Food, Film & Fotography.
Mere words are not enough to describe the complexity of this photo.
Photo from NYTimes.com
When I reach New York one day (with wads of cash in hand, of course),
I would head straight to Nobu, Masa and Per Se. Oh and a reservation
made months in advance too.
Nobu
Chic, casual and pulsing with energy, Nobu cannot be compared with any
other restaurant. The spirit of invention of its chef-owner, Nobuyuki
Matsuhisa — incorporating new ingredients into old dishes or retooling
traditional recipes — lighted a spark in the kitchen, igniting each
chef to new and increasingly daring feats. The result is something
that seems like a Japanese dish but is not.. The best time to eat at
Nobu is lunchtime. Order an omakase meal and let the chefs choose your
meal for you. No kitchen turns out a more spectacular plate of sushi.
Desserts include a warm chocolate soufflé cake with siso syrup and
green tea ice cream that comes in a bento box. Popularity may be
taking its toll. On a recent visit, the Benihana overtones, a weakness
for gaudy gimmicks, and the tourist clientele, added up to a less than
deluxe experience. Edwyn Ferrari, the new chef, can both dazzle and
dismay with his omakase. The sushi maintains a high level of quality,
however, and the black cod with miso is still one of the most
luxurious taste experiences in New York.
Masa
Masa joins the thinly populated pantheon of New York's most stellar
restaurants for one reason above all others: with the superior seafood
it serves you, it engineers discrete moments of pure elation that few
if any other restaurants can match. Those moments mostly have to do
with sushi, which Masa does to perfection, its chefs carving and
molding and anointing each piece with painstaking, ritualistic care.
The restaurant is less extravagant theater than hushed, minimalist
temple, but that suits the simple, pristine fish, much of which has a
silky, melting quality that, in my experience, cannot be found in New
York at a lower price. The pitiless price here is more than $400 a
person once tax and tip are factored in and quite possibly more than
$500 with sake or wine. You pay to be putty, eating only what the
chefs give you but knowing, as you sigh and even begin to feel
flushed, that you are experiencing something divine.
Per Se
One of the most eagerly awaited restaurants to open in Manhattan over
recent years, Per Se faces dauntingly great expectations and, more
often than not, it meets them. A multi-course, mini-portion
extravaganza here is virtually guaranteed to yield a few dishes — and
more than a few bites — that instantaneously bring a crazy smile to
your face and suffuse you with pure joy. The ingredients here are that
superior; the cooking is that diligent and disciplined. And the
attention to detail, in terms of everything from the decor to the
plates to the silver stirrer in a gin and tonic, is awesome. Sybaritic
to the core, Per Se traffics in luxuries like caviar, foie gras,
lobster and Kobe beef, but its greatness shows in simpler
compositions, like a warm potato salad using bite-sized marble
potatoes and an exquisitely balanced mustard-seed vinaigrette. To top
it all off, there is vast space between the tables — only 16 of them —
and a lovely view of Central Park.
All reviews from NYTimes.com
Sometimes, its weird you know. You can choose choose alot but
eventually the things u want might be 'not-for-sale'. So what happens
then? Inevitably will be disappointed lor. But try not to be too
disappointed because you will see other stuff as well. And so it goes,
until the next 'not-for-sale' appears. Or until something is really
fated to be yours.
The venerable institution of excellent reporting has finally sold out.
Now some contents will require a paid membership to access, notably
the op-ed section. No more free Friedman, Krugman and Dowd unless I
can be bothered to access the free database via NUS digital library. A
sad day.
Those are the two characters which you should look out for when you
buy stuff in Japan. They are usually boxed and it means Made In Japan,
i.e. exceptionally good quality stuff.
Hello world.
This is my first entry of my recent trip to Japan for HPAIR 2005.
There's just so much I've experience over the 9 day trip that only
written entries can do it justice. Even if I told you about my trip,
it would barely be 50% of what I experienced. Hopefully though I will
manage to finish the entries for everyday. So here goes nothing:
My flight to Japan on Fri was at 6am. So you can imagine I had to wake
up at 3am and then meet up with friends to share a cab to the airport.
I probably had like 2 hours of sleep and fortunately I could wake up.
Shared a cab with L, M and S.
Our flight was on Northwest and the check-in procedure was enough to
convinced me that given a choice, I won't choose NW again. NW being an
American airline, there was lotsa security procedures to follow.
Before checking in, an officer would interview us, ask us this and
that. Actually shouldn't blame them, should blame the terrorists
instead, for making our lives so troublesome. One friend even had to
open up her luggage and start up her notebook for the security
officers.
On the flight itself, I REALLY decided not to take NW again. There was
no toothbrush in the entire plane! And this was an early morning
flight. On all my previous trips to Japan on JAL and ANA, there were
always toiletries provided on-flight. And the stewardess was damn
serious looking lor. Never really smiled at all. Oh man, I guess I
can't blame them either. Must blame the terrorists for making their
lives more dangerous and hence the lacklustre service.
Oh before I forget, M and S are really alcoholics. They were clubbing
right before we left for the airport and at the airport they bought a
bottle of duty-free liquor each (rum and vodka) to party in Tokyo. Oh
man...
The rest of the flight was pretty boring and pretty bad food too. We
arrived around 2pm and it was sunny! I started looking around for H
who was supposed to meet me but I couldnt find him. Meanwhile the rest
of my friends were discussing how to go to Tokyo from the airport.
Coupla minutes later finally H appeared. Whew...
We bade farewell to my SG frens and checked out the train schedules.
Apparently the express train to Yokohama leaves in 45 mins time so
eventually we took the limousine bus instead. In case you are
wondering, the limousine bus is just like any normal express bus.
Don't ask me y they call it that. We had sometime to spare and I made
my first purchase, iced matcha drink (thick green tea) with vanilla
soft-served ice-cream on it. Ok I really need to make a note to myself
that matcha is really bitter. But it's a robust drink. H had a
soft-served ice-cream cone. Apparently soft-served ice-cream is the
Japanese standard. You can find almost any flavors for it. From my
previous trips, I have tasted/seen black sesame and matcha and
probably some others which I cant seem to recall now.
Ok anyway before long we were on the bus heading towards Yokohama. The
one way trip costs around S$50 and this is often what catches visitors
to Japan by (unpleasant) surprise. I should also say that everything
in Japan is at least 40% more expensive than Singapore, so later if I
say something is reasonable, please reduce its price by 40% before
strangling me.
The bus ride was pretty ho-hum with H and I catching up on old times.
Actually its more of new times because we discussed the future more.
Anyway before long, we reached Yokohama. This was my first time there.
Fortunately we found a place where we could leave my luggage so that I
don't have to lug it around. But I still had to carry my sling bag and
a suit so after a while it was tiring too. We went inside the Sogo
Building and up to the top floor. Though it was hot (evening sun), the
wind was pretty strong there. Oh and one thing about Japan is that the
day is pretty short... it gets really dark before 7pm. Anyway after
that we went down floor by floor and looked at the stuff. There was a
beautiful lady playing a violin in a restaurant area! Anyway moved on
to Loft on one of the floors in Sogo, which is kinda like a lifestyle
store, with basically anything and everything. There was where I got
the takoyaki card for SW. Lotsa of other cute stuff there like
minature replicas of food, kitchen stuff, household stuff, etc. Then
we moved all the way down, got my luggage and proceeded to take the
train towards H's house. Oh and before we left, I bought da-bao some
gyoza back for dinner together with H's family. And we got some Jap
pancakes to eat on the journey too.
Ok the journey was really kinda long. His house is really far away.
After the train ride we still had to take a bus around 20 mins to
actually reach his house (and another 5-10 min walk too). One thing
striking is that there's so many pachinko parlour's in the Japanese
suburbia! There can we several within distance of each other. Along
the bus ride we also saw many family restaurants. This would be
familiar to Americans, but to Singaporeans it might be something new.
These restaurants are like bungalows, sitting by itself with usually
no other shops beside it. Saw steak restaurants and Big Boy, hahah...
Reached H's house finally and unfortunately it was on the 4th floor
and lugging a heavy luggage up on a long day aint fun. But wat a
pleasant surprise to see the spread waiting for us! There was rice
with ikura and egg, stir fried beef, gyoza I bought, fried prawns with
raw cucumber and a huge bowl of potato salad. We all had a small glass
of wine too. And milk... which was kinda weird. Eventually as expected we couldn't finish all the food so the mum meticulously packed all the food properly into the fridge, probably for tomorrow's lunch. Ah well, tats wat u do when u have guests. After dinner we had
grapes. Haha got funny thing happened here. H's mum put a plate in
front of me. I was like wondering... was I supposed to put the grapes
on my plate before eating them? Or was it for the seeds? Eventually I
realized that they don't eat grape skins! And the plate was for
spitting out the grape skin. On retrospect, the japanese grape skin
was kinda thick and bitter compared to the grapes we eat here
(australian i think). Haha... cultural difference. I was oso amazed by
their dishwasher, TV remote, and the overal organization of the house.
It was so neat and proper, though it could be becoz they had a guest.
Hah after dinner H's dad was eager to show me his work. Apparently he
works freelance for Nissan and Honda. He takes technical data from the
parts manufacturer and converts them into 3D models. Wah... and
somemore he is retired! And his comp was damn impressive lor. It had 3
big LCD monitors linked together so that the combined area was huge.
Oh yah forgot to mention about their cat. It was damn FAT lor... wah
huge man! And apparently they said it was very cowardly. His mum oso
brought out a huge atlas and asked me where I stayed. Hmmm...
amazingly Kukup is inside the map and it's called Kukubu. Wahahaha...
Then after some amazement over how clean the bathroom is, I bathed
sitting on a stool. Very Japanese! Hah... and the mum offered me
pajamas to wear too. So nice... And after some TV and oyasumis, I
conked out before long.
Thought of the day: H has such a good relationship with his parents.
Argh... so many good movies showing lately but I've no time to watch!
1) Willy Wonka (probably ending its run)
2) A Bittersweet Life
3) Be With Me
4) One More Chance
5) Perth (probably ending its run)
6) Brothers Grimm
7) March of the Penguins
My friend was in Japan and ordered some cold tea... She got kohii.
