The Malaysian Insider :: Food
The Malaysian Insider :: Food |
| How top restaurants are ringing in the New Year Posted: 15 Dec 2012 07:16 AM PST  Bubbly will be on the menu at gourmet New Year's celebrations around the world. – shutterstock.com At The Aviary, Grant Achatz's avant-garde bar in Chicago, an exclusive group of 75 guests will be privy to what sounds like a burlesque-like circus show complete with a male belly dancer – billed as the best in Chicago – a magician, 'musical storytellers', and a female troupe of entertainers called 'Cirque de la Femme.' Guests will wash down their entertainment with a 10-course specialty cocktail menu paired with bites for US$325. At The Roof Gardens in London, a private members-only club owned by splashy Virgin tycoon Richard Branson, revellers will be greeted with a mini bottle of champagne on arrival and a fireworks display from the rooftop venue located a hundred feet above Kensington High Street in central London. At double Michelin-starred restaurant Amber in Hong Kong, chef Richard Ekkebus is hosting an eight-course meal that includes a live jazz band, caviar, foie gras, line-caught sea bass and Kagoshima Wagyu beef, and ends with Tasmanian cherries, yuzu soufflé and petits fours for HK$4,088 (RM1,611). Meanwhile, in New York, David Chang's Momofuku restaurants and Daniel Boulud's DBGB will also be throwing end-of-the-year festivities. At Chang's Má Pêche and noodle bar, for instance, guests will dine on whole and fried chickens and rice, while ssäm bar will serve whole rotisserie duck for between US$100 (RM305.50) and US$150. Boulud's French-style brasserie DBGB will also be open New Year's Eve for revellers looking for a casual, low-key evening that includes its house-made sausages, shellfish platters, and selection of 22 draft beers. And over at José Andrés' restaurant The Bazaar in Los Angeles, revellers are invited to partake in a Spanish Masquerade Ball, where guests will dine incognito in masks, sipping on cava, Liquid Nitrogen Caipirinhas and tapas. Tickets for the New Year's event are US$250. – AFP/Relaxnews |
| Moon phases and stag’s bladders: winemaking does wacky Posted: 15 Dec 2012 04:11 AM PST POMMARD, France, Dec 15 — The sun is setting and the slopes of the Cote d'Or are soaking up the last few rays of the day. A waning moon has just appeared to the east.  A winemaker sprays a biodynamic preparation on his vineyards in Saint-Martin-sous-Montaigu on November 12, 2012. — AFP-Relaxnews pic On another day on another estate, it could be a herbal tea made with lavender, sage or lemongrass that is applied in the hope of getting a little extra concentration in the grapes the vines will yield a little less than a year from now. Or maybe some vegetable compost macerated in a stag's bladder might do the trick. Welcome to the wacky world of biodynamic wine-making, a system that, for all its association with esoteric New Ageism, has been around for the best part of a century and has already been adopted by some of the world's leading producers. Alone in a valley bedecked in autumnal splendour, Didier Montchovet carefully soaks his cherished 12 hectares with a fine spray of "500" - the dung/horn cocktail that is one of the emblematic recipes of the biodynamic movement. Whatever the choice of fertiliser, it's an absolute no-no to splash it on without first having checked the alignment of the stars and consulted a Zodiac chart to establish the most auspicious moment for application. The roots of this unorthodox approach to agricultural production lie in the theoretical work of Rudolf Steiner, an Austrian philosopher now best known for inspiring the educational system that bears his name. Steiner did not personally come up with the stag's bladder recipe, but he did advise a group of farmers that they might have success by adopting a holistic approach to their land that involved eliminating the use of pesticides and timing sowing, weeding, and harvesting with reference to perceived lunar and planetary influences on plant growth. "There are some very esoteric elements to his writing," admits Montchovet. "For example, he suggests considering the influence of Mars on a plant, which I must admit is beyond me." For winemakers like Montchovet however, what goes in the bottle is more important than what went on to the page in 1920s Austria. "It is exactly like homeopathy or osteopathy, you either believe or you don't," acknowledges Pierre Vincent, the head winemaker at Domaine de la Vougeraie, a boutique Burgundian estate that shares its enthusiasm for biodynamics with the world famous Domaine de la Romanee-Conti. Estates like these are focused on export sales, command top prices and are on good terms with their bank managers. Everything about their operations is planned, objective, rational. Except when it comes to looking after the vines. "There is no doubt Steiner had an inexplicable gift," adds Vincent. "It is a good thing when people from an outside milieu bring a different vision. When you think about it, it makes sense, particularly when you see how modern agriculture has become dependent on the chemical industry." Albert Bichot, one of Burgundy's bigger merchant houses, is considering the leap of faith involved in switching its production, to biodynamics. "We've all had a scientific training, a Cartesian education," says Christophe Chauvel, one of Bichot's winemakers. "Biodynamics don't correspond to anything we learnt in school." And that is exactly the point, according to Luc Charlier, a doctor turned 'vigneron' in the southern French region of Roussillon. Like many sceptics, Charlier believes the success of biodynamic estates can be explained by the care and time their owners dedicate to tending their vines. "As far as wine is concerned, Steiner's theories amount to a collection of platitudes," he said. Supporters are unlikely to be convinced, but it is perhaps a sign of lingering doubts that few estates actively promote themselves as biodynamic producers. "In the end, they all want to be judged by the results rather than the method," explains Joelle Brouard, a marketing lecturer at Dijon's business school. "Fundamentally it is not based on commercial considerations. It is a philosophy: a vision of what wine should be and man's relationship with nature." — AFP-Relaxnews |
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