Luxeat

L'Arpège

2010-06-27T11:25:23+02:00

I think it's genius what Alain Passard does. Not necessarily because he was the first (or one of the first) to explore salad leaves and root vegetables while other high end chefs were still heavily relying on animal products.Or that since many years his restaurants L'Arpège (84 rue de Varenne, 75007,Paris; tel. 01 47 05 09 06 ) has 3 Michelin stars and Passard's apprentices like Pascal Barbot have their 3 stars of their own.

The reason why is very simple and personal. Alain Passard turned the fish i don't like into the best fish dish of my life. The fish is called red mullet and i don't like it's muddy taste and it's texture. I find it's appearance a little bizarre too, it reminds a giant goldfish, don't you think? Anyway, when two fillets of red mullet arrived in front of me,I experienced something new I would never expect from a red mullet. It was shockingly good. It was served with vin jaune sauce and some chopped parsley and chives on the side. The texture of the fish was firm and it didn't taste like mud at all. There was a side dish too - some smoked boiled potatoes and cabbage. Have you every tried smoked boiled potatoes? Me neither, not until this week. One word - a-ma-zing. This dish was so simple,yet i will remember it the rest of my life.

Speaking of the rest of the menu,it was obviously inspired by Middle Eastern and Northern African specialities like hummus, samosa and couscous. Maybe at some point I thought I had enough of boiled turnips, but the salad with pralinée was ingenious, so as gnocchi or ravioli. ( purely vegetarian, of course!)

The summer menu in images...

Amuse-bouche.. (I could identify only the one with cucumber, cream and onion..)

Green peas hummus

Salad with praliné

Vegetables ravioli. ( Each of them had dfferent vegetables inside..)

Lamb and vegetables samosa

Gnocchi

Vegetables...

Vegetables "couscous"

Vegetables (boiled) with strawberries. My least favorite dish..

Red mullet with vin jaune sauce and smoked potatoes

Red berries dessert

Petit fours..

St John Smithfield, London

2010-06-21T11:19:18+02:00

Peas in the pod

St John (26 St John street,EC1M 4AY,London; tel. 020 7251 08048 ) got famous for it's "nose to tail eating" , returning to old British cuisine where all the parts of an animal are consumed. It has great reviews and was even awarded one Michelin star- my lunch there was very anticipated.

Unfortunately i found the dishes i ordered at St John very average. Soup with smoked haddock and bacon was nice but too heavy for summer. Turbot with mashed green peas was very bland and my friend's Guinea fowl was so dry that she didn't even finish it. Honey mousse with strawberries was too sweet and too straightforward.

Although i found the concept of the restaurant interesting (spacious, industrial white dining room, open kitchen, bakery just outside), the bottom line,however, was that the food i had was simply not good.Maybe i was not lucky, but i am not ready to come back to St John any time soon neither.

Globe artichoke vinaigrette

Smoked haddock and bacon broth

Guinea fowl and radishes

Turbot and pea puree

Honey mousse and strawberries

The menu of that day

My "coup de coeur" of the moment

2010-06-16T16:46:34+02:00

Luxeat blog is not dead, i've just been too busy ! To compensate my long absence from the blogosphere, i am sharing with you my favorite Parisian address of the moment.

L'Oriênt Extreme Montaigne (21 rue Bayard,75008,Paris;tel. 01 47 20 91 58) is a clone of Nobu chain concept. The head chef used to work at Nobu Paris, so not surprisingly you will find many common dishes with Nobu. The quality of the fish is one of the best in Paris - i particularly love the Peruvian style seafood salad ,the famous black cod is very good too. L'Oriênt Extreme Montaigne seems always full, so the reservations are highly recommended.

Noma- the best restaurant in the world

2010-04-27T08:44:40+02:00

According to The World's 50 Best Restaurants list,Noma is the best restaurant in the world in 2010. I love Noma and I am glad i went there last year as now it will be impossible to get a reservation!
Having said that i don't understand what Le Chateaubriand is doing on the list as number 11(you can see the whole list here). Le Chateaubriand has a higher position than L'Astrance.. )
Meanwhile, such extraordinary restaurants like L'Osier in Tokyo are not even in top 100.. And how Zuma London( a trendy yet banal Japanese chain who got the 66th place) is more "worth" to be on the list than Sushi Mizutani or Sushi Kanesaka in Tokyo is beyond my understanding...

Comerç 24 ( Barcelona)

2010-04-22T16:56:03+02:00

One word could describe Comerç 24 (C/ Comerç, 2408003 Barcelona, Spain 933 192 102) - "overhyped".The dishes sounded better on the menu ("pizza-sashimi") than they were in reality and even if i really enjoyed some dishes like tuna tartare,some were disappointing. I don't say that the dinner at Comerç 24 was bad but it didn't live to it's avant-garde image neither.
P.S. As in Inopia and Cal Pep most of the clients that night were foreigners. It didn't bother me at all( again, i was a foreigner!), but makes me wonder why all these places are not so popular among the local people?

4 different kinds of olive oil served with bread

Olives with anchovies and macadamia nuts dipped in gold powder (I forgot what exactly was in the second picture..)

Pizza- sashimi- tuna sashimi on a cracker . Where was the pizza? I think that "open sandwich"( or something like this) would be a more correct name.

Beach shrimp ceviche with wine peach - the dish had little in common with it's name. Raw shrimps with some sorbet on the side. Or maybe it was a "deconstructed" ceviche? I don't know..

Tuna tartare- you can see all the ingredients in the picture. Interesting imitation (the egg yolk) of the classical beef tartare.. Delicious

Artichoke,cod and spinach. The dish of my friend- she said it was very good. The artichoke was in a form of ice cream, served as a side dish.

Nougat with tuille cigar, chocolate and coffee

Bread, oil,chocolate and salt.. The dessert was literally made of grilled bread, chocolate , salt and olive oil...

Some images from the restaurant...

Inopia (Barcelona)

2010-04-20T11:06:00+02:00

Inopia (C/ Tamarit, 104, 08015 Barcelona, Spain ,93 424 52 31)is run by Alberto Adria, the younger brother of Ferran Adria(no need for introductions).It's a lively, funky place with loud music (one of the songs played was Sade's "Smooth Operator" )and great energy. The extensive menu includes regional classics but also foreign products and dishes, such as "Wagyu" beef or a mini Inopia hamburger.

Like in Cal Pep, most of the diners were foreigners. The reason for that could be also that Spanish people don't have dinners at 7 in the evening...

The tapas were as follows:

Russian salad (with tuna). Very fat and simple.

Anchovies in vinegar . Amazing, i didn't know that anchovies could be that good.

Artichoke with anchovies.Delicious

Bruschetta with smoked salmon, yogurt and honey. Honey, yogurt and salmon combination was a great discovery ..

Bruschetta with bonito and garlic. Very good

Croquettes with Iberian ham . Wouldn't order them again..

Fried potatoes with mixed sauce. Don't like junk food!

Tomato salad with onions,olives and anchovies. Very good

Mini Inopia burger. Delicious

Inopia 5 minutes to 7 pm...

Inopia 5 minutes past 7 pm...

Cal Pep (Barcelona)

2010-04-19T12:01:42+02:00

From all the tapas restaurants in Barcelona I've been (posts to come), Cal Pep (Plaça de les Olles 8 Barcelona, Spain,34-93-310-7961) is the most seafood oriented. Clams, shrimps,cuttlefish, tuna is masterfully prepared according to the Catalonian tradition. Like most of the good tapas places, Cal Pep is crowded during the lunch, but if you get a place you won't regret.Even if it was cloudy outside, i felt sunshine in each of the Cal Pep tapas.
What surprised me most though how touristy all these places in Barcelona are.Well, i was a tourist too, but so as maybe 80% of the clients at Cal Pep or Inopia. I guess if you are searching for "gems" where only locals go,you won't find them in Barcelona. After all, the food was very good, so who cares!

Tomato bruschetta

Clams- i just couldn't leave the savorous stock that went with them..

Iberian ham

Fried green peppers with coarse salt

Tortilla ( omelette with potatoes, onions..)

Chick peas with cuttlefish

Seafood showcase

Cal Pep interior and exterior

Stuck in Barcelona

2010-04-17T20:14:55+02:00

Tapas,paella on the port,jamon Iberico,more tapas... Volcano eruption..Who could have thought?
( Cal Pep,Inopia, Quimet i Quimet,Comerç 24 coming soon)

Sushi Matsumoto, Kyoto

2010-03-26T11:50:17+01:00

After eating in all these "alpha" sushi places in Tokyo the standards for fish and rice get pretty high.I don't want to sound snobbish- the first time i went to Japan i was so ignorant , i thought that sushis are the most basic meal to prepare, something everyone could do. When i realized that sushi making is a real know-how and it is rice with fish, not opposite, i had a whole new picture in my plate.
Anyway, Kyoto is far away from the sea and the region is not famous for sushi. Remember,the Edo-mae, sushi as the whole world knows, was born in Tokyo. Sushi Matsumoto (570-123, Gionmachi,Minamigawa,Kyoto) is the only sushi restaurant in Kyoto that has received two Michelin stars.

I did feel that Tsukiji market is far away from Sushi Matsumoto as some of the fish used was different than in the high end Tokyo restaurants,but there was no problem of freshness. The rice was firm and more sour than in other places i've been. Also, I noticed that the chef's assistant did a lot of grilling.The signature of the chef?
Some things i discovered at Sushi Matsumoto were new for me. For example, the chef would do a sea urchin nigiri sushi , not a roll and at the end of the omakase he would do a kampyo maki. Despite of being a plant,kampyo, dried long strips of gourd, tasted incredibly similar to tuna(just slightly sweeter)...
Hirame

Ika (squid) with salt. I love squid and i love salt, perfect combination

Maguro

Akagai (ark shell clam)

Kasugo

Aji

Ebi

Forgot exactly what it was .. (Bonito?)

Hotategai roll

Kampyo maki

Uni sushi

Tamago ( the taditional sushi omakase "dessert" )

Just some raw fish on rice

2010-03-22T23:37:29+01:00

Sushis in a random sushiya somewhere in Japan.. Nothing in common with this or this . Looking from an European point of view, the fish in "a random sushiya somewhere in Japan" was still better than anywhere in Europe.The rice was a disaster though.You get what you pay for..