I’m a huge fan of Northern Indian food. Going to university in New York City meant that I lived partially on a staple diet of Chinese and Indian takeaway meals. My flatmate and I were pretty sick. At least my wife considers what we did pretty vile. Every few days we’d call our favourite neighborhood […]

Quick reminder for all Singapore-based readers with OCBC credit cards! If you haven’t entered this contest to win a pair of seats at a table I’m hosting on 12 October, during Justin Quek’s upcoming promotion, at Snappers restaurant at the Ritz-Carlton, you have just 2 days left. The contest ends this coming Friday, 29 September. […]

photo taken in 2001 at Tasting Australia
I spent a little over two years recently working for a government agency. Most specifically, I was working within the arm of the government responsible for looking after the arts. While there, one of the things I campaigned for quite aggressively (internally of course) was recognition of the culinary […]

What do you do when a friend gives you a couple boxes of uni (sea urchin) and a jar filled with not one but two and a half summer truffles? Well, after whooping for joy for a good half an hour, you call some equally greedy friends and invite them over for a super-decadent Sunday […]

I have to admit that I bought Emily Luchetti’s A Passion for Desserts primarily because I had to have her recipe for the enticing chocolate chip ice cream cake that’s featured on the book cover. While there are days when one may be inspired to take on Pierre Herme’s Plaisir Sucre, the demands of […]

Of all the great chefs that flew into Bangkok for the Four Seasons Hotel Bangkok’s World Gourmet Festival and cooked their hearts out over the past week, the one that impressed me the most was Chef William Ledeuil. This always affable, enthusiastic and humble chef runs one of Paris’ hottest restaurants, Ze Kitchen Galerie. […]

lamb tagine with olives, eggplant and lemon confit
One of the chefs attending this year’s Four Seasons Hotel Bangkok’s World Gourmet Festival whose food I was most excited to try was Fatema Hal. Ms Hal is considered by many to be one of the most important proponents of Moroccan cuisine on our planet. Over the […]

One of my wife’s favourite people in Singapore is Chef Vincent Bourdin. Vincent is Valrhona chocolate’s regional pastry chef. Which means that he knows more about chocolate and desserts than most people and definitely much more than I could ever hope to. Vincent’s background in pastry is pretty impressive. He’s worked at La Tante […]

butter-poached kobe tenderloin with sauteed spinach, horseradish mash and pearl onions
Easily one of the biggest attractions at this year’s Four Seasons Hotel Bangkok’s World Gourmet Festival is Michael Mina. Named Bon Appetit Chef of the Year as well as Restaurateur of the Year by the International Food and Beverage Forum in 2005, Mina has become […]

Marco Talamini is the chef de cuisine at La Torre di Spilimbergo in northeastern Italy and is considered by some to be one of Italy’s best chefs. Earlier today, as part of the Four Seasons Hotel Bangkok’s World Gourmet Festival, S and I had the pleasure of attending a cooking class and lunch featuring […]

Peter Gordon isn’t afraid to call his food fusion. He’s also one of my own personal food heroes. I first heard of Gordon in the mid-nineties. A couple years later, I got a chance to eat at the Sugar Club in London. And I was hooked. More recently, I’ve dined at Providores, Gordon’s current […]

It’s been a fantastic trip to Bangkok so far. Monday morning, my sexy spouse S and I woke up in a gorgeous room at the Four Seasons Hotel, had a great breakfast at Biscotti and then spent the rest of the morning chilling out with one of my food heroes, Chef Peter Gordon. After […]

tucking into a pasta at Basil Alcove

Fine food in a not so fine place
I heard about Basil Alcove just a few weeks ago. A fantastically talented art director I’ve been working with on a project mentioned it to me, telling me that it was a great place for good, cheap pastas. I have to agree. […]

Just a few days ago, I wrote about Chef Justin Quek and his new cookbook, simply titled “Justin Quek: Passion & Inspiration” (pictured here). I’m very excited because I’ve just received some truly exciting news. Just prior to launching his book on our shores, Chef Quek, easily Singapore’s most famous and finest (Western) chef, […]

photo by Valerie Yuen
Congratulations Ms Valerie Yuen!
Ms Yuen’s photograph, titled “Roadtrip Agony”, has won her a brand new, super-duper cool Nokia N73 handphone. Her photo, pictured above, was captioned, “Hungry & Horrified faces before Lay’s Potato Chips explode in the car! Everyone was terrified there’d be no more chips left after the explosion!”
Don’t forget, I […]

It inevitably happens. By the time Wednesday rolls around, I tend to stop thinking about the mountain of work piling up on my desk and in my inbox and start daydreaming about the upcoming weekend. Maybe that’s why some people call Wednesday hump-day. It marks the middle of the work week. Get over the hump […]

One of my all-time favourite desserts is crème brûlée. It’s also a dish that I’ve found challenging to perfect. As many of you know, my wife S and I have an insane number of cookbooks, close to 400 at last count. We’ve tried a huge host of crème brûlée recipes written by some of the […]

As you might imagine, anyone who calls himself a “chubby hubby” probably loves his carbs. I certainly do. I especially like pasta. Sometimes nothing else is as satisfying, as comforting, and as delicious as a well-made bowl of noodles. My brother’s a pho fanatic. He’s travelled all over the globe in search of the very […]