Month: October 2009

Travel31 October

Two reasons to head up to Hunter

Now, you might not need any convincing to head up to the Hunter Valley on your next trip to New South Wales, Australia. Knowing it’s the country’s oldest and one of its most exciting wine regions may be all the reason you need. But just in case you needed a little extra motivation, S and I have sussed out two amazing places that alone are reason enough to head up to Hunter.

1. The Rock restaurant and Andrew Clarke’s stunning food

There are good vineyard and wine country restaurants and then there are great ones. The Rock restaurant at Poole’s Rock Wines is definitely one of the latter. It’s been named the Australia’s Best Restaurant in a Winery at the 2008 Restaurant and Catering Association awards. It is the Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide’s highest ranked restaurant in Hunter, and the only restaurant in the region with two hats. Housed in a glass-walled building, overlooking a block of 90-year old shiraz vines, the clean modern room and its views are equally inviting. The Rock is actually two restaurants in one. By day, it is the Firestick Cafe, a cool, contemporary cafe that serves simple but beautifully made cafe food: wood-fired, thin crust pizzas; a luxe wagyu burger with caramelized onions and fries; pork schnitzel and crushed potato, rocket and waldorf salad. The pizzas looked especially gorgeoous. And I love Chef Andrew Clarke’s combination ideas, like the confit pork belly, caramelized fennel and gherkins pizza.

(Keep reading)
Recipes28 October

Boys vs Girls


V’s yummy pork belly

A few years back, my darling wife S and I took part in a home cooking challenge with 3 other couples. The theme was boys versus girls, which meant that all of the men were on one team and our wives/partners on another. On two different nights, each team planned and prepared a full menu, which was served to all participants, plus an additional couple, our judges. We had invited two foodie friends to sit in on the two dinners and decide who did a better job, the boys or the girls. That year, the girls won, reportedly by just one point. Of course, it didn’t help the guys that one member of our team cheated, purchasing several kinds of bread from a well-known hotel, trying then to pass the assorted selection off as homemade. One of the girls, though, smelled a rat–she was actually a regular at the main restaurant at that hotel and recognized the buns, especially the seaweed bread, immediately. Said wife grilled the poor boy mercilessly, asking questions he clearly couldn’t answer, like, “So, how long exactly did you have to proof the dough for this roll?” I’ve since asked the judges and they did admit that there were some point deductions for the bread. Which means we should have actually won. Well, that’s how I see it at least. S sees it rather differently.

We’ve been planning to re-initiate the challenge ever since. We finally got ourselves organized and over two Sundays in October this year, the grudge match was on! The teams were changed a bit. Of the competing couples, one has since left Singapore and the other, well, let’s just say, we didn’t want to lose because of the bread again. They were replaced by the judges from the first contest and our business partner and her fiance. We had no problems, as you might guess, arm-twisting another couple to judge this year’s contest. What was a trial, however, was coordinating everyone’s schedules. Finally–and only because of a few cancelled business trips–we were able to lock in dates.

(Keep reading)
Trends25 October

Quick Q&A with Joanna Savill


Photo courtesy of the Sydney Morning Herald. Taken by Edwina Pickles.

As mentioned in my previous post, uber-foodie Joanna Savill is Festival Director of the Sydney International Food Festival. Joanna kindly allowed me to pester her with a few questions about this year’s SIFF.

CH: Hi Joanna! We had a great time at the Showcase. Can I start by asking how different is the Festival this year under your direction?
Essentially this is the very first Sydney International Food Festival as it replaces an event called Good Food Month. So it’s new. Having said that, Good Food Month favourite events have continued such as Let’s Do Lunch and Hats Off (set menus in leading restaurants) plus the huger-than-ever Night Noodle Markets. But what we’ve done is broaden the focus to include a strong international visitor component, particularly with the World Chef Showcase (brand new) and also extend into Greater Sydney with community-based festivals and other events. The other big thing is a focus on food issues, with talks and forums on sustainability, food security, GM and more.

(Keep reading)
Travel25 October

Sydney International Food Festival (a small slice)


Chefs from the Showcase Gala Dinner posing while plating. Photo by Dominic Loneragen of the(sydney)magazine.

Over the years, I’ve had the pleasure of attending quite a number of food festivals in different parts of the world. Most recently, I was in Sydney, Australia, to check out the first-ever Sydney International Food Festival, both as a panel-speaker and also as an invited observer. I was particularly excited to head down under for this particular festival because its director, the amazing Joanna Savill, is an old and very special friend. Joanna is one of the most respected foodies on the planet, let alone Australia. Among her many accomplishments, Joanna is co-editor of the Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide and co-creator of the landmark TV Series, The Food Lover’s Guide to Australia. My darling wife S and I first met Joanna back in 2001 (of course, we were already fans) and have been friends ever since then.

Joanna has taken what used to be known as the Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Month and has turned it into a stellar international food festival worth planning your Australia trip around. The Festival is still a month-long, with different programmes and components happening throughout the month of October. Whether a person is more into gritty streetside dining or is a fan of fine dining, the Festival has been truly able to deliver an experience for each and every kind of foodie out there. Joanna’s also smartly sexed up several events, introducing star power to bring in the crowds. For example, the Festival’s opening event was a day of Barbecue Madness. But Joanna didn’t just bring in anyone to lead the barbecue. Oh no… she enlisted the help of Fergus Henderson of St John in London to work with 12 well-known Sydney chefs, turning a simple bbq into a powerhouse gastronomic event!

I had flown down to take part in the World Chef Showcase. This 2 day series of talks and demonstrations featured some really amazing culinary talent. The theme for this year’s Showcase was The Best of Asia, which I thought was fantastic. We don’t even properly celebrate our own region at most of our own festivals. I thought it was inspiring and exciting for the Sydney Festival to be championing the best of Asian cuisine, chefs, food writers, and restaurateurs. The participant list was simply amazing. Superstars like David Thompson, Peter Gordon, Pichet Ong, Jereme Leung, Kylie Kwong, Alvin Leung, Fuchsia Dunlop, Cheong Liew, Rainer Becker, Neil Perry, Chui Lee Luk, Andre Chiang, Yu Bo, Yoshihiro Murata, Mamoru Tatemori, and Tetsuya Wakuda (among others) all took their turns on stage during the weekend of 10-11 October. Each day, there were three consecutive tracks of talks and demos. On the first, Track 1 focused on Thailand and Vietnam; track 2 on China; while track 3 was the “world” track which featured chefs like Sergi Arola and Alexandre Bourdas. The second day, track 1 was Asia; track 2 was titled “Creative”; and track 3 focused on Japan.

(Keep reading)
Announcement20 October

Daniel Boulud wants you (maybe)

I’m taking a quick break from posting about my own stuff to bring you this quick and potentially important me

ssage which I think readers from the F&B trade might find pretty useful.

As many of you (might already) know, the Dinex Group, which owns and manages Chef Daniel Boulud’s restaurants, has come into Asia. They have one restaurant already in Beijing and are opening another in Singapore (which is great news for me).

The Dinex Group’s HR folks are making an Asian tour, looking for great talent. Here’s their pitch:

The Dinex Group, the restaurants owned and managed by Chef Daniel Boulud, is offering the opportunity to build a lifelong career with both global potential and a sense of pride in work well done.

The Dinex Group continues to expand to exciting new destinations around the world (Beijing, Singapore, Vancouver, London, New York, Palm Beach, Miami, and Las Vegas). If you are interested in the opportunity to be part of that growth within an organization whose values you share, and that recognizes your dedication and hard work, then we invite you to apply during our Open Call Interviews Recruiting Tour in Asia (Singapore, Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai)

(Keep reading for dates and times of the recruitment calls)
Restaurants10 October

Buon Ricordo, Sydney

There are a small handful of dishes, cooked by an equally small number of amazing chefs, that I’d travel for. At the top of my list is Chef Armando Percuoco‘s fettuccine al tartufovo. Chef Armando’s fettucine with cream and parmesan, topped with a fried truffle egg, and tossed at your table, is one of those life-altering dishes. To me, it might just be the best pasta dish I’ve ever had, anywhere in the world. This ridiculously simple yet rich and oh so delicious plate of food is, quite simply, worth flying all the way to Sydney for.

Of course, there are many other gustatory reasons to go to Sydney–like Kylie’s duck, Tets’ ocean trout, Bill’s scrambled eggs, Peter Gilmore’s Sea Pearls, or this week the Sydney International Food Festival’s World Chef Showcase. But none (to me) are as addictively appealing as Armando’s truffled egg pasta. I’ve actually written about this heavenly plate of food back in 2005; in fact, it was my 10th post. But that was just a little reminiscent musing. This weekend, thanks to Tourism Australia, Tourism New South Wales and the Food Festival bringing me in for a little song and dance on stage, I’m getting the chance to revisit some favourite restaurants, as well as try a few new ones. Of course, the first place I ran to, within hours of landing on the ground, was Buon Ricordo.

(Keep reading)