Barely back in Paris and I’m hankering for Malaysian food. Apparently a fortnight was hardly enough for me to eat to my heart’s content, and boy did I eat. Gone was the 3 meals per day “rule” which got easily doubled up when different people tried to feed me at different times of the day. Not only that, I wouldn’t even think about photographing the food but just grabbed the plate/bowl and started wolfing them down. The damage? Just under 3kg of weight gain… (eeep!)
From homemade favourites such as popiah, mee suah (longevity noodles in Chinese red wine – not shown), bak chang and assam laksa – made upon request; my aunt and grandaunts are simply awesome! – to eating out as well as trying to finish up Chinese New Year meals, it was a full-fledged makan-thon! My family was not the only people enthusiastic in feeding me, my close friends put in major contribution too! Had I remembered to photograph everything, this post is going to be very, very long indeed.
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Last year, Chef Haruka Casters – formerly of Abri, where I had great meals with family and friends but a nightmare to get into nowadays – striked out on her own and opened up a small, 14-seats izakaya in Belleville. Its name 6036 represents the distance, in miles, separating Paris and Tokyo, but here, the two food cultures are closely wed to make an interesting Franco-Japanese meal, tapas style.
The menu here changes regularly but there are seemingly some staples (onigiri, cold cuts of Galice and Belotta, St Nectaire or Comté, macha crème brûlée), others rotated and appear every so often, and some depending on the season. A good mix, I would say, for a menu of approximately 10-12 items: 7-9 savoury, 1 cheese and 2 desserts. On the late November night we were there with a few friends, we tasted 10 of the 12 items possible, skipping out on the soup and the carbonara.
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First, there were dim sums. Then, came desserts. There were even some street food/ snacks. But, as you may have guessed, I was not done with eating yet. I dare not step onto the weighing scale when I got home from Hong Kong, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if I’d put on a few kilos; my jeans felt snugged… /whistles
For someone who is not big on biscuits and cookies, I had fun tasting a large range of goodies offered at Kee Wah Bakery and Koi Kei Bakery. There are multiple branches for each of these famous bakeries, with friendly staff that really want you to know how delicious their treats are and why you should buy a few more packet of everything. Guess who was the sucker who hand-carried boxes of delicate egg rolls back to Paris?
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One Chinese New Year many moons ago, I organised a dinner in Dublin for 35 friends and colleagues. In keeping with the theme of the meal – Chinese dishes which non-Chinese can’t find on their version of the menu (the restaurant owner was very nervous when he saw 35 non-Chinese walked in with me because I had pre-ordered some very traditional dishes!) – I had specially ordered red bean soup for dessert. The meal was a great success but I wish I could say the same about the dessert; a majority of the diners abandoned it after a spoonful or two, and proceeded to order frozen desserts available in just about every Chinese restaurants in Europe (you know which one I’m talking about, right?).
It is true that Chinese desserts are not very conventional by European/Western standards. Many are in the form of warm soup or custard, the ingredients often include beans or seeds or nuts, there are glutinous and/or jellied textures… I could go on, but that’s no reason to confine Chinese/”Asian” restaurants’ dessert menu to ice cream, frozen stuff, and at a push, banana/pineapple/apple fritters. If bubble tea and the chemically-induced flavours could gain popularity in the West, why not other desserts too?
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Even prior to landing in Hong Kong, I knew what I wanted to eat – dim sum! There are a few dim sum places in Paris, some better than others, but I miss those that I get in Asia which somehow always tastes better and comes in more variety. I know, this could just be the biased Asian in me speaking. ;)
Four of my six lunches in Hong Kong constituted of just dim sum. The first among them was at a small place called Ding Dim in the Central district, and we were so glad to dig in our food that not even a single photo was taken. Two of the next three dim sum restaurants I went to were noticeably packed with Asians and barely a couple of token Caucasians. If they were, I’d hazard there have been a lot of cart peeking and dish pointing instead of ordering, unless they are long term residents in Hong Kong. Fun times!
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When I was a young visitor to Paris who barely spoke French donkey years ago, the first time I noticed the sign “traiteur” while walking around town, I wondered out loud “how could a Chinese takeaway be a traitor” (yes, it’s usually outside a Chinese restaurant/ takeaway that you’ll see the sign). My friend chuckled. “Nobody’s a ‘traitor’; the word traditionally stems from giving yourself a treat at home – i.e. dine in but don’t cook. However, today, it simply means a caterer or a takeaway.”
Anyway, I digress.
The recommendation of a friend of a friend brought us to my old neighbourhood of Cité U to check out a restaurant within a restaurant. Or more accurately, a French restaurant within a Chinese traiteur. Tucked away on a street at the edge of 13ème, bordering the 14ème and near the périph, you’d easily walk past without even noticing it. There’s not much to shout home about the decor and this is not a place for a romantic dinner à deux either. Yet, at 7.30pm, on a Saturday night when the streets were eerily quiet in this corner of the city, the place was bustling. If you had not made a reservation ahead, you’d be out of luck.
Once seated, ask for the French menu; a small and regularly changed, but not the single-menu variety (like many of the trendy new openings), there are 2-3 options per course. Seasonal ingredients were prominently featured. But, first thing first, a small basket of prawn crackers appeared at the table. I got munching away, and perhaps enjoying too many pieces of them, that F confiscated them away in case I ruined my appetite. As if! :p
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I don’t do brunch on a regular basis. In fact, I even suck at sleeping in. Any random Saturday morning, by 11am – the time when most people (or hispters?) grab their first bites of the day – I would have done my grocery shopping, ran a load of laundry, and probably planning what to cook for lunch. Nowadays, I’m even throwing in a swimming date with a friend into the mix. And on Sunday morning? F is supposed to “encourage” me to take a long jog in nearby parks.
Going to brunch is still a special occasion to me, usually for a irregular catch-up gabfest with a friend. Or to hangout with a visitor. I don’t have a favourite place to brunch, but it does give me an excuse to try out different spots around town. Most recently, when SL was in town and we were meeting in the neighbourhood around Canal St Martin, she let me led her to Holybelly so I could finally check it out.
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It is no secret that F and I like eating in single menu – or no menu, depending how you see it – restaurants. We like to be surprised with something different, something that pushes our (usual) palate boundary, and more importantly, something that the chef creates based on what’s fresh and in season from the market. Even better combination, for us, would be a meal that’s creative yet home-y at the same time.
You may have noticed the lack of planning to our Italian trip thus far, relying mainly on serendipitous wandering around town for sightseeing, food, and gelati. Apart from knowing where we would be sleeping on any particular night, everything could happen. L’Imbuto (i.e. The Funnel) was the sole restaurant that I’d pencilled onto our itinerary, having seen it mentioned in an article about Lucca and got me all curious.
It was a tough self-debate if we should seek out Cristiano Tomei’s contemporary restaurant, or head to one of the local favourites which serves more traditional fares. We eventually decided an evening of out-of-the-ordinary meal over two weeks of traditional Italian could be a good culinary break. Our B&B host did make us doubt our decision for a moment, with his constant mention of how “special” this restaurant is, according to his friends.
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When in Brittany, go to the crêperie. Actually, even if not in Brittany, if there is a good crêperie nearby, seriously, go. My favourite buckwheat galette is one filled with either andouille or andouillette (and we’re not talking about pork sausage here but good ol’ chitterlings!), preferably with an egg and mustard creme. This surprises quite a few people, especially concerned crêperie owners who wonder if I knew what I had ordered. They are usually happier with my sweet crêpe choice: salted butter caramel, with or without apple pieces.
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Thanks to a recent-ish Easter egg hunt over at Savoir Faire Paris, I won a spot on Cook’n with Class French desserts session. I duly made my way to Montmartre one Saturday afternoon, met three other fellow bakers (of which one was a fellow countryman – talk about a small world!) and started working under the guidance of Chef Pino, a wiry Italian with a passion for food, of course.
In the gleaming kitchen, we went through the work plan for the afternoon. In a short few hours, we were going to make five different classic French desserts – moelleux au chocolat, strawberry and chocolate roulade, crème brûlée, (reconstructed) tarte au citron and choux puffs – and in the order they were listed, due to some refrigeration time needed for some of these. Most of the ingredients were already weighed out and prepared ahead of the class, so we were able to efficiently churn out one dessert after another.
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