Away Notice.....

Hopefully we could still catch this.....THIS!!!! which u can only see for 2 weeks in the entire year. I've been so busy with new portfolio at work that Monkey hasn't really got the time to read much nor prepare much for this trip.....

so JS, Monkey and the hobbits....are off to the land of the rising sun *yes again* 
:)))))
wish us a safe flight and we will be back with more beautiful stories to share with you readers.

in the mean time, enjoy your weekend too!!!
Hugs!!!!

H&M Home

Last nite, H&M Avenue K launched its Home section exclusively to their VVIP clientele and selected media. Much hype has been brewing 2 months earlier bcoz Malaysia will be the 1st country in South East Asia to stock the chic and affordable products for your home :))))

Think pillow cases, duvets, storage items, glassware, tableware and decorative items :))) and lots of candles.

H&M Home sells mostly smaller items for your home and not loose furniture. They even have curtains, blinds and rails.

The assortment of candle holders and tealights candles were vast but not all are available yet at the store as at last nite. Home section isn't big but you need to look hard enuff to locate all the items.

The jars are pretty cool but didn't see any last nite. Tableware in different prints and designs are available though, including the cake stand.

Monkey is a glassware freak so I got some :))))) Maybe the selections here is small bcoz at the end of the day I still prefer Zara Home. Nevertheless good job to H&M for bringing in the Home section into Malaysia. :)))))

Happy Shopping folks!!!!

H&M, Avenue K,
156 Jalan Ampang, 
Kuala Lumpur.
http://www.hm.com/my

Dinner of the year, 2008 Domaine de La Romanee-Conti series

This dinner was planned since last year, wines were sourced and brought in a few months earlier. And finally the date 18th July was SUPER highlighted on my calendar. Watever happens on that date, nothing can move it outta my way to Cilantro to have my very first tasting of Romanee Conti. YES as in the RC of the RC. YES that RC!!!!!

It is the most sought after and most expensive wines in the world. Wine Lord was really good and managed to sourced these babies. We have seen RC in restaurant's menu but never brought ourselves to ordering it when we were in France. Now that life is so unpredictable and short, just drink watever u want.

Our Wine Lord took efforts and made us individual booklets for this dinner. The maximum comfortable number for this dinner was 8 pax, so that everyone would get a decent pour per bottle. I guess for Dr. Epicurean, the less people would be better bcoz I sensed that he hasn't got enuff to drink that evening.

Monkey was the last to arrive after work and requested for a warm towel to clean her hands before touching any glasses of these holy grail wines.


We had a bottle of champagne to start the dinner, and followed by these 3 babies. It's really great to have a comparison of all 3 in terms of style, profile and pricing. It was only my 2nd bottle of Montrachet RC and it's so so beautiful with a robust botrytis nose.

Somehow I prefer the Fontaine-Gagnard over the Ramonet. Oh well wine preference is so personal, it's about wat you like. Not what the ratings like :)))

Aori Ika with Ohba Gazpacho
this is very Japanese and Spanish :))) The squids were so sweet, paired with the slightly tart fragrant cool gazpacho of ohba leaves.

The RC Montrachet has got a very long length and rounded finish. I guess not many people including myself would pay this much for a bottle of white wine. JS said he would. Yes I know...u bought us a bottle at La Tour d'Argent. With only 250 cases being produced each vintage, it is indeed very very rare so I guess the price point goes with its rarity.

Poached Kuruma Ebi
looked so simple and bland but fully power packed with aroma and taste. There was something very tempura-ish underneath the prawn....hmmm wat was it?

the Men were pretty impatience and quickly hurry the sommelier to move onto the reds.

Kuro Awabi with Coral coulis
a very tender succulent abalone with a dollop of its liver sauce. Yes liver from the abalone, I only found out recently that abalone has got a HUGE ASS green liver.

Kinki with jus claire
noticed its crispy skin? :))) oh yumssss. Kinki is one of my fav fish for its delicate and sweet meat. It's bright red in color with really HUGE eyes for its size.

served with crispy thinly sliced bread, laced with shaven parmigiano. So u just mopped up all the yummy succulent jus off the fish with these crispy babies. In the end we requested for spoons each to finish up the jus.


Civet of Lobster with Roe
the roe somehow reminded me of Hong Kong's har ji. Chef Takashi purposely laced one piece of lobster with sauce while the rest were on its own, eaten with micro herbs.

The lineup went accordingly from Echezeaux to Grands Echezeaux...RSV...then Richebourg
My pick would be the RSV but surprisingly every bottle has got a distinctive rose aroma. I was asking myself how could 2008 be this beautiful? The dining room soon was impermeated with the beautiful nose of the RCs.

then the Tai Kohs came out....first the La Tache which wasn't really that ready. Perhaps we should have open it earlier for it snose to develop.

and finally the ROMANEE-CONTI the RC!!!!! it's the purest and most elegant wine ever made on planet earth. It was so stunning, rounded, balanced but most of all the most SACRCEST. However I found its sweetness to be on the high side, the ripe berries showed so well that evening.


File Pic taken in December 2010

When we arrived at the 1.8 hectares of Romanee Conti vineyard, Monkey leapt outta the about-to-stop-car to the horror of the chauffeur and ran to the sacred wall and KISSED IT!!!

I.Was.Here.!!!!!!!
:))))))))))))))))))))

Summer Ezo Venison with summer truffles and nuts
I'm not a fan of venison bcoz it's so gamey.

Roasted Hokkaido Angus beef is alwiz welcome. Done just the way we wanted it...Medium Rare. so yumms and all of its fats just melts in your mouth the moment it touches ur tongue. There were different type of condiments from yuzukushu to wasabi and other things which we were not briefed.


Dr. Epicurean didn't have enuff to drink that evening :P Thank you for organising this lil party :))) and for imparting your knowledge upon us :)))

additional dish came out after a special request - Uni on warm rice with aged soyu and a smash dash of freshly grated horse radish. This wasn't in the menu hence it was a last minute request I guess?

and soon everyone was soooo sooo soo tipsy..
zzzZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzz


I was already supporting my head with my arms....while our Wine Lord.....tsk tsk tsk...if chef served soup at that time, his face would have landed on it.

except Papa Bear and MW Maho

they have really high capacity. still looking good and steady

While a certain someone passed out.
T_T
I think he drank the wife's share hence it was a double portion for him.

Just a simple White Peach from Japan for dessert. For such a stunning dinner, the menu was created specifically for the wines lineup.

We left a lil of wines from each bottle until the end of the dinner to have a final notes and conclusion on each and every bottle.

I Ching warned to be careful and not to spill any wines on her Birkin

Yes madam!!! We don't want the saga of chocolate Lava Cake at Melbourne repeat itself here. JS is truly an antagonist. Sometimes the more u asked him to take care and becareful of stuffs, the worse it gets. Somehow he would create mess across the table to the horror of diners.

So a few years ago, back in Melbourne....poor I-Ching requested for tonnes of napkins and covered her new spanking WHITE CHANEL. and still.....the hot warm chocolate liquid made its way targeting the Chanel bag 3 feet away from JS's plate.

LOL


the final lineup with the right arrangement.
Thank you everyone for making this evening so special!!!! It was indeed an experience which I'll treasure.

Big thanks to Chef for creating dishes to pair with all the lineup. One of the very yummiest degustation that I had here :)))

Now all of us have to work hard to finance our next wine dinner, which would be Henri Jayer nite? Tee Hee Hee.

Hamburger-ing on a lazy Tuesday afternoon

Champagnes were selected the evening before....chilled early in the morning. Actually not that early...it was already 10am when these babies were dunked into the ice bucket. Monkey was shocked!!! We are gonna have Krug Rose????
JS nodded seriously and my eyes dilated even further.
Plus there's another bottle from d'Ambonnay. Laetitia by Henri Billiot, named after his extremely capable daughter who's running the business now.

So the day before, Monkey was forced to help....yeah not that I alwiz help out in the kitchen anyway. Actually the truth was...he refused help from Monkey bcoz according to him, I made things worse in the kitchen. Either doing it the wrong way or creating more mess for him. It's better to do it on his own.

But this was different, he needed someone to "catch" the grinded Wagyu and Grain-fed beef as he's bz feeding the KitchenAid with chunks of meat. Such simple task, what could go wrong right?

oh don't worry dear readers...nothing went wrong. See I told you, I'm not such a disaster-maker in the kitchen. It's just him being perfectionist and a paranoid.

JS waited till the last guests arrived before he fire up his stove. The guinea pigs guests were on time....on the dot. It was a public holiday so the roads were cleared and so were their stomachs. Everyone came hungry, just woke up from their slumber or "Crawler-dance" the nite before....first thing that guests requested - COFFEE!!! a very really hot cuppa.

Piranhas guinea pigs then proceeded to ATTACK the meat to the happiness of Chef. He's happy when everyone dig in like outta-jail convicts. Well it was our first meal of the day for all of us...of coz we were hungry!!!

everyone got to build their own burger according to their liking from the gherkins, to the relish, crispy bacon, caramelised onions, lettuce, tomatoes, fresh onions, homemade Heston Blumenthal burger sauce and finally hot japalenos. That's my favourite :))))

Some like it plain and old school without those peripherals. Just simple burger with homemade beef patty.


Peakie D was staring at her medium rare burger - the way she likes her meat to be done. As BLUE and as RARE as possible.


On the outside, it's just charred nicely to hold the meat together, while on the inside it should be juicy and bursting with flavour. Peakie D lurve it so rare, it's almost like a beef-tartare on the inside.


Ben has got the prettiest looking burger...see how pink it was on the inside. YUMSSSSZZZZZZ

Beautiful CS: "Watch me bite. I've got big mouth ya know?"

Sexay Back Maggie and Monkey -_-" and nodded in agreement. Yes we all know u've got a really big XXXXXL mouth. 

Is this a greek salad?
Nope, it's just a simple summer salad which I've ate at Jibby & Co. It was so simple and extremely yummy. Watermelon, Rucola, Feta Cheese, Dried Craisins/Cranberries and toasted pine nuts in a really simple olive oil + balsamic vinegar dressing.


Our main course was resting in the kitchen......upon guests arrivals, each and everyone of them were brought in for a tour. Not the tour of my house.....tour to the kitchen to preview the huge 3kg slab of roast pork, still pipping hot in the oven.

WAAAAAAAHHHHHHH~~~~~~~

I lurve how the fats isn't the chunky type but the soft gelatinous ones which melts in ur mouth. Just look at the layers and layers of meat - fat- meat- fat and finally the krok-krok-krok skin. When we were consuming this, everyone was playing symphony inside their mouth with a de-sync krok-krop-krok-krok-kroooppp and followed by a HMMMmmmmmMmmmmmm~~~~~~~

so flavourful to be eaten on its own :)))) We have so many dips from chilis to homemade apple sauce and Pierre Hermes relish but the best was still on its own.

After all the massive piranhas attack....it's time to take a break and have some serious talk. Lyndon just got back from Rio de Janeiro but it wasn't about Worldcup nor football that they were discussing. It's more of CEO issues :P I was peeking my ears to get some insider news but these guys were being pretty hush-hush.


While the ladies were MADE to help out in the kitchen by JS. Yeah he alwiz said I screwed things up for him, so he ain't asking me. Instead he asked my dearie friends to assist him in making.....SOUFFLE. Yeah of all things....SOUFFLE.

First they were made to separate the whites and the yolks...and broke so many eggs. JS was warning them that he has got no more eggs so please be careful!!!! 2 big trays of eggs were gone just like tat~~~~~~

Sexay Back Maggie already got scolding and yak yak yak and lecture from Chef.

JS: "This is not how u butter the ramekins. U need to dust it properly with sugar without making a mess like this."
see I told you..I'm not the disastrous one...neither are my friends. We are NORMAL. It's just that he's a perfectionist. From the pic u could see he's already straining his neck like Gordon Ramsay.

by the way sometimes, he called himself Gordon LIMsay. Oh whatever Mr. Lim, just stop yelling at me in the kitchen next time or push me to hurry up or inform me that my meat is so COLD/Frozen it's screaming "Let it Go....Let it GO~~~~~"
haiiizzzzzz

Sexay Back bz cleaning up Beautiful CS's work by scraping the top even. You could see they were so stressed. I never ever able to get them to do things for me. Not even lifting a finger to get my bag or a ciggie....but JS could made them shivered.

I would be stressed too if the LIMsay kept on walking about giving instructions. Phheewwwwww~~~
Told u people, there's no FREE LUNCH...u gotta work for it.

Beautiful CS, Sexay Back Maggie, JS, Shy Chatwin.

and when the yummy Pistachios Souffle were out. Everyone clapped happily!!!!

Monkey: "Yeah!!!! no disaster, we've got desserts to eat!! but WHY are they so ugly looking?"

Beautiful CS and Sexay Back Maggie threw me that stare. Ok ok I'll just eat. Shy Chatwin reminded me that he contributed too by putting the finishing touches on top with toasted pistachios.

LIMsay was really happy and pleased bcoz this was his first attempt on Pistachio Souffle. He made a few souffles before but this one was different bcoz there's Marzipan and some other stuffs innit.

Beautiful CS was really eppy too and will attempt this in the future for us. Okie now I'm waiting to be invited over to ur house.

and now we are ready to serve our guests with REALLY UGLY LOOKING SOUFFLE!!!!!

Before that...cut the top open and drop a dollop of creamie velvety chocolate ice creams. The contrast of HOT and COLD alwiz works for desserts :))))) YUMSSSSSSS

Peakie D was digging and digging into her volcano.

Peakie D: "This is soooo yummms. The best souffle is by Chef JS and Cilantro in town."

JS -_-"
This one can't be compared to Cilantro Restaurant. Theirs is so fine and this is more rustic. Maybe JS should intern in their kitchen for a week :P

everyone ended the luncheon with lots of joy happiness and a really extremely full tummy. I had to skip dinner!!!! kekekekekekeke.

the ladies
BCBG Amy, Beautiful CS, Sexay Back Maggie, Monkey, Peakie D with Dinah :)))
Thank you peeps for coming and clearing all the FOOD!!!! Biggest thanks to Chef LIMsay for cooking the yummiest food ever...as alwiz :)))