There IS such a thing as free lunch... kind of

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This meal was about 3 years overdue.  I normally BYO so it's rare that I even pick up the wine list at a restaurant.  But some time ago I noticed that a couple of vintages of a very rare wine were "mispriced" at Petrus - by that I mean the prices on the restaurant wine list were lower than the prevailing retail prices.  This is something that one usually only finds in certain restaurants in Europe or the U.S. - where wines are often purchased direct from wineries upon release, and any adjustments to pricing thereafter are "reasonable" and do not catch up to the crazy secondary market.  This rarely happens in Asia, however... as most restaurants don't have direct allocations from wineries, and need the mark-up to help with their rental costs.

It's an itch I've been waiting to scratch for 3 years, and I found out recently that I had waited too long... one of the vintages of this wine is no longer available.  But seeing that the remaining vintage was still priced about 50% below retail, I decided to round up a couple of people to pop open this baby.

With government mandated social distancing rules still in place, we were seated at adjacent tables with sufficient space in between... and had to talk a little louder than I normally would at an establishment like this.  I didn't give any instruction to chef Uwe Opocensky about how hungry we were, but I kinda expected him to revert to his old habit of trying to kill me...

Cheese gougère - the cheese filling was still there, but now we've got shavings of Parmigiano-Reggiano on top.

Pre-holiday FUK day 3: American ro ro

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After two days of having no meat, Ro Ro was dying for some ro ro.  Thankfully DaRC had arranged lunch at Authentic Living Butcher NYC - a place where they serve dry-aged beef.

Being a fan of Japanese Hamburg steak, I chose the Aging Humberg and Hanging Tender Steak Course.  It's been a while since I had Hamburg steak in Japan...

We started with a few amuses bouches:

Spiced popcorn

Pork liver gougères

Chiffon cake with Marscapone

10 days in 3 cities day 7: no sauers lüngerl in Bangkok

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When we started planning the Bangkok leg of the trip, The Dining Austrian listed Sühring as one of the places he wanted to hit.  This wasn't surprising, since the restaurant had moved up to the No. 4 spot on Asia's 50 Best Restaurants last year, and also got promoted to two macarons by the Rubberman a few months ago.  There seems to be a lot of buzz about the twins doing "modern German cuisine" in a Southeast Asian city, and numerous friends - including chefs whose palates I trust - had raved about the place.  So I got on the restaurant's website and booked us a table.

Somewhere along the line, my friend invited the birthday girl to join our trip, and instead of having him contact the restaurant to make the change, I told him I would take care of it... then got lazy and decided to ask my friend Gaggan for help.  Then yesterday I had to ask Vladi to help confirm the change, as the email I received from the restaurant still showed that we were a table of 4 instead of 5.

The other reason for contacting Gaggan was a special request.  The Dining Austrian and I were really trying to get someone in Asia to make saures lüngerl for us - as a joke - and who better than a pair of German chefs?  Of course, we knew that the southern German specialty may be a little foreign to the two Berliners, but what the hell...

We took the second seating in the kitchen, which meant dinner started at 8:45 p.m.  While I wasn't too happy about having a second late night in a row, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise... as The Dining Austrian was delayed by more than two hours trying to get out of Hong Kong and arrived just in time for this seating.

We took our seats at a table facing the kitchen, and eagerly waited for the meal to start.  As the Compatriot made the decision not to drink today, we relied on my friend's extensive knowledge of German and Austrian wines to pick out a few bottles from the restaurant's list.

Sitting inside the kitchen meant we were being served the restaurant's Erlebnis menu. It also meant that the aircon wasn't strong enough, and a few of us were kinda sweating a little.

Leberkäse - seared meatloaf and spinach on a small bun, topped with a fried quail egg.

I've seen pictures of these tiny little mugs countless times, and they actually hold a mixture of beer and lemonade.

The coaster underneath said "Ich bin eine Berliner" - which just happens to be my favorite German phrase (and the only one I know).  So once again I brought up the subject of JFK, and whether he did or did not announce to the world that he was a doughnut...

10 days in 3 cities day 5: no saures lüngerl in Hong Kong

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I'm trying to show my friend Uwe Opocensky some love, so while my friend originally wanted to check out a certain new restaurant which got themselves two macarons recently, I managed to persuade him to come visit Uwe by throwing in the promise of a particular southern German dish.   That got him all excited... and in fact, I was looking forward to it, too!

Service started with a canapes platter placed on the astroturf that had been laid out on the table top.  It's spring time, and I wondered what was in store for us...

Flower tart - interesting that the pastry was made with tomato, with sundried tomatoes, roasted eggplant, miso, and edible flowers on top.

Olive spherification - a tribute to Uwe's time at el Bulli.

Potato krapfen - with sour cream, smoked caviar, and dill flower.  A nice bite.

The autumn forest

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I've been a terrible friend.  I have only paid a single visit this year to my friend Uwe Opocensky's eponymous restaurant this year, and he's been very patient... waiting for me to visit.  I did manage to catch up with him a few weeks ago over dinner, and I figured it was time to make a visit to Uwe before year end.  So I roped in The Great One and, to my surprise, the Kat decided that he wanted to come along.

Candle and tea - we started with the bone marrow candle, and we soaked up the liquid with some sourdough bread.

Next we ripped open a package and extracted a tea bag, which we placed into a lovely porcelain cup.  The soluble bag - made of wild mushroom gelatin - contains wild mushrooms and herbs.

A little bit of Germany

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Tonight I got together with a few friends at Schurrbart, a German pub in Lan Kwai Fong. It's been a while since I had a taste of German food, so I was happy with my German friend's suggestion for some of his comfort food.

German food is pretty hearty, so I dispensed with starters and went straight for the schweinshaxe - the famed roasted pork knuckle. It's been a long time since I last enjoyed this dish, and I was not disappointed. The meat was roasted so it was dry and crispy on the outside, while still retaining some moisture inside. The crispy, slightly hard skin was superb - crunchy in the mouth but worked perfectly with the soft layer of fat just underneath the skin. There is very little to complain about here. I didn't touch the big blob of mash on my plate, but did enjoy the sauerkraut very much.

I also had a taste of the currywurst, which is something I wanted to try for a long time after seeing it on TV. I didn't find the curry taste strong enough, and wish that they had sprinkled some curry powder on top to spice it up more...

The 2006 Selbach-Oster Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spatlese was delicious, showing a big nose of petrol, minerals and sweet honey. It was slightly sweeter on the palate than I expected, and the girls definitely liked this wine.

I didn't have room for dessert, so I opted for a couple of schnapps - starting with winter spiced apple as a substitute for apple strudel. This wasn't a bad choice, and did actually taste like the strudel fillings . The blood orange that followed was also pretty nice, although the higher level of alcohol here was clearly detectable. It wasn't exactly fine dining, but I really enjoyed my evening.