Le Meurice (Paris) 01/2013

                                                                The restaurant at this grand hotel on the Rue Rivoli, opposite the Tuilleries is renowned for the magnificence of it’s dining room as well as the food presented by Chef Yannick Alleno. We had decided that the set price New Years eve menu was too expensive to bare at about A$1700 / head before drinks but decided to have lunch a few days later. There were two set menus A$150 or A$320/head and an a la carte menu with dishes ranging from about A$80 upwards for entrees and up to about A$300 for mains. The menu in the evening is very little different, most of the degustation being the same, and about A$30 dearer. This is very much the upper end of top class Paris hotels, a room for one night is about A$1400.
 

When we were seated and remarked on the splendour of the room                                                                 the waiter assured us that the food would match it and the service would be exemplary and it was indeed faultless.

Show plates  are cut out in the centre and remain on the table for dishes to be served in them.

An amuse bouche before the meal was a pretty presentation of squash three ways, as a biscuit, as a lokum with date and as a mousse. It was sweet and flavoursome with a slightly pumpkin like taste.

                                                                The first course was raw shellfish, oyster, scallop, clam, calamari and sea urchin coral served with a sweet red cabbage jelly with Juniper berries and a touch of ponzu. This was decorated with edible foraged flowers and tiny enoki mushrooms. Very simple but simply delicious for crustacean lover. The meld of flavours were the work of  a master(10/10).

Translucent shredded cod with olive oil had a garlic which had been deep fried and filled with petal shaped potato with vinegar and water cress.  A simple set of ingredients that blended perfectly to make a delicate dish. The cod quite wonderful, So simple, so good.

                                                         Poached duck foie gras in consommé, melting daikon radish. We were beginning to feel the genius of Yannick Alleno’s cooking. The dish was again marked by the same characteristics of simplicity of ingredients combined gently, without being over fussy to produce exquisite combinations.
 

                                                                   Wild sea bass came next with fricassee of potatoes and black truffle in a jus. This is an exceptionally fine fish at any time but could not have been better than this.
.                                                                   As with all the dishes a waitress brings them on a large tray from which two waiters take them and bring them to the table in unison. If they are covered the waiters the raise the covers simultaneously revealing the food. If one leaves the table before finishing a dish a waiter quickly appears, provides a fresh napkin and covers the dish again until you return!
                                                               Fillet of milk fed lamb with fresh herbs, cutlet with sweet peppers and black pudding.  Cooked as requested the lamb was what can only be obtained from the best butchers. Another distinguishing feature of all these dishes has been the jus. In every case it has been light and flavour some and formed part of the dish rather than dominating it as happens very often even in very good restaurants at times. Mashed potato, creamy and smooth came separately.

 Thin tartlet of  Parmiggiano Reggiano, riquette salad mixed with taggiasche black olives. Comments would be superfluous. I do not usually care for the taste of olives but here, again, nothing was dominant and the parts were greater than the whole.

                                                           Several desserts followed, including sponge cxake with lemon, cristal leaves with tequila sorbet.
                                                             Roasted heart of pear with caramel, stuffed cocoa biscuits with chocolate, which was magnificent and sundry other sweet delights.

We drank a splendid 2009 St Joseph Domaine Pierre Gaillard and a very good Volnay - Pitures 2005 made by Jean -Marc Boillot wine by the glass at quite moderate prices.
Truly the best lunch either of us has ever had.
Score:19.5 /20

L'Hotel (Paris) 01 /2013

This charming small restaurant in the Rue Beaux-Art is in the hotel where Oscar Wilde lived in Paris for the last six years of his life.

   

The restaurant is reached by passing through three small dark lounges. The room is
 small but quite lavish
                                                                 but the columns are not marble and it creates a faux impression.

.                                                               . As we have discovered at several fine restaurants here the toilets are some way away and are often reached via narrow winding staircases. It is easy to bet confused in trying to find the way back to the eating area!
                                                                                                                                                                                        Seating is on fairly low satin covered chairs with cushions and prettily upholstered lounges. making them comfortable.

Tables are white clothed with napkins and good quality cutlery.                                                                     Three waiters adequately looked after the patrons.

They have a set price lunch which is very reasonable for three courses about $75, or an a la carte menu for those who want more choices. Wine can easily more than double the bill. Before the first course the chef sent out an extremely fine amuse bouche a light parsnip puree over some tiny cubes of potato. Superb.

This was followed by a set of four tastes: A small cube of smoked salmon, a truffle cream filled pipe of biscuit, a small cheese bread and a cone of fenestrated chips. This was also a delectable little entrée.

The first course was a choice pate or scallops. The pate de foie gras was pan seared pressed and came with pink grape fruit and milk bread. The acidity set it off the pate beautifully.                                                                The scallops, from Normandie, were presented with artichoke, artichoke mousse and thin slices of apple and had a lemon butter sauce. Ever so slightly over seared for my personal taste the dish otherwise was a creation of gentle flavours with each part making a contribution that blended to make the whole so much better than its parts.

Mains were fish or fowl. The two broad strips of roasted Bresse chicken breast were accompanied by potatoes, bacon and artichokes again making a superior dish.

The fish was cod, cooked in the skin was as good as it could possibly be. The skin was crisp and the fish delicate. It came with sweet onion and a shell fish broth. The taste and feeling of it lingers on, it was so very very good.

A cheese plate was thin slices of yellow comte with a fine slice of jellied pear and grated truffle. Little as it was the truffle aroma was very powerful. The pear and cheese were excellent.                                                           Dessert was elaborate: Chantilly noisettes, pate de marron (Chestnut), marron biscuits, flowers, lemon cress and gold leaf! This was beautifully presented and delicious, almost too pretty to eat.

Finally we had coffee and petit fours.

This meal, at a one star restaurant, cost one tenth of our New Years Eve dinner had we not added an expensive bottle of champagne and was better balanced, less elaborate, and the better for that too, and far better value for a really good meal, about what a three course meal would set you back at a decent suburban Melbourne bistro. Definitely somewhere very nice to go for lunch in Paris

Score 16.5/20

Ah Yat Harbour View Restaurant (Hong Kong) 12/2012

Recently elevated with a second star by Michelin Ha Yat, on the 29th floor of the I Square building is dsitinguished by outstanding views  over Hong Kong, especially attractive at night, at present, with colourful advertising, and X'mas decorations. The restaurant has large well spaced tables with double sets of chop sticks at each setting to assist in sharing food more hygienically. They cook classical Cantonese style dishes and have a good variety of vegetarian dishes. We selected the Ah Yat abalone set menu which we modified slightly to avoid shark fin soup. First course was a boiled sliced black skinned pork accompanied with red jelly fish. This was a fine combination of flavours which combined well with the varied textures 
of the dish. (7/10)

                                                                  Ah Yat Abalone with sea cucumber, with goose web and black mushrooms was mind blowing. I cannot remember tasting anything like it before. The abalone were a good size, slightly chewy but quite tender while the sea cucumber had a great capacity to meld with the gentle abalone flavoured sauce which bathed the whole dish. (10/10)

                                                           Braised fresh lobster with chicken broth was another exceptionally successful combination.      


                                                       followed by a superb birds nest soup.                                                                  As this meal was three weeks ago I will just post some pic's and say that it  was the finest Cantonese cuisine served in a excellent venue by attentive and helpful staff. Special fried rice.                                                                   Boiled fish maw and Chinese greens in chicken broth.                  

                                     Steamed garlic prawns.                                                              Fried rice wrapped in lotus leaf.

                                                          Double boiled birds nest with almond cream and egg white, no photo sorry to say.
Tofu and greens, a vegetarian dish.

Mushroom

Pierre Gagnaire (Paris) 12/2012

* Click on pic's to enlarge them

This was no ordinary night and it was to be no ordinary meal. New Years eve in Paris at one of it's finest restaurants. The streets were packed with huge crowds of people preparing to celebrate and the couple of 100 yard from the Champs Elysee to the restaurant were filled with police vans prepared for trouble.The entry to this restaurant at 6 Rue Balzac, is through the foyer of an hotel past a sitting room through curtained doors into a very spacious split level dinning area. 
Immaculately set with attractive show plates, which are use for the amuse bouche, large white clothed tables are widely spaced. These 'tables would be best suited to six diners. Decor is simple. The room is in subdued light pages of a book Talleyrand' paper the walls.                                                                                 We were four and were so far away from each other that it was difficult to have a conversation. It is a rare thing indeed to find a table too large for comfort.
                                                                              Well dressed waiters are immediately available however their English explanations about the dishes were often very difficult to understand despite several repetitions. This was not helped by the menu which was prettily presented wrapped in a ribbon at the start of the meal. It was entirely in French. Since English speaking tourists make up a significant proportion of their clients I think this could have been considered.
The amuse bouche was an elaborate four part presentation.
 Lardo de colonnata with hazelnut
Cigarette made with squid ink, filled with tuna fish and egg salmon
 Mix of green and red pepper cuttlefish sake








Parmesan short bread
 Merangue stuffed with blackberry Roman salad with anchovy
Crunchy bread dumpt sic in sweet olive oil (Santa Tea) This was the first of five breads, a different one coming with each course. Wether they were made with squid ink or mini batons or whatever, despite the two butters they were all small and extremely crusty.

Le Menu 

Caviar Beluga - cristal Grey Goose - crevettes grises. The sphere sitting on the crumbed egg yolk, adjacent to the caviar had to be gently pierced to allow the vodka to escape and sauce this dish of several layers including haddock and crab meat which was the most prominent taste. No doubt a triumph of technology I thoroughly enjoyed it although I found it more a curiosity than an exquisite experience. (8/10)                                                                                        
Corolle de Saint Jaques grillees  served'sirop d'oinon doux des Cevennes parfume de curry Madras'  sauce it was a gently flavoured dish that concealed the complexity of it's preparation, inoffensive pleasant but not exceptional. (7/10)                                   

Huitre Pied de Cheval (25 years old) I am not sure what they were endeavouring to achieve with this dish. Novelty perhaps a shock. The stress on the age of the oyster aroused sympathy  why kill a 25 year old oyster, concern, does one really want to eat this ancient specimen, and other mixed feelings. It was   

 served after being displayed,

                                             

 
in a rich bisque with abalone on a bed of green leaves. Each oyster was about as large as four ordinary oysters. It had a very strong, almost exaggerated taste of oyster and the sea. This overpowering taste stayed with me for the next few courses and really destroyed my enjoyment of the rest of the meal, a feeling shared by everyone at the table. At their request our partners were provided with palate cleansers but they had little effect.                                                                                                                                    Barquette de truffe blanche de Alba/Champignon de Paris. This was a gnocchi with a light Parmesan  flavour with a combination of several other flavours which were largely lost with the oysters we had just eaten. I would have loved to have had this on another occasion. (?/10)
Gateau de poireaux Richerenches covered in black truffle this was yet another rich and heavy dish although the langoustine were as delicate and delicious as these crustaceans ever can be. (9/10)
Pave de bar de ligne poche dans un beurre clarifie/truffe.
More truffles! Not a large dish but quite rich. The last of the oyster was slowly departing but I was now suffering from over indulgence. It would be unfair to judge this dish which was generously covered with slices of truffle which had plenty of aroma to add to the unusual textures and tastes of each thing on the plate making remarkable combination of well integrated flavours. (?/10)                                                          
Cubes de foie gras rouge oie gras was covered in jellied beetroot and served with a dom Perignon flavoured white martini. I loved this dish for both its flavours,  textures and pure fun. (10/10)
Quasie de veau fermier. When the waiter displayed this piece of veal in the pot  we expected something other than the few small bits, they were not slices, that appeared on our plates a few minutes later. Once again it was served with a very heavy sauce and one can only wonder where the rest of the veal went to.
                                                                  Le grand dessert

We were pretty frustrated by the end of the night . We had suffered through a very heavy meal, quite unbalanced, and there had been not the slightest gesture that we were welcoming the New Year. Midnight passed and that was that. e asked for the bill and a taxi. The waiter seemed almost pleased to tell us that no taxi could come because the area was closed off. Out into the rain now we were further inconvenienced  by the police who obliged us to take a detour to get back to the Metro. A very inauspicious start to 2013.
 Note this was a very special menu and not the usual except for the amuse bouche although some of the dishes may have appeared on the menu at other times. There was something of an excess of truffles with a smaller representation of those other celebratory specials, foie gras and caviar.
 Score:16/20, on this night