dining at broeding on my first night to munich was so good that i ended up returning on the last evening before flying back to hong kong - a big break to our rule of never dining twice at the same restaurant during the same trip.
 

each time i am about to travel, i carefully plan where i will have my dinners and i even make reservations before leaving hong kong. and so, it is through the new york times website that i found broeding.

the evening started pretty well. thanks to fantastic july weather, i was lead to their quaint little garden, served a crisp sparkling wine as aperitif, and received a full briefing of their fixed dinner menu.

in fact, you go to broeding for what the chef (manuel reheis) will cook that night and there is no other choice except than to decide whether you will have 5 courses or if you will also have the cheese plate to make it a 6 course meal.

the wine if left up to you but, as  they specialise in austrian wines, no other region is available as an option.  in fact this is what grabbed my curiosity and  made me decide to go there in the first place.  since i knew too little about austria, i thought it would be a great opportunity to learn and so i left it to the owner to suggest a match to each dish with what he saw fit.

and delighted i was.  the food was absolutely superb and each wines brought me in all kinds of directions.

but, it is the main course which made me reach reach a culinary peak i too seldom get in meals in hong kong (and pretty much anywhere for that matter).  i still remember the lamb, slow cooked to juicy tenderness, served with a dark cherry sauce and a delightful zucchini flower.  it was paired with a moric necken markter blaufrankisch 2005 (ripe raspberries, luscious dark cherries, plum, spicy and smoky with an incredibly long length) which was so perfectly married to the ingredients on my plate that i frankly do not remember another match that gave me so much sensations.

the rest of the meal ended up so well that after my deserts i changed my mind and asked them to bring me the cheese and make it a 6-course meal.

i highly recommend broeding for the food, the wine, but most importantly, for the passion for owner/manager gottfried wallisch who started his restaurant almost 20 years ago, against all odds and with a formula that has changed little since its beginning when he was told he would not last 6 months.

for sure, i will make this a compulsory visit each time i travel to munich.

broeding, schulstrasse 9, munich, 80634, tel: 089/16-42-38, web: www.broeding.de

Published by jc on November 12, 2009

• There are and 0 trackbacks. Permalink
• • 
  Filed in: food, restaurants, travels

don't miss the greatest italian feast of the year where great wines and foods of italy are celebrated at the cyberport. cheezes and fresh grapes are directly flown in for this event. great night out with music, games, and all you can taste food and wine!

only 800 tickets are available (hkd 650/each) on a first come first served and i received my invitation last week. if you are interested, contact ms. Jessica Chan at tel. 2832 9799 (Dante Alighieri) for more information or get the ticket booking form here. 

Published by jc on July 17, 2008

• There are and 0 trackbacks. Permalink
• • 
  Filed in: food, hong kong, restaurants, travels

a few months ago, by a strange coincidence, many of my hong kong friends had separately planned to visit shanghai on the same week-end we were going.  and so, on finding this out, we arranged to meet for the saturday dinner at shintori, a modern japanese restaurant.

it was during the period when i sort of became a bit of a photography-niac and started to take pictures of all the wine i was drinking and all the food i was eating.  so, when we arrived there, i thought the restaurant extremely photogenic and so, obviously, i became a bit crazy taking pictures of it at all angle.

particularly interesting at shintori is their open kitchen and from our mezzanine table, we had a somewhat spectacular view of the action down below.  so a happily snapped my heart-content and posted the results on my flickr account so that my friends could have access to them.

interestingly, one of them became the most viewed of my account and it seems that search engines and the like are responsible to draw traffic to this photo.  and so, i present it to you here:

the food was ok by the way.  you can read a review written by the economist magazine here. 

Published by jc on May 17, 2008

• There are and 0 trackbacks. Permalink
• • 
  Filed in: food, travels

ahhh buenos aires.... my love for the city is only matched by my love of paris and only exceeded by the one of venice. to me, these 3 cities are where i have felt the most at home ever since actually left home a long long time ago.

maria and i love it there. the people are nice and friendly, the atmosphere of the city smooth and accessible, and there is enough culture and activities to make it super interesting and exciting.

the place is full of super good restaurants as diverse as they are high in quality. there are the local joints full of character and personality, maybe not serving the best of food but certainly giving you plenty to watch and experience. you have marvelous parillas (pronouced palli-ja) serving these incredible chunks of meats of all kinds and shape, moutains of french fries (pappa fitas) and beautiful argentinean wines. you can also go to super cosmopolitan and hip restaurants where you feel like you are in new york, london, or hong kong for that matter. and then you have "freddo", an absolutely delicous gelateria were i had to-die-for gelato di frutti del bosco. delicious!

maria loves tango, the main reason of our 1st visit there in 2005. i can not say i love it yet (let's say i am learning to) but i do love the atmosphere and the electricity of tango milongas (organised evenings where to dance tango). some of the people dancing are so old it's a wonder they still stand up at all. but they are great, elegant, deep into the music and the feeling of the dance. others are young, macho and agressive while some tango tourists (like myself) are completely bewildered (and overwhelmed) that no one dances tango like we learn at home and that the dance floor is so crowded that none of the "figures" perfected in hours and hours of practice can actually be danced in buenos aires... ahhhh, tango...

so far, i must admit that we did not visit too much of Bas as people call it because we have mainly seen dance halls around town to attend tango classes and practice and practice until near collapse. but from what i have seen, each "barrio" as the districts are generally called are very different from each other, in fact amazingly different sometimes even if only 1 street separate them from each other. take san telmo for example, full old old, turn of the century buildings, some of them barely standing up, most quite dirty. the place is vibrant, full of character and turning into a very interesting area with all kinds of little shops, great restaurants, and little bars. it's sunday market at plaza dorrego is full of action with street buskers taking over, tango dancers improvising a milonga, and antique dealers trying to sell you some memories of the past. lovely. but make no mistake, the place has charater, it can be dirty with garbage and you can see some pretty savoury charaters whom you would rather move across the street on the opposite side-walk rather than cross path with. keep an eye on yourself and relax for a mighty enjoyable time.

buenos aires. we love it there. don't be surprised if we buy a flat there eventually - sooner rather than later!

Published by jc on February 27, 2008

• There are and 0 trackbacks. Permalink
• • 
  Filed in: food, tourism, travels, wine

another wine region another boutique hotel. or not. cavas wine lodge, part of the relais & chateaux network, is not any boutique hotel. set litterally in the middle of vineyards (the hotel make it's own bornarda wine), the place is a dream for any wine lovers. individual "casitas" (suites) are spread out around the vineyards and vines grow all around them. each are wonderfuly appointed with a modern decor and a fireplace (and the shower is also incredible). they have their own little plunge pool and access to a roof-top terrace from which you can gaze at the stunning views of the los andes mountain range.

we tried the spa for a special (and wonderful) vinoterapie treatment and after taking a 15 minutes bath in bornada wine, i can assure you that drinking it will never be the same again!

the hotel also boasts one of the best restaurant in mendoza with a fantastic wine list including the best offerings of the region especially from the super premium area of luyan de cuyo where the hotel is located. the menu is traditonal with a modern touch offering super tasty dishes with locally sourced ingredients. on our 1st night, we had the special bbq diner that including non-stop delivery of the very best meat i have had in my life.

although not cheap, i absolutely recommend it and we will no doubt stay there again next year when we return to mendoza.

Published by jc on February 26, 2008

• There are and 0 trackbacks. Permalink
• • 
  Filed in: argentina, food, restaurants, tourism, travels, wine

maria and franco always laugh at me so much i am fussy about the hotels i stay in. who knows, maybe i was a fengshui master in a previous life? for me, the setting must be right and that includes the smell in the room, the view, the size and comfort of the bed, and the pressure of the shower. the room must be alive, it must vibrate positive energy. i can never describe it to maria, i just feel it and when i don't, i have been known to change room 3 or 4 times before i am satisfied.

in any case.. for our stay in chile's colchagua valley, i thought we could try the newly opened boutique hotel of 7 rooms in casa silva winery.

and so, after a 3 hours drive from santiago i was a little razzled and my stomach cramped as we followed the indications to the hotel through the small country roads. we passed several ramshackle buildings and the area reminded me more of india than tuscany so i looked at maria in a near panic. until we arrived to the hotel...

wow, what a setting, what a nice little place! set in an old part of the winery, the building was tastfuly renovated with a beautiful and homey-rustic-yet-modern decor. there is a nice little terrace in the central courtyard for alfresco dinning, a super comfortable lounge with a fireplace and those big fluffy couches that reminded me of those my grandmother had in her living room. each of the 7 rooms are appointed differently depending on their size and location in the building and all have a huge bathroom with an absolutely incredible shower.

the hotel is also home of one of the best restaurant in colchagua. as mentionned, you can eat outside on the terrace, but an interesting attraction is that it's located right inside casa silva's cellar. so while you have dinner you have the decors of rows of new oak barrels ageing their best wines slowly and gracefully. we had great food there on the 2 nights of our stay and obviously their wine list, although listing mostly their wines, had great offerings from around the region.

a great place to stay and can imagine the setting during the cool vintage season must be absolutely magic. we will certainly go back if we return to colchagua valley.

Published by jc on February 26, 2008

• There are and 0 trackbacks. Permalink
• • 
  Filed in: food, other world, restaurants, tourism, travels, wine

if vancouver would be a south-american city, it would be santiago. it's clean, modern, friendly, compact, efficient. there are parts of it that reminds me much of montreal, especially the mount in the middle of the city which offers fantastic points of view all around.

the food markets of "central mercado" and "la vega" were the highlights of our visit here. in central mercado there are fish and shellfish of all kinds, shapes, and sizes. a delights for the senses and i went crazy with my brand new canon g9. it's also full of small restaurants serving the fish and good, solid local food. delicious in a very bustling atmosphere.

across the river from the mercado, there is the market of "la vega" a succession of sheds each with their speciality. first staples you need around the kitchen, then as you move north, other sheds with all kinds meats. really, the chilean are not affraid of their meat and everything here is on display: the guts, the heads, all kinds of cuts and bits. although more hygenical, it reminded me very much of a similar market in india. in that complex, you can also have lunch at one of many food stalls serving what looked like some pretty delicious local dishes.

next up was fruits & vegetables where we saw some pretty crazy corn. i mean they have these huge corns the size of maria's tighs. and this is not talking about the zuchinis... a bit funny looking actually...

i loved it and could have spent the whole day taking pictures. stall owners were very friendly and talkative. making jokes with us and wanting to know where we were from. one of them even proposed to my wife, which i had to diplomatically decline - he did have a big knife in his hands...

even though, many many people told me to keep our things safely attached to our body especially the camera and warned us that many petty pickposkets prowl the market. although we were on our guard, it did not stop us from having a super good time.

Published by jc on February 5, 2008

• There are and 0 trackbacks. Permalink
• • 
  Filed in: food, tourism, travels

as i mentionned previously, on my 1st night in vegas, i visted BOUCHON which was in itself a fantastic experience.  the restaurant is such a faithfull reproduction of a paris bistro that being in paris here now, i am amazed at how much being there made me feel being here....

the food was fantastic, i had a starter of oyster paired with laurent-perrier champagne (brut) which was fresh, typical, and a very delicious accompaniment to my oysters. 

i then had their special of the evening which was a beautiful beef bavette served on a bed of red cabbage and bacon sauce.  the first bit was incredible, an explosion of flavours, i closed my eyes and felts nirvana...  this was pared with a very tasty syrah TOR CARNEROS DURELL '03 specially selected by mr keller.  it was what can one expect of a high qualoity shiraz with an additional complexity of savoury spices (cardamon, white pepper, black pepper).

on the 2nd night, i invited friends to try MARIO BATALI'S B&B RESTAURANTE.  i was excited.  i was looking forward to something that i had booked 1 month piror.  i read HEAT which talks about him so much and i wanted to experience first hand what ''molto mario'' is all about.

my verdict: i will go back to BOUCHON for sure on my next trip to vegas, but will try other restaurants before i return to B&B.

jim asked me why on FACEBOOK (jc viens).  simple, the music was so obnoxious, i could not hear myself talk, let alone taste the food in my mouth.  secondly, the snotty door girl, whatever her title is was so arogant, she made me cringe (in asia we say lose face).  i mean, it is batali who is famous, NOT HER.  then our waiter asked me if i wanted to hear the sommelier's recommendation.  i said yes as i had heard their wine expertise is very good.  well she came to our table without knowing what we were eating and only suggested that we drink the wine from joe bastianich's winery (who is also owner of b&b).  she did not suggest anything else and was so busy generally that in fact seemed that she could not careless about giving us advice on this matter.  either by the look of us, she thought we knew nothing about wine, or this was a crass way too go for more margin. come to think of it, she was perhaps there for show, isn't it what las veags is about?

talking of which.  3 weeks ago at la ciau de tornavento in piedmonted, we had a gaja sori di lorenzo 1990 which we paid in the restaurant euro 420 for it.  i wondered why the 1989 of the same wine was offered usd 1300 in b&b.  really...

mind you, the pasta was very very good.  1000% what i was expecting.  but the rest was ordinary.  i ordered the rabbit which was prepared in 4 different ways (meaning the same rabbit was served in 4 pieces and each piece beingprepared differently)  that, although an interesting culinary experience, was quite an anti-climax because each piece were absolutely not as good as the other one.  a matter of personal taste you will say.  well, yes, but why serve such a dish in that case?  my guest also thought there main were a let down for various reasons and everyone agreed that the pasta and the desserts were the best dishes of the evening.  to wash down this food, we had a LORENZO BEGALI AMARONE 1999 which we paid 3 times the listed price in wine searcher and was actually not very good and felt a little bit acetic on the palate.  what made me cringe here what that prices on the wine that list started at about usd 150 except for those from joe bastianich's winery.

celebrity has a premium you will say?  well, this is indeed a learning experience for me and i will stay away from those overexposed celebrities from now on.  OVER-EXPOSED AND OVERRATED, that is what i think and all my guests including myself felt let down in some ways.  were our expectations too high?  it was ordinary, period. we indeed had a las vegas experience: the house always win...

Published by jc on September 29, 2007

• There are and 0 trackbacks. Permalink
• • 
  Filed in: food, restaurants, travels, usa

here, i discovered something very important on this trip:  i have found that i am much more traditionalist and conversative when it comes to food than what seems to be the current trend among foodies.

we used mainly 2 guides to select the places we wanted to eat: ''restoranti d'italia del gambero rosso 2007'' and ''osterie & locande'' from slow food.

i found that the highest ratings from gambero rosso seem to be for those restaurants that have a kind of ''modern'' take on italian cuisine.  a kind of ''nouveau'' style that i am not sure i like but i definitely lean towards not liking it. 

slow food on the other hand definitely have recommendations that are more traditional and the food in those restaurant we visited were certainly more to my leaning.

- l'osteria dell'unione: lunch - super nice location right at the entrance of the village of treiso with a small terrace outside.  as we were 10, we had a set lunch prepared for us and the food was plenty and each dishes more delicious than the others.  the antipasti were fresh, local, and absolutely savoury.  the primis were fresh and tasty and the secondo of rabitt prepared in a peidmont style divine.  they have a very good selection of wine and it is a nice place to linger the whole after-noon. i will definitely return.

 - la ciau del tornavento: dinner - the location is fantastic right in the middle of treiso and if you go there for lunch, i imagine the views of the langhe to be absolutely stunning.  however, for dinner, the atmosphere is somewhat disfunctional and a little bit cold.  the food was modern italian and this is where actually that i had my epiphany of sort.  the wine cellar is probably among the best i have seen however and the selection very difficult for anyone to make only 1 choice.  we received many recommendations about that place and gambero rated it 86 which is among the highest in piedmont.  but for us, the experience was not as good as we had experienced in similarily rated & described restaurant by gambero. i will probably return but not before i have explored other restaurants around langhe.

- l'osteria dell'arco: dinner - you see, for a 77 by gambero rosso, we had a much more pleasant dinner than at la ciau.  this is what makes me think that i am more traditionalist.  the food was tasty and the menu imaginative albeit traditional and simple.  the wine list was also simple, yet the wine we selected was of a very good quality as i imagine the other wines on that list.  one of the first ''slow food'' restaurant, i would definitely go back.

- arsivoli in barbaresco, right next to the enoteca regionale - lunch - this was recommended to us by albino from the cascina barac and to be fank, it must have been the best restaurant of the trip.  we arrived late and there was many people and so, with our group of 10, the service was a bit slow.  but when the food arrived, it was absolutely worth the wait.  it was traditional with a very light modern twist, very savoury and lip smacking.  even the bread and the grissini tasted better than what we had elsewhere.  the decor is modern but without behind devoid of warmth and the staff kindness amply made up what seemed to have been an abnormally busy day for them.  i would definitely go back.

- da cesare - dinner: a very special, albeit a bit strange experience.  first you enter da cesare from the back door of what seems to be private house straight into the chef's kitchen.  as you enter, you are struck by intense aromas coming from what is cooking on the stoves and grilling over the fire.  you do not choose what you will eat at da cesare, they serve you what cesare has decided to cook on that day.  i recomment that you bring your own wine as their wine list is a bit simple.  the whole experience was very special although i did not like everything that we had. some people are all over da cesare as an absolute must to do in langue.  i agree that this is an experience one must absolutely experience and i will difinitely go back but, like la ciau, once i have experienced other places. book in advance as he accepts no more than 20 dinners per night.

my mother and maria with the infamous cesare himself - taken straight into this kitchen!!:

with franco, valeria (cousin), maria, and i:

Published by jc on September 12, 2007

• There are and 0 trackbacks. Permalink
• • 
  Filed in: food, italy, restaurants, travels

our schedule might appear to have been heavy for what was after-all supposed to be a vacation, but that is the way i like it and i think overall, our group enjoyed the diversity of the things that we saw and learned.

you can see the full details here which includes timing as well as addresses we went.  i would say that our schedule was very well balanced, leaving us time to enjoy the activities, travel in between and still enjoy moments to rest.

highlights includes:

- stay at cascina barac in the hills of treiso 

- town of alba

- lunch at osteria dell'unione in treiso

- poderi colla - famous barbaresco maker

- dinner at la ciau del tornavento in treiso

- botti gamba - famous maker of barrique & casks

- town of asti & its market

- valter bera - famous maker of moscato d'asti and asti

- dinner at l'osteria dell'arco in alba

- distilleria dell barbaresco - maker of grappa from 32 members from barbaresco

- gaya - the one and only

- lunch at arsivoli in barbaresco

- gianni gagliardo - famous maker of barolo

- dinner at cesare - a very special experience

- torino and its super special food & wine store concept eataly

Published by jc on September 12, 2007

• There are and 0 trackbacks. Permalink
• • 
  Filed in: food, tourism, travels, wine