Sichuan food in Beijing

December 23, 2009

Christmas decoration at Chang an jie

Also China shines in Christmas lights these days. During my recent visit I could check out various department stores and restaurants where I could experience the magic.

My good old friend Xingyuan took me to a Sichuan restaurant not far from where he is working at Jianguomennei. He ordered so many dishes which I cannot show all in this blog entry.

We were too busy chatting and catching up after a long time apart anyway. My photo-taking was slack at best.

Below you find shots of two spicy Sichuan dishes we had. That it was delishes goes without saying. We could not finish all the food.

I love the spicy Sichuan cuisine though at times some of the dishes are too hot for me. I drank a beer with the spicy food; Xingyuan had a coke.

Happy reunion in Beijing

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Black chicken

December 22, 2009

Black chicken

Have you ever eaten “black chicken”? During my recent visit to Taiwan I was invited by a professor from Taiwan Normal University to taste this Chinese delicacy. It takes a while to get used to the colour. However, the chicken meat and the soup it “swims” in are just awesome.

Try it next time when ordering Chinese food.

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Shanghai delight

December 18, 2009

The Bund from the Pudong side

My friend Wolfgang took me out on a walk in Pudong. We started with dinner in a restaurant overlooking the Bund. After that we “climed” the two highest buildings in Shanghai and enjoyed the architecture and the view.

I just love Chinese food, especially the cuisines which are a bit more spicy such as Hunan, Sichuan but also Yunnan style food. The plates below give you and idea. The dishes were delicious and the presentation was also quite nice.

Green beans and stripes of beef

“Stinking dofu” with soybeans

Green pepers with octopus

A jelly desert

Tsingtao beer

We could have ordered a bottle of wine but beer, especially Chinese beers, go very well with Chinese food. It was a wonderful reunion after many years of only conversing via mail. For me it was also the first ever visit to Pudong. The highrises are worth visiting and exploring (many restaurants and bars with breathtaking views).

My suggestion: Go to Shanghai as long as you are still young.

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Wine from Slovenia

December 15, 2009

The 2008 Lanthieri Zelen

It’s already some time ago that our firneds Lucia and Giuseppe brought us the above bottle of Slovenian wine. They said, “put it back fro a special occasion”, which we did. But this splendid Sunday warranted a special treat.

To say it from the outset, the ‘2008 Lanthieri Zelen’ by Agroind Vipava 1894, a wine co-operative in the Vipava valley, is a wonderful wine. It was our first wine from Slovenia ever, a complete novelty to us.

Zelen is an autochthonous grape variety from the Upper Vipava Valley in Slovenia. The Lanthieri brand is reminiscent of the Lanthieri family, noblemen in the region, valley and town of Vipava, also called the Slovene Venice.

The Vipava wine road is going through the valley where viticulture is the main rural business. About 3,000 acres are under vines. The region is home to some very old, indigenous varieties which cannot be found elsewhere, for instance Zelen, Pinela, Klarnica and Pikolit.

The history of wine-making in the Vipava valley is interesting. It reminds me a bit of our own history in my home town Trier. Also in the Vipava valley, the Celts and Illyrian tribes cultivated grapes long before the Romans arrived. This is also true for my own tribe, the Treverer, in the Mosel river valley.

The back label in Slovenian

The wine has a light-yellow colour and seems to be an aromatic type of wine. Floral notes of mediterranean herbs such as lavender and rosemary can be detected. Very dominant, however, is the dried-apricot taste, very lovely and very unusual, I found. The wine has structure and is well balanced, fresh and zippy.

Spicy clam pasta

We enjoyed it with a spicy, clam pasta. The wine was “strong” enough to not “go down” with the red peppers, but, instead, held itself very well. I am sure we will not find any wine from Slovenia in Bangkok wine shops. I guess we have to visit Slovenia and detect its treasures during our next trip to Europe.

Thank you Lucia and Giuseppe for giving us this wonderful gift. We apprecite your generosity and we know how heavy wine bottles are.

I think Slovenia might have the potential to become the “wine Mekka” of tomorrow.

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Bordeaux wines: Château La Gravière and pasta for dinner

December 13, 2009

The amatriciana pasta

There are just too many châteaux out there. I confess that I do not know much about the wines from Bordeaux. This wine region produces between 700 and 900 million bottles of wine every year. It is divided into 57 appellations. About 10,000 producers call themselves ‘châteaux’, the number of grape growers is about 13,000.

Fortunately, Haut-Médoc, just north of the city of Bordeaux, at the left of the river Gironde covering about 4,600 ha of vines, is smaller but still carries lots of different châteaux. The area used to be marshland until Dutch merchants began to drain it in the 17th century. From grazing land to vineyards (reminds me of my own story and Two Hills Vineyard in Glenburn which is largely grazing land, but in the hills, no marshes to be seen), what a great success story.

2006 Château La Gravière

Our friend Emmie had given us this bottle (above), a ‘2006 Château La Gravière’ from Haut-Médoc, after her return from Europe. The Château La Gravière is actually situated on the right bank of the river, in Lalande-de-Pomerol AOC. It’s a small producer with only 2.3 ha under vines whose flagship wines are Château La Gravière, a typical blend of Merlot (80%) and Cabernet Franc (20%) and Moulin de Gravière, its second wine.

The label is owned by the Rougefort Group. Total production from the Lalande-de-Pomerol AOC is about 500 cases per year. The Haut-Médoc wines (left bank of the river) are an addition to the portfolio. The character of the wines is quite different from the Lalande-de- Pomerol wines which is partly due to the blending formula, partly due to the different terroir.

The colour of the wine

The wine was very pleasant, full of vanilla and berry flavours. We just loved it. It could cope well with the strong flavours of the amatriciana pasta and the bacon in it. My prejudices against Bordeaux wines (which are partly the results of my ignorance) were utterly refuted.

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Spiedini di salsiccia e manzo

December 6, 2009

The spiedini on my Weber

The other day we experimented with a recipe by Jamie Oliver. It had fired up my Weber and was ready to go. ‘Spiedini di salsiccia e manzo’ was the dish, we intended to cook. The photo above gives you an idea.

The recipe goes as follows:

– beef fillet cut in cubes of 2.5 cm (12 pieces)
– Italian sausages of the highest quality ( 4 large ones)
– four thickly slices pieces of pancetta (or streaky beacon)
– fresh sage leaves (18-20)
– gloves of garlic, peeled (2-3)
– one lemon, zested and halved
– extra virgin olive oil, sea salt, ground black pepper

In Jamie Olivers recipe you stick the meat and the sausages on firm sticks of fresh rosemary. We used skewers instead. But I will try it with the rosemary sticks if I prepare this dish in Australia next time.

We marinated the meat in a “magic potion” for a long time before sticking them on the skewer. Make sure that you put about 3-4 pieces of pancetta on each stick, also the sage interspersed with meat needs to be part of each skewer. I whacked them on the “barby”, turned them around a few times, all in all about 20 minutes suffice to make them the most delicious food you ever had.

You can serve them with polenta, or potatoes, or just eat them with bread. Have a beer or two, or a glass of cold white wine. Voila, a great meal. Thanks Jamie for the hint, we loved your recipe.

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Decadence rules

December 4, 2009

Yesterday was downhill all the way as far as my “lunch” was concerned. Usually I have just a “Muesli Riegel” of the kind in the picture below. However, when I learned that my colleague Bjoern would go to “the Scottish restaurant”, I asked him to bring back a Big Mac for me (picture above). And so it was that decadence ruled.

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Anniversary of Thai-German relations celebrated in style with German wine

December 3, 2009

The other day Lufthansa celebrated it’s 50 years of scheduled flight services to Bangkok, Thailand. I was invited to a function at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel which provided not only a splendid backdrop to the event but also supplied the guests with very jummy culinary delights.

Also the wines, a red and a white, both from Germany, were first class. Lufthansa served a 2008 Spätburgunder from Meyer-Näkel, Ahr and a 2008 Riesling from Hermann Dönnhoff, Nahe. What a treat. I could not believe my luck.

When I was a student of agriculture at Bonn University, one of my fellow students, came from the nahe wine region. She had a sticker on her car reading: “Nahewein ein Edelstein”, freely translated as “Wine from the Nahe a gemstone” (unfortunately this does not rhyme as the German slogan). Both wines were gemstones, indeed.

In the end the Riesling somehow blended better with the food, a mix of Thai, German, and other cuisines served in small portions in a snack-type fashion. The anniversary was celebrated in style with beautiful visualizations (among them old photos from good old Bangkok), street food, a twist dancing group, sepia photo taking, a choir and other singers. I wish Lufthansa many more successful years with their venture in Thailand.

PS: I did not bring a camera and therefore do not possess any photos. I also somehow forgot to study the labels of the bottles carefully. That’s a cumbersome affair for me if waiters are serving.

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Brunello di Montalcino and pasta

November 27, 2009

2004 Pietroso Brunello di Montalcino

Just a simple dinner with a pasta and a salad. I grabbed a bottle of red from the wine fridge and woh, where did I buy this wine? It was a ripper of a red, ‘2004 Brunello di Montalcino’ by Pietroso (about 100 km south of Florence in Tuscany).

Aged for 36 months in oak barrels, this 100% Sangiovese wine is just a wonderful drop. Intense forest fruit flavours, great structure, good mid-palate weight and a long finish, round and silky. It took us by surprise.

A delicious pasta

We had just a simple pasta for an ordinary dinner during the week. When I went back to the supermarket the next day to look for this wine, I could not find it any more. I know why: it’s marvelous. Look out for this Brunello di Montalcino. It’s worth it. Azienda Agricola Pietroso produced 2004 about 13,000 bottles of this Brunello. I think it was one of the best wines we had had recently.

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Restaurant review: Waroeng Shanghai Blue 1920 in Jakarta

November 15, 2009

Shanghai Blue1

When discussing with my friends in Jakarta where to meet for dinner, Jasmin suggested “Waroeng Shanghai Blue 1920” right in the center of Jakarta.

The restaurant belongs to the Tugu Hotel group, owned by the family of Anhar Setjadibrata, a famous art collector from Malang, East Java. The family has two more restaurants in Jakarta, “Dapur Baba” and “Lara Djonggrang”, both exotic places with wonderful decorations of Indonesian and other antiques where we had spent memorable evenings with family and friends while living in Jakarta.

“Waroeng Shanghai Blue 1920” is no exception. The interior is just stunning. Apart from dining one can also listen to Jazz music which is performed on a large stage. It was my first visit, and I was in a nostalgic and elated mood: back in Jakarta and out with old friends.

We ordered a round of starters, in fact we ordered the whole menu of starters, followed by main courses. To say it from the outset: the starters were stunning, the main courses could not keep up with it and were mediocre at best. This did not prevent us from having a great time. We had a bottle of white wine from Western Australia. When selecting it together with my friend Flo, I thought that I would not forget the brand. Writing this blog entry a couple of days later, I must submit to the vagaries of life once again. Never assume the obvious. Memory will have its little victories. usually I take a photo of the wine bottles I consume, not this time. Maybe the reunion was just so much more important. Anyway, the started (see some in the pctures below) were wonderful and the wine was just right.

Shanghai Blue2

Shanghai Blue3

Shanghai Blue4

Shanghai Blue5

For us the evening ended in the Buddha Bar, a trendy hangout in Menteng. We were not deterred by a function for Cartier which occupied the interior of the bar but instead sat on the wide back-terrace with the garden view (also nice in the night).

I highly recommend to the casual traveler to visit the restaurants of Anhar Setjadibrata in Jakarta. The atmosphere in the three places – Waroeng Shanghai Blue 1920, Dapur Baba and Lara Djonggrang – is wonderful but unique, the exhibits are breathtaking, they bear witness to Java’s glorious past.

PS: I never stayed at one of the Tugu Hotels but friends of mine rave about the one in Malang. From the website www.tuguhotels.com you might get a glimpse what it might be all about. Breathtaking, spectacular come to mind. I promised myself that one day I will visit one of them and enjoy a night delving in Javas past and in a “Tugu bed”.

Address:
Warong Shanghai Blue 1920 Restaurant
Kebon Sirih Raya 79
Jakarta Pusat
DKI Jakarta – Indonesia
PH 1: +62-21-391-8690
PH 2: +62-21-7088-3366
www.tuguhotels.com

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