A rare Selfie

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PR8 has been pinging me again. Écriture is doing a 4-hands collaboration with Selfie, the restaurant in Moscow under the White Rabbit Group, and he wanted me to join the media tasting during lunch.

I do need to go back to Écriture to visit my knife, and I was curious about the kind of Russian cuisine that's been getting a lot of attention in the last few years, but these days I no longer have the luxury to take 3-hour lunches on weekdays.  PR8 promised, multiple times, that he would get the chefs to do a short menu to accommodate me, but of course I never believed him for one second.  Not when Maxime's in the kitchen.

I got so annoyed in the end by the pestering that I just decided to ping Maxime and asked for a table for dinner.  I don't need the freebie lunch, and I'll pay for dinner myself (for two, actually) just so I could tell PR8 to please STFU.  I also decided to rope in Mr. and Mrs. Birdiegolf as collateral damage.  They know I normally only call them when there's good stuff around... and they also know (or think they know) that the mythical "Peter menu" does exist in certain locations...

It was hot during the day, but tonight there was a very nice, comfortable breeze coming through our table by the balcony.  That made the experience that much nicer.

First we have the tater tots as usual, with a little caviar on top.  Every restaurant has its signature amuse bouche, and this is obviously the signature here at Écriture.

Canned food for Russian cosmonauts

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Today is the 1-year anniversary of the Soyuz MS-05 launch, which I traveled to Baikonur Cosmodrome to watch.  Even if it's not "once in a lifetime", it's still a very special day that I will remember for a long time to come.

While shopping for souvenirs at the Baikonur Cosmodrome Museum, I picked up two cans of food meant for the Russian cosmonauts.  The pricing of around USD 20 for each can was definitely a rip-off, but I guess I'm the exact kind of idiot they were looking for...

So I decided that today would be the perfect time to open those cans and taste how bad the cosmonauts have it up there.

Токана мясо-овощная (Tomato with meat and vegetable) - creamy texture in the vegetables with onions, red pepper, and potato.  Was there perhaps a little cheese?

Champagne wishes and caviar dreams, expired edition 2

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Hello Kitty and I had the distinct pleasure of dining with Dada and The Man in White T-shirt at their home.  I was originally looking forward to dining out somewhere, since eating at home meant that The Man in White T-shirt would be busy cooking for us instead of enjoying himself.  But one does not object when an invitation like this comes along...

Besides, if we weren't dining at their home, how would Hello Kitty and I ever get to meet Bunch and Chewie?!  And of course, who were the first ones to greet me when the door opened?

While the French chef was busy in the kitchen cooking us Cantonese food, I laid out the goodies that I had brought along.  I hadn't planned on bringing anything other than wine, but since I found out yesterday that my aged/expired caviar needed to be consumed 3 months ago, I made a last-minute decision to bring along what was left of my stock... and hoped that my hosts didn't mind.

Russian golden oscietra, packed March 2017 - initially I was worried about the white stuff that was on top, stupidly thinking that perhaps it had gone moldy... But The Man in White T-shirt figured that it was just the congealed oil from long periods of refrigeration, so we went ahead and ate it anyway...

(Champagne wishes and) Caviar dreams, expired edition

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So... Babu is back in town from her year-end excursion, and it seemed like the perfect excuse for me to visit and bring along some caviar.  There are a few tins of farmed Russian caviar that have been sitting in my fridge for months, and I can't seem to find the right people or occasion to dig into them.  Knowing that they are now all past their "use by" date, I decided it was now or never.

Things didn't get off to a good start when I failed to find my usual mini-blinis at the supermarket.  They were sold out and wouldn't restock for another week.  So I decided to buy a little bit of Japanese milk toast instead.  Knowing that Babu prefers to take the eggs "as is", I also got lazy and decided not to buy any crème fraîche - a decision I would regret later.

Another decision I would come to regret was not bringing a bottle of Champagne, as I had done each time in the past.  I figured the Tiggers would have some lying around and we could open one of those... What I didn't count on was that none of their bottles was actually chilled!

The highlight of today would undoubtedly be the beluga, but I had also brought along a tin of what I thought to be golden oscietra. Once the tins were open, it was easy to see that some of the eggs had burst and liquefied...

Back to Kazakhstan day 6: the long drive back to Kyzylorda

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After a long day at the North Aral Sea yesterday (the roundtrip took 8 hours), it was time to head back to "civilization" in Kyzylorda.  Thankfully I wasn't taking another train ride today, but had arranged for Serik to drive me the whole distance of 470 km (double that if you include his drive back).  Today I would be riding in comfort in a Mercedes C-Class - not that the Nissan 4WD yesterday wasn't comfortable.

Gulmira made sure I was well fed this morning, cooking me some pan-fried eggs with tomatoes.  I took it with bread and tea.

Back to Kazakhstan day 4: live Soyuz rocket launch

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Today's the day!  Scratching an itch and ticking an item off the non-existent bucket list by watching a live rocket launch at Baikonur!  It's gonna be an exciting day!  But first, some breakfast back at the canteen...

Fruit cake with raisins (кекс творожный с изюмом) - these were pretty dry and hard, but flavor-wise they were OK.

New day, new porridge. Today it seemed to be semolina porridge (каша из манной крупы), and the texture reminds me of liquefied polenta or grits, with a grainy texture on the tongue.

Back to Kazakhstan day 3: Baikonur city tour

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Got up early today to see the sight of camels wandering around our hotel.  That was unexpected.  Still no internet connection, and I'm getting little bits of messages coming in.  Very frustrating to be out of touch on a weekday.

Breakfast was at the canteen nearby.  We lined up cafeteria-style, and for the first time I truly experienced the "Russian department store" service I had always joked about...  There were very few items of food and drink on offer, and you took what came out of the kitchen... or left it.  My fellow traveler Kevin proffered: "You do have a choice, and the choice is not to eat."

Back to Kazakhstan day 2: Kyzylorda to Baikonur

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My morning was not spent walking around the city as planned, but in my hotel room at the Hilton Garden Inn Astana. I had some work to do, and despite being surprisingly hungry after a whole day of eating yesterday, I wasn’t interested in eating much this morning. Lunch at a decent restaurant wasn’t an option today since most don’t open till 12pm, and I was on my way to Astana Airport by then.

Dining options at the domestic terminal of Astana Airport were pretty damn limited. I didn’t have a lot of time, and wasn’t gonna bother checking out the Creperie de Paris. There didn’t seem to be a local option, so I found myself at Burger and Pasta, ordering two croissants and a juice. Gotta be honest and say that the croissants exceeded my expectations.

The flight to Kyzylorda took 1½ hours, and after 3 flights on Air Astana in 2 days, I’ve gotten used to passengers clapping upon successful landing by the pilot. Kyzylorda Korkyt Ata Airport reminds me of the dinky airports in remote parts of Asia – with a simple building, only one gate, and no luggage conveyer belt. We had to wait outside the room until the staff unloaded the luggage, then everyone rushed to grab their bags. I didn’t see my luggage in the pile, and was about to try to report missing/stolen luggage until my guide spotted it near the entrance. My guess is that one of the locals tried to steal it but couldn’t get pass the staff at the door checking luggage tags.

Champagne wishes and caviar dreams, beluga edition

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This was a night we've been waiting for since December, and I was glad that it finally happened tonight.  Ever since I first got my hands on some Russian beluga caviar late last year, a few of us have been discussing the possibility of doing a beluga tasting.  Our schedules went through a few changes, but we managed to clean out our stash tonight.

Rather than asking our favorite chef the Man in White T-Shirt for another favor like last time, our friend RC offered to host us for this gathering, and proceeded to cook up a storm.  We had only been able to drool over pictures of Chef RC's cuisine at Chez Ro Ro, and tonight we finally had the chance to have a taste.

First, a little Joselito Gran Reserva bellota, which has been aged for 48 months.  Very nutty, but also has a surprisingly sweet finish.

Champagne wishes and caviar dreams, deluxe edition

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A few weeks ago my caviar supplier pinged me and asked me if I would be interested in taking some beluga caviar.  I've bought stuff from him sporadically for the last year and a half, and in all this time he's never offered me any beluga.   My interest was piqued, and after checking with a few friends for interest, I placed a small order and arranged a couple of tasting sessions.

We were supposed to do the tasting at our friends' place tonight, but due to unforeseen circumstances we needed to find another venue.  This usually means asking a chef or a restaurant for a favor, so I pinged my go-to chef for stuff like this - the Man in White T-Shirt.  Thankfully he was amenable to such requests.  After all, he himself has BYO'ed fish and chicken to other restaurants...  So we took the second seating at Neighborhood, and asked the boss to join us for the tasting.

Down for the count, finally

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I've been receiving complaints.  I haven't been to see one of my favorite chefs in a while, and he's not shy about letting me know that he hasn't been gettin' the love from me.  After attempts at a December visit fell through, I waited until Uwe Opocensky returned from his trip to the US to book myself a table at the Mandarin Grill + Bar.

As usual, I didn't bother ordering.  I just let Uwe know in advance that I was coming, and he knew that he would have carte blanche to throw at me whatever he felt like.  The only comment I made to Uwe before dinner started were that "I don't do fish sperm" and "we're not as hungry as you think we are".  After all, just about every single visit I've paid Uwe in the last 3 years has resulted in my stomach almost bursting while still in the restaurant.

First came the little nibbles.  We were told to start with mushroom sabayon.  Very nice and warms the stomach to prep it for the coming onslaught.

Fermented sourdough sticks with pickled onions and flowers - crunchy and pretty.

Spherical olives

Eight hands New Year's Eve dinner

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Another New Year's Eve.  This year, though, I was resolved not to dine out.  I figured there was no point fighting the crowds or paying for an expensive menu, so I wanted to do some simple home cooking.  Thankfully there was another couple agreeable to the idea of spending it at home, so we ended up spending the last evening of the year with them.

Since the idea is to cook at home, we all agreed to contribute so that each of the four of us would play chef for at least one course.  This turned out to be a totally kick-ass dinner...

We decided to start things off in style... with Champagne and caviar.  We had two types of caviar for comparison.  First up was the En-K de Caviar oscietra from Kaviari.  This nicely packaged tin contained 15g of farmed oscietra caviar, which one can scoop from the groove with the spoon in the package.

Champagne wishes and caviar dreams, premium edition

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After dipping into our first jar of Russian caviar last month, I was curious to try out the other offerings from my Russian supplier.  When I had the idea of bringing a nice tin of premium caviar to Last Minute Uncle as a gift on my trip back home last weekend, I decided to get some for myself, too.  I wanted to do a side-by-side tasting and see what the difference was... besides the price, that is.

I was due to visit my godson Bear today, and as I know Babu is a big fan of caviar - and had in fact ordered a bunch of it from my Russian supplier - I figured I'd bring the good stuff over along with a bottle of bubbly.  After all, weekend afternoons are the best time to enjoy this!

Russian malossol oscietra caviar - the control sample, the same type we had last month.  Unfortunately some of the eggs had burst, maybe due to temperature changes during transport.

Champagne wishes and caviar dreams

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After my birthday feast last month, Hello Kitty got herself some Russian caviar and wanted to share it with me.  So on the last Sunday that I was spending at my "summer vacation home", we decided to crack open the jar and also pop the cork on some bubbly.

We had some discussion about how best to go about consuming this precious ingredient, as we're both novices when it comes to caviar.  The original suggestion from the supplier was to do it "the Russian way" which, presumably, involved blinis, sour cream, chopped onions, hard boiled egg yolks and whites...etc.  Let's face it, that's a lot of work just to have a little fish roe!