San Francisco - COI Restaurant

The concept of Coi sounds all righteous and good.

"best ingredients we can find in our area: cultivated plants grown from heirloom seeds; wild-harvested leaves, flowers, barks and roots; local fish, seaweeds and coastal grasses; pastured meat, poultry and eggs from small farmers. These are the flavors of place."

I was sold and went all out to make a reservation on Opentable.com until I got a confirmation and heaved a sigh of relief.

Maybe it was a combination of factors - the recommendation and the anticipation, that made this meal a major disappointment.

I won't go into details too much, but in general, I thought the food might have appeared interesting and pleasant to the eye, some of them did taste pretty decent while some of them just don't make sense. Above all, I could not stand the pretentious wait staff, with their no-smiles-i'm-better-than-you attitude. There was no need to seem so high-handed. I know they are probably nice people outside the restaurant. So the friend and I tried to loosen them up a bit by going a couple notches up the decibel scale.

The restaurant was in a low-ceiling room that made me feel like I was in a upscale cave. All the tables were full (about 24 pax in total) and more than 50% were Asians. Just a note, I don't want to imply anything. So anyway, we got the tasting menu, which was the only menu, at US$125 per pax (excluding tax and tip) without wine pairing. What did we eat?

Coi homemade bread roll
Scented with Coi essential oils (sage, pepper, and some flowers)

Honeymilk in a gel
This was pretty good, like a sweet ikura that popped in the mouth.
Pink Grapefruit
ginger, tarragon, black pepper

There is a dab of essential oil on the right if you notice carefully. the play between smell and taste. but it didn't really work for me. the sorbet was very, very sour.

Asparagus, Raw and Cooked
early season asparagus, flowers and herbs

Inverted Andante Dairy Goat Cheese and Black Olive Tart
Vadovan gastrique, preserved lemon, wild arugula
The play on the concept of tart is pretty innovative. Besides, the black olive "tart" was really thin and crunchy. This dish worked well as there was a harmony between different textures, smells, and flavours.

Abalone/Oyster
fennel in different forms
Just wrong. Oysters should be eaten fresh and whole, not minced into a puree and used to mask the taste of abalone which was also diced too small to taste anything.

Sweet, Sour, Salty Bitter
glazed, young carrots, burnt breadcrumbs, almonds, wood sorrel
I liked this one too. The carrots were really sweet and tender so they paired well with both the bitter watercress and the crunchy breadcrumbs that had nutty and smokey flavours.

Earth and Sea
steamed tofu mousseline, yuba, fresh seaweeds, mushroom dashi
Not very interesting though the flavours were light and very comforting.

Nettle-Ricotta Cannelloni
wild mushrooms, oxalis flowers
Again, this tasted good as well. The mushrooms had a really aromatic and meaty texture.

Slow Cooked Farm Egg
slow roasted farro, erbette chard, brown butter parmesan sauce
Very rich dish because of the combination of egg yolk and butter cheese sauce. Because of the farro, the dish turned out to be a loose risotto of sorts. Not in a bad way though but heavy.

Trio (Soyoung Scanlan)
toast, spring lettuces
Goat, sheep and cow's milk in one cheese. Very strong in flavour. Not for the average slice cheese eater.

Caramelized Jasmine Custard
Hazalnut and cocoa textures
Very good dessert - the foam was like thousands of essence of jasmine. The custard just melted in the mouth. The best dessert of my trip (irony!).

Olive Oil Shortcake
strawberry rhubarb, lemon balm, long pepper
LOVED the lemon balm (which is like a concentrated lemon creme that was sweet). This dessert is a close second to the first one. The rhubarb (that cube thing behind) was stewed until soft like beancurd. Yummy.

COI Restaurant Inc

373 Broadway

San Francisco, CA 94133, USA

+1 415-393-9000

Pacific Grove - Passion Fish

Passionfish is a restaurant that I read about on Chowhound. It is run by a husband and wife team and located in an unassuming town along a small coastal city called Pacific Grove. The executive chef and owner, Ted Walter, believes in serving ecologically sound meal choices such as local farmers' organic produce and purchase sustainable seafood and his philosophy behind his food intrigued me enough to stop by.

I would later come to realization that Passionfish must be a neighbourhood gem. The restaurant was the only light in the lifeless downtown and brimming with life. On that night, it was freezing so we hurried our way into the restaurant, attracted to the warm lights like bees to honey. Once in, we only had to wait for about ten minutes for the table to turn over for our 8pm reservation. Yes, it was that packed on a weekday night.

The house bread was really good, biscuity-crunchy outer crust, super fluffy innards. The soft whipped butter melted into the warm bread. We want to devour all of it but we remembered what happened at Bouchon and held back.

We shared an appetizer.

Dungeness crab salad with avocado & spicy ginger vinaigrette (US$13) would be perfect if the dressing was not so salty. But avoid the dressing, and the creamy avocado and sweet crab meat was a delight to eat.

My main course was sturgeon with chickpeas and carrots stew, zucchini cake and tomato chutney. The white, firm fleshed fish was clean tasting, made good foils with the more heavy sides. The stewed chickpeas and carrots was cooked with spices that seemed to have a Morrocan influence. I didn't care too much for the zucchini cake though because it was slightly undercooked and still had a mild floury taste.

We were stuffed but wanted to make room to try a dessert. The Chocolate Truffle Torte with Five spice syrup (US$6) turned out to be too rich for us but the spicy syrup added an interesting twist to the otherwise mundane dessert because it had a kick that cut the heaviness of the chocolate truffle.

Service was average but pleasant. I would not hesitate to come back again in future if only it was not so out of the way.

Passionfish
701 Lighthouse Ave
Pacific Grove, CA 93950
www.passionfish.net

Las Vegas - Bouchon Bistro

It was not by chance that our second restaurant in the Sin City was also a French bistro. Because I could not get a reservation to The French Laundry and I was really keen to try Thomas Keller's food, I made a reservation at the Bouchon Bistro at the Venetian. This is much more casual than Daniel Boulud as in they line the table with white paper and the menu is made of paper as well.

The restaurant, located in an unusual lobby on the 9th floor, was welcoming with its warm tungsten lighting through wrought iron wrapped ceiling lights and

beautiful, rustic blue tiles.

We were served a beautiful loaf of bread and butter very shortly. Oh my, the bread was such a joy to eat. I haven't had such a good baguette since Paris and we chomped through another helping, which explained why we could not finish our food later.


We had ordered mussels and frites as our main course and a couple of appetizers and sides to share. Unfortunately all the food came at just about the same time.

The mushroom soup was unfortunately not up my alley. The soup was one-dimensional in taste and texture and the use of sour cream made it excessively sour for a soup. I did not like it one bit. The macaroni gratin on the other hand was really good. The cheese was generous, the pasta still had bite and I totally grabbed all the broiled parts. C-o-m-f-o-r-t food.

The mussels were alright. Sauce was pretty good and I remembered the portion was super huge. Both of us ate and ate and ate and still had left overs. I wanted to lay off mussels for the rest of my life after that meal.

Definitely no room for dessert. Oh well.

Venetian Resort, Venezia Tower Ste 10101
3355 Las Vegas Blvd S
Las Vegas, NV 89109

(702) 414-6200

www.bouchonbistro.com

Las Vegas - Daniel Boulud Brasserie

Daniel Boulud Brasserie is a casual offshoot of the original Daniel Boulud Restaurant in NYC. Located at the basement of the grand Wynn hotel, the Brasserie offers a really good value tasting menu between 5pm to 7pm. Not only that, if you stay past 8pm, you would also get to watch the Wynn's fountain show that shows at 15 minute intervals starting at 8pm.

The food focuses on classical French food and style of cooking and whilst quite ordinary, was perfectly executed so this meal turned out to be one of the most enjoyable one for me. The waiter was casual and friendly yet professional. The bread was interesting too - one of them had poppyseeds and the other had figs and walnuts.


My warm frisse salad with roasted mushrooms and poached egg was a lovely start to dinner. The soft, runny yolk added a richness to the earthy mushrooms and different flavours and the textures just all blended and melded in my mouth.


The scottish salmon with asparagus was perfectly pink and raw in the middle and had an interesting meyer lemon and radish relish that was sourish and did a good job in preventing the palate from becoming too tired. The skin was so crispy I savoured each bite of it. I cannot understand why most Westerners do not eat the skin of the fish. The first thing they do is to lift up the skin and set it aside. What a shame! Anyways, the portion was generous as well so we had to share dessert.


Dessert was a chocolate hazelnut fondant with nougatine crunch and coffee ice cream. It was a good dessert with tried and tested pairing but oh my gosh, the ice cream was sooo good. The bittersweet effect from the coffee grounds and the sweet cream was a match in heaven and I could only complain that the scoop was too small!


We got a complimentary bowl of mini citrus madelines because my friend's steak was slightly overdone. These were surprisingly really fluffy and light, almost ethereal and just not like most madelines that are heavy and dense like muffins. It was a pleasant surprise and a sweet ending to dinner.

Wynn Las Vegas
3131 Las Vegas Blvd S
Las Vegas, NV 89136

(888) 320-7110

www.danielnyc.com

Hong Kong - Chez Patrick

Chez Patrick, a chef-owner restaurant with two branches in Hong Kong, is helmed by no one other than Chef Patrick, a French guy. I bumped into him at the Peel Street branch and found him to be a really earnest person who is passionate about food. He personally went around the tables to share on his menu and the daily items.

[Sidenote: Apparently he specialises in foie gras and there was an interesting foie gras ice cream that day.]

The concept is simple - one chooses either the 3- or 4-course (with cheese) set dinner, with several options for each category except for the cheese course. The prices were reasonable, well, relatively speaking - HK499 and HK599 respectively.

Starter - Goat's cheese roll-ups with grilled zucchini (cold), red bell pepper and anchovies mousse cake (warm).

I thought the goat's cheese mousse tasted slightly spicy and I was wondering if I was wrong until I overheard Chef Patrick explaining to the table next to ours that (of course!!) there was chorizo in the goat's cheese. Ah, so that explained the slight spiciness that I tasted. Once again, I was beaten by the pork. How could I have convinced myself I could avoid meat in HK?! That aside, the taste of the goat's cheese mousse was really good. Not too gamey (probably blended with cream cheese) and the warm mousse cake was also rather interesting in taste and texture. It somewhat tasted like otah mousse.

Main - Bouillabaisse with fresh king prawn, seabass and snapper (a bit fishy) and (turned) potatoes

Now, the broth was rich and comforting. We were served a platter of thin toasts that we left aside after a bite. Chef Patrick actually came by to enquire if anything was wrong with the bread. He was not looking too happy and I wished I could joke and tell him I was on low-carb diet but I thought he would definitely blow up. As it turned out, the bread was not crunchy because they were air-dried. That would allow the bread to soak up the broth without turning into a mess. Ah! I felt enlightened after his lecture.

Desset - Warm chestnut cake with dark chocolate sauce and burnt caramel ice cream

I really enjoyed dessert becaue there was a subtle hint of chestnuts in the chocolate cake plus it was not too sweet. The ice cream was also very good, smooth and thick.

Overall, I enjoyed the dinner very much. The food was decent and the atmosphere was just very homely ( I loved its old colonial style toilets with octagon marble tiles!).

Chez Patrick
G/F, 26 Peel Street
Central, Hong Kong
Tel: 2541 1401

Hong Kong - Tsim Chai Kee Noodle

My only authentic Hong Kong meal was wonton meen, at Tsim Chai Kee Noodle, a non-pretentious noodle shop where people eat and leave quickly. Interesting, the more famous and Bourdain-endorsed Mak Noodle is just across the street but the girlfriend felt this was better.

Good thing we arrived slightly before lunchtime, so we need not wait for a table. Shortly after our orders were taken, two steaming hot bowls of noodles (HK$16 each) arrived. They looked puny in size but in actuality, the portion turned out just nice.

Well, the noodles, they had a firm and wiry texture. The mild alkaline flavour was surprisingly not too bad and actually enhanced the overall dish somewhat. The stock was a rich pork stock glistening with a layer of oil. A little salty, very much like ramen stock, sinful but good.

The wontons were big, tasty shrimp balls in disguise! I regretted ordering the one with dace fish balls. The fish balls were very interesting. They were like fishcakes, only much denser. I think they had mixed in pork (why did I even think I could escape pork in HK?!) and little bits of tangerine peels that made the taste very interesting giving a slight hint of citrus.

I don't know if this was the best wonton noodles in Hong Kong but they are certainly very different from our local versions and not bad at all.

Tsim Chai Kee
98 Wellington Street
G/F Jade Centre
Central
9am to 8pm daily