More UNESCO World Heritage Sites

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UNESCO has added to their list of World Heritage Sites in 2007, and as a consequence two locations I have previously visited are now part of the list. They are Sydney Opera House and South China Karst (which I saw in Kunming, China).

An "Extravagant" Dinner

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Last night I met up with my friend Kevin and some friends for dinner. He had wanted to open up some nice wines, and I decided to bring along a couple of very good bottles to match. Dinner was at Amber, which has now clearly become one of Kevin's favorite restaurants.

We picked one of the set menus for simplicity's sake, and the 10-course degustation menu just seemed a little too much. We started with the Boston lobster salad, which was nice and fresh, and moved onto a demitasse of creamy soup and a Chupa Chups-style lollipop made of foie gras.

This was followed by a nice pan-fried foie gras, done just the way I like - juicy and soft. There was grapefruit sorbet to cleanse our palate. Main course was Challans turkey, which really wasn't my favorite. We had a sampler of cheese, then finished off with dessert and coffee.

The extravagance was all in the form of the wines for the evening. We started with the 1983 Dom Perignon - one of my favorite champagne vintages and the Dom is particularly good.

For white wine, Kevin brought a bottle of 1985 JL Chave Hermitage Blanc. This wine normally can last 20+ years in good vintages, but it was clear that the wine is over the hill. The color is copper gold, almost a bit reddish. The nose was still pretty nice, with a bit of pear and tropical fruit. However the wine was completely flat on the palate. We pass it up for the red wines.

The reds were the main event tonight. Kevin had brought a bottle of 1955 Cheval Blanc. We had high expectations of the wine. It was very, very smooth but the age is starting to show in the nose as well as the palate. We had another bottle at an MNSC dinner earlier this year, but this bottle is in much better condition.

Next up was the 1961 Ducru Beaucaillou I brought. I was a bit apprehensive, as the last two bottles I had opened never measured up to my first experience with this wine. This bottle was drinking very nicely and showing classic traits of a Saint Julien - a bit green, grassy and "farmy". However, it was a bit muted and the sweet fruit never showed. This is the frustration that you get with Ducru. For the record, we drank this wine blind and Kevin actually guessed correctly - even hitting the vintage.

To pair with dessert, I brought a bottle of 1959 Huet Vouvray Clos du Bourg Moelleux. I had hoped that this would be a sweeter wine than its cousin I opened a few years ago, but then again I have very little experience with Vouvray, especially old ones. The wine had a very nice nose of apricot, but there was a lot of acidity on the palate and not the sweet sticky I was expecting. It's a bit of a shame since 1959 was a superb vintage in the Loire Valley. I'm still looking for a bottle of aged Loire that is nice and sweet.

As usual, the cost of the wines far outweighed that of the food. Although we acquired the wines years ago when prices were much lower, the 2 bottles of red alone would cost around USD 2,000 in bond from London traders. I have to admit that it's pretty extravagant by most people's standards.

Hundred Year Old Champagne

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Last night was the final gathering for MNSC this year, hosted by Paulo at the China Club. There was a bit of tension going into the dinner, as there were two of us at the bottom of the rankings, and tonight's results would determine the loser for the year.

Paulo starts us off with some champagne. Not just ANY champagne. We were drinking the 1907 Heidsieck Monopole Gout Americain. This was one of the fabled bottles salvaged from a shipwreck off the Finnish coast, part of the cargo of the Jongpoking en route to Tsar Nicholas II of Russia when the ship was sunk by German U-boat in 1916. The wine had stayed at the bottom of the ocean for 81 years under constant temperature and pressure. I'm not sure how much Paulo paid for the bottle at auction, but recent reported prices were around USD 4,000 per bottle...

We were all curious to see if there was still life in the bottle. Paulo carefully removed the wiring around the cork, and pulled gently. We could hear a faint fizz as the cork was popped. We watched in anticipation as the waiter poured the champagne into flutes and served them to us.

The champagne was lovely. Being gout Americain, it has a higher dosage of sugar than the brut champagnes we normally drink. The result, after years of aging, is a wonderful caramelized nose. There were still some bubbles in the champagne flute, and there was still life left in the wine. The taste was very much that of aged champagne, but more advanced. Very smooth and mellow, it was just delicious. We each poured ourselves a little more and savored this treasure from the sea.

We then proceeded to enjoy the best meal I've ever had at the China Club. The menu was actually full of courses which clashed with red wine and messed up our palates, but everything was just so delicious.


pan-fried tofu skin (香煎腐皮卷)


sauteed giant "glass prawns"（玻璃大蝦球）- this was really delicious and about the size of a hockey puck. With the pungent prawn sauce on the side, this did a lot to kill our palate for wine

supreme pork belly stir-fried with soy sauce（極品醬油泡豬肚片）- delicious and tender

shark's fin stir-fried with crab meat and eggs（蟹肉炒桂花翅）- normally I don't eat sharks fin, but this was just awesome. All the ingredients worked well together

poached pomelo rind with abalone juice and shrimp roe（鮑汁蝦子扣柚皮）- nicely done, but the shrimp roe again detracts from wine

fried eastern star garoupa（生炸原條東星斑)


mutton claypot（枝竹羊腩煲）- very yummy and tender

fried sticky rice（生炒糯米飯）- excellent stuff, I could have eaten two more bowls of this

Now the wines. Turned out the theme was a horizontal of 1976's - Paulo's birth year - arranged in 4 pairs.

1976 Ausone - we all thought this was classically Left Bank...

1976 Rayas - the nose was a bit "funky" and we took it for a Bordeaux...

1976 Comte de Vogue Musigny Vielle Vignes - half of us made the classic mistake of confusing between an old Rhone and an old Burgundy...

1976 Lafite-Rothschild - half of us actually did well and thought it was a Pauillac, although no one guessed Lafite

1976 Paul Jaboulet Hermitage La Chappelle - we all identified the wine as an Hermitage, although only one of us nailed it on the head

1976 DRC Grands Echezeaux - we all knew this was a Burgundy, and most people guessed Echezeaux. This was a classically delicious Burgundy

1976 Petrus - we all got it wrong and thought it was a Left Bank


1976 Guigal Cote-Rotie La Mouline - this was clearly the wine of the evening. It was very, very yummy and the syrah clearly showed. But at least half of us knew it was a syrah, despite guessing it was an Hermitage...

At the end of the evening, the scores were tallied and I came out a bit worse than Alex, which meant that I came last in the rankings once again this year...I couldn't believe that I lost by 0.002 on a 10-point scale!!! Aaargggghhhh!!!!

Arabian Excursion Day 8: Dubai Desert

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This was my last full day in Dubai, and I was going to be out pretty much all day. Hans came to pick me up at 10am (instead of 8am as originally scheduled) for the drive to Hatta. Today he was slightly better at conversation, so that there wasn't total silence in the car like the other day.

As we leave the Grand Hyatt, we drive past the vast wetland reserve that is Al Khor, a WWF-administered reserve full of migratory birds. I had wanted to visit the reserve, but couldn't because of scheduing conflicts. As we drive past, I see hundreds of flamingos on the water of the creek. Would have been nice to have been inside with my telephoto.

We drive on the highway past the sand dunes that we would visit in the afternoon. After about an hour or so, we come to the small town of Hatta. Our first stop is the Hatta Heritage Village -you know it's a stupid tourist trap just looking at the name... Anyway, we walk around the compound, which showcases traditional housing elements such as a mini fort, majlis, barasti...etc. There are displays inside some of the rooms showing traditional way of life. They even have a small date plantation and you can climb up one of the two watchtowers. In general it's a bit of a waste, and we leave to continue to the mountains.

We drive out out to the mountains, but unfortunately the landscape is very similar to that of Oman. I guess I shouldn't be surprised at this, since this is just the western end of the Hajar Mountains. Maybe I had OD'd on this landscape, but I found myself completely uninterested to take any pictures of this area.

At one point Hans stopped the Hummer, and we got out to look at the "rock pools" which I read about in guide books. I was utterly disappointed. I was expecting large, deep pools of water similar to the Bimmah Sinkhole in Oman. Instead it was just a mini canyon carved into the rocks, and there was very little water. I don't even know why it's considered an attraction.

I wanted to go deeper into the mountains to look for better wadis, since I was told by a group of French tourists that they had seen some beautiful sights coming from the other direction. I ask Hans to drive on, and he grudgingly obliges. Unfortunately we drive only a little further and I finally give up on trying to see something prettier. I suspect that the wadis here are nowhere near as pretty as the ones I saw in Oman. The only good thing that came out of this detour is that I saw a beautiful bird with bright multi-hued blue feathers. Should have stopped to take pictures with my 300mm.

We turn around and Hans drops me off at the Hatta Fort Hotel - the only place to stay in town - for a quick lunch at Cafe Gazebo overlooking the pool. Absolutely nothing to write home about, but this is where the expats come for a weekend getaway.

We drive back towards Big Red, the area where people go for dune buggy and dune bashing. We park and wait for another Hummer from the same tour operator to join us. A mother from South Africa joins us along with her son and camera-toting daughter. After Hans releases some air from the tires, we set off on my first dune bashing.

We drive over numerous large and small dunes, zigzagging our way through the red sand. After a while, we stop on top of a large dune and take in the vista. A few other 4x4s are parked close to us, and some of the tourists try their hand at driving up the dunes. One particular driver in a small vehicle kept failing to get up to the top, and the lot of us sit around watching him gun the engine time and again...

We move to the top of another dune, and get out and try our hand at sandboarding. I get onto a snowboard, and down I go, pretending to know what I'm doing while desperately trying to balance myself. I'm doing pretty well as I start, getting about halfway down the slope. All of a sudden, something happened and the next thing I knew, I flipped over, landed on my head, and tumble down the dune. As I overcame my shock and got up, I realized that there was sand everywhere - all over my face, in my hair (down to the scalp and roots), in my ear, nose and mouth! I try to climb up the slope with the board, but it's a hard climb as I don't have a firm footing. I am absolutely winded by the time I'm back up to the top.

I sit out while the mom and kids from the other car try it a few more times. It was time to go to the tourist camp for our dinner. Along the way we stop and watch the sunset, but the surrounding isn't great so my camera stays in the bag.

The camp is very touristy, giving people an opportunity to ride camels, have henna painted, take pictures with a falcon, get photographed in native dress...etc. I wasn't interested in any of these, so I get a taste of an Arabic dessert and sample the aromatic Arabic coffee. Since it was still some time until dinner was served, I sit down to smoke some apple-flavored shisha. Not sure why, but I needed a lot of effort to draw the smoke out of the pipe. But it was very enjoyable.

We were seated around a stage area for our dinner, which consisted of BBQ as well as cold mezzes and curries. When we were almost done, the bellydancing show started. I wasn't sure if our dancer really was from the Middle East - she could be Russian for all I know - but I gave her the benefit of the doubt. The reality was that she wasn't very good, but lots of people (including me) still took out our cameras to snap pictures.

Dinner is over at 8pm, and we begin our drive back to the city. While it's very touristy, an open-air dinner under the stars in the desert was a fitting end to my tour to Arabia.

Three Meals in Dubai

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Had 3 reasonably good meals over 2 days in Dubai. They were all inside 5-star hotels on Jumeirah Beach, so naturally were not going to be on the cheap side. But contrary to reports I have read on the net, the food actually was not terrible. If anything, they were of reasonable quality, but unfortunately the prices charged usually warrant higher quality elsewhere. Therefore I think it's not that the absolute quality level of the food is poor; people are just disappointed that they didn't get what they paid for.

Al Muntaha, Burj Al Arab Hotel - Lunch on December 13

Was not seated at a table by the window, but still had a reasonable view of the Palm Jumeirah. This was fine as I'd just gotten off the seaplane and already had a spectacular view that morning.

Did not choose the set lunch and went a la carte instead. For starter I chose pan seared diver scallops, expecting them to be very fresh and sweet. I was not disappointed. I was served two large scallops, halved, along with the red roes in the plate. The scallops were sweet, seared to perfection, and the flavors came together well. The only shocker is that the plate was put in front of me much too quickly after I had ordered...which meant that it was already partially prepared when I ordered it.

My main course was steamed barramundi with a veloute of green peas. The large piece of flesh was very tender and juicy, completely covered in the green veloute and served over a bed of green asparagus and lumpfish caviar. Here again the flavors blended well together, and I was very happy by this point.

For dessert I chose the passion fruit souffle, which came in a rather large ramekin (for one person at least). It was pretty good, although I was reminded of the better passion fruit souffle at Plantane in Shanghai.

I did order a glass of Chablis to go with the scallops and the barramundi. Can't remember the producer but it was a village wine.

The decor was modern but a bit Disney-esque. I am reminded of Le Cirque 2000 in NY years ago, where the decor was a bit wacky and colorful. Of course the raison d'etre for the restaurant is the spectacular view, of Jumeirah Beach/Palm Jumeirah on one side, and of the new city skyscrapers and the World on the other (with the Jumeirah Beach Hotel just adjacent to the Burj on this side).

I take my coffee and petits fours at the bar, and enjoy the view of the city. Meanwhile I continue to snap away with my camera.

Overall, I think the food s fairly good. However, the pricing for this restaurant is comparable to some of the top restaurants in London and New York, while an appreciable gap remains in terms of quality, as well as service.

Tagine, One & Only Royal Mirage - Dinner on December 13
Looking at the name, it is immediately apparent that you are entering a Moroccan establishment. A bowl of dates, a traditional gesture of hospitality, rest on a small stand just inside the entrance, along with an empty plate for the pits as well as a stack of napkins. I grab a date and munch.

The decor is classically Moroccan. All the staff inside the restaurant are of Moroccan origin (a welcome change to the multinational staff we meet at other restaurants), and dressed in national garb with red tarbouches on their heads as well as babouches on their feet. The restaurant was pretty busy with only a couple of empty tables. However, the staff was extremely friendly and helpful (and knowledgeable), which is again a nice change.

I started with the Salade Marrakechia, a collection of small bowls each containin cauliflower; red beet root; a paste made from tomato, orange blossom water, honey and saffron; mashed chickpeas; and salad of tomatoes and cucumbers. The paste is especially interesting as it is sweet and is eaten with bread. By the time I run through these, I am already half full.

Next I ordered two main courses - way too much I had to have some variety. The tagine soussi, a lamb stew with onion, ginger and saffron, was delicious. I try to finish this as much as possible. The other main - the couscous bismak - is topped with prawns (both large and medium) and fish. It is among the best cousous I have ever had, but I had no hope of finishing it. I ask for it in a doggy bag.

I am already full, but am I going to walk out without having dessert? No way! The nice waiter suggests the kenaffa, overruling my original choice. Basically a mille-feuille made with vanilla cream, almonds and cinnamon, it is absolutely amazing. It is the perfect ending to a good meal.

I leave with a bloated tummy, a doggy bag in hand and my wallet intact.

Pierchic, Al Qasr - Dinner on December 14

This meal was always going to be about the setting and not the food. Built on top of a pier extending out from the beach, this was touted by Time Out as "one of the most romantic restaurants" since it has a view of the Burj at night.

The waiter makes a few suggestions, and since they match my tastes, I decide to take them. For starter I had the langoustines, served on a bed of salmon an scallop tartare with langoustine foam. This was well-executed and I find myself licking my lips for the foam.

For main course I had the halibut, which was pan-fried to perfection. I wash it all down with a glass of German kabinett riesling.
I'm pretty full at this point, so I pass on dessert and make my way back to the hotel.

One last word on the wine list: the Jumeirah group of hotels obviously spent some effort to stock the cellars of the hotels that they operate, so there are a number of trophy wines on the list. As one would expect in a fine-dining restaurant (if these could quality), and especially one located in Dubai, prices would not be on the cheap side. A bottle of '82 La Mission Haut Brion lists for AED 18,000, which is roughly 3.5-4x the current bonded price in London (and therefore not too unreasonable compared to what other restaurants would charge). The most expensive bottle is the '85 Petrus, which at AED 45,000 is about 10x the price in bond in London. Now THAT is excessive!