The locals told me that U Kucharzy in Warsaw is the most traditional of Polish restaurants, and it’s easy to see why from the heaviness of the mains that we ate. But other than for a taste of Poland, the best reason to go to U Kucharzy would surely be for their renowned steak tartare (38 Polish Zloty (zl) – about £8.80). This tartare was sublime, and perhaps the best that I have ever had. What lends greatness to this starter is the way in which a slab of raw beef fillet is chopped and chopped, over and over again, by a skilful chef at your dining table. The result of this effort is to add a touch of theatrical drama to the dish as well as gracing the meat with a texture so fine, it simply melts into a soft silkiness on your tongue. In the mix were also some capers, anchovies, cucumber, olive oil, raw egg yolk and onions. The seasoning was deftly done, and the onions gave the tartare a little kick.

Chopping away at the steak tartare

Steak tartare

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Note:
Ooops. It appears that I got it wrong and that Bo Innovation Hong Kong was demoted to a one-star in the 2010 Guide which I think came out in December.
But I concluded that this wasn’t a two-star worthy meal. So in that respect I got something right…

Bo Innovation Hong Kong is a two-star Michelin restaurant, and the 65th ranked restaurant in the 2010 San Pellegrino’s Best Restaurants in the World list. The ‘World’s Best’ website describes Bo Innovation “as a ground breaking Chinese fine-dining restaurant, serving ‘X-Treme Chinese’ cuisine, with executive chef Alvin Leung known around the world for his sense of adventure, humour and rock and roll”. Bo Innovation is known for its molecular reinvention of traditional Chinese and I was certifiably curious. I grew up eating Chinese food, and I’ve had molecular gastronomy many times over, but never the two combined, so this was going to be my first foray into this new dimension.

The restaurant is modern and sleek. There are no traditional Chinese touches here, no red lanterns or the like. Instead there are bare floors and industrial looking walls. The only hint that this might be a Chinese restaurant is the occasion splash of marble.

There are three menu choices at Bo Innovation. The standard tasting menu offers nine course,s including a choice of main from five options, and is priced at HK$780 (about £62). We selected the ‘Chef’s’ tasting with 14 courses which is priced at HK$1,280 (about £102). There is also the ‘Chef’s Table’ menu with 16 courses which is priced at HK$1,680 (about £133).

Although bread is typically not served with a Chinese meal, as a substitute for bread (so explained our waiter), we were offered ‘egg waffles’ with Iberico ham. Made from waffle batter and cooked so that they are shaped like little eggs (hence the translation to egg waffles), this is a variation of a typical Hong Kong street food (which I recently discovered being sold in London’s Chinatown). A childhood favourite of mine when I use to live in Hong Kong, it tastes slightly sweet. The use of Iberico ham added a touch of savouriness to the waffle and was very tasty.

Egg waffles

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Lobster tails

For me, the highlight of my visit to Seattle was the Pike Place Markets. We spent a substantial amount of time there exploring and eating during our two days in Seattle. There are a lot of stands selling cooked food, but its big draw card must surely be the fresh produce on offer. Jumbo prawns and king-kong sized lobster tails that were as fat as my leg (I kid you not) had my mouth watering. If I were to ever go to Seattle again, I’d like to stay in a furnished apartment with a kitchen instead of a hotel so that I could shop, cook and eat my little heart out!

But seeing as we had no kitchen, the next best option was to head out and sample Seattle’s culinary scene. Research on Zagats and local blogs suggested that Restaurant Zoe was one of Seattle’s finest. More of a bistro than a fine dining venue, the restaurant is simply decorated throughout in dark wood.

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I have to confess that I really wasn’t in the mood for going to Providence. Several days of cruising around Los Angeles like a madwoman, plus the 10 hours that I had spent at Universal Studios prior to arriving at the restaurant had left me exhausted. But I decided to persevere, and boy, was I glad that I did. The first two courses at this restaurant were so stunning, they left me gobsmacked.

But let’s start with the amuse bouches at this 2009 two star Michelin holder. (If you read my Spago blog post, you will know that the Michelin guide, in a cost cutting measure, stopped reviewing the city of Los Angeles in 2010. Therefore, while Providence had two stars in 2009, it technically doesn’t have any at the moment.) The amuse bouches, from left to right, consisted of gin and tonic jelly; a greyhound (grapefruit and vodka) raviolo; and Tasman sea trout tartare with lemon jelly, rice crackers, four spices and brook trout roe. With the citrus-y elements of each, all three had a nice zing to them.

Amuse bouche

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Here begins the first of several write-ups from my flying visit to the States recently. I will do my best to blog these posts ASAP. But you know how it is – with work and a busy schedule, it will probably take me longer than I would like. Please bear with me. In the meantime, I hope you will enjoy the taste of the first instalment – SPAGO.

Spago

With the help of some of my American readers (thanks to you all – you know who you are) I managed to come up with a fantastic shortlist of restaurants to try. Spago Beverly Hills is the Los Angeles flagship restaurant of Wolfgang Puck, that all-conquering Austrian-born celebrity chef to the superstars, who for the last 16 years has catered at the star-studded post Oscar’s Governor’s Ball. With its guest list being 1,500 long, this is no mean feat. (An interesting fact about the Governor’s Ball which I picked up during a tour of the Kodak Theatre, the home of the Academy Awards ceremony: there is always one item on the menu that it shaped like the Oscar’s statuette. This year it was the hand-cut Oscar croutons in the salmon starter – can you imagine making 1,500 of these?)

Puck’s name is indelibly marked everywhere. His empire extends across the US, and covers a range of eateries (casual to fine dining), catering products, supermarket food ranges, cookware, and of course, cook books. So I was sceptical about Spago. Could it possibly live up to all the hype? Would it really be that good? It held two stars in 2009, but was that based purely on the fame of the chef’s name as sometimes Michelin restaurants tend to be? (Note that in a backwards, cost cutting measure for Michelin, the guide stopped reviewing the city of Los Angeles in 2010. Therefore there are no restaurants in LA with stars (Michelin ones, that is) at the moment). I debated long and hard about whether to go to Spago, especially given my time limitations, but in the end I decided to try it. After all, this restaurant embodies everything that is LA.

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Steak

In the time that I have been in Salvador, the churrascaria, Brasil Legal, has became something of a favourite. Unlike Boi Preto, the churrascaria that I talked about in my last blog post, Brasil Legal is no high end eating establishment. The décor is not flash. Here you won’t get any table service other than for drinks. There are no passadores (meat waiters) who come to your table to offer you meat. Instead, you must go to the meat station to collect it yourself.

Meat station

But what makes this place so great is the price. An all-you-can-eat lunch will set you back R$11 for the food and R$2.50 for a drink (total R13.50) which is about £5. When you consider that this is cheaper than a McDonald’s Big Mac meal which costs R$14, there really is no reason you should ever eat at McDonald’s in Salvador again. This place is cheap, cheap, cheap.

I don’t always advocate cheap places – I believe in quality over quantity. But here at Brasil Legal, the food is pretty good. The restaurant offers 25 different types of salads including a variety of fruit, 16 different cooked dishes, four types of meat (steak, chicken, sausage and chicken hearts) and desserts when available. Eating at Brasil Legal is a pretty addictive experience, especially when you consider that for nearly next to nothing you can eat pretty good food and fill your tummy to the brim. It’s a place that I’ve been coming to regularly for a late lunch so that I can eat myself silly after a hard day at the beach. In fact, I’ve been here about eight times, during which time I have sampled just about everything that the restaurant has to offer.

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Food wise, a trip to Brazil would be incomplete without a visit to a churrascaria. An all-you-can-eat affair, it offers what is known as a rodizio service. For a set price, you are presented with a choice of various types of barbecued meat (churrasco roughly translates from Portuguese as barbecue) on skewers or platters by knife-wielding passadores (meat waiters) who cut the meat at the table for you. This process continues until such time as you signify that you have had enough. For this purpose, you are usually given a little card with a green side (for ‘yes more meat please’) and a red side (for ‘no more thank you, I feel like I am about to explode because I have eaten too much’). A buffet containing salads, cooked meals, etc, is usually available as well, and Brazilians tend to have this first before starting on the meat.

Green for yes

Red for no

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Pelourinho (Old Town), Salvador

Pelourinho (Old Town), Salvador

To most Brazilians, Salvador, the capital of the state of Bahia in the Northeast of Brazil, is home to the best carnival that this country has to offer. The one in Rio de Janiero might be world famous and the largest, and it’s great for watching, but if you want to join in the fun itself, Salvador is the place to come. This is the kind of city that Salvador is: a heady mix of party, sun, rhythmic music and caipirinhas that could knock you out. Brazilians tend to live for the moment, and no where more so than in Salvador.

Brazilians also seem to have very little modesty, at least on the beach anyway. One of my most lasting memories from my first trip to Brazil nine years ago was that they like to don the skimpiest, tightest swimwear imaginable – irrespective of body size. A conversation on the nature of beach wear with one of my Brazilian girlfriends confirmed this. “You have to wear one of those tiny string-type bikinis.” She advised before my trip. “People won’t stare at you if you wear one – they’ll only stare at you if you DON’T”. Right.

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