempted to plop some of the sorbet into the vodka, just for kicks (I love a boozy slushy) ... but out of respect decided to leave tonight's experimentations to the chef.

The mains: Rabbit in little fillets, and mixed in with apple and poppyseeds in a tart, with chanterelle sauce.

Pigeon and piglet confit. Perhaps an unusual observation, but given how geogeously luxe the pigeon and pork belly were, what really jumped out was the cabbage, which was pretty much uninterfered with. It was a wonderful counter-balance. Given the central placement of the cabbage on the platter, is it waxing too lyrical to suppose that the pigeon and pork were actually a reverse-psychology backdrop to showcase the humble cabbage -- a staple everywhere in Eastern Europe -- as the true centrepiece?

Dessert: Chocolate fondant, with sea-buckthorn ice-cream. I ordered it mostly because I had absolutely no idea what sea-buckthorn was.

Turns out it's a tart, citrussy berry jam-packed with vitamin C. I went back through my archives and realised I had taken a photo of sea-buckthorn berries at the Central Market in Riga, Latvia, not having any idea what they were (see photo below). So this turned out to be a lovely Estonian take on the traditional combination of chocolate and orange.

All in all, a terribly tasty way to turn 31 in Tallinn.

Restaurant Ö
Mere Puiestee 6E
Tallinn 10111, Estonia
+ 372 661 6150

Restaurant Zemaiciai, Vilnius, Lithuania

Imagine a wooden platter. Strips of fried bread. Chunks of cheese. Cloves of raw and pickled garlic. Slices of pig tongue. Crunchy strips of pig ear. Wedges of snout sausage. A separate platter has a long strip of crispy pork belly, part-cut at intervals, so it's easily torn into chunks. Soused herring and girolles. Goose crackling. Pickles of all sorts.

And that's just the beer snacks. To go with the long line of pints. With doubleshot vodka chasers.

Then out comes the main course. It's called "Pitchfork". Because a life-size pitchfork is used as a meat skewer. Its 3 prongs hold 6 palm-sized steaks; 2 beef, 2 pork, 2 chicken, each about an inch and a half thick. The drippings get caught by a platter of roasted courgettes, eggplant, tomatoes and potatoes on a wooden platter, held below the pitchfork leaned and fixed at an incline.

This is the exact moment I missed you -- my lovely fellow food dorks -- most (among many moments) on this trip so far. This is why we all need to go back to Vilnius in Lithuania, to the cellar tavern Zemaiciai. So that we can order the same. So that I don't have to just gawk shamelessly at the table of 5 portly and increasingly ruddy-faced Lithuanian "uncles" seated at the table next to us. With enough of us, we might even be able to order other things on the menus. Magical things called "Half-metre eel" and "Half-metre sausage".

But you're not here. So on this evening Babs and I are destined for humbler fare. Namely, the Zeppelin platter aka the Stodge Sampler -- potato derivatives done 5 ways: 1) Pancakes; 2) Plain boiled dumpling, 3) Meat dumpling, 4) Curd cheese dumpling, and 5) Mashed, stuffed with mincemeat, then breaded and fried. Served on a bed of mild horseradish, and with a bowl of sourcream.

It's occured to me I've never seen Babs thump his fist on the table to motivate himself to keep eating through the pain -- the result of eating everything on his preceding very delectable herring starter plate. Yes, including the 3 boiled potatos, and all the sourcream in the onion cup.

But he did eat through the pain. We both did. And waddled back to our hostel feeling (and no doubt looking) like Zeppelins. And then! Came back the next day for lunch, backpacks and daysacks and all, just before we got on the bus to Riga.

And this time we sat outside. And got the beer snacks. Wahey!

We stank on the bus all the way to Latvia. And couldn't stop grinning the entire way.

But we still need you to pitch in on the mains.

Zemaiciai
Vokieciu gatve 24
Vilnius, Lithuania
+370 5 2616573

She Scarfs Seashells by the UK Seashore

A few tempting ideas for the upcoming UK August bank holiday weekend (or any weekend, really), if those of you in the UK want that "getaway" feeling without getting on a plane.

Wheelers Oyster Bar, Whitstable

A mere 90 minutes train journey from London Victoria station, Whitstable on the Kentish coast is a well loved oyster hub. I'd been to the town's annual oyster festival two Julys in a row, only to realise (duh) that given the month, the native varieties weren't in season. The old adage goes: Don't eat oysters during any month without an "R" in it, cos that's when good oyster stewards let them get on with the mating process. (As I understand it, there's a lot of simultaneous spooging and squirting into the sea, and the currents swirl it all together so that the magic can happen.)

So this past spring we went back and hit Wheelers Oyster Bar . Wheelers is one of those places insiders don't want to talk about because the food is fantastic and the dining room is tiny. In short, reserversations are scarce, and it's not because anyone on the Wheelers team is being poncy. It took me 2 bloody years of living in London before a friend who slinks off by himself at odd hours of the weekend to dine alone at Wheelers finally deigned to mention it to me.

Open with a cold platter (pick your size) from the cold bar. Then order up some oysters. Below is a monster of a Whitstable native no doubt fattening since the previous summer. Huzzah!

Good luck picking a main from the mouth watering list. My personal favourites were the skate wing ravioli, and the very innovative take on steak and Guinness pie on a bed of raw oysters.

Bring with you only people you really really like.

A few of my favourite memories from previous Whitstable Oyster Festivals past:

Above: The annual oyster eating competition - a speed round consisting of 6 oysters and half a pint of local brew. Both the years I was there a local named Nate won (time: sub 10 seconds). I ended up at the same lunch table with him afterwards, that first year. Turns out, he didn't even really like oysters! Anyone know who won this year?

Above: Melf, Jas and I take our place in the competition. Jas proves to be the fastest gullet of the East

Above: These oval shaped giga oysters are delish, but not native. Come back in the cooler months for the rounder-shaped natives

The Company Shed, West Mersea, Colchester, Essex

Some time ago, Bab's buddy Paul told me about a magical place...a little seafood shack called The Company Shed where you bring your own booze and bread and condiments, whose connecting causeway to the mainland floods with the tide. I decided to mark my 30th birthday there last August. My birthday wish: May the tide leave us permanently stranded.

The Haward family run this joint; the same good folks behind the just-in-time shucking oyster and clam stall at London's Borough Market on Fridays and Saturdays. I always get a half dozen or so of the largest ones available when I drop by -- the breakfast of champions!

After a 2 hour drive from London, we did get stranded, but only at the front door in the 2-hour queue (they don't take reservations). Our merry little crew kept ourselves sane with little seafood snacks from stalls by the nearby dayboat pier, and intermittently joining the kids to keep a hawkish eye on the fast-moving inventory.

We finally make it in, and let loose like hounds. The cold seafood platter (3 kinds of shrimp, 2 kinds of smoked fish, cockles and crab) is a must, as are the grilled scallops. I love it that they keep the coral on. Nothing to waste!

A toast to turning 30! The world is my oyster. Oh wait, maybe the other way around. In any case, try 'em both ways: cheekily chilled in the champagne we bought, and baked in hot cheese.

Rick Stein's Seafood Restaurant, Padstow, Cornwall

If you're up for seafood of a much splashier kind, Rick Stein's flagship establishment in his Padstow empire on the Cornish Coast is a good bet. Thanks to old friends SL and P-Diddy for pointing us here as a stop for our South-west roadtrip (back in our yuppier days).

Babs and I played hot and cold with the starter list. A diabolical pairing of raw oysters and chorizo (who knew!), and beautiful plate of sashimi.

When in doubt, get a platter of everything. Babs and I are hopelessly indecisive when it comes to ordering food...

Afterwards, pay a visit to The National Lobster Hatchery, just a few steps from Rick Stein's. This fantastic institution works with local fishermen to collect and hatch lobster eggs, and nurtures baby lobsters through their most vulnerable period before setting them free into local waters. You can adopt lobster, or a family of them, and track their release.

For you fellow seafood fiends out there, this is kinda like the crustacean version of a carbon-offsetting programme. Visit their website for other donation and volunteering opportunities.

Above: Lobsters are so yummy that they even eat each other! So the National Lobster Hatchery keeps each baby lobster in its own individual compartment during their most cannibalistic period.

I mentioned briefly about how oysters mate, but do you know how lobsters mate? Trevor Corson does, and tells it well in colourful but digestible detail in his wonderfully educational and entertaining book The Secret Life of Lobsters. A fun foodie read for that bus or train ride to any of the shellfish spots mentioned above.

Have a brilliantly briny weekend!

Wheelers Oyster Bar
8 High St
Whitstable
CT5 1BQ, UK
+44 1227 273311

The Company Shed
129 Coast Rd
West Mersea, Colchester, Essex
CO5 8PA, United Kingdom
+44 1206 382700

Rick Stein's Seafood Restaurant
Riverside, Padstow
PL28 8BY, UK
+44 1841 532700

Travel tip: in advance and you can save up to 43% off the fare sold at the station.

Dubrovnik's Edible Adriatic Aquarium

A few of my favourite fellow food dorks and I recently started an annual summer tradition I like to call "Melfi Mayhem". Using our friend Melf's birthday as a launchpad, we'd pick an idyllic location to eat, drink and be very very merry. The inaugural party in 2008 was on The Almalfi Coast in Italy, and this year we pounded the pintxos bars in San Sebastian in the north-east corner of Spain. We may have to take a meaty meander to Buenos Aires next year, but I have officially submitted Dubrovnik as a location candidate for 2011.

The pitch: Sapphire blue waters for swimming (still with various types of fish to keep you company no less, so go while you can), vermillion sunsets, an on-the-ball but chilled out service culture, and quite the formidable edible Adriatic aquarium, at reasonable prices.

Here are 3 fine fishy finds from the recce trip.

Konoba Lokanda Peskarija

This was a great first stop in Dubrovnik, thanks to the advice of our fabulous hostess at Rooms Olga. Located at the old fish market harbour, Konoba Lokanda Peskarija won us over with big pots of fresh local product at fair prices. Below, I play peekaboo with mussels while Babs parses out the risotto. The style of the risotto is more reminiscent of Portugal than Italian risotto or Spanish paella. Apparently the risotto ala terroir is the squid ink kind; I didn't order it only because I find the stuff really addictive and could end up eating it at every meal for our remaining 4 days (like I did on previous occasions in Barcelona and Venice).

Orsan

You can dine at the water's edge (literally) at Orsan, located at Dubrovnik's local yacht club, another recommendation from the owners of Rooms Olga. The octopus salad was beautifully crunchy, unlike the soggy and slightly powdery renditions in too many London locations. After hemming and hawing over mains, Babs and I embraced our indecision and got the seafood platter, with roasted squid, 2 kinds of fish and mussels. Oh for the days of a yuppy budget. Ah well. Sandwiches and fruit for lunch tomorrow it is, then.

Restaurant Lindo

Between getting a very late start and then getting off at the wrong bus stop -- which meant walking for another 30 minutes slightly uphill in the hot and muggy afternoon heat -- we got to Restaurant Lindo at the fairly awkward hour of 3.30pm for lunch. Their hospitality was as old school as their Croatian menu, thankfully.

The fish soup was simple but strong, and Babs is keen to replicate their home-made bread. Very unfortunately because we were between meal shifts I didn't get to try their slow roast meats (kept in a heavy iron pot and covered in hot ash on an open fire) as those need to be ordered in advance, but I was sufficiently placated by the house-special salad of tomatoes (at the height of their season in town judging by everyone's garden patches), cucumbers, onion, shrimp and a light yoghurt dressing. Think Indian raita pimped up with shrimp. I'll need to try making this when I have kitchen access again.

The waiter offers to fillet our grilled scorpion fish for us. We can't shoo him away fast enough. On the right is swiss chard cooked with potato, a popular local stodge-&-greens-in-one side dish.

After lunch, a little jaunt in a laser. I sit up front, clinging to the mast like Odysseus before sailing into siren-land. We scheme about coming back here sooner rather than later. Next time, up and around the Dalmation islands. With a bigger boat. And friends.

Konoba Lokanda Peskarija
Gorica Sv. Vlaha 77
20000 Dubrovnik, Croatia
+385 20 324747
(Couldn't get Gmap to pintpoint well, but this is easy to find. Just ask locals for the old fishmarket harbour, where the tour boats to the islands come and go)

Orsan
Ivana Zajca 2 (at the yacht club)
20000 Dubrovnik, Croatia
+385 20 435 933

Restaurant Lindo
Iva Dulcica 39, Babin Kuk
20000 Dubrovnik, Croatia
+385 20 448 351
(Follow directions to the President hotel resort. The restaurant is part of the accompanying low-rise retail complex)

Congee-ing Up Memories

There comes a time in every Asian's trek through Europe where you hit your limit of bread and cheese and cured meats, and inevitably start pining for the familiar rice-and-soy-based flavours of the East. Over these last few days in the Baltic states, my craving has been for porridge, and with it all the people at the table at the time. Authentic relief will have to wait, so best I can do for now is to congee up a few memories.

Growing up in Singapore, congee was always associated with rest and recuperation.

Until my Dad started going to church (when I was about age 9 or 10), each Sunday he would make a big vat of bone-still-in chicken congee, and after I got home from Sunday School we'd both spoon and pick through it watching the English Premier League soccer match of the week. Sometimes, if we dawdled, we'd drift into a Tamil or Hindi movie without English subtitles, and make up our own completely ridiculous plot and dialogue. It was a great way to recharge before Monday, for me at least.

Later, when my parents decided that Sunday would be a no-cooking day, congee became a Saturday breakfast affair, brought home as part of my Mum's weekly haul from the Marine Terrace Market . Whether it was with chunks of chicken and cuttlefish, or slivers of pork with century egg , my favourite part was (and still is) a raw egg cracked in. Bye bye hangover.

Whenever my brother or I fell ill, it'd be home-cooked congee on the table. Sometimes plain and soupy, with pickled chinese cabbage. Other times, bonanza! Porridge with the seafoody sweetness of dried scallop. However sick either of us were, there'd always be enough fight left in us to kick up a royal fuss if the other dared to nick some (and we always did).

Not altogether consciously at the time, I ended many a work week and started many a weekend with congee with friends. On many Friday nights, I'd be at a late night eatery in Hougang ordering up a Teochew porridge storm of little savoury dishes like salted duck eggs, minced pork patty steamed with salted fish, braised squid rings, and fried tofu skins braised in dark soy sauce to go with the comforting blandness of rice boiled in too much water. Saturday mornings saw a more Cantonese approach -- ingredients cooked with the rice into a savoury silken mix -- either at the upper floor of Tiong Bahru Market or House of Rice Roll & Porridge in River Valley. The combination of gruel, griping, giggling and gossiping was unfailingly good for the soul.

I lived only for a short while in New York, but in that period dragged anyone who would let me to Big Wong on Mott St each Saturday morning for congee and giant crullers (pictured above). I was pleasantly shocked when I visited this past May to find that their congee prices hadn't changed in a decade...at least not enough to notice. More recently while living in London, whenever I fell ill, I'd drag myself to Hung Tao on Queensway for porridge before slumping off home.

How is it that in all these years I've never learned to make this stuff? Maybe because anytime I'm really craving congee, I'm not in any state to cook. This obviously needs remedying when I reach Singapore in the spring, as part of this round-the-world trek.

In the meantime, how about you? What does congee conjure up for you? What's your favourite place(s) for great gruel or your recommended rice congee recipe?

House of Rice Roll & Porridge
75 Killiney Road
Singapore 239529
+65 6736 1355

Big Wong (recently renamed Big Wong King due to rivalry with a breakaway branch)
67 Mott Street
New York, NY 10013, USA

Hung Tao
51 Queensway
London, W2 4QH, UK
+44 20 7727 5753

A Spot of Dalmation Meat...

...From the Coast. Not the Dog. Which is what a teenage tourist sitting at a nearby table in Dubrovnik thought, with much indignance and too much volume. Babs and I strained not to snigger.

Anyhow, if you're in these parts -- and want a break from scarfing down the Adriatic aquarium (more on that soon) -- there are at least 2 Dalmation meat dishes you should try, which we did at Elirija, a tiny 5-table aromatic oasis of grilling meat in a street-long empire of cheap pizza in Dubrovnik's Old Town.

Cevapcici is ground meat spiced with salt, pepper, garlic, cayenne pepper and paprika, a touch of baking soda, and sometimes a drop of anise. Then fashioned into either fingers (as pictured below) or burger patties. Some chefs make it just with beef, others I hear use a beef-pork blend. I've had what is called a Hemingway burger at Cork & Bottle, a little wine cellar in Leicester Square in London, which uses a diabolical blend of beef, pork and lamb for its burger patty. When I eventually try making cevapcici at home, that's the blend I might experiment with. (Whaddaya know, a quick search for cevapcici recipes online showed exactly this pimped up 3-meat blend.)

Raznjici is simply chunks of pork on skewers, with similar seasoning.

Grill both, preferably on an open charcoal fire. Slather on an orangey red-pepper paste that is sweeter than it is spicy. Especially amazing when the grease is balanced out with rough-chopped raw onion. So we stink for hours afterwards. It's worth it.

For a grill with a view, climb as far as the stairs will take you up the city walls to Lady Pi-Pi, a magical grapevine-covered terrace overlooking Dubrovnik's Old Town, named after the statue on your right side of the photo below.

In Zagreb, a hefty cevapcici in a doughy wrap from Mrvica M Grill (a greasy spoon at the elbow of the road from the central bus station and the road from the central train station) at ~€3.50 a person was the perfect antidote to dinner the night before at Trilogija. Situated right by the Stone gate (Kamenita Vrata), Trilojia had interesting ideas e.g. seabass and squid-ink noodles, but unforgiveably bland execution. Given its menu's ambitious prices, the chef ought to be sent to the doghouse.

Elirija
Getaldiceva 10
Dubrovnik, Croatia

Lady Pi-Pi
Vl. Dinko Minjkovic
Peline
Dubrovnik, Croatia
+385 9 709 8644

Mrvica M Grill
Kneza Branimira 67, Tržnica Branimirova
Zagreb, Croatia
+385 461 4484

Cork and Bottle (for the Hemingway burger)
44-46 Cranbourn St
London WC2H 7AN, UK
+44...

A Bari Delightful Day

Maybe it's true that everything's better if you have no expectations. Or maybe we were so stressed out by Rome that the return to the charm of a less built up part of Italy was especially keenly felt. In any case, the 15 or so hours spent in the Adriatic port town of Bari -- our transit point between an overnight train from Rome and an overnight ferry to Dubrovnik -- were quite delightful.

Not that I could claim to know it beforehand, but Bari is the capital of the Puglia region and is the 2nd largest city after Naples in Southern Italy. In addition to fishing and trade, the city seems to thrive on a large grid of swank shopping boulevards.

Historically known as the exit doors of Italy where locals and visitors board boats for Greece and Croatia (as we did), the local government has been working hard to promote Bari as a destination in itself. Each September, for example, the city hosts the massive Fiera del Levante trade and industry fair. My ever-hip friend Goz also sent an alert about the avant garde Fame street art festival in Grottaglie -- an hour southeast of Bari -- opening in mid September this year (2009).

With much less ambition and agenda, we had breakfast at 8am at a cafe near the train station, and watched with bleary eyes the locals coming and going as they grabbed coffee and pastries on their way to work.

After, we decided to walk along the coastline in a bid to recce the port. Others also soaking in the morning light included clumps of heroically pot-bellied old men (talking and gesticulating at each other in that classically dramatic Italian fashion), and locals hunting among the sea-wall rocks for little fish and crabs. The man on the right proudly showed me his catch.

Babs joins in on some crab-hunting action with his camera.

I'm not a morning person, but if there's one thing I do like about having time to kill in the early hours of the day, it's checking out and dawdling at local markets, like the one at the entrance of Bari Vecchia, Bari's medieval old town.

Above: A vendor shelling mussels at the fish market in Bari Vecchia

Right across from the market we chanced upon Osteria Con Cucina, a subterranean dining room where we had a scrumptious 4-course lunch and coffee. There was no menu -- the owner just listed a few options for the primi and secondi courses. And there was no option to have only 1 course, as some tourists a few tables away tried to do. Each meal, no matter what you picked, came to €20 per person. This is more like the Italy I know and love!

Even more entertaining was sneaking glances at the big black suited Italian dude at the table next to us, reading the sports pages of the local paper. He scarfed down a platter of raw mussels, then a large plate of seafood linguine. Evidently he had access to a special menu, perhaps one reserved for non-tourists, or regulars, or members of the family, or members of the other family.

After Mr Big Black Suit was done he strode into the kitchen to chat with the chef, then to the bar to chat with the owner (I craned my neck to try in vain to see if he paid like everyone else) before leaving.

Ah well. Back to lunch.

Antipasti: Toasted bread rubbed with olive oil and tomato, with rocket and new potatoes; Bits of ham, olives and 2 types of cheese.

Primi: Bari's most famous dish (and rightly so), riso, patate e cozze (rice, potatoes and mussels) with everything cooked (baked?) in a briny stock. I'll need to try and make this sometime. Below: A very well made pasta with seafood, with clams, mussels, shrimp and squid.

Secondi: Roasted octopus, entirely intact. The waiter chuckled at how gleeful I was looking.

Dolci: Chilled watermelon -- a godsend for a scorching summer day.

The rest of the day was spent reading on park benches, walking around the town's old castles and churches (Wikipedia provides a good list with descriptions in its "Main Sights" section), searching in vain for an internet cafe, and even setting off on an eventually unsuccessful expedition to use the showers at the municipal swimming pool.

Eventually it came time to board our overnight ferry to Dubrovnik, where we again bought deck seats instead of bunks.

We settled in for the night on a couple of wooden benches on the outdoor deck under the stars, using our daypacks as pillows. We were sweaty and sticky, on the 2nd night in a row sleeping on the move. Usually I'd be in a slightly psychotic state by now, but I was still floating on the memory of a very delicious lunch.

It would seem that a little well-cooked pulpo can go a bari long way.

Osteria con Cucina
Strada Vallisa, 23
Bari, Italy

Rome Resting on Its Laurels

Setting the scene: The iconic symbol of the birth of Rome involves feeding -- the mythological founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus, were raised by wolves, literally. Romulus later kills his twin brother in a fit of one-upmanship.

Just before we left our WWOOFING gig in the Alpujarras in Spain, we bought a tin of sardines, a tin of scallops and a tin of razor clams. They were to be opened during emergenices only.

We opened the first tin in Rome.

We were placed in a B&B room near Rome Termini train station, different from the one we booked. This one had a bathroom you could barely turn around in, and a giant hole in the wall where the A/C vent was supposed to be. Cue hot air and noise from the street all night.

The only things we could see available for the catered breakfast were packets of croissants, which had a 2011 expiry date. I really don't want to know what the pastry was inundated with to give that kind of shelf life.

We knew Rome was going to be expensive, but was this really all that €50 a night was going to get us?

Perhaps not.

The next morning, the Chinese lady at front desk, upon realising that I spoke Mandarin (she had no English and I had no Italian) started ranting about how our inkeeper was "bullying" us. Apparently our original room had a damaged door -- which by this morning had been fixed -- so we should really get on the innkeeper's case and demand to be moved to our original room, instead of putting up with the tiny room that her B&B didn't even deign to rent out, but rather used only for staff to rest in during the day.

And so, in the heart of the Roman empire, counsel from the Chinese empire got us into the room we originally booked. Which, as it turns out, sleeps 3 people more than comfortably, and a kitchen full of toast, sausages, cheese, preserves and drinks for breakfast.

This happening upon our arrival in Rome sadly soured my view of the eternal city for our remaining time there. I couldn't quite shake the feeling that there was always a little something that the Romans were holding out on us. A little more on the plate. A little more information. Heck, in Julius Caesar's case, a little dagger behind the cloak.

In the case of Er Buchetto -- a 3-table hole in the wall -- near Rome Termini, it was just 1 or 2 more slices (or centimetres) of that delectable spicy grilled pork in their sandwich that would have made all the difference.

In the case of Trattoria Da Gino, a well known establishment next to the Parlianment Building frequented by politicians and journalists, it was the the minestrone I actually ordered (ie, with pasta, rather than rice). Otherwise, the lamb and osso bucco were decent bite-for-buck.

And, taking the cake, the waiter at L'Angoletto di Musei a few streets from the Vatican didn't bother to hint at what I was getting when I ordered "Angelo's special pasta". Ok, so Babs and I laughed ourselves silly once I got past the initial shock. But it goes to show.

What probably saved my blood from boiling over (figuratively and literally, given the sweltering 35 deg C afternoon heat) was Rome's gelaterias. San Crispino is the hailed as the Don of the genre in town, but my favourite (and the only real rave I have for Rome in this post) was Gelateria del Teatro, a tiny but rocketing up-and-comer with a mind-blowing watermelon granita. That unmistakeable chilled-ripe-watermelon scent of chlorophyll with a just a tinge of nectar is what I imagine rain in heaven will smell like. Stefano and Silvia, the husband-and-wife team that run the joint, use only natural and seasonal ingredients, sometimes hauled in by Stefano himself from the market on bicycle. All gelato is made in small batches onsite, and you won't get any hassle if you poke your head in the back to see what's in progress.

Above: Babs and I both go for grapefruit sorbet at San Crispino, I balance it out with melon while Babs tarts it up further with raspberry; A cup of watermelon heaven from Gelateria del Teatro

Right now, that watermelon granita might the only reason I would go back to Rome. Otherwise, it just felt like the city was using its ancient and religious sites to milk visitors, without much ongoing investment into striving to provide value for money or excellence in hospitality. Resting on its laurels, as it were.

Er Buchetto
Via del Viminale 2F (near Termini station)
Rome, Italy

Trattoria Da Gino
Vicolo Rosini 4
Rome 00186, Italy
+39 06 6873434

L'Angoletto ai Musei
Via Leone IV, 2A
Rome 00192, Italy
+39 06 39723187

Il Gelato de San Crispino
Via Panetteria 42
Rome Italy

Gelateria del Teatro
Via di San Simone 70
Rome 00186, Italy
+39 06 45474880

Take Me Back to BARCA!

"I think I've died and gone to heaven. I'm not coming back. I love you, have a good life."

So went the text I sent to fellow food dorks Kopibren and Melf the first time I stepped into Barcelona's massive La Boqueria market on La Rambla a couple of years ago.

I can't believe I let myself leave. (Who leaves heaven?!) Twice now. On both departures, the ever-unfolding cornocopia of treats both in the market and the neighbourhoods beyond left a growing, grating, gnawing feeling of unfinished business.

The only comfort - this means I'll have to come back. Again. And again. And again.

Chances are, you'll get to go before I do, so here are some highlights from what stood out most from my grazing haze. I know there's plenty more I've yet to try, so let me know what made it to the heavenly spheres of your list and I'll prioritise it for my next pilgrimage.

Boqueria Boogie

The first thing to do in Barcelona (and possibly also the 2nd, 3rd...and last thing) is to do a slow stroll along all the aisles of La Boqueria. The most cunning of visitors (e.g., my parents) rent a short-stay self-catering flat near the market so that their stomachs as well as their eyes can enjoy a VERY well balanced diet.

Above, left: I'd always wondered what those little caps at the bottom of jamon legs were for. Up in Las Alpujarras, I learned that it was to catch dripping fat. Mmmmmm....

Above, left: These strange looking tubular-with-a-beak shellfish are called percebes, or gooseneck barnacles. They thrive only on rocks heavily pounded by surf, so harvesting them is quite the task. They're considered a big-time delicacy in Spain, usually steamed or served in soup. Apparently the Spanish have eaten through their domestic supplies, and now are heavy importers from Canada

Above: Nice work if you can get it, being surrounded by a mushroom mountain all day

The done thing is to have tapas in the market, but you'll need to get there early, or else be very patient, or else put sharp elbows to good use. To boost your civility batteries, consider digging into some paella on the perimeter on the market. It also helps you to tour the market without going completely mad or bankrupting myself... I mean... yourself.

This time around we went to Bar-Restaurant Galdric which served an excellent and generous paella for 2 for €22. Last time around I plonked down at a stall in the same area but I forget the name. You can't miss it if it's open -- look for the colossal paella pan outside.

Crazy about Chocolate

There are plenty of smoothies, fruit salads and sweets at the market to tempt you for dessert. Or, you could wander a little east along Barri Gothic to Meson del Cafe, and indulge in a little churros and Spanish hot chocolate...the type that's so thick you could pick it up it with a knife...

The Spanish take their hot chocolate pretty seriously. We learned at the Chocolate Museum in Bruges that back in the day when chocolate was the fashionable and exotic import from South America and available only to the aristocracy, Spanish ladies had their servants bring them hot chocolate even during mass. This to-ing and fro-ing caused so much disruption that hot chocolate was banned from church. Church attendance promptly plummeted.

Tapas Tip

Right. Tapas. Whatever list I put together for now will be grossly incomplete. And the thing is, there are plenty of marquee names that will charge you an arm and a leg (e.g. I'm still working up my wallet's nerve to go to Cal Pep) and there are plenty of holes in the wall who will serve mediocre bites, microwaved after sitting on the shelf for a wee bit too long.

So, let me just send you to Cervesceria Cataluna in the Eixample distict, my favourite place for variety and value for money. There's always a waiting list for tables, but the real action is up at the 2 bars. Stalk a bar stool, pounce fast and mercilessly (the locals will give the tourist no quarter) and rotate the 1 barstool among your group if you need to. As long as someone has access to the staff to order food, you be so distracted by the food you'll barely notice you're not sitting down.

I particularly enjoyed the grilled cuttlefish, grilled mushrooms, miniature sirloin steaks and burgers.

Sweet Smelling

I found Papabubble quite by accident, by following the delightful scent of burning sugar down a few doors from our charming Hostel Blue on the bohemian C/ Ample. All the candy is made by hand onsite and make smart looking and tasty gifts for those who didn't make it to heaven.

Walking it Off

In between meals, the best thing to do is to walk and soak in the art and the energy of the vibrant city.

Above: The ongoing building of Gaudi's La Sagrada Familia; youths playing football at Parc Guell, also by Gaudi.

Above: This nstallation down by Port Vell gets a cheeky toilet-paper response on Rambla de Catalunya

Below: My personal favourite, even if I'm the the one being railed against

Mercat St Josep (La Boqueria)
La Rambla (Liceu station)

Restaurant Galdric
Passatge Virreina 2
08001 Barcelona, Spain
+34 685 580 922

Meson del Cafe
C/ Llibreteria 16 (Jaume I station)
08002 Barcelona, Spain

Cervesceria Catalana
C/ Mallorca 236
08008 Barcelona, Spain
+34 932 160 368

Papabubble
C/ Ample 28
08002 Barcelona, Spain
(Closed in August)

Martin Berasategui @ Restaurante Kursaal, San Sebastien, Spain

It was a 1-Michelin star restaurant headed by a 3-Michelin star chef, but the overall impact of the seasonal €75 tasting menu at Martin Berasategui @ Restaurante Kursaal in San Sebastien, Spain, felt like one of those boys you meet at a party whom you can't fault but at the same time can't feel any real spark for.

While each of the dishes were well executed technically, with flashes of creativity from the school of foam-this-and-jelly-that molecular gasto chefs, there just didn't seem to be that one true act of chutzpah, or one solid punch of witty humour to anchor the meal.

Or maybe it was an unfortunately over-active night out on the waterfront surrounding the Congress Hall and Auditorium, where the restaurant is located. The din of megaphones and new-age percussions on the performance stages outside jarred heavily with the piped jazz in the restaurant. The grand fireworks display for the visitors outside sadly showed more smoke than light to the diners inside. Molecular gastro chef giant Heston Blumenthal is a strong believer that eating is an experience of ALL the senses, so the cacaphony could well have distracted and destracted from the meal at hand.

Ultimately, you realise that these things are subjective, so you take said boy to one of those "pot luck" parties where your other girlfriends also bring boys they like but ultimately can't date, in the hope that chemistry will be found somewhere on the carousel.

So goes this write-up.

Perhaps you too have a executed-well-but-missing-a-spark dining experience to share?

By the Book

Trio of pre-starter starters: grilled green chili-peppers with sea salt; a shot of tomato consomme; and white anchovy sections with a creamy cheesy custard.

Spider crab in anchovy sauce, with crudites, salad leaves and flowers, and cauliflower cream.

Grilled white asparagus with pod-juice foam; and the first real trick of the evening -- peas and beans in beef-jus jelly.

Pan-roasted fish of the day in fish-skin sauce, with baked aubergine

The main event (at least to us): Crispy-skin roast suckling pig, with gravy made from the pig's ears, and apple cream.

I admit that Melf and I set impossibly high standards for this dish -- we both hold a deep bias that no one can roast pork like the Chinese (the next closest might be the Filipinos). But I held out hope, since I increasingly believe that no one raises pigs like the Spanish. (As I found out later, pigs in the Andalusian countryside at least, get to root around in figs and pomograntes, both of which grow wild and like weeds.)

The result?: Again, respectable, but not quite like the big-league suckling pig purveyors in Singapore or Hong Kong. The gravy was a bright spark, however -- talk about making a silk purse from a sow's ear, eh.

And then a seemingly endless stream of desserts. French toast with licorice ice-cream; spicy peach gnocchi (very reminiscent of Jelly-Belly-style concoctions) and coconut ice-cream.

Pistachio custard with coffee syrup; Berries and cream; and little almond cakes.

Restaurante Kursaal
Avda. de la Zurriola, 1
20002 San Sebastien, Spain

WWOOFING in Spain Part 3 - Clandestine Meatings

So the thing is, our WWOOF hosts at the finca in Spain are vegetarians.

I walked into this eyes wide open. I figured between the veggie diet and doing manual work in the sun for 5 hours a day, it would be my healthiest phase since...ever. I was also curious to see how much I would (or maybe wouldn't, who knows) miss meat.

And it was all good, for any 3-4 days running. Veggie home-cooking was varied, hearty and tasty. But then, on day 5, the inevitable gnawing, rumbling, acid-juices-in-my-mouth-seeping craving for a chunk of meat would descend like a slow madness. I would glance askance at our hosts' dogs Zumbar and Oliva with their scavenged goat bones from the nearby gypsy compound. While the finca chickens hatched eggs, Babs and I hatched embarrasingly evil plots (e.g. what would a wolf-chewed hole in the henhouse need to look like?).

So on our days off, we'd scuttle across the dry river bed and 20 minutes uphill into Orgiva town and beyond, on the hunt for meat. This being Spain, the locals were only too happy to oblige. Here are a few of the high points from our clandestine meatings if you're visiting.

Bar El Tinao, Capileira

Midway through our stint, we spent a weekend away in Capileira, an hour by bus up the Sierra Nevada from Orgiva. I had a good feeling about Bar El Tinao when I saw our hostel manager from Hostal Rural Atalaya walk in with his family for dinner.

Around here, in the old Spanish custom, tapas come free when you order a drink. We got served pork skewers, hot off the grill, marinated with (I think) salt, pepper, paprika and a flash of tumeric. I bit down on one, uttered a slightly embarrassing sound of pleasure, then put my head down on the bar counter to chew.

El Asador, Capileira

After walking a couple of rounds around Capileira (and walking away from any restaurant with a sizeable vegetarian section on their menu) we followed the smell of mea on hot charcoal to El Asador, which listed roasted kid (baby goat) as a house speciality. I'd had curried goat before, but never kid. It tastes uncannily like turkey. If it wasn't for the different bone structure I would have sworn they did a bait and switch.

We also tried the Plato Alpujarran, also known in these parts as "poor man's breakfast". It had spicy chorizo and morcillo (black pudding sausage), 2 eggs, and potatoes fried with onions, peppers and jamon. What on earth do the rich people eat for breakfast?

As an aside, the mountain Spaniards are evidently big fans of morcillo. While sipping expresso and watching the F1 back at Bar El Tinao the next day, I watched a family of 6 order a whole platter of the stuff as part of brunch. I thought 12 links for 6 people was pretty serious. Then the table of 4 next to them ordered the same.

Bar El Tilo, Capileira

A lot of chorizo and jamon is cured up here in the mountains (there are apparently a myriad of pig slaughtering festivals in mountain villages each January, which I will have to weasel my way into at some point in my life). So a sampling platter of the region's pride had to be done. We got this €10 platter below at Bar El Tilo.

Above: Yes, the stuff in the middle is pure fat, which I've heard some locals refer to as "white meat". (Gotta love the Spanish). The mid-July afternoon sun was so hot that the fat started rendering right there on the wooden board.

Pollos Manolo Fernandez, Orgiva

These are the only Manolos I would ever spend any time lining up for.

On Thursdays, when the entire town square in Orgiva becomes a makeshift market, Mr Manolo Fernendez -- with his magnificent smile and even more magnificent 'tache -- pulls up with his even more maginificent rotisserie truck. The wall of chickens going round and round and round is absolutely mesmerising, especially when he flicks ladles of drippings at the grill to get a WOOSH of flame. The smell that wafts down the street is maddening.

Somehow, the cluster (there is no actual line) squished around his little kiosk and spilling into the road managed to keep their civility, even while dodging passing cars. Everyone's honest about their place in the queue, and while waiting I saw a man give his place to a woman with kids and bags of shopping, and she in turn gave her place to an old biddy lady. Another woman in the line even gave the neighbourhood drunk €2 so that he could afford a full €8 box.

At closing time, when the crowd has been sated, a woman poked her head out from the apartment across the street, sauntered across, and picked up a few of his last chickens without any wait. Babs asks me if we should buy that apartment. I tell him not to tease.

Casa Robles, Orgiva

When we asked for a recommendation for a traditional Spanish restaurant in Orgiva, Anthony pointed us to Casa Robles, though he couldn't vouch for the meat. No fear, however. The house special leg of lamb was superb, its savouriness well-mixed with a honey coating. And I figure I can trust an eatery that proactively apologises for the smallness of their (normal looking) spring chicken.

Even though we were there for meat, credit must be given to Casa Robles's use of strawberries -- organic and straight from the garden of owner Mr Jesus Mesa Torres. We tried a very refreshing strawberry gazpacho with crumbled mountain jamon, and couldn't say no to Mr Torres's strawberry flambe recommendation for dessert. Just as well; the full-on performance by Mr Torres himself provided entertainment with dinner.

Above, right: "You must be careful when you flambe...I used to have hair!" quips Casa Robles's Mr Torres while preparing dessert.

When all is said and done (and eaten), perhaps there's something to this part-time vegetarianism thing. It can't hurt your health, and it's less taxing on the environment. It's how people of old use to eat, after all, living mostly on roots and leaves and fruits in between big but infrequent hunts.

But perhaps most persuasive of all is the sky-high spike in pleasure when hunkering down after a period of not meating up. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, eh.

Bar El Tinao
C. Carril
18413 Capileira, Spain
+34 657 626 736

El Asador
Carretera Sierra Nevada
18413 Capileira, Spain
+34 958 763 109

Bar El Tilo
Plaza Calvario
Capileira, Spain
+34 958 763 181

Pollos Manolo Fernandez
Orgiva Market Day (Thursdays)
Next to Bar Augustin

Casa Robles
Avda. Gonzalez Robles, 10
18400 Orgiva, Spain
+34 609 364 412

"

San Sebastian Pintxos Pack a Punch

First things first. A toast to Sunny D for pitching San Sebastian, Spain, to celebrate Melf's birthday and see us off on our big gallavant. The Amalfi Coast last June was a staggering act to follow, but this turned out to be a more than respectable sequel. In fact, by the end of the long June weekend, Sunny D quipped: "this might just be the perfect holiday destination". From my beach mat, I found it hard to argue.

San Sebastian, on the Basque-proud northwest corner of Spain, has sun, sea, sand, and more Michelin stars per sq km than any other city on earth. AND not too many big sightseeing icons that make one (or at least the Melf in your crew) feel vaguely guilty about your neverending gluttonous waltz of food-beach-bar, food-beach-bar, food-beach-bar. AND most people party in sandals and flip-flops (evidently my kind of people). AND, as I kept experiencing, locals in San Sebastian would rather set you in the right direction, than make a quick hapless-tourist buck off you, if they didn't feel like their wares or services were the right fit.

But most of all, San Sebastian has pintxos. Pintxos are the Basque term for tapas, historically referring to the piece of bread or jamon that the bartender would use to cover (tapa) your glass of pre-dinner wine to protect it from flies as well as line your stomach. As time went by they evolved into an art form of their own. In my books they are a tongue-twister (and temptor) of petite punchy parcels of pure pleasure, prepped, plated, and preening for patrons as far as the eye can see, especially in the Old Town area where we stayed. Peruse, poke about for the speciality of the house, pick up and plow into just one or a platter. Repeat a couple of doors down (so pace yourself).

Given there were 8 of us, we got everyone to pick a pinxtos bar, with the following 3 rules:

1. Follow the crowd. If you're a newbie with limited time, there's no point finding out the hard way why an empty bar is an empty bar
2. Listen hard to the languages spoken by the patrons in the bar. Stay if it's mostly Spanish (or the Basque dialect Euskedi), leave if it's mostly something else
3. Survey for 1 or 2 items that stand out; move on if it looks like just more of what you've already had

Given we also got a sangria, beer or the local wine Tixoli at each stop, our jaunt soon descended into a delicious graze-maze-haze. But here are a few spots that stood out, hopefully a helpful starter list for you.

A Fuego Negro

Thanks to Goz (who didn't travel with us) for this recommendation. A Fuego Negro was a glamourous looking avant-garde take on the old-school bar layout, reportedly started by 3 20-somethings who had earned their stripes working with the old guard in their earlier years. Sunny D and Melf strided in and said the magic words in any serious food establishment: "Could the chef do us some of his recommendations please". And so he did.

Above: Foie gras, and a shot glass of mussels marinated in a strange sweet and fizzy concoction of tomato and (I'm convinced) strawberry broth.

Above: Grilled scallop with truffle bits, and a delectable miniature-burger with banana(?) chips

Above: Signature Spanish jamon, and chunks of grilled tuna with some very fashionable foam

Quite the opening act. But as we found out, the old guard was nowhere near throwing in the towel.

La Cepa

Sunny D picked this one after he saw it in an Anthony Bourdain episode. Jamon seemed to be the headline act here (even the beer taps are jamon-shaped). Then I wandered on to the back and found mounds of gourmet mushrooms that made my eyes damn near pop out.

Lovely golden chantarelles aka girolles, and fist-sized porcinis aka boletus aka cepes! We went for a half-&-half sampler for €20. They came sliced, grilled with olive oil, sea salt and bits of parsley and pepper, and a raw egg for dipping. They weren't magic mushrooms, but they might as well have been. Melf describes it best: "What did you order? Is this foie gras?"

Sunny D, Babs and I went back hankering for more the next day. Our waitress recognised us with much amusement and threw in some chorizo on the house.

Egosari

This one was my pick, after spotting their big seafood-on-ice display in their entrance. Their house special is grilled seafood skewers, but jamon, foie and mango also proved to be a genius combination. I was amused at how quail eggs are used as chicken egg substitutes for combining with jamon, chorizo or bacon to form pintxo-sized breakfast sandwiches.

Bar Etxaniz

Bar Etxaniz was a tiny hole in the wall, packed to the gills with such a good vibe that we had to elbow and dodge our way in. I gunned for the cuttlefish cooked in its own savoury ink, while kopibren couldn't resist the rude looking sausages.

Above: The vibe gets very good...and giggly.

La Mejillonera

Mejillon is Spanish for mussels, so this find felt like karmic payback for being deprived of expensive mussels in Bruges a little while back. Each platter here cost only €3, so we tried one with salsa verde, and one with a garlicky gravy. While waiting I peered along the bar's back wall, which showed explanations of how mussels are cultivated in various parts of Europe.

Foundation Fare

These photos below give a sense of the staples found in a myriad of bars. I'm not yet enough of an expert to say which bar to go to for the absolute best version of each, so best to follow (again) the locals, and your gut.

Above: Anchovy cocktail skewers. I really like this fresher, less briny variety compared to the super salty type you use to make paste in a sauce. (Right) pulpo aka octopus, served here with olive oil and paprika. I'd eat these every day if I could

Above: Sausages galore. Chorizo slices, and (right) morcilla aka black pudding aka blood sausage

Above: Cod, hake, tuna and monkfish are the big-fish staples in these parts. Unfortunately all 3 are severely overfished species, so I tried my best to take a see-no-touch approach on these. There were fantastic anchovy, sardine and squid options to serve as worthy distractions

Above: Gambas aka prawns were everywhere, on sticks and in little tarlets. I can't quite fathom the prepping process that must happen all day all night every day and night

Above: Slightly more unusual findings included "fish throats", which I think is the loosest bit of skin in the gill-belly area, judging by the fishmongers I was watching in the morning; and what looked like baby eel or noodles, but are called "gulash(?)" which a bartender said was some kind of local fish.

I found endless more bar recommendations when I really started digging into some background research after this stop, so if you've road-tested other bars that you think should definitely be checked out next time (I'm cradling ambitions of making this an annual pilgrimage), I'd love to hear from you.

Lastly, for the pintxos paragons among you, San Sebastian also offers a pinxto workshop every Saturday, hosted by local masterchefs. The workshop includes a tour of the traditional market, a walkaround of the bars of the Old Town area, and a hands-on session. I kept the brochure in my cargo pants throughout the stint before finally deciding that the €115 fee would have to wait till next time. Ah well. A great excuse to come back. In addition to all those Michelin stars.

¡Buen provecho!

A Fuego Negro
C/ 31 De Agosto / Abuztuaren 31-KO Kalea 31
20003 Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain
+34 65 013 5373

La Cepa
Calle 31 de Agosto, No. 7,
20003, San Sebastian, Spain
+34 94 342 6394

Egosari
Calle Fermín Calbetón, No. 15,
20003 San Sebastian, Spain
+34 94 342 8210

Bar Etxaniz
C/ Fermin Calbeton / Fermin Calbeton Kalea 24
20003 San Sebastian, Spain
+34 94 342 6259

La Mejillonera
Calle del Puerto 15
20003 San Sebastián, Spain
+34 94 342 8465

Maastricht Meander

Maastricht -- nestled in a corner of Netherlands between Belgium and Germany -- was much more about catching up with friends Chris and Saskia rather than going on our usual food excursion. Nonetheless, here are a few places from the weekend that stood out, if you happen to be in the area.

Chris picked us up from the train station in Hasselt, Belgium, and promptly took us to Grand Cafe, where there are more than 300 beers on offer. Among others, Babs tries the Brugse Babbelaar (natch). We also get introduced to bitterballen -- deep fried creamy-flour-&-bits-of-mystery-meat croquettes, dipped in mustard and curry ketchup. These are apprently quite the regional delicacy. According to Wikipedia, "They are eaten in the Netherlands and Belgium, and hardly anywhere else."

Saskia, who works for a company that provides care for the disabled, took us to a cute cafe owned by her company in Maastricht. Called Doe Gewoon, it translates loosely to "Do Normally". The kitchen and waitstaff are mentally challenged, but are capable and independent enough to work under supervision. Their offerings include an open-face tuna and anchovy sandwich, warm goat cheese and apple salad, and Dutch-style beef stew with chips. Frankly, we got better service and food here than at some "normal" restaurants.

During our afternoon meander, we were introduced to a famous bakery in town called Bisschopsmolen (Bishops Mill). An old water mill, dating back to the 11th century, was restored in 2004 and now mills its own locally grown grains that then get baked and transformed right on the premises into delicious treats. I reckon you can trust the quality of a bakery when the cashier sees you snapping with a camera and then happily gestures you into the kitchen to show off the baking team (right down to gleefully pinching their biceps).

We were also treated to some home-grilled hospitality. The highlight of the BBQ was Chris's eggplant spread. The recipe is as follows:

Wash and dry 2 eggplants, prick them in various places with a fork (to prevent the skin from bursting) then put them in a roasting dish and in the oven approx 180 deg C for 30 min until they sag and look a bit smoky. Scrape out the insides and discard the skin. Roughly chop the cooked flesh. Combine with chopped garlic and onions, a dash of basil and oregano, salt, ground black pepper, olive oil and a splash of lemon juice.

Simple, and fabulous on bread.

On our last day at Chris and Saskia's, Sunshine, the youngest of Saskia's current batch of 6 Tonkinese cats, refuses to get off my stomach. Surely your time could be better spent than blogging about food all day, she stares accusingly. I tell her to read it before she knocks it. So she does.

Man. Tough room.

Grand Cafe, Het Hemelrijk
Hemelrijk, 11 - 3500 Hasselt, Belgium
+32 11 222 851

Doe Gewoon
Boschstraat 98
6211 AZ Maastricht, Netherlands
+31 43 3500 169

Bisschopsmolen (Bishops Mill)
Stenenbrug 1-3
6211 HP, Maastricht, Netherlands
+31 43 3270 613

Constant Craving in Paris

First, many thanks to Ann, who housed us in Paris, so that we could go at all. May your generosity be equally apparent in your dishes when you start culinary school in the fall.

"you got very hungry when you did not eat enough in paris because all the bakery shops had such good things in the windows and people ate outside at tables on the sidewalk so that you saw and smelled the food. when you had given up journalism and were writing nothing that anyone in america would buy, explaining at home that you were lunching out with someone, the best place to go was the luxembourg gardens where you saw and smelled nothing to eat all the way from the place de l'observatoire to the rue de vaugirard. there you could always go into the luxembourg museum and all the paintings were sharpened and clearer and more beautiful if you were belly-empty, hollow-hungry. i learned to understand cezanne much better and to see truly how he made landscapes when i was hungry. i used to wonder if he were hungry too when he painted..."
-- A Moveable Feast, by Ernest Hemingway

My Dad introduced me to Hemingway 11 years ago with the passage above, just before my first trip to Paris. The words were striking then, but the spark of truth in them set ablaze raw nerves this time around when Babs and I hit Paris on a tight budget, trying to conserve cash for when we were going to meet up with our fellow food dorks in San Sebastien.

1st row above: Asparagus and €49/kg wild mushrooms; The olive and spice counter at the food hall of Le Bon Marche, reportedly the world's first department store, on Rue de Sevres.
2nd row above: I'm not the only food paparazzi in Paris... but I did manage to catch a (crappy) shot of the Delicious Don of Rue St Dominique, Christian Constant, in the window of his latest venture, Les Cocottes.

This sojourn was clearly going to require superhuman levels of disipline, and a litle strategy.

I cross-referenced food bloggers Chez Pim, Chocolate and Zucchini, David Lebovitz and Dorie Greenspan, to triangulate a view on what was going to get us maximum bite for buck in Paris. I also sent out a Twitter SOS to see what friends who had gone before would advise. Here's a summary of learnings from this reluctantly frugal foodie.

Tip #1: When Tight on Dough in Paris, Eat Bread

Paris no doubt gags with gastronomy, but in reality many locals dine very simply for dinner on bread, cheese, maybe a little something else, and probably a glass of wine. So to buy research time, we joined the locals in the breadlines and bought baguettes, baguettes, and more baguettes, and picnic-ed on park benches, bridges, and by Ann's little balcony.

Above: Deli-bought tomato and mozzarella baguette and rabbit terrine for €6 per person, dined on at the Luxenbourg Gardens (as per Sunny D and Hemingway's advice); Market-bought tomato, comte cheese and onion marmalade baguette, probably for ~€3 per person

Tip #2: Settle in with the Early Settlers

Another good tip from Sunny D was to eat ethnic, specifically from the groups that had well-established enclaves in Paris. Chez Pim and David Lebovitz provided 2 gems: Fabbo pho and falafel, at La Bambou and L'As du Fellafel respectively.

La Bambou in P'lace de Italie -- a neighbourhood chockablock with Chinese, Thai, Japanese, Vietnamese and Laotian eateries -- was our first sit-down dinner in Paris. At 9.30pm there was still a line out the door and once we got through, there was a cacophony of Cantonese, Vietnamese, and French from Asian faces. Good signs of street cred.

I ordered the house special pho (a.k.a. with everything -- beef slices, meatballs, tendon, and how could I say no in Paris...tripe). Babs and I also caved into appetizer avarice, and shared a salad with prawns, jellyfish and slices of belly pork. By the time I was digging into the cauldron of beef broth that showed clear respect for lovely bones and boiling time, I was tearing with happiness....and the deliciously fierce red chili slices.

L'As du Fellafel, on the other hand -- and the other bank, in Paris's thriving Jewish quarter -- provided a bargain stand-up dinner of pita overstuffed with moist falafel or meat of choice, with shredded cucumber, red cabbage, smoky grilled eggplant cubes, garlicky tahini and a sweet chili sauce. Oy veh!

Tip #3: For Fine Food, be Finicky

Over the 3 days we were in Paris, I slowly crafted a priority list in my head for the requirements of our headline (waistline?) act. I wanted 1) traditional French cuisine; 2) the traditional French cheffing approach of basing the day's menu on the best of the market offerings; and 3) not having to sell a kidney to pay the bill.

Christian Constant's cafe -- inspired by the recipes of his Basque-region grandmother -- fit the bill perfectly. We trekked a little east of the Eiffel Tower, and down Constant's growing Rue St Dominque stronghold, which houses his gastronomic HQ, fish foundry, cocotte canteen, and Cafe Constant.

Once inside, we dawdled over the chalkboard menu, and finally decided on 1 pre-fixe (i.e. bargain) 2-course meal and another 2 courses ala carte.

Pre fixe menu: A warm rocket salad with prawns and parmesan, followed by a very old school pork loin and lentils

Ala carte: A chunky lobster ravioli in bisque, followed by beef tenderloin on a bed of rocket (always a great pairing) and very creamy savoury mash.

Babs spotted Monsieur Constant making the rounds with the customers, but I have to admit I was very happily distracted at the time.

Afterwards....a delicious afternoon nap at the foot of the Eiffel Tower.

Bon appetit, frugal foodies. And if you have other max-bite-for-buck recommendations for Paris, please do share your expertise here. Paris may be a moveable feast, but I for one am hoping to go back, this time hopefully before another 11 years go by.

La Bambou
70, Rue Baudricourt
75013 Paris, France
+33 1 45 70 91 75

L'As de Fellafel
34, Rue Rosiers
75004 Paris, France
+33 1 48 87 63 60

Cafe Constant
139, Rue St Dominique
75007 Paris, France
+33 9 75 82 08 07

Brooklyn Beef Brawl

High noon, Brooklyn. Williamsburg Bridge. South side. Broadway. The streets are quiet. An empty plastic bag rustles by. The breeze brings with it that unmistakably delectable waft of...sizzling beef fat. I imagine this must always be the case on this street. Whether it means to or not, Broadway is Brooklyn's Beef Block, a divine bovine response to Manhattan's Museum Mile.

On one corner, weighing in at “family members have been personally choosing its USDA Prime porterhouses each day since 1887...and they take only cash or their in-house credit card” was Peter Luger – the only beef joint I could get anyone to talk about for the last 3 years, be they New Yorkers, Londoners or Singaporeans.

On the other corner, weighing in at “they take whole carcasses – a Volkswagon's worth of organic grass-fed beef – and each week divvy all of it up between their 3 restaurants and butcher store... and make up the menu daily depending on what's in season at local organic producers” were (relative) newcomers Mark Firth and Andrew Tarlow, who owned Diner, Marlow & Sons, and Marlow & Daughters, all on the same street.

Perhaps it was time for a high-steaks duel.

The Peter Luger dining room had the air of a training gym when Babs and I went last week. Next to our table, a Chinese family, a Filipino family and 2 tough looking Russians in track suits and sneakers all had brows furrowed with quiet concentration. A few were showing a shimmery hint of sweat. Their common sport: chewing.

We had picked a walk over the Brooklyn Bridge as our appetizer / warm up, so swung straight for the porterhouse for 2, with creamed spinach and fries on the side.

I was revving up my skepticism. “USDA Prime” is apparently largely based on the quality of fat marbling on the steer, rather than what it's fed or how it's raised. The US industry standard these days, apparently, is to house cows jammed shoulder to shoulder, knee deep in their own poo, chewing and on too much corn and soybeans and developing nasty stomachaches, since it's unnatural food for them, but is apparently great for building up restaurant-friendly marbling quickly. Cue routine doses of anti-biotics and medication as a result. If Peter Luger was using a less industrially-raised type of beef, they sure weren't telling anyone about it on their website.

The dilemma was, this is the crème de la crème of the kind of beef my generation grew up on. So it took just one bite to hit all the neural transmitters. The juicy pink chunk tasted as creamy as its hue looked, with good resistance as well as yield to the tooth. We were sitting down but I still felt my knees buckle.

I was looking forward to seeing what kind of fight young turk chef Sean Rembold across the street would put up.

After an afternoon expedition to Coney Island as a palate cleanser, Babs and I rocked up to Diner just as the dinner shift started. The bartender was still furiously scribbling the specials of the day. A crazy-haired lady dining alone in a booth behind us was poring over a book on chicken pot pies, and the 1961 edition of the The New York Times Cook Book. Good omens.

I opened with the in-season rhubarb-based cocktail, and followed with the slow cooked beef shank with grits, broth, and scallions. It came with a knife, a fork, and a spoon. I ended up not even needing the first 2. The shank simply fell away into meat tendrils at a touch. The rich broth infused the humble grits with a personality trust fund.

This was a new bench mark in comfort food – almost convalescent. Then the peppery green scallions, slicing through the natural grease of the meat, would snap one out of one's gently descending stupor. I sighed with contentment as I pushed back the empty plate, still warm.

My brother was already texting from Boston, demanding to know who was the Baron 'o' Beef on Broadway. I was delighted to tell him to try both on his next trip to New York. And don't forget to suck down some local oysters at Marlow & Sons.

Cop out, he replied.

Possibly. But why force a choice? Is there really a good answer to "which is the Ace of Art", between the Met and the Guggenheim? The beauty of New York was that this town -- even when it's the same street -- is big enough for both.

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Peter Luger
178 Broadway
Brooklyn, NY 11211

Diner
85 Broadway
Brooklyn, NY 11211