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I had the pleasure of enjoying a fantastic cheese-themed Chef's menu with complementing wines. Absolutely heavenly! A perfect evening savouring 9 different cheeses. Impeccable service and setting.
Priceless
I am very honored to be invited by WOM Guide (www.womguide.com) to attend a cooking demonstration (followed by lunch) by visiting Chef Philippe Jourdin who heads the Michelin 2-star Faventia at the Four Seasons Resort Provence at Terre Blanche. The cooking demonstration was hosted by Caprice @ Four Seasons Hong Kong. The lunch that followed the demonstration was wonderful as well and I got to finally meet with the editors behind the WOM Guide and another food blogger Peech who was also invited to this event. The event started early on a Saturday morning when the kitchen @ Caprice was still under preparation for their lunch session.
After a short introduction by Chef Vincent Thierry of Caprice who was acting as translator throughout the demonstration, Chef Philippe Jourdin and his sous-chef Stéphanie Le Quellec quickly started to prepare the dish of Line-Caught Sea Bass Fennel Aroma with Green Asparagus Panache and Olive Oil Emulsion.
Cooking is really an art! Chef Philippe Jourdin went into details about how one can turn a simple ingredient of asparagus into something of such refined delicacies as well as the many steps it takes to perfect it.
For details of the cooking demonstration and pictures, check out > http://jason-bonvivant.blogspot.com/2009/10/caprice-cooking-demo-w-michelin-2-star.html
By the end of the cooking demonstration, the kitchen area was starting to get crowded so so was the dining area.
We were lucky enough to have our lunch at the Chef Table inside the wine cellar / cheese room behind the kitchen.
If I recalled correctly the bread I picked was a variation of Brioche. (I have so much more to learn about bread, cheese and more others, and the thought of learning about them excites me!) In any case, the bread was warm and delicious especially with a bit of butter. Apparently, the two butters provided were of different kinds, one was salted and one was plain and they were distinguished by the tip of the butter pyramid.
(1) Chilled Eggplant with Tomato Sorbet
We started of the meal with this wonderful soup. The tomato sorbet actually went really went with the chilled eggplant to my surprised, an extremely refreshing item to start off the meal! I guess I don't have to mention about the presentation right? It was wow and WOW!
(2) Warm Duck Foie Gras des Landes Lemon Macaroon, Candied Citrus Peel and Badian Anise
Definitely not a common combination to have macaroon with foie gras but never pre-judge anything by its look because the citrus flavors matched the foie gras very well! The contrasting texture was another interesting combination which stimulated my taste bud along with the flavors!
(3) Corvina Fillet Fennel Aroma, Green Asparagus Panache and Olive Oil Emulsion
Instead of sea bass, corvina fillet was used. The corvina fillet was not as flaky as sea bass but equally delicious and cooked just right. But I personally preferred the sea bass. The asparagus
was great as expected, sweet but also carried traces of lemon flavors.
(4) Cheese Platter
I am a big fan of cheese but I have much to learn about it. The cheese was handled by restaurant manager Jeremy and he described each cheese in details of which I am still digesting. In clockwise, it was Race Rove and Olive Oil, Selle sur Cher, Comte 4 Years Old and Fourme d'Ambert. This is as far as I can go in describing the cheese with my limited knowledge, for a more informative review on the cheese (and the wine we had), check out Peech's entry on this. But one thing for sure, I may soon be addicted to cheese from now on!
(5) Tropical Coconut Express Sable Breton and Coriander Jelly, Granny Smith Apple Sorbet
The presentation was again very impressive once again! This dessert was actually very light and the coconut mousse was not too sweet as well. Did I mention I really love its presentation?
(6) Something strawberry
I did not have the chance to take down the name of this dessert because I was in awe when it was being served. Benny who served us tried to explain this strawberry dessert but apparently it was a complicated dessert with over 10 different ingredients and multiple steps involved. I just know that if I weren't dining at Caprice (ie: fine dining establishment), I might attempt to clean out the sauce which was just right in terms of flavors, not too sour and not too sweet. The various layers of the dessert gave it contrasting texture which made you wanting more!
(7) Concentrated Orange Jelly
The flavors of the orange jelly was very intense but delightful and refreshing as the same time. sometimes I find it hard to come up with words to describe the reaction to great flavors, I guess maybe a simple YUM, WOW or YUMMMMMY would do the trick?
Likes:
* A wonderful experience! Really made me want to give culinary school a try! (or start with more home cooking ...)
* Tropical Coconut Express Sable Breton and Coriander Jelly, Granny Smith Apple Sorbet - a light but refreshing dessert!
* Chilled Eggplant with Tomato Sorbet - presentation, presentation, refreshing and interesting use of tomato sorbet.
Dislikes:
* More dishes for demonstration would be great :) (am I being too greedy?)
Avg Spending: Thanks to WOM Guide's invitation, it was a complimentary meal.
Original Blog with Pictures: http://jason-bonvivant.blogspot.com/2009/10/caprice-cooking-demo-w-michelin-2-star.html
Thanks to WOM Guide
Courtesy of WOM, I was invited to a lunch featuring the cuisine of visiting chef Philippe Jourdin. Everything was absolutely wonderful, and it's always fun to be able to sample the cuisines of chefs from Four Seasons properties around the world.
Our amuse bouche was a wonderful eggplant gazpacho with tomato sorbet. The eggplants were peeled so that the flavors came from only the flesh and "caviar". The tomato sorbet was so interesting - providing some sweetness to the mid-palate but then kicks in with savory notes just on the finish. A thin strip of bread lay on the side with a bit of tapenade spread on top. Feeling like I'm in Provence already!
The first course was quite surprising - warm duck foie gras des Landes, lemon macaroon, candied citrus peel and badian anise. While it's customary to pair the fatty foie gras with something fruity and acidic, I've always thought that lemon would be a bit too much. In this case, there was a pool of lemon curd sitting inside a ring of candied peel. This curd was very, very tart and threw me off completely. But then the genius of Chef Philippe becomes evident as I take a piece of foie, dip into the lemon curd, and top it with a piece of the lemon macaron. The sweetness of the macaron completely neutralizes the acidity of the curd, and it becomes heaven in my mouth. Wow!
The main course of corvina fillet, fennel aroma, green asparagus panaché and olive oil emulsion was the dish we had just learned, except the chef substituted the choice of fish. Corvina is interesting in that, like cod, it remains quite moist and tender after cooking, yet there is a firmness about it. It also comes apart quite easily into "flakes" as I cut into it. Needless to say the Australian asparagus was wonderful - sooo sweet and tender. There were four different textures of asparagus on the plate, and we had just finished witnessing the work that went into making all this possible. Yum!
I am grateful that once again Jeremy was generous in sharing his babies with us. We had a selection of four types of cheese:
Rove Brousse - this fresh cheese from Provençal goats was served with a bit of olive oil. According to Jeremy it has now become uneconomical to produce, as 3 liters of milk is used to produce just a small ball of cheese. It was beautiful with nutty, creamy flavors and just a hint of salt.
Selles-sur-Cher - this beautiful goat cheese from the Loire valley was already runny by the time it came to me. The center was creamy and nutty on the mid-palate, with a bit of acidity on the finish. The outer mold, which separated easily from the creamy center like shedding skin, tasted musty with salty flavors.
Comté - I think this is about 4 1/2 years old by now... just wonderful. Curiously it was a bit sweet mid-palate, with the usual toasty and nutty flavors.
Fourme d'Ambert - a very intense blue, and very salty. Interesting to see that during the aging process the cheese is injected with Vouvray moelleux, one of my favorite types of dessert wines.
Finally we get to the desserts. The tropical coconut express, sablé Breton and coriander jelly, Granny Smith apple sorbet was pretty nice. The tube of coconut mousse was light and not too sweet, with an interesting center of coriander jelly. The sorbet was wonderful and refreshing. In fact this was so light that our hostess practically inhaled the whole dessert before I even had a chance to touch it...
I was tipped off about a certain strawberry-themed dessert, and we were graciously served two of these to share amongst us. The bottom of the tower contained strawberry sponge cake, with a layer of vanilla cream wrapped around it and placed in a pool of strawberry consommé. On top we have some butter biscuit with lemongrass jelly, encased in a kind of strawberry panna cotta. A few halves of strawberries are placed on top of this, along with a thin layer of marzipan. What is most interesting, however, are the letters F R A I S E made from strawberry jelly. OK this all sounds very complicated, but the reality is that this was one of the best strawberry desserts I've had in recent memory. The flavors here were so intense - I didn't taste the lemongrass, though - and I was really loving it.
Original blogpost with pictures and wine notes: http://chi-he-wan-le.blogspot.com/2009/10/cooking-with-michelin-starred-chef.html
thankfully it was a complimentary meal...although I would have gladly paid for it!
Gorgeous dinner! We loved every dish that was served. Chef Vincent is amazing. Love the open kitchen, which is bustling, but not noisy. The art noveau setting with the view of HK harbour is just the best! Superb and attentive service as well. My favourite restaurant in town!
1200
Caprice has only been open a few years but it has reached the same ranking as Gaddi's - not just excellent food but also reliable quality (unlike many hotel restaurants in Hong Kong) Only complaint is that it feels a little stuffy at times. But then that's what French fine-dining is about.
1900 per head
amazing service. warm fresh bread served with salted and unsalted butter. reasonable amount of choices for the lunch menu and it's reasonably priced. crab cakes with guacamole and tomato salsa sauce, prawn angel hair were amazing.
lovely experience.
Even without eating anything it's worth paying just to get in. The decor is well designed and just by sitting down I felt my tummy warming up for a gastronomical feast. Which is might as well because if you are going to pay through the roof for a meal, you would like it to be BIG! Top notch service with top notch food, the price is simply a reflection of what you get.
I started with the Écaille d'Argent oysters with crème fraîche topped with yuzu granita and grapefruit marmalade as the amuse bouche. The oyster itself is nicely balanced between creamy and briney, and the combination with the slightly sour crème fraîche and yuzu granita as well as the sweet marmalade made for an interesting mouthful.
Next came the green asparagus soup with poached quail eggs and lemon Chantilly. The Vaucluse asparagus made for a very tasty soup with beautiful color. There were three soft poached quail eggs in the bowl, and there were cumin seeds sprinkled on top of the lemon Chantilly cream. An asparagus spear was sliced in half and made into a tempura on the side. Wonderful stuff but I'm starting to get full...
The lamb shoulder pastilla with sweet harissa and young green herbs was absolutely divine. The succulent braised lamb was wonderfully tasty, baked with oriental spices inside a phyllo pocket. The harissa - made from roasted peppers - worked well with the dish. One of my friends practically inhaled the whole dish...
Next comes my favorite part - the cheese! Jeremy gave us a sampling of four, and the original Froggie kept drooling while watching the preparations.
Saint Félicien from Burgundy was a bit nutty and not too salty. It's a very runny cheese, which prompted one of us to use her fingers to wipe the plate clean...
The Brin d'Amour was served on a piece of garlic toast, and Jeremy dripped olive oil all over the cheese. This cheese from Corsica is interesting in that the rind is covered with herbs like rosemary and thyme. With all those herbs plus lots of garlic and olive oil, how could this not be a delicious piece of cheese?!
The 4-year Comté was wonderful as usual... and this particular wheel was made from the October milk of the cow, said to be the last and the richest.
Finally, the Cabri Ariégeois from Pyrénées was pure liquid like a Mont d'Or. Pretty salty, but very yummy. I actually needed a bit of bread to go along with this.
For dessert there was the salted caramel macaroon with marinated blood orange and carambar ice cream. I loved the "mini-burger" with the blood orange, and the caramel ice cream with caramel sauce was just awesome.
original blogpost with pictures and notes on wine: http://chi-he-wan-le.blogspot.com/2009/04/farewell-lunch.html
Marennes oysters d'une bouchée, Iberico ham with sour cucumber and pomodoro purée - this really was just a mouthful... The small Fine de Claires oyster was cooked for just a few seconds so that it's neither raw nor fully-cooked, then wrapped in jamon iberico for contrasting flavors. I must admit that I wasn't too excited by this, as I really prefer the full-on flavors of freshly shucked oysters. The sour cucumber also didn't do much for me...
Jerusalem artichoke velouté, duck liver royale and crispy ham - thankfully the velouté was relatively light and not "full strength". The duck liver was so nice - soft, bouncy and sweet. The finely chopped sweet artichoke topping was something different altogether...it was really crunchy and not a texture I normally associate with artichokes from my limited past experience.
Scottish salmon en vessie, green asparagus with ginger and coriander nage - there was a lot of anticipation on my part about this course. The thought of having anything cooked inside a sheep's bladder just makes my mouth water, especially since I love most types of offal. But...in life one realizes that sometimes expectations and reality can turn out to be quite different.
I had expected that the interaction of the uric acid with the salmon to impart the distinctive flavor that one gets with dishes like andouillette, but there was none of it as Jeremy cut open the bladder. Later on I was told by the chef that they had tried very hard to scrub the interior of the bladder to get rid of the smell...AAARRRGGGHHH!!!!
In spite of all that, the resulting creation was really, really nice in its own right. The salmon was oh-so-tender, each bite melting away in my mouth. The julienned asparagus and the salmon sat in the coriander bouillon which matched the salmon perfectly, like an egg and parsley or yogurt dill sauce.
Smoked Vendéen pigeon, vegetables pot au feu in borscht consommé - what an amazing dish. I think we all loved our pigeons... Of course we asked for it to be "pink", therefore the meat was soooooo tender. As I pick up the Laguiole Grand Cru knife to cut into the meat, a bit of the bloody jus would drip into the consommé and I would watch the gradual mixing of the two like I'm studying fluid mechanics. Every few mouthful I would dab a bit of the sour cream for a different taste. This has got to be the best pigeon I've had in quite some time... My compliments to Chef Vincent.
Jarret de porc en andouillette, pomme purée truffe, salad composé - this was yet another highly-anticipated dish. A couple of us are big fans of andouillette, and finding some in this part of the world is no easy task! As we had received the menu a couple of weeks before dinner, I was scratching my head trying to figure out why this would still be called andouillette if the stuffing was actually pork knuckle instead of intestine...
Well as it turns out, the chef took a pork knuckle and removed the bone and the meat so that only the skin remains. The interior layer of the skin is then removed, leaving only a thin, outer layer. The meat of the pork knuckle is then chopped up together with pig intestine (which means it is real andouillette) and black truffle, then stuffed back inside the skin before frying.
Once I got the distinctive taste of the intenstine along with the knuckle meat, I was in heaven. Fried pig skin is always welcome, and let's not forget the sinful, perfumed creamy mash potatoes with black truffle...
The maître fromager cheese selection consisted of three very distinct types of cheese, each paired with a different wine. I was having flashback to the cheese dinner from two weeks ago...
Anneau du Vic-Bihl - a donut-shaped goat cheese from the Pyrénées area just north of Spain. Really yummy with powerful, nutty flavors that leaves a fragrance in your mouth. Good balance between salt and acidity. Jeremy made sure that the cheese has ripened to perfection, and it's just really runny and stringy...
Comté - there really isn't anything left to say about this wonderful, 4-year old cheese...
Fourme d'Ambert - a strong, classic blue cheese from Auvergne that's pretty salty, like many other blues. Interestingly the cheese is supposedly periodically injected with Vouvray moelleux - the mild sweet wine from Loire - during the aging process. So why is it still so salty...?
Finally we have the dark chocolate sphere, marinated raspberries with sablé Breton and mint ice cream. It's a treat watching the hot chocolate sauce being poured into the sphere, then wait as the outer shell gets melted and the sauce starts to ooze out onto the plate. You can't get a more classic blend of flavors than chocolate, raspberries and mint. I must say that the raspberries tasted much better than the ones I usually get...
What a wonderful experience! Naturally the chefs deserve credit for the wonderful creations we enjoyed today. But clearly additional credit go to both our sommelier as well as our maître d', as the wine and cheese pairings were once again superb! There is no doubt that Caprice is at the top of the game here in Hong Kong.
original blogpost with notes on wine: http://chi-he-wan-le.blogspot.com/2009/03/hk-chowdown-episode-2-bull-market-lunch.html
Caprice won 2 Michelin Stars and top honours in pretty much every other available food award and it is not hard to see why. Food is excellent, service is excellent, wine is excellent, setting is beautiful and perhaps the most impressive of all (as crazy as it might sound to say this) is the cheese platter, which is the most extensive I've ever seen in HK and filled with devilish indulgent pleasures!
Not cheap, but well worth the price.
The theme of the dinner was...cheese! Anyone who has been to Caprice would probably have been introduced to their amazing cheese selection, many of which have been sourced from the famous affineur Bernard Antony. Nowadays the restaurant has a cheese room where Jeremy the maître d' stores his precious babies.
After chatting for a while, we finally moved to the chef's table behind the kitchen, where we had direct access to the aforementioned cheese room.
We started with an amuse bouche of tuna - raw and seared tuna with some black olive dressing. The flavors from the herbs on top worked to balance things out.
Next came a platter of 4 cheeses, each paired with a different wine to compliment the flavors:
Galet de Bigorre - from the département of Hautes-Pyrénées, this was a very creamy and smooth goat cheese, with nutty flavors and a slightly bitter aftertaste.
Chaource - from the département of Aube southeast of Paris, this was first salty then a little acidic on the palate. Very nutty. The flavors were really enhanced by the Champagne, as the acidity and the carbonation neutralized the salty taste.
Colombier Fermier - this Burgundian cheese starts with a touch of salt, followed by a little acidity and then, amazingly, a sweet aftertaste in the mouth.
Tomme de Brebis Corse Bio - this organic cheese from Corsica had a distinctive smoky nose, and the flavors were a bit mild and slightly acidic. Thi was also paired with some fig jam.
We took a break from the cheese, and had some delicious leg of lamb. The Pyrénées lamb was fed on freshly sprouted leaves of grass. The meat was pink and tender, and just fatty enough to have that distinctive flavor. The exterior has been rubbed with some rosemary for the classic combination. We also had some salad and a delicious helping of orzo, cooked Provençale-style with black olives, zucchini and red peppers.
Unfortunately, I'm pretty stuffed at this point...as was most of the party. I wasn't able to finish the lamb, as I wanted to save room for some more cheese.
Time for the second platter, which again consisted of 4 different types of cheese individually paired with wines. The flavors of these would be much stronger than the first four.
Mimolette extra vieille - from memory this is aged for 18 months.
Munster - this wasn't the average Munster that you'd find in your supermarket. From the Alsatian département of Haut-Rhin, this was a pretty stinky and salty cheese. The nose reminded me of Chinese fermented tofu (腐乳), or even a little bit of durian...
Comté - my favorite cheese at Caprice. This has been aged for 4 years, and Jeremy tells us that he's got the last two wheels produced in 2004 by his supplier. He is looking to age some for an additional year and see what it would taste like. We watched him use a steel wire contraption to cut a slice from the wheel, and I realized that what's he's holding in his hands is actually a garotte that is capable of decapitating someone...but enough about that. Love the intense flavor and the crystalline salt here.
Roquefort Le Vieux Berger - very strong blue cheese from sheep's milk made by one of the few producer who isn't part of the Société. I only nibbled a little bit as I'm almost bursting by now.
Some of the group also sampled the wonderful Epoisses. Unfortunately I just didn't think I could take it. I was content to have a double espresso to help with my digestion...
This was an awesome dinner. We were able to sample the best selection of cheese from Caprice, and given the quality of their goods that is saying a lot! Now that I know it's possible to plan a dinner entirely revolving around fine cheeses (and wines of course!) I look forward to returning for another round... perhaps in a different season in order to get some different varieties.
original blogpost with notes on wine pairings: http://chi-he-wan-le.blogspot.com/2009/02/cheesy-dinner.html