Tastebuds overdrive

A most enjoyable dinner adventure at Chef Alvin Leung's restaurant. The Demon Chef even popped over to our table :-) The (de)construction of textures / flavours is very complex, which makes his food very interesting. The place lost a star in last year's Michelin guide but in my opinion there is not much work left to do to bring it back up there (and then again, what do the Michelin dudes know about Chinese food anyway...). I heard about a certain hairy crab soufflé the Chef will put back on the menu around October and which will definitely bring me back to this place :-)




OYSTER
spring onion, lime, ginger snow

A pretty sweet an not too briney oyster, somewhat overpowered by the fierce spring onion cream, but overall the combination with lime and ginger worked well and was very refreshing. Good start, looking forward to the dozen other dishes in the Chef's Menu :-)

  



HAR MI
red prawn, capellini, chilli, sage

Before - cherry tomato, fried sage leaf, crunchy roe (was this flying fish ??) and angel hair, with a big sweet juicy Spanish red prawn and a touch of chilli.

 

HAR MI
red prawn, capellini, chilli, sage

After - with the addition of dried shrimp powder. I extracted the red prawn from under the powder which would have overpowered it, and it was perfectly cooked and very sweet. A pretty good dish, very shrimpy and intense thanks to the presence of dried shrimp, and with a very enjoyable crunchy roe that literally exploded under the teeth.

TRUE-8 VINEGAR
tomato, foie gras, ginger

The broth was very strong, sweet and flavoured with caramel, cinnamon and star anise. This reminded me of one of the Vietnamese caramel sauce recipes I like to smother my pan-fried catfish in... This concoction worked remarkably well with the delicious, warm & creamy cube of pan-fried foie gras.

TRUE-8 VINEGAR
tomato, foie gras, ginger

The ginger - which came in the form of a cube of nitrogen-frozen powder. The flavour was very fresh and intense, but in my opinion there is a bit of work to do on the texture here - I think this could have done with a bit more creaminess rather than the cristal-like, flakey texture that resulted from the use of liquid nitrogen to "flash-freeze" the cube.

SCALLOP
kaffir lime, kyoho grapes, sea urchin, mango, shichimi, potato

I looked at this and something inside me screamed "I can't eat that, it's too pretty!!" (as did quite a few other dishes that night...). One of my favourite dishes of the meal - a perfectly cooked sweet scallop perched on a tiny potato "roe...sti" spiced up with shichimi, garnished with a delish kaffir lime and toasted sesame oil sauce, sea urchin and mango sauce, and a dollop of very intense and flavourful Kyoho grape jelly (non molecular despite the shape). I have to admit the mango/urchin mix did not work for me - it was perfectly executed, fruity and creamy, but it's a matter of personal taste, I've always found urchin difficult and haven't quite acquired that taste yet. I took like 10 bites of this dish and no two tasted the same - pretty amazing.




SCALLOP
kaffir lime, kyoho grapes, sea urchin, mango, shichimi, potato

The Kyoho grape jelly was so pretty and so good I decided it deserves to be the star of its own shot :-)

 

LOTUS LEAF
carrot, gnocchi, yaks milk

let me just say - wow! The lotus leaf was in the form of a very intense green essence at the bottom of the plate, topped with a molecular pureed carrot gnocchi, yak's milk foam and a yak's cheese crisp, which reminded me of parmesan crisps, if only a bit saltier. This was delish - the combination of flavours worked amazingly and the work on the textures was pretty impressive.

IBERICO 36
morel, vermicelli, onion foam

"How am I gonna shoot this it's all white!!"



IBERICO 36
morel, vermicelli, onion foam

Hidden under the onion foam lied a gem of 36-month aged iberico ham "dumpling" stuffed with morel mushrooms and (konnyaku ?) vermicelli. Another of my favourite dishes that evening. I have to admit I was a bit sceptical about the addition o...f onion to iberico ham, but somehow the intense morel mushrooms brought the whole dish together. At this point I was almost ready to scream "genius" :-) The onion foam tasted surprisingly raw on its own, as if it had been whipped from just squeezed onion "juice" - a flawless dish in my humble opinion.



IBERICO 36
morel, vermicelli, onion foam

Close-up on the "dumpling"

MOLECULAR
"xiao long bao"

One of the classics of Chef Leung - topped with a tiny cute strip of vinegared ginger. Pretty deep and intense flavours, surprisingly close to the real thing in terms of "porkiness", but I found the herbs a bit too discreet. Still a very interesting dish, I would have easily gobbled up a few more :-)

HUNAN HAM
halibut, compressed winter melon, honey, fennel, shiitake, pine nuts

Another dish with the "wow" factor. Perfectly cooked halibut (sous-vide ??) topped with a sheet of ham jelly (probably made from the broth squeezed out of the ham powder that covered the compressed winter melon), shaved fennel, and some (was it bench ??) mushrooms flavoured with an intense shiitake essence. Just brilliant.

Entremets: red dragonfruit and ginseng sorbet

Refreshing - a welcome cleanse for the tastebuds before tucking into the main courses (yes, the bunch of earlier pics was just the starters!!)

SQUID
sweetbread, lettuce greens

Before - a cube of creamy tofu and a knob of pan-fried sweetbreads

SQUID
sweetbread, lettuce greens

adding the squid broth

SQUID
sweetbread, lettuce greens

I was not convinced by this dish. The broth was delish, but I could not really taste any squid (somehow I tasted scallops - tired tastebuds ?). The sweetbreads were nicely done, pan-fried and glazed in oyster sauce which paired nicely with it. Nice and creamy tofu, covered with a flavourful sesame oil sauce, a touch of bitterness brought by the greens - overall perfectly balanced flavours and a very good texture composition, I guess I just focused too much on the "squid eclipse" and it disturbed my tasting...

SICHUAN VANILLA
apple, suckling pig, peas

Oh no!! Not suckling pig AGAIN!! :-)
20-hour (!!) roasted suckling pig, smoked baby garden peas (unpeeled, shockingly ;-) ...), apple sorbet with Sichuan pepper and vanilla. A very intersting combination of flavours, masterfully executed. Wow.



SANDALWOOD
almond, hawthorn

Hawthorn berry compote, fruity and a bit acidic, topped with a very fragrant almond panna cotta, and potted with sandalwood smoke which gave some bitterness to the top of the almond panna cotta. A very creative composition, with truly unusual and interesting flavours.



SHUI JING FANG
banana, vanilla, caramel, raisins

The other guests were totally unimpressed by this dish, which contained too much of that artificial flavour Chinese liquors almost always have in their opinion. I actually very much enjoyed this dessert. The raisins were made from Kyoho gra...pes and pretty flavourful, the small (was it a frécinette ?) banana was flavourful and topped with a milky and fragrant vanilla ice cream (with vanilla seeds). The liquor in the caramel sauce added a welcome layer of complexity and actually did not taste that artificial at all in combination with the other ingredients (it did very much smell artificial from the bottle though, which the waitress handed over to us hounds to sniff). The whole thing was topped with a deep-fried basil leaf, which blended in surprisingly nicely. A very good dessert in my opinion, which tasted more Créole than Chinese to me though :-)

 

PETIT DIM SUM

In this pic: strawberry & basil cream puff, kumquat white chocolate

Basil-flavoured pastry cream (yum) in a cute little puff with fruity strawberries, which looked like they had been rehydrated from freeze-dried to concentrate the flavours. I would suggest the use of olive oil in the puff and maybe a touch of lemon (or something tangy) to bring this to kill-me-now perfection :-)

PETIT DIM SUM

In this pic: kaffir lime macaroon, fried rice flour sesame ball

I was a bit disappointed by the macaroon. The texture was spot on, the sweetness perfectly balanced by the tanginess of the citrus, but I could not really taste kaffir lime, rather "ordinary" lime - still a very good macaroon though.