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Saturday, October 31, 2009
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)        Posted by Chubby Hubby 5 comments 
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Wednesday, October 28, 2009
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. Posted by Chubby Hubby 8 comments
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Sunday, October 25, 2009
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? Posted by Chubby Hubby Comments
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Sunday, October 25, 2009
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. Posted by Chubby Hubby 1 comment
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Friday, October 23, 2009
I don’t usually use my blog as a platform through which to talk about my work projects, but I thought many of you would be as excited as I am about one of the latest things that my colleagues and I have created. Knowing how much Singaporeans love getting a good deal and love to eat out, early this year, my colleagues and I embarked on the rather ambitious project of creating a new dining programme here in the Lion City. We wanted to (1) deliver fantastic and unbeatable discounts to diners; (2) standardize these privileges so that customers wouldn’t have to remember too many different things; and (3) most importantly, put together a collection of really fantastic restaurants, all of whom consistently deliver great food and good service. To us, as foodies, it was really important that we only worked with restaurants that had high standards. We wanted every restaurateur who took part in the programme to look at his or her peers in the collection and feel proud to be part of this group. We also wanted to put together a really small and yet diverse collection. We wanted to include everything from cafes to Chinese restaurants, from Indian eateries to fancy fine dining places. Essentially, we wanted to have one great pick that would satisfy any gustatory craving. (Keep reading) Posted by Chubby Hubby 3 comments
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