The Malaysian Insider :: Food
The Malaysian Insider :: Food |
| French eatery voted top restaurant in UK by ‘Zagat’ readers Posted: 10 Sep 2012 04:26 PM PDT
The Waterside Inn, helmed by second generation chef Alain Roux in Bray, unseated Notting Hill eatery The Ledbury in the 2013 London Survey Results, a restaurant which, for the last two years, held a stranglehold in the category of top food. For 40 years, the Waterside Inn has been a popular fine dining destination for its picturesque location along the River Thames and serves haute, classic, French cuisine. Zagat members used words like " magical" and "romantic" to describe the waterfront restaurant, as well as "breathtaking in every way, including the price". While menus change with the seasons, an eight-course "menu exceptionnel" clocks in at £153 (RM760) for a meal that starts with a lobster salad and is highlighted by a filet of turbot, roasted venison, duck and ends with a Mirabelle soufflé. The Ledbury, meanwhile, slipped six spots to land the seventh position in the top food category. Another noteworthy restaurant on the London Zagat survey is Barrafina which leap-frogged over its competition from the 48th spot last year to the fourth spot. According to Zagat readers, the Spanish tapas restaurant offers "sublime", "flavour-packed" dishes that are worth the mile-long queues. On offer is authentic tapas fare and small plates like marinated olives, ham croquetas, tortillas and chorizo Iberico. Meanwhile, readers of British, crowd-sourced restaurant guide Harden's named Dinner by Heston Blumenthal the best meal of the year, while The Ledbury was voted the top-rated fine dining restaurant overall. For this year's Zagat survey, nearly 2,000 restaurants were rated and reviewed by 9,583 surveyors. — Reuters |
| One chef, one ingredient: Alain Ducasse on the summer cep Posted: 10 Sep 2012 08:36 AM PDT PARIS, Sept 10 — If you are what you eat, then it could be said that chefs are what they cook. In an exclusive series from Relaxnews, some of the top chefs from around the world will share their favourite food ingredient to prepare and eat, every week. Whether it be peas, pumpkin, apricots or sea urchin, the answers are as varied as the chefs themselves.  Alain Ducasse talks summer ceps with Relaxnews. ©Michael Vojinovitch Relaxnews: Why did you choose this product? Alain Ducasse: The first reason is that it's in season. Also, the summer cep is the best cep in my opinion. Bear in mind that it's also the most fragile variety of ceps: larvae and slugs feast on it, so you have to be careful when you're picking them. R: What's your favourite memory related to the cep? AD: It goes back to my childhood. I was a country kid, specifically from the Chalosse region [in southwestern France], where good food products are widely appreciated. I knew the mushroom hunting spots. During mushroom season, I would cook up feasts of breaded slices from big ceps, which would retain the hymenium's flavours. R: When is the summer cep in season? AD: As its name suggests, it's quite precocious [for a mushroom]: in its favourite habitat, leafy forests, you'll find it as early as June, or even at the end of May. It becomes pretty scarce come September. R: What's the best way to cook it? Can we get a detailed recipe? AD: There are innumerable ways to cook it, of course. But the summer cep in chestnut leaves (le cèpe d'été en feuilles de châtaigniers) is my personal favourite: it's an extremely simple recipe that intensifies the mushroom's flavours. Place a few chestnut leaves on a dish and add oil. Add thin slices of cep stems, sprinkle with snipped shallots, salt, pepper and olive oil. Place the ceps' caps on top of that, rounded side up. Fold over the chestnut leaves and add oil. Cover, ensuring that the leaves stay in place, and cook for 30 minutes. R: What other product can you combine it with to surprise your guests? What are the most common mistakes people make when cooking it? AD: It's great with rice, a whole farm chicken, beef tenderloin, veal rib, as well as spelt. Ceps are a fragile product. There are two common pitfalls to avoid when cooking it, the first being overcooking it, because it breaks the fibres and the mushroom tends to become spongy. The second mistake is to add too much fat: the mushroom easily absorbs them, making for a disappointing outcome. R: How would you integrate it to your restaurant menu? AD: As soon as the season starts, as a risotto or riso with ceps on the menu of the Louis XV, in Monaco. R: What wine (or other type of alcohol) is best paired with it? AD: Risotto with ceps is a light dish that is full of flavours, so I'd go for a white wine that could suit its subtle bouquet. Among Burgundy wines, a Côte de Beaune d'Auxey-Duresses: le Domaine d'Auvernay 2005 would do the trick, and among Rhone Valley wines, a Hermitage: Jean-Louis Chave 2007. Red wines would include a Bordeaux de Pomerol, preferably a warm year, like the 2003 vintage, a Belle Brise 2003 Pomerol, for instance. — AFP/Relaxnews |
LONDON, Sept 11 — A French restaurant that holds the bragging rights to being the longest-running restaurant to hold three Michelin stars in Britain has been voted the best London-area restaurant by Zagat readers.| You are subscribed to email updates from The Malaysian Insider :: Food To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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