Polmard Beef Dinner

There's no surprise beef was the main theme of the menu at my recent dinner at Ami with Alexandre Polmard flying in from France and be the co-host with Chef Nicolas Boutin. 

The 6th-generation butcher Polmard is synonymous to top-quality beef with their unique approach of raising the cattle and treating the meat. At this 2-day event we were able to sample quite a few of their meat products prepared in a number of ways by the great kitchen team at Ami.

Butcher in Residence

We dropped by On Dining one Friday evening when Parisian butcher Hugo Desnoyer was in town to present a few special dishes at the restaurant, using the meat produced by his shop, of course. I managed to get out of office fairly early, so 30 minutes before our reservation time, I was already there, having a pre-dinner drink at the bar upstairs to catch a breather from a hectic work week. Soon I was joined by other friends as we moved to our table downstairs.

Fun at the Butchery Workshop

Recently I joined a few others for a Butchery Workshop hosted by Chef Tom Aikens at his restaurant, The Fat Pig by Tom Aikens, in Times Square. Given I have yet tried both of the restaurants he's currently overseeing (Fat Pig and also The Pawn in Wanchai), I am interested in trying his dishes, but I am even more interested in picking up some butchering skills from him, for this is not something I could easily get some hands-on experience with.

Red Friday - The Butchers Club

It's been an annoyingly rainy week but my Friday dinner was what I have been looking forward to. We had a group gathering at an industrial building in Aberdeen in the evening to try out The Butchers Club - a new, no-frill meat shop cum private kitchen. The guy behind the venture was the founder of Pacific Gourmet - first of its kind fine meat purveyor in Hong Kong and with The Butchers Club, he went one step further in specializing in dry aging - the tricky process of leaving the meat in specific temperature and humidity for a long period that brought out the natural flavors and tenderization of the meat. Well, a few restaurants in town have been offering dry-aged meat on the menu, so were some upscale meat shop which imported them in, but The Butchers Club was apparently the first to have its own aging facilities in such a large scale for its retail customers.