Memorable Meals - Part 3 - Australia

My best friend/ favorite travelling companion and I plan our travels to include enjoying memorable meals at some of the top restaurants in the world. We are actually ambitioning to eat in some of the top twenty restaurants chosen worthy by experts in the culinary field. Since we have a few more good years of travelling, we are rushing through the list.

TETSUYA'S

I expected that we would encounter some difficulty in securing a reservation for lunch at Tetsuya's in Sydney but to our surprise, we easily got a table for three.

Tetsuya's is a serene Oriental enclave sandwiched by large commercial buildings in a busy side street in downtown Sydney. The Japanese inspired degustation menu offers Wagyu beef , scampi, barramundi, spatchcock, spanner crab and two versions of Petuna Ocean Trout which is Tetsuya's signature dish. They charge a little extra for a starter dish of Pacific Oysters with Rice Vinegar and Ginger but it was so delicious that we did not mind paying a bit more.








Chilled Corn Soup with Saffron and Vanilla Ice Cream - this is a starter. Refreshing and unusual.










Beetroot and Blood Orange Sorbet with Chai Tea Bavarois. This was good although I am not a fan of Chai Tea.















Lemon Curd Brulee with Chocolate Chiboust. Since I am partial to lemon and also to chocolate, I wiped the plate clean.

















Tetsuya"s version of Strawberry Shortcake! Another winning dessert! The taste was there even if the texture was unlike any Strawberry Shortcake I ever had.













QUAY, CIRCULAR QUAY, SYDNEY HARBOR

My friend's husband invited us to eat at Quay - a really classy place with well- trained white gloved staff . At that time, it had not made it to any list but as I write this, it has garnered the number 27 position in the S. Pellegrino World's Best 50 Restaurants list.

My friend had: Sea Pearls - Sashimi, Tuna, Sea Scallop, Smoked Eel, Octopus, Abalone - in four balls or pearls. This is such an attractive starter with different colors and textures to tempt the palate.



















I am a newcomer to Congee and just love it. I had the Mud Crab Congee.


The picture does not do justice to this delicious
rice porridge.

















And our host had his favorite which was a Crisp Confit of Pig Belly, Gentle Braise of Abalone and Cuttlefish, Handmade Silken Tofu, Japanese Mushrooms, Chive Flowers:


Isn't it so beautifully presented? I almost want to eat Pork Fat which I really never do!















For dessert, we each placed our order and then placed the desserts in the center of the table.

This is Raspberries, Violets, Almonds. Vanilla Cream - very pretty but nothing I would write home about!












Now this is worth the calories!!! - Eight Texture Chocolate featuring Amadei Chuao Chocolate. This is the second time I have encountered Amadei and I wonder where it comes from.




















And another surprising dish is Snow Egg of Jackfruit and Custard Apple -






Very refreshing and clean tasting providing a wonderful finish to a good meal.













Quay deserves to move up a few notches in the coveted restaurant list. And I forgot to mention, it is so beautifully perched alongside the Sydney Harbor - a really great location.

Memorable Meals - Part 2 - Spain

After ten years of talking about it, my friends and I decided that it was time to attempt to do the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage in Spain. So, we made the arrangements a year before planning to arrive in Santiago on the feast day of St. James or Santiago. Since we would already be in the vicinity, we ambitioned to also have another significant event and be amongst the ten thousand people who eat in El Bulli Restaurant in Girona, Spain. So, in a carefully crafted email, not too gushing, not too effusive with praises yet very hopeful, we requested for a reservation. We sent our email in October and got an email reply in February of the following year. It was a YES!!!!

So, we hired a car and driver to take us from Barcelona to Girona. It was not necessary to do so but reading up on it, we decided to proceed with some caution since people who had been wrote horror stories of the bad roads. No such thing!!! Hey, we live in the Philippines. These roads were very good and safe.

We booked into a nearby hotel and ate a light lunch to prepare us for an evening of epicurean delights. El Bulli did not disappoint and here are some photos:

Some very interesting appetizers: Beetroot ribbons in vinegar dust on the leftmost; mock sea cucumber - sesame and yuzu in the center; eucalyptus and red currant transparent turnover in the topmost and Porex mushroom and coconut butter in the bottom. The Porex mushroom tasted like coconut macaroon.














Appetizers are served in an open air veranda. When you are done, you are brought to view the very clean and efficient kitchen. It looks like it is just a finishing kitchen. We were lucky because Ferran Adria was there that night and gladly posed for a photo with us.

After this short intermission, you are escorted to the main dining room and this is where the rest of the meal is served.


My personal favorite: Cheese Bread (foam) and muesli of fruits - this was presented in a styrofoam box!

















This dish is called Pea Egg and in the middle of the green jello like concoction is a real egg yolk.
















This is salicornia with razor clam, almond oil, rice and mint - strange but delicious. Salicornia is pickleweed. I learned something new.












Ajo Blanco - his dish for the year - basically a soup but in foam form!



















Macaroni Gruyere with Chicken Skin Crackling - the Gruyere must have been incorporated in the pasta dough before it was formed. Again, the sauce comes in the form of foam.
















And my favorite of the desserts: Coconut ravioli ---mouthwatering as it melts in your mouth and the muscovado sugar concoction inside just oozes out! Heavenly!!! I salivate at the memory of this dish.


















In total, we had 11 small bites of appetizers and 11 samplings of main dishes, 6 desserts. Despite the quantity, the meal did not leave you with heaviness and guilt!

El Bulli is a surreal experience. Adria tickles and teases your palate and you leave Bulli in a dream-like state. Every minute of our 5 hour dinner will be forever etched in our gustatory memories.

My friend and I have agreed to do it again if and when Ferran Adria reopens El Bulli.

Memorable Meals Around the World - India and Indonesia

A Vegetarian Thali Meal


I still have the taste in my mouth of meals that have unforgettable impact on my senses. So here goes:
This was a wonderful gustatory experience - an Indian Thali meal and the presentation made it more appetizing! Thali is an Indian meal comprising of a selection of several small dishes, usually representative of the region you are in. It is served with Basmati rice and chutneys. We had this in a fancy hotel so the Thali was served in silver dishes but it was equally delicious without the luxurious setting.

















It is very similar to the Indonesian/Dutch rijsttafel which is more easily found in restaurants in Amsterdam rather than in Indonesia. And speaking of Indonesia, I have very fond memories of the most delicious and probably most cholesterol laden fried chicken. I had my first taste at Madame Suharti in Yogyakarta and then at Mbok Berek in Jakarta. If you are in any of those cities, this is a must try. The fried chicken is marinated in coconut milk and it is served with fried crumbs or kremes. I have unsuccessfully attempted to duplicate this but my recipe must be wrong. I understand that the crumbs are made of tapioca and rice flour mixed with egg and chicken broth and then fried in trickles.
Rijsttafel served at Poppies Restaurant in Bali















Ayam Goreng Kremes




















Another recommendation I have is a meal wrapped in banana leaf, Nasi Borana.... rice topped with a meat dish and a vegetable dish and some sort of pickle and half a hard boiled egg, satisfying and cheap! Our wonderful hostess purchased this from Milka as the label outside the banana parcel shows.


















We had a great duck meal at Dirty Duck in Ubud, Bali. It is a rather slim portion of duck and you can easily have two of this dish. The baked cheesecake in this restaurant is rather good and not with the usual heavy cheesecake consistency.
The fried duck is very tasty as most fried dishes are and it is served with spicy sambal and some pickled vegetables and mouth cooling watermelon.




I have made myself very hungry and my feet are itching to go back to these places so it is time to sign off.
Happy drooling!

A wonderful surprise at 168 Mall Food Court

My friend and I went shopping in 168 and the highlight of our day was the delicious lunch at Chopsticks and Spoon, located at the Food Court.
We had to wait 45 minutes for our lunch but it was worth the wait. We ordered Miki and Cereal Prawns and both were excellent. The Miki was good enough for four people and very very reasonably priced. The very very says it! The prawns were fresh and tender and tasty....six or seven pieces in the platter.
We also had a very filling halo halo, perfect for cooling off after the bumper to bumper human traffic experience in the shopping mall.
If you should go to Chopsticks and Spoon, I suggest you bring someone to fall in line for you while you do more shopping below. And the someone should line up an hour before the lunch time crowd descends as they have a really long queue at Chopsticks and Spoon.
We were told that the oyster cake in the restaurant beside is also very good. We are saving that for our next trip. Now we have a good reason to go to 168!

Jumping to another topic, May is around the corner and I am contemplating whether to go to Lucban for the annual fiesta of San Isidro de Labrador on May 15. I have fond memories of pancit hab hab, pork hardinera and soft and tasty espasol. And then there is the Lucban longaniza and the famous broas to take home.
I would not advise going without arranging your lunch accommodations. There are not too many restaurants in the area and the little that there are become quite full during fiesta time.
I joined a tour one time and that provided us with a passable set lunch and toilet facilities. The next time I went, my friends and I had to share stools in a little restaurant with an iffy comfort room. Still, the color and atmosphere of this fiesta makes up for all the inconveniences! One of the thousand things you should do and see in the Philippines before you die.

LOLO DAD'S BISTRO IS ONE BIG DISAPPOINTMENT

The cold spinach soup and the gummy breadsticks!
Is this stuffed Cornish Hen or stuffed chicken?

I celebrated my birthday by having dinner at Lolo Dad's Bistro at 6750. It was such a disappointing dinner and I invited a balikbayan couple with the intention of showing off our fine dining.
Well, to start off, despite having reserved a table a couple of weeks prior, we were relegated to a table on the second floor level. The ceiling is rather low and the aircon was pretty weak. There were some plastic bags in one niche and plates and cutlery were piled in a table and the whole room made you feel that this was an area utilized for storage and converted into a makeshift dining venue when the main floor was full.
And the service was poor and slow! The waiter could not answer our queries about the stuffed Cornish Hen and referred us to a waitress who just repeated what the menu said. We can read, HELLO!
My lady guest, my husband and I ordered a la carte and my son and his girlfriend and our male guest ordered the set menu. Our salads came way before even the first item of the four course set menu so we had three hungry diners in our table. When they finally got their appetizer platter, it came one by one. I don't know why they could not bring all three together since they must have come out of the kitchen at the same time. The soup was cold and the breadstick that accompanied it was gummy....probably undercooked.
The stuffed Cornish Hen was did not resemble Cornish Hen...it was a leg and thigh and not a whole hen. My guest who owns several poultry farms and a chicken processing farm in Australia says that it was chicken and not Cornish Hen. He was really looking forward to the Cornish Hen as there is none available in Australia.
The poached pear dessert was sour....
On the positive side, I must say that my soup and the rich man's salad and the chocolate semifreddo were excellent.
Now I wonder if the original Lolo Dad's in President Quirino Avenue will be disappointing as well.

I have been following so many food blogs that I thought I would have one of my own and share experiences and recipes.

I also thought I could use the blog to vent my occasional frustrations with servicemen, utility companies and their billings, etc.etc. Well, that will come later when I am more familiar with this blog. Right now, I am still feeling my way so I'm a bit shy.