Umu is the idea of a restaurant that I dreamt of ever since I had that very intriguing, but maybe too authentic for Westerners eyes and taste buds meal in Kikunoi in Kyoto .”Could anybody recreate the Kyoto style kaiseki meal but with a modern touch in Europe? “, I…

Every person I spoke in London praised Hunan, “a Chinese “gem””, where there are no menus and you will “explode” of the amount of delicious food. And indeed, Hunan is “not your typical Chinese restaurant.” You don’t get any menu, and the waiter just asks how spicy you would like…

As I’ve posted last year, Milan is not only about shopping for designer bags and shoes, but also about delicious Italian food and certain Milanese style that you can’t find anywhere else. I don’t speak about the new rich sweeping away “Dolce” and “Giorgio” shops, but about the old Italy…

The most luxurious bistro? I know, it is crazy to call this two Michelin stars restaurant located in the sumptuous hotel particulier in the centre of Paris, “a bistro”. But since the post by Food Snob, I couldn’t but be more and more convinced that many creations of Jean-Pierre Vigato…

I know paella is not the speciality of Catalonia and no paella in Barcelona can compare to paella Valenciana, but the black squid ink paella in the very pleasant Botafumeiro ( El Gran de Gracia 81, 08012 Barcelona, tel.+34 93 218 42 30 ) was something special, higher than all…

This is not an “Opera” cake – it is an amuse-bouche of foie gras, eel and soy sauce jelly at Benkay. A nice dedication to French and Japanese cuisines. Speaking of Japanese ingredients and toro in particular (see my previous post), Benkay located in Novotel hotel in the 15th arrondissement…

Update 19/05/09. The menu has been totally changed in Ozu and now they serve “small plates”. So when you order shrimp tempura, you have two small and quite pathetic shrimps, when you order fish, the size of the portion is maybe three bites. The quality of the products was very…

The recipients of Michelin stars in France have been announced. You can see the full list here (the pdf under the text).

The most famous pastry chef in the world did it again. This time Pierre Herme married potatoes with lemon confit, saffron jelly, sweetcorns and pieces of potatoes cooked with saffron juice for one of his “émotion extravagant” (available since last December). I liked the lemony taste with saffron twist, but…

When I asked the hotel concierge to reserve a table at David Tang’s China Club, he said “no” in the beginning. Only after insisting, he agreed “to see what he can do”. We did get a table that night and in fact, it seems that asking your hotel’s concierge is…