Restaurant review: Sjoebaren in Gothenburg, Sweden

September 13, 2010

While walking the streets of Gothenburg, Sweden (which is a very lovely city) where I attended an international conference, I noticed the many Japanese sushi restaurants. Well, I thought the Swedes love to eat fish; why not Japanese?

For dinner, however, my colleague Jules and I, we wanted to check out the original, a Swedish fish restaurant. The receptionist at the hotel pointed us to a couple of interesting places. We decided on a restaurant nearby, the Sjoebaren as it was called (freely translated as “seal” or “sea bear”). We were told that there are two restaurants with that name. We went to the one in Lorensberg.

The entrance of the restaurant

We had not made a booking and the place was full when we arrived. Fortunately, the waiters were very kind and accepted a booking for 20 h. We had an hour and a half of additional time to kill but that was not a problem for us (more about this later).

Kuentz-Bas, 2007 Pinot Gris Tradition from Alsace, France

It was clear, we wanted to eat fish. The first thing I selected was the wine. I opted for a ‘2007 Pinot Gris Tradition’ by Kuentz-Bas from Alsace, France. Decanter awarded 87 points to this wine.

The vintner of Kuentz-Bas is Jean-Baptiste Adam, an icon of the Alsatian wine industry. He runs his vineyards following biodynamic production methods. I am not related to Jean-Baptiste despite the coincidence with the family name.

Wine prices in Sweden are a bit on the high side. We went for only a glass. I loved the Pinot Gris. It was not overpowering, but fine and firm with a complex acidity and an impressive finish.

The starter

The herring was just too good to not order it. We did not expect what was put in front of us by the cheerful waiter. Look at that. This beautiful arrangement was just amazing. One piece of herring was marinated in a cinnamon heavy marinade, the other piece came with fish eggs on top in a white sauce. In addition we were given potatoes, onions, cream cheese and some other delicacies. I t,ell you this starter is to die for. My taste buds went ballistic. What a wonderful start to an Swedish meal.

Two kinds of herring

Fish of the day

My friend Jules ordered the fish of the day. Very tasty.

Graved lachs

I went for “graved lachs” (marinated salmon), my favourite dish from Sweden. Ever since a Swedish friend of ours had introduced us to this delicacy and ever since my wife makes her own version of it, I just cannot resist this fish. The portion was huge. And for the first time ever, I could not finish my plate. It was just to much. Unbelievable. I had to apologize to the waiter with a compliment to the kitchen.

Potatoes in dill-cream sauce

The painting in the middle of the restaurant.

Sjoebaren Lorensberg, when we left it

Sjoebaren is a hot tip if you are in Gothenburg. Do yourself a favor and treat you to something very special. The service is great, prices affordable and the quality extraordinary.

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Restaurant review: Chez Clément, Paris, France

September 8, 2010

Champs-Élysées

During our summer vacation we also visited Paris for a few days. It is only about 2 1/2 hours by train from my hometown Trier. So why not seeing the French capital?

One of the highlights of the visit was a lunch on the Champs-Élysées. We chose a nice “little” place (the inside is huge but quite lovely, as we discovered when looking for the bathrooms) called ‘Chez Clément’ , a chain restaurant though, but nevertheless very attractive.

The entrance of Chez Clément

Oysters was one of the starters we could not refuse. The unpasteurized Camembert was the other. For the main course three of us went for the Toulouse sausages, one took the Charolais beef tartar. The house white was just the right wine, a Sancerre if I am not mistaken.

The food was just divinely delicious. The service was great. It might have helped that we arrives slightly before the lunch time crowd did. It was one of the best meals we had in Paris during our stay. I can highly recommend the place. Just walk up to the triumphal arch and look out for Chez Clément.

Oysters from Brittany

Croustilland de Camembert

Toulouse sausage

Charolais beef tartar

Rucola salad with parmesan

And a espresso afterwards

Address:
Chez Clément
Champs-Élysées
Paris, France
http://www.chezclement.com

PS: I was traveling in Vietnam and had no access to wordpress.com for that time. This is why I had to postpone updating my blog. The above story is form this summer.

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Restaurant review: Taverna Cestia, Rome, Italy

August 25, 2010

While working at FAO and living in Rome at the end of the 1980ies, our main restaurant was Taverna Cestia, near Piramide, just a couple of blocks from the United Nations. We went often and all the waiters knew us very well. Usually that meant that we did not have to look at the menu (they knew what we liked to eat), and if we stayed longer than the opening hours permitted, we were somehow accommodated (usually the offering of burning ‘Sambuca’ signaled that it was time to go home).

So it was clear that when in Rome, we would go and eat there. And that’s what we did during our summer vacation 2010 as well. It was a very hot day. We had shown our daughters the Terme di Caracalla. We were thirsty and needed refreshment. ‘Melon with prosciutto’ and ‘bruschetta di pomodori’ are just the right stuff to start a meal.

Ham and melon

Tomatoes on grilled bread

Olives in a coat

Taverna Cestia is famous for it’s ‘spaghetti alle vongole’, but I always liked also the ‘penne al arrabiata’.

Penne al ragu

Spaghetti alle vongole

In the past we always ordered a liter of house wine, usually a white wine in summer (a refreshing Frascati) and a red one in winter. Also this time we had a bottle of this divine liquid. We did not regret our choice.

Frascati wine by Casalgentile

The back label of the Frascati by Casalgentile

That the food at Taverna Cestia is very good is proven by the next picture. Tripadvisor awards four out of five stars.

Address:
Taverna Cestia Di Salvi Gioacchino C.
Viale della Piramide Cestia, 67
00153 Roma, Italia
Tel.: +39-6-5743754
Subway: Piramide

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Restaurant review: Orazio, Rome

July 15, 2010

It is wonderful to be again in the town which was my home for three years (1988-90). Rome is just stunning, a wonderful city. In 1990 I witnessed here the soccer world cup. Ten years later I was invited as visiting professor by the Food and Agriculture Organization to conduct a study on property rights in Asia. In 2010 I am back because my children thought that the celebration of my 20th wedding anniversary deserves a special treat.

Everywhere I go, I am also somehow confronted with my past. As all old man, I am reminiscing. One special place is the restaurant ‘Orazio di Caracalla’. It was here were we had – after the ceremony at the “Campidoglio” (capital hill) – our wedding lunch. The restaurant is located right at the end of the Terme di Caracalla on the way to Porta Latina. It has a splendid garden and a big car park with old trees.

Menu of ‘Ristorante Orazio’

We casually strolled in after visiting the Colosseum on a beautiful summers day with blue sky and temperatures around the mid thirties.

As with many good restaurants in Rome, little changes over the years. Interesting I also find that the waiters seem to be part of the place. So it is at Orazio. They are observant and discreet, and very friendly.

Mixed starters

On hot days, plates of antipasti are always a welcome start of a meal. Both dishes (above and below), the mixed selection of starters and the melon with ham, were just delicious.

Melon and ham

Artichokes

Although not in the “carcioffi” (artichoke) season, we could not resist ordering “Carcioffi alla Romana”. I had to go for “penne al arrabiata”, one of my favorite pasta dish.

Penne al arrabiata

The local wine we selected was, of course, a Frascati. This blend of Malvasia and Trebbiano (sometimes other white varieties are added) is ideal accompaniment of Roman food on a hot summers day.

Casalgentile is a very well known producer of the Castelli Romani. It’s ‘Agrospino Bianco’ blend has earned various awards. So have many of Pietro Mergé’s other wines.

A wine from Lazio: Frascati

Family lunch

As the photo above shows, we had a great time.

Address:
Ristorante Orazio
F.lli Valentini
Via di Porta Latina 5
Tel.: +39-6-70492401
Fax: +39-6-77207339
Closed on Tuesday

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Pomodoro, Italian cuisine in Saigon-Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

June 20, 2010

The historic Peoples Committee building next to modern high rises in glass

The menu of Pomodoro

“One cannot have always Asian food”, is how some people feel when traveling in Asia. Having the opportunity to check out an Italian restaurant was just too tempting. “Pomodoro” it was called, tomato. And in fact tomatoes were to be found not only on the menu, but also on the coasters. I took one as a souvenir.

The staff in the restaurant is very friendly, helpful and flexible. I craved for gnocchi when I detected them on the menu. Just simple “gnocchi al pomodoro”. They were delicious. I just had a salad with it, which made a perfect meal.

Gnocchi with tomato sauce

The restaurant has a very impressive wine list. Unfortunately, I do not know much about Italian wines. We asked what seemed to be “il padrone” (the boss), and he suggested we try the house wine, a ‘2007 Sandiliano Salento Rosso’ from Apulia.

A beautifully presented bottle of red

As I learned while writing this blog entry, the Apulian wine region is divided into two, the North and the South. Salento is situated to the south of the Brindisi-Taranto line. It is a peninsula of low, rolling hills that extends between the Adriatic and Ionian seas to the easternmost point of Italy. Thanks to the sea currents and breezes, the climate of Sorento is not too hot.

Therefore it wines have sufficient acidity and are not boring like “sultana wines” (or raisin wines as I call them). Salento’s traditional wines were the powerful, inky reds from Primitivo, Negroamaro and Malvasia Nera grape varieties. But increasingly fresher reds and rosés are produced, which show some unexpectedly bright and fruity characters.

The ‘2007 Sandiliano Salerno Rosso’, the house wine of Pomodoro, belonged to this latter category. It went very well with my gnocchi. The wine is a blend of Negroamaro and Merlot (12% vol. alc. only). It is fruity but not overwhelmingly so. It is a dark red and rustic wine, as I like them. One can taste the soil and the peasants hand.

Sandiliano Salento Rosso

Address:
pomodoro italian restaurant
79 Hai Ba Trung, District 1
Ho Chi Minh City
Tel.: +84-8-38238998
Fax: +84-8-38238957
e-mail: pomodoro@hcm.vnn.vn
http://www.pomodoro-vietnam.com

PS: For the Italophiles among you, I enclose herewith a little video clip on “Il padrone della casa”

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Food heaven at Bangles in Taoyuan

June 7, 2010

A Hamburger and a Kronenbourg beer

After all this very delicious Chinese food here in Taiwan, my taste buds needed a break, so my friend Jim and I, we decided to go out to an eatery called Bangles, a hamburger restaurant in Taoyuan with waiters in cowboy costumes, and have a “decadent” Hamburger or something like it. This was very nice indeed. The service in Bangle is very friendly, the atmoshere pleasant, the food tasty and the beer is very decent.

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Away with the fairies – The Iron Fairies in Bangkok

May 4, 2010

A magical place

The Iron Fairies is the coolest hangout in Thonglor, our neighbourhood in Bangkok. On any night of the week, it is busy and buzzing with people. This Wine Bar cum Restaurant might even be the most hip place in town.

I pass by every day when walking to and from my office but it took me a while to check it out myself. It’s been there for about six months. In front of the narrow building, strange equipment is “parked”, sometimes an old motorbike, sometimes and old pump or other ancient equipment.

Ashley Sutton, the owner, originally from Perth, Western Australia, is a great host. He is not only a successful children’s book author but also a blacksmith, bar man, restaurant manager and who knows what. He is always there and makes sure his clients get what they want. He has a lot of experience because the Iron Fairies in Bangkok is not his first wine and jazz bar. There are Iron Fairies in Perth and new York.

We asked him for his best red wine, and he recommended a Xanadu Cabernet Sauvignon from Western Australia. It was a good choice. We got a decent wine for a decent price. Also the food was not bad, although the burgers are a bit on the sweet side.

There is also great entertainment at the Iron Fairies. We were lucky to have four young Thai jazz musicians who made our time most enjoyable. On Saturday nights a magician is the attraction.

The Iron Fairies is a very small place and fills up quickly so that latest at about 10 pm, the doors are closed. We were early and it was during the week so that we had a choice where to sit.

In the daytime, the Iron Fairies is also a workshop, a place where fairies are made. Unfortunately, my old digital camera does not produce good pictures if the light is not right. Therefore, only the above photo is available to me.

I found some good pics on the internet. But of course, the best is you check it our yourself. If you come to Bangkok, come to Thonglor and visit the Iron Fairies.

The Iron Fairies

Address:
Iron Fairies
394 Thonglor Road (Sukhumvit Soi 55), Bangkok
(opposite Ton Krueng Thai Restaurant)
Tel.: +66 (0) 84 425 8080
Open Monday-Saturday, 8pm to 2am

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Restaurant Review: Hargreaves Hill Brewing Company in Yarra Glen

April 19, 2010

Hargreaves Hill Brewing Company in Yarra Glen

Where to go for lunch on a Sunday in the Yarra Valley? Ample choice it seems. But many of our choices turned out to be fully booked, to be precise the wineries cum restaurant were. So why not going to a beer place? Hargreaves Hill Brewing Company in Yarra Glen came to mind. They had seats available (online booking available!!) and off we went.

A beer tasting paddle

We started with a beer tasting. For this purpose a “tasting paddle” is available with six different beers. As a German I was pleased to find some German style beers such as the ‘Hargreaves Hill Hefeweizen’ and the ‘Hargreaves Hill Kellerbier’. But the paddle also includes classic English (Hargreaves Hill ESB, Hargreaves Hill Stout and and Hargreaves Hill Pale Ale) and Belgium style beers (Hargreaves Hill Abbey Dubbel). I liked the ‘Kellerbier’ best.

The beer tasting notes

The various aromas and tastes are neatly described on the beer tasting menu. Amazing what you can taste in a beer. I just loved the experience. This was a good start to a Sunday lunch, I thought.

The food was equally good. Below you find pictures of what we ordered. Needless to say all the dishes were delicious. The service was excellent. I loved the salmon on the bed of herbs and veggies.

The seafood pasta

Some side dishes

Slow cooked pork belly

My salmon dish

The desserts were equally delicious.

Simon Walkenhorst, the “brew master” and one of the co-owners

At the end of the meal I went over to the bar and asked one of the owners, Simon Walkenhorst, the micro brewer, if I could take a photo for my blog to which he kindly agreed.

From my friend Steve Sadlier I learned later that the brewery had burned down in last years February bushfire and that Simon and his partner Beth had lost their house and all their possessions. Now the beer is brewed in Lylidale. The quality of the “hops drink” has certainly not suffered. We had a great time at the Hargreaves Hill Brewing Company.

The good news for the wine aficionados is that Simon offers a fine selection of local wines. Among them the fine wines of boutique vintner Timo Mayer and the Mayer Vineyard of the Yarra Valley. I am a fan of the vintner and his wines . Try them if you can.

Address:
Hargreaves Hill Brewing Company
25 Bell St
Yarra Glen VIC 3775, Australia
www.hargreaveshill.com.au

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Wine tasting at the Lake House in Bangkok

March 7, 2010

The bottle of red by Domaine de Rapatel at Lake House

In the morning when we drove past Lake House on our way into town, we decided spontaneously that we should go there for dinner. Margit had seen a review about the place in the Bangkok Post. Of course we had to check the place out ourselves.

It was already dark when we arrived but the surroundings of the lake were very romantic. My camera, however, could not cope with the conditions. We choose a small table in the garden and had just ordered our food when an excited waitress came and invited us to a wine tasting. Surprise surprise, we thought, why not taste some wines.

In a small room in the main building, we met the winemaker, Gérard Eyraud, his daughter and grandson, and some more French people from the wine importer. We tasted four wines, three from Gérard, one from another producer from Southern France (Domaine Bouche Red, Cote du Rhone). I had nothing to write with, took no notes and also forgot completely to take a picture of the winemaker and his family.

The white from Domaine de Rapatel was a blend of Roussanne with Bourboulenc with a taste of apricots, one red was a blend of Grenache with Syrah and the third one was a blend of Syrah, Grenache and Mourvèdre (14.5% vol. alc.). The last one I know for sure, because we could not continue to drink the wine I had ordered earlier, after we had tasted these wonderful fruity wines made by Gérard. In the process we got to know Matt, one of the three co-owners of the restaurant, from Melbourne and established that his brother Dan is an old mate of my nephew Nik Meinhold. How small the world is.

Gérard and Christine Eyraud have about 15 ha under vines southwest of the city of Nîmes. Gérard sells most of his wine as Vin du Pays du Gard, the grand cru wines are labeled “Costières de Nîmes”, a wine region in the Carmargue, in the South of France. I have visited the city and its surroundings but had never tasted wines from there before. I loved the fruitiness which reminded me of Australian wines and not necessarily typical for French wines.

We had a jolly good evening. The tapas we had ordered were delicious, the wine was just superb. The staff was very friendly. We went home with the sincere intention to come back and taste some more wines. By the way the wine list of Lake House is quite extensive, and the prices are the best I have seen in Bangkok so far.
Needless to say that we ordered a couple of dozens of the wines the next morning by e-mail. More soon about these wines maybe with proper tasting notes.

PS: During the wine tasting we also learned that the house used to belong to Tiziano Terzani (14.09.1938 – 28.07.2004), an Italian journalist and writer, and a native of Florence. He stayed there for about two years. The house was called “the turtle house”. He also had lived in Beijing, China for a while where he was the correspondent for the German magazine Der Spiegel, until he was thrown out. I red his book “Behind the forbidden door: travels in unknown China” in 1986.

Address:
Lake House
http://www.lakehousebkk.com
18 Soi Prommitr, Sukhumvit 39
Bangkok, กรุงเทพมหานคร 10110, Thailand
+66-2-662 6349

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Restaurant review: Bombay Palace, Kuala Lumpur

November 17, 2009

Bombay Palace

A beautiful building houses the Bombay Palace: 1001 nights come to mind

I usually do not use business dinners as a source for my blog entries. However, in the case of Bombay Palace I make an exception from this rule. I had started the day (a Sunday) with an Indian breakfast to which my friends took my in one of the many shop-house-eateries in Bangsa. Needless to say that it was super delicious.

Bombay Palace1

The excursion of my taste buds to the Indian subcontinent continued with the dinner at Bombay Palace. I always wanted to dine there but the occasion never arose. Therefore, I was very excited about the prospect of a dinner in this famous restaurant. Ever since living in New Delhi I love north Indian food.

Bombay Palace2

A water fountain decorated with roses was to be found in the entrance hall

I did not feel like eating any meet, and therefore ordered a vegetarian “platter”, a selection of various vegetarian north Indian dishes as you can see from the photos below. The food was excellent, and so was the service in the restaurant. I can only highly recommend the place. You must eat there! if visiting Kuala Lumpur.

Bombay Palace3

Condiments

Bombay Palace5

My “selection” of vegetarian dishes

The wine list included wines from all over the world. After discussing wine preferences with my fellow diners, I selected a French wine, a ‘2006 Sancerre’ by Pascal Jolivet, a Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire, France (12.5% vol. alc.). I love Sauvignon Blanc wines not only because we grow our own but because I just love the finesse, the crispness and the fruity flavours.

Pascal Jolivet is a unique guy with a strong philosophy when it comes to the making of fine wines. With more than 30 ha under vines the Domaine Pascal Jolivet is not a boutique producer. His vineyards are located in Sancerre and Pouilly-Fume in the Loire valley. In the USA the ‘2006 Sancerre’ retails for about US$ 22. We very much enjoyed this clean and crisp wine, just the right choice since it went well with our meals.

I admit that this was my first encounter with a wine of Pascal Jolivet. I do not drink much French wine but this time I was in an exploratory mood which is good from time to time. I recommend it and also the Sancerre by Pascal Jolivet.

Bombay Palace4

The wine list

To sum up my experience I must say that the evening at Bombay Palace was just great. The food was excellent and the wine list gives you enough choice to find a complement to the north Indian cuisine. I will come back, promise.

Address:
Bombay Palace
www.bombaypalacerestaurantkl.com
215, Jalan Tun Razak
Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan 50400, Malaysia
+60 3 2145-4241

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