Burgundy and Beef

This particular dinner hosted by a local wine merchant caught my attention because of their choice of bottles. While many wine-themed dinner focuses on certain vineyard or winemakers, this one featured bottles of Burgundy wines with a nice, “entry-level” selection from different winemakers and through this we could get a glimpse of various styles and characteristics in various recent vintages. And it was hosted in one of the top steakhouse in town, one that was bestowed a Michelin star for a few years already and one we didn’t visit often, so that gave us extra incentive to sign up and go. 

Burgundian Delight - Yung Kee x Montille Dinner

We were on a rare weeknight out to join a dinner at Yung Kee hosted by the British wine merchant Berry Brothers and Rudd with Burgundy winemaker Etienne de Montille. Yung Kee, the legendary Cantonese restaurant famous for its roast goose among many other classic dishes, has been in the news lately for all the wrong reasons, so I was quite interested to see whether those negative publicity has any impact to the overall quality of food.

The dinner was held in a private room on the VIP Floor, one level above their regular 3-story restaurant. I had never eaten in this more intimate and quieter section so that's yet another reason we were curious to come. Of course, the main attraction was still the wines being presented, which came from the two estates Etienne owned and actively managed - the Chateau de Puligny-Montrachet he worked and later acquired, and Domaine de Montille that he inherited from the family.

Hospice de Beaune Wine Dinner

A couple of weeks ago we were at the table for Hospice de Beaune wine dinner co-organized by Hip Cellar, owned by one of our friends EY. Other than the state-of-the-art wine storage facilities and event space at this industry building location in Tin Hau (I wasn't paid to say this, just to make it clear), under the same roof is Ta Pantry, a speakeasy/private kitchen by Chef Esther, where the wine dinner was held.

I have been to Ta Pantry a couple of times this year already (the thoughts after the first visit are here), and quite impressed with the innovative cooking style and its food, so I don't mind coming for a third time, especially the menu and the wines for the evening sound very enticing.

Cooking at home: A presentable dinner

A change of our schedule allowed us to ask our friends Charlene and Alan to come for dinner in one weekend evening in late June. They don't seem to have a preference on anything particular, plus my work schedule has been crazy lately, so I was unable to plan too much ahead of time - so there goes items like steak or pork. Well I have been making a few duck dishes lately with some success, so I decided to stick with duck as my main course ingredient.

A long overdue encounter - Iggy's

I have been to a few fine-dining places in Singapore during my previous visits to the city-state in the last 12 months, but never been to Iggy's - probably one of the first that shot to international fame, having rated top of Asia and the World a few times in the past. So we decided to try this out for lunch this time.

The restaurant started its life at The Regent Hotel in 2004 then moved to Hilton Singapore at the far end of the Orchard Road Shopping District a few years ago. The hotel public area certainly showed its age but the decor inside Iggy's was drastically different, starting with the dark facade and the hidden door at the entrance, and it felt like the restaurants was detached from the rest of the hotel totally. Through the dimly lit corridor we were shown to our table in the middle of the dining room. The dining space was quiet and tiny - only a handful tables plus separate lounge area and bar seating next to the pastry station on the other side. The kitchen, which almost took up as much space as the dining room, was right next to the tables and separated only by a glass door. I guess the philosophy was to eliminate the distance between the culinary team and its customers, literally.

Asking too much? Evening at L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon

We headed off to L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon at Landmark for dinner for only the second time (since it first opened). Well I know it's been awarded 3 stars in Michelin Guide, called the best in Asia by Miele etc etc, but our last visit a few years back was downright horrible in everything you can imagine that we just didn't bother to return afterwards. Well we had similar experiences with other restaurants in town in the beginning only to realize afterwards that those places have made significant improvement since then, so we decided to give it a second chance and hope it would prove ourselves wrong.

An American in Burgundy - Domaine Dublere Wine Dinner

We love winemaker dinners. First and foremost, often it represents great value for money with the amount of wines they serve and also for some of the rarer finds from the winemaker's own collection that they sometimes bring along. And second, just like how people enjoyed reading the director's interview about making of a movie, we like hearing stories from the winemakers themselves on the philosophy of their winery, what they do with their grapes and their wines and to feel their passions and pride in the wines they made. That's much better than any critics' reviews or marketing campaigns.

Well we went to one last Saturday at the Grand Hyatt Steakhouse. Interesting enough, it's hosted by Blair Pethel, the owner and winemaker of Domaine Dublere, who as an American from North Carolina and a former journalist, somehow made his way to the great land of Burgundy and became a farmer - as he called himself - and founded Domaine Dublere (a Francophone twist of his first name Blair) about 10 years ago. Turned out Blair was also a fellow Washingtonian - spending a good amount of time in the capital during the Clinton Administration as a political journalist - and we went to the same school (he did his graduate degree and I did my undergraduate's - but at different time). What an interesting coincidence!