I’ve mentioned Resturant Tang before as one of my absolute favorite places in Paris. I know a lot of his dishes, but on my last visit, he surprised me with this scallop and spicy soy sauce recipe. Scallops (Coquilles St Jacques, in French) are in season now here in France. It is rare to find a…
Tag: spice
Big Ben Than Market Saigon
It’s a mistake to walk into Ben Than Market through the front. You’d never think there was anything BUT aisles and aisles of t-shirts and counterfeit bags of all big brand names you can imagine. Engulfed in sea of textile and trinket stalls, hands reaching out, grabbing my arms and back to draw me in…
that little market in Saigon
Its time for breakfast. And we are in the streets of Saigon with a mission: find the little street market we’d liked so much the last time we visited Saigon a couple of years ago. Even with a good sense of direction, in a constantly changing and developing country like Vietnam, finding the past is…
truck stop lunch in Phan Thiet
Just booking the car is an adventure. How long does it take to drive from Saigon to Nha Trang? Everyone we speak to has a different answer. “The roads are good, you can drive fast. 4hrs.” “The roads are only good part way. 8hrs”…. The little lady we finally book with seems to know her…
Laksa for breakfast
Empty street of Chinatown in Singapore Our flight out of Singapore is early on Sunday and Chinatown is virtually empty when we wander through looking for some breakfast. We stand at a cross roads thinking about our options: eat at that corner place that looked average? go back to the hotel? …. And then The…
Singapore Noodles
Just throw it all in there. Thin noodles. Bits of pork. A little bit of shrimp. Some egg. A few greens. And a little bit of spice, but nothing aggressive, just aromatic. This is snack in Chinatown after finally arriving in Singapore. A journey that should have taken about 15 hours ended up taking 45…
end Ch9 day
Short hand in the notebook and constant translation from French to English. After a day of stains on teeth, hands and notebook pages. After barrels here, tanks there, old wood foudres, and multiple blends. Different spices, fruits, and flowers. After all of the power (and alcohol) saturated wines, and after the varying tannin levels… At…
Ibu Oka Babi Guling
Ubud. Across the street from the Royal Palace. Ibu Oka (i.e. mama oka’s place) This place is hopping. Locals and tourists rub shoulders to get a piece of this famous roast suckling pig. Open around 11AM and they close when they run out of pigs. That can be anywhere between two and five PM. Better…
Chambertin 1979 Louis Trapet
This old thing was kicking around the cellar for reasons that are long to explain. The Duc thought it might be dead. But it was very much alive. (the vintage was written by hand because the neck label with the vintage fell off in very damp storage conditions) Well, it had lost all of…
Oysters, foie gras and truffles…one bite
Next was something sort of inspired by Stephane Léger of Le Chassagne in Chassagne Montrachet. He put oysters and foie gras together. So why not try it with truffles? The foie gras was cooked and cold, slightly spicy but with no traces of Port or Cognac. The oysters was raw, Number 3 from the Grand…
Le Chamarré de Montmartre: magic from the islands
I happened to be tasting through the wines of Thierry Despres, of Grande Maison in Monbazillac. Whose wines can rival the most expensive and notorious sauternes at a fraction of the price. I know. I’ve done blind tastings before and Grande Maison was the ringer. The spiciness of his wines actually went quite well…
Belated Vietnamese Postcard
Little lady selling sweet soy pudding My first trip to Vietnam was in December 2007 (less than a year ago). It was a trip that had a huge impact on many aspects of my life, but probably most importantly, my taste life. (That 1st trip was before I started this blog and it inspired the…
Recipes for Port:Sautéed chicken gizzards with baby spring potatoes and boiled beets
Gésiers with potato and beet Use either confit gizzards or gizzards that have been cooked for a long time. The gizzards must be really soft and really cooked so that their sweetness comes out. The spices we used were: Cinnamon, cumin, ginger powder, curcuma, mild curry, salt and pepper. The key to the recipe…
Spoon Recipes to accompany Port: Why
What inspired us to create these recipes? 1. We found that even the Portuguese do not actually ‘drink’ a lot of Port. They sometimes have it as an aperitif, but even that is rare. 2. Port is rich, both in alcohol and tannins, making it hard go through a full meal with only Port. That…
Saltpepperlime 