Dining – Page 4 – Steve's Journal

At Sea

Friday was a relaxing day at sea, our only one on this itinerary. Our butler, Miroslav, brought us breakfast in our cabin along with some complementary Perrier Jouet Champagne.

Linda did needlepoint in the Horizons Lounge for a while and then we went to a very entertaining cooking demonstration put on by the executive chef and the head chef from Toscano. We learned three things: Moules Mariniere tastes much better without garlic; adding some of the water you boiled the pasta in to your sauce will thicken it, because of the starch; Italians don’t put cream in their pasta sauces, using only some of the water and grated cheese, but on the ship they do use cream, because Americans are used to creamier sauces. . We also learned how to make gnocchi, although I can’t imagine why we’d want to.

In the evening we had caviar in the room.

Then we went to the other specialty restaurant, Polo, which is a steakhouse.

New York to Istanbul

With a lull in Linda’s projects for Disney, she was able to get away, so for her birthday we booked a cruise in the Mediterranean. When Delta changed their flight schedule, our connection through JFK became dangerously short, so we decided to fly into New York a day a day before our international flight and celebrate her birthday a couple of days early, with dinner at Daniel and a night at the Hotel Athenee. Booking through Amex got us some nice benefits, including an upgrade to one of only two balcony rooms. Although it was rainy (with an impressive thunderstorm in the middle of the night) we were lucky during our walks around the city, and never needed an umbrella.

Dinner was nice, if not quite at the level of Eleven Madison Park or Jean Georges. The dining room is beautiful, and there were an astonishing number of wait staff. The service was extremely professional, but neither stiff nor friendly, just sort of a frenetic attempt to make everything perfect. It was, at times, a bit exhausting to watch. That’s very different from Eleven Madison Park, where the perfection feels effortless.

We had the six course tasting menu with matching wine pairing. There were two choices for each course, and I let Linda pick first, then took all the alternatives. As it turned out, I think I got the better choices. Of the wines, a 2009 Copain Pinot Noir from Alexander Valley really impressed us with its earthy/fruity complexity.

The next day we ate at Linda’s favorite lunch restaurant, Alain Ducasse’s Benoit, where we had her two favorite courses, the Charcuterie and the Roasted Chicken. Both are really, really French, and the pommes frites that accompany the chicken are the best anywhere.

On our walk back to the hotel we passed the Apple Store, where a tribute to Steve Jobs had been set up by fans. It happened to be iPhone 4s launch day, and there were hundreds of people in line outside.

Our 5:15pm flight to Istanbul was delayed when a bird was sucked into one of the engines on arrival at JFK, and eventually Delta ended up replacing the plane, recatering it, and we finally took off close to three hours late. Fortunately we had nothing to do on arrival. We were both able to get four or five hours of sleep on the way, and felt fairly refreshed as we watched the comedy team of baggage handlers try to round up 69 passengers and their bags at the Istanbul airport. Then it was off to meet our ship.

Rocco’s Italian Grille

Roccos1 — Bev, Bandit, Rocco and Ron (sounds like a polka band)

It had been a while since we’d been to Rocco’s. The food is always great, but we’d had some disastrous wine service during a Wine Syndicate event, and hadn’t been back. Saturday Ron and Bev invited us to join them, and Rocco pulled out all the stops, serving an eleven-course dinner. I brought a couple of 1961 Bordeaux reds, still my favorite vintage. The stars of the night were the 61 Grauad Larose, 93 Haut Brion Blanc, and, funnily enough, a Cardamaro bitter digestif that I poured at the end.

George Gardet Rose Champagne (Ron)
Dry, dried floral arrangement 90

2010 Mudbrick Reserve Chardonnay NZ (Steve)
Ash, tropical fruit 90

1993 Haut Brion Blanc (Ron)
wax, cumin, green veggies, limestone, lime, caramel 98

1961 Talbot (Steve)
Medium brown, low fill, curry, Georges de La Tour style maderized nose 91

1959 Talbot (Ron)
Murky, pronounced iron nose, sweet, plums, blueberry pie ala mode 89

1961 Gruaud Larose (Steve)
Garnet, youthful despite low fill, sawdust, meat, smoked sausage 95

1959 Corton Charles Vienot (Ron)
Young, rich, velvety, almost gritty, bacon, smoke, chocolate coated raisins, 93

1957 Louis M. Martini Cabernet Sauvignon Private Reserve (Steve)
Redwood nose, black berry finish, 91

1979 Castello di Neive Barbaresco Santo Stefano (Steve)
Bright garnet, peppers, spices 90

1990 Gaja Barolo Sperss (Ron)
Chocolate coated mushrooms, vanilla, wood, 93

1982 Bodegas Toro Albala Montilla-Moriles Don PX Gran Reserva (Steve)
Super ripe raisins, citrus, 90

Cardamaro Amaro (Steve)
cinnamon, bitters 92

Roccos4 — Some of the most interesting wines

Not wanting to drive home in the weekend-long deluge, Linda and I had booked a room at the Best Western Mount Vernon Inn–not exactly the Ritz, but it was only a couple hundred feet from the restaurant. As we curled up in bed five minutes after leaving the tasting, this seemed like a really good move.

Coogee

Although it was an early morning, our plane flight from Aukland to Sydney was otherwise painless, and, taking advantage of the two hour time shift, we were in Coogee by 11am. this is the town where Pamela grew up, so I had a strong impression of it from reading her book, but of course it has changed a bit since then,, and we are staying at a beach front resort, the Crowne Plaza. We walked down along the beach enjoying the dramatic waves breaking on the rocks and also the topless bathers, out for one of the first really sunny beach days of the year. At the end of the beach we climbed the rocks and looked down on the next cove, but decided against making the long trek father north to famous Bondi Beach.

Back at the beach we walked up Coogee Bay Road looking for lunch. There were many cafes, but all seemed to fall into two camps: crammed or empty. Figuring there was a reason for both, but not wanting to squeeze into one of the popular ones, we instead ate in the outdoor patio of the Coogee Bay Hotel, where we shared a good Caesar Salad and a fairly awful Cheeseburger.

Then we walked down to the beach, took off our shoes and socks and (having been warned by Bill Bryson’s book, watching carefully for box jelly fish, great white sharks and poisonous cone shells) stepped into the water so that we could say we’d been in the Tasman Sea (or whatever it is here).

That was enough outdoor adventure for one day, and we retreated to our room for a quiet afternoon fiddling with photos and blogs.

For dinner we walked across the street and had Trout and Barramundi on the balcony at Ceviche, overlooking Coogee Beach.

We ended our trip watching the moon rise over the bay.

The next morning we had quite a view from the plane window as we began the 24-hour trek back home.

My final Australia album ended up with 160 favorite photos out of 1400 that we took.

A couple of other trip-related notes:

I signed up for data plans on the iPad and iPhones, The iPhone plan gave us 275MB per month, so we had about 200 for the trip. Neither of us used close to this, but that was because we were really careful. It would have been easy to go over if we’d made more use of maps or the web. I also signed up for 800MB on the iPad. That trend out to be way too much, because I didn’t end up using it for maps, web or blogging. It wouldn’t had been enough for blogging my photos, and its WordPress App is cumbersome, so I ended up buying Internet at most hotels. Hotel internet is expensive, slow, and often data limited, but there’s not much you can do, as free wifi is very rare here.

Dani made a list of “best of” on her blog, and I completely agree, so I’m stealing it to post here, too:

Highlights

Lunch with Janis and Adriaan on their veranda
Lunch with Pamela’s family
Jenolan Caves
Feeding Kangaroos
Lunch at Kerry’s dairy farm
Ozzy’s mussel boat in Marlborough Sound
The drive into Milford Sound
The Kiwi Bird Park
T.S.S. Earnslaw’s engine room

Food

Best Breakfast: The Langham
Best Included Meal: toss up between the dairy farm and Kiwi Bird Park
Best Hotel Dinner: The Langham’s 8 buffet stations
Best Asian: Chat Thai
Best High-Brow Dinner: Tetsuya’s
Best Low-Brow Dinner: Fergburger
Best Chai-Tea Latte: Relax Cafe!!!!!!!!!

Accommodations

Best Hotel: The Four Seasons in Sydney
Best Hotel Room: The Copthorn in Wellington
Best View: Queenstown

Rainy Days in Auckland

The rain caught up to us today, but that was okay, as it gave us an excuse to relax. At noon we walked down Queen Street and found a ma and pa Korean restaurant for a tasty lunch. After lunch we visited the used CD store again, where we challenged each other to find the best CD of an artist we’d never heard of. My choices sucked, but Dani discovered a new singer from Norway named Silje Nergaard who is fantastic. She has 11 albums out, and I ordered a few used from Amazon.

For dinner we walked about 100 feet out the hotel’s back door to an Italian restaurant called Davinci, where we shared a salad, pizza and tiramisu.

On Tuesday, our final day in Auckland, blustery winds blew away the rain for most of the day, and we walked to the art museum. The museum has an awful lot of modern art (or is that a lot of awful modern art?) as well as a gainsborough and a Reynolds, but they also have a newly acquired donation of Picassos, Matisses, Mondrians, Dalis, and others. Most of these were also too modern for our tastes, but we did enjoy some of the paintings in the Victorian gallery.

Of course we had to stop by the University so Dani could get another of those wonderful Chai Lattes. And we had our personal New Zealand Farewell Dinner back at the hotel’s Eight restaurant, where our New Zealand stay began.

Queenstown

We arrived at the Queenstown airport (actually in Frankton) about 6pm, and as predicted no one was there except security and the janitor. Since our luggage had magically preceded us, we were in Queenstown within minutes.

The Crowne Plaza Queenstown has a great location on the harbor, and our room offers a dramatic view. Full from lunch and tired from a busy day, we did some blogging and hit the sack without dinner. The morning in Queenstown dawned with scattered rain, making for a dramatic panorama from our balcony.

At breakfast I discovered that our arrival in Manapouri had, indeed, made the newspaper.

First stop for the day was at the jet boat ride, but because it was billed as very rough, and there was a cold drizzle, only three of the group wanted to try it. The gorge on the river was a beautiful spot, but it seemed tasteless to me to spoil it with a stupid thrill ride. I’d much rather have simply enjoyed the view, which is what most of the group opted for. Dani shot some good video of the boat’s gyrations, though, which she posted to youtube.

Next stop was Kiwi Bird Park. This is a family run operation that has been dedicated to conservation for twenty-five years. They breed Kiwi birds and other endangered birds for release into the wild.

Owner Paul and zoologist (also) Paul gave us a tour and showed off many of their animals, including a Tuatara, which looks like a lizard, but is apparently its own dinosaur-like branch.

After our tour they prepared a delicious lunch, with home baked bread and grilled, grass-fed rib eye steaks from a producer a couple of hours to the South.

Then owner Paul gave us a preview of his new city tour, a 45-minute drive around Queenstown with an interesting history presentation. We were the first guests to take the tour, but no reporters showed up for this event!

After thanking Paul for his hospitality, we boarded the gondola next door for a ride to the top of Bob’s Peak, 1000 feet above the city.

At the top you can eat in a restaurant, bungee jump, drive a “luge” down one of two courses (and take a ski lift back up to do it again), or shop. We did the latter.

And the view was pretty good, too.

Martin Bosley’s

While Dani had dinner with her friend Laura, I went across the street from our hotel and had a solo dinner at Martin Bosley’s, which has been voted New Zealand’s best restaurant. The emphasis here is on fish, which is appropriate, given their singular location on the harbor.

My meal was as good as any on this trip, including the Michelin three-stars in Sydney. In fact, it was in my top ten ever. I had the Menu Degustation with matching wines. Nearly all the course were a home run, especially. When there were several elements on one plate. And the wine pairings were perfect, the best wines I’ve had on this trip, and all perfect matches. Service was professional but friendly, and the owner came by to say hello at the end of the evening.

Although I didn’t get a copy of the menu (in fact, there wasn’t one for the Menu Degustation), here are my recollections:

Amuse bouche of salmon with salmon foam and candied rosemary
Roderer Brut

Blue nose sashimi (tartare) with mandarin orange oil and purée, and dehydrated (freeze dried) mandarin orange wedge

Porcini Mushroom and cinnamon meringue with duck pate and apple cube. Wow!
Riesling

Crab & cocoanut risotto with salmon eggs! And I hate risotto, but not this.
Pinot Gris

Duck! caramelized onions, garlic compote
Pinot Noir

Valrhona chocolate
Graham’s 10 year Tawny

Baba calvados lemon curd yoghurt
Chapoutier muscat

Wellington

Wellington certainly deserves its nickname as the windy capital. As the world’s southernmost capital city, it was surprisingly warm today–mid fifties–but a constant breeze made a good jacket a requirement.

The day dawned with scattered drizzles, a contrast to last night’s ultra-clear weather, but by mid morning it began to clear off.

We spent our morning touring the city by bus, with a stop for a viewpoint atop a western ridge. Along the road up was one of the spots where a forest chase scene was filmed for Lord of the Rings, and the dense trees looked familiar.

Our second stop was New Zealand’s parliament building, a complex of three radically different buildings (two and a half, really, as the middle one was never fully built out).

Then we took the cable car to the top of the eastern ridge, and the botanical garden. But rather than enter the garden here, we drove back down to the other side, where we spent our time in the warm greenhouse building and visited the peace flame, where a waterfall and pool of green algae made fascinating patterns.

In the late morning we rode to the Quay and had a beer tasting of two local brews, a pilsner that was light and lemony, and a somewhat more complex bitter. They were both okay, but I bought a glass of stout that we shared around the table, and it was better than either of the two free offerings.

Next door to the brew pub was Te Papa, the national museum of New Zealand. This is probably the best cultural museum I’ve been to. The displays were extremely sophisticated, and the place was busy with school kids who were thoroughly engaged.

We had a private tour by a Maori guide named “T.” He was excellent. My favorite display was an interactive floor with an arial photo of New zealand. When you stepped on places, a zig zag line lit up on the floor, leading to a backlit projection on the wall from that place. In addition to video, these pictures included photos emailed to them by guests, and geotagged with that location. Neat!

In the room next door was an image capture station that allowed you to snap you picture and then manipulate it–and everyone else’s–on a giant wall display using a flashlight-like wand. You could resize, tilt and move the photos, or even send them careening around the room for others to play with.

There were also extensive displays of New Zealand’s flora and fauna, both current and historic, and Maori and immigrant cultures and history. Dani’s friend Laura met her during the tour and they went off to spend the day together.

After the tour I walked up to Cuba Street and had lunch in a French Cafe name Le Metropolitain. It was quite authentic; I had pork rillet on sour dough with cornichons and a mesclun salad with chicken livers.

For dinner I dined alone right across the street at Martin Bosley, voted New Zealand’s top restaurant. I’ll put that in a separate post.

Waiheke Island

For our first day on the Tauck tour we met our group at the bus at 8:15 and headed to the ferry dock for the 40 minute trip to Waiheke Island. The island is a beautifully unspoiled place, with 8500 residents who live on the lush hills overlooking more than 50 coves, each with its own sandy beach, and separated by dramatic headlands. Across the bay Auckland sparkled in the intermittent sunshine. Some of the hills are planted to vineyards, and others to olive trees, but much of the vegetation is indigenous, replanted when the island was converted from farming to tourism in the 80s and 90s.

A local coach driver picked us up at the dock and gave us a guided tour. Our first stop was at Rangihoua Estate, an olive grower. There was an interesting tour of how the olives are harvested, crushed, and the oil centrifugally extracted. This was followed by an olive oil tasting. It was interesting to compare the four different kinds, made identically from different olives.

Next we visited Mudbrick Winery for a delightful lunch, accompanied by a tasting of four of their wines: Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, a Merlot/Cab blend, and a Shiraz. I was impressed that Dani correctly identified all four by smell alone, while I had two reversed. Pretty impressive considering we weren’t even told what they might be.

Our touring companions are a sociable bunch, if not exactly gourmands, and we enjoyed the lunch conversation.

After lunch I tried the reserve tasting in the cellar door (as they call the tasting rooms here) and ordered some wine shipped to the US. These were, on the whole, better wines than we had in the Hunter Valley, and it will be fun to have something you can’t get in the US.

Then we returned to the dock for the ferry trip back Auckland. Our driver, Andy, dropped the two of us on Parnell Street where we did a bit of shopping, waited out a light drizzle (mostly) in one of about a hundred coffee shops (Esquire, a Starbucks-like chain) and then walked about a mile back to the hotel through a large park and recreation area called the Domain.

For more details, see Dani’s blog.

Sydney to Auckland

After breakfast at the Four Seasons, where Dani got one last Crumpet, a new favorite, we headed to the airport and out flight to Auckland, New Zealand.

New Zealand is really into rugby, and the rugby World Cup is going to be on in Auckland while we’re in New Zealand, so I expect things to get a little crazy. Actually, they’re already a little crazy. The passenger safety video on Air New Zealand was a hilarious skit involving the New Zealand rugby team and a naked grandmother running up and down the aisle of the plane! No problem getting people to watch this safety presentation.

Our hotel, The Langham, is a five star, but in an older building. It’s quite nice. It certainly has the most impressive assortment of “room condiments” I’ve seen. Nestled in a box in the bathroom were smaller boxes of almost anything you can imagine needing:

It will be a severe test of Dani’s room condiment kleptomania.

The Langham has two restaurants, a fancy Italian one called Barolo and the more casual Eight. We chose Eight, and really enjoyed the concept.

There are eight station in the kitchen, each preparing a different type of food: sushi, salads, Indian, grilled skewers, French breads and cheeses, desserts, and so on. The stations are quite elaborate. For example, we asked for garlic naan bread at the Indian one, and he pounded the bread and cooked it in a tandoor right in front of us. Needless to say, it was fantastic.

The sushi was also quite good, as was anything involving raw or smoked fish. We didn’t try the grill.

If this restaurant were in Orlando, it would be Linda’s favorite because of this simple fact: There are stacks of papadums within ten feet of an assortment of twenty elaborate sushi rolls.

Tetsuya

Our concierge suggested we add Testsuya’s to our list of dining adventures in Sydney, and Pamela’s relatives all said we’d like it best. They were right. This is the restaurant that should have three Michelin stars.

It’s located in a Japanese-styled house near Chinatown. The dining rooms look out onto a Zen garden, providing a restful backdrop—although soon all the tables are filled, so it’s not exactly quiet!

Service here is friendly but much more professional than at the other restaurants where we dined this week. Most interesting to me was that no menu was presented at the start of the meal. Our server simply asked if there was anything we didn’t like, or any allergies, and then we put ourselves in his hands for the nine courses that followed. Nearly all of them were stellar. My favors were:

Amuse bouche of potato soup with coddled quail egg. We started with a bang, as this simple espresso cup of soup had all manner of complex flavors, and was much more than the sum of its parts.

Tetsuya’s signature dish of ocean trout. Perfectly cooked, with a savory coating of herbs, and delicious unpasteurized roe.

Bread and butter pudding. I was shocked that this was my favorite of the four sweet items served as two dessert courses, because I’m not a bread pudding fan, but this was very complex, and the embedded golden raisin were scrumptious. It also perfectly matched an impressive Tokay from Australia.

Speaking of matches, I had nine perfectly matched wines with my courses, but Pamela and Dani opted for individual glasses of wine. It was Dani’s first opportunity to order her own wine, and Pamela also put herself in Dani’s hands, and they had four very interesting and thoughtfully choses wines. For the record, Dani’s first selection, to accompany the seafood dishes, was a Spanish Albarino.

I felt guilty that Pamela insisted on paying for this meal, but it was wonderful to spend our last night in Sydney together, and the meal was that much better for the wonderful company.

Earlier in the day Dani and I walked down to the Rocks and dropped our laundry off at a place that changes a flat fee to wash, fold and deliver back to our hotel. Convenient!

Then we walked several miles through the city and Chinatown, over to the University of Sydney, where we had lunch, wandered around the campus, and Dani spoke with a nice gentleman from the International Studies office. She collected a lot of useful information about study abroad, graduate and medical school options. I can see where it would be very tempting to spend a few years—or a lifetime—in beautiful Sydney! We’re sad to be leaving.

Sydney Zoo

We spent a delightful day at the Sydney Zoo, courtesy of Pamela. It’s just a short ferry ride across Sydney Harbour from Circular Quay. It’s a great zoo, and the animals were very cooperative, standing where we could see them! The weather was perfect for strolling the steep grounds, low 70s and a light breeze.

sydneyzoo2 — This Tasmanian Devil isn't actually squashed, just communing with the pavement

I cancelled out dinner reservation at Est. because it seemed too similar to meals we’d already been non-plussed by, and instead we returned to Chat Thai for a delicious and somewhat adventurous Thai dinner. Although the Westfield mall and its other restaurants were deserted, Chat Thai was packed, so it was a good thing we got there early.

For Dani’s detailed description read:
http://danialcorn.blogspot.com/2011/08/australia-2011-day-7.html

Quay

Quay (pronounced “key”) is a three-star Michelin restaurant that has been voted best restaurant in Australia and Asia. It’s on the third floor of the Overseas Passenger Terminal at Circular Quay, and has a spectacular view of the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. Dani and I stopped by on our afternoon walk to check it out, and then returned for dinner at 6pm.

The setting is stunning, with a 270 degree view of Circular Quay, the Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge.

We opted for the eight course tasting menu, with eight matching wines. There are two wine options, classic and premium, so we selected one of each, enabling us to sample 16 wines. The classic offering was almost entirely from Australia and New Zealand, while the premium was mostly European.

Service was attentive and friendly, with nearly every course presented by a different, personable server. Our sommelier was from Germany, and she provided a detailed description of the origin and characteristics of each wine.

The wines were the highlight of the meal. There were only two we didn’t care for. The premium wines were always better, but in two cases the classic wines matched the food better.

quay3 — Rhubarb on pomegranate molasses crumbles

There was one standout course, something neither of us would have ordered had it not been on the tasting menu: pig jowl with a maltose crackling crust, served on cauliflower and prune purees. I know, it sounds awful. But it was one of those dishes where each individual ingredient tasted fine, but the combination of all four was a home run, something entirely different. And we both loved the wine pairing of 2007 Domaine de L’Arjolle ‘Lyre’ from Pouzolles, France. It was like Yquem without all the sweetness. I need to get some of this.

The food was good, but for the most part not what I consider Michelin three star. Certainly Eleven Madison Park has nothing to worry about. But the meal was much better than Becasse.

quay5 — Palm blossom brioche, amaretto cream, prune sorbet

As dinner ended we were treated to a fireworks show in the harbour, and then had a short walk back to our hotel through The Rocks. There were still lots of people celebrating Australia’s rugby win, spilling from bars out into the refreshing evening air.

Rockpool Bar & Grill

Portions of this entry were originally written by Dani for her blog.

Rockpool Bar & Grill is a short walk from the Four Seasons Hotel. It’s a beautiful room, which looks like it may have been a bank in another life. There are wine glasses everywhere!

The menu is extensive, with an emphasis on wood stove and rotisserie. Dani had rotisserie chicken and I had rotisserie lamb shoulder. Both were excellent, but the lamb was better. However the side items stole the show: melt-in-your-mouth brussels sprouts and roasted parsnips. We don’t know why parsnips aren’t more popular in the US, they’re like sweet potatoes, only with better mouth feel.

Rockpool is pretty expensive. It was a challenge finding a wine for less than $100, and most were over $200. That said, there are at least a thousand selections on the impressive winelist, including many selections of Petrus going back to 1900 (Ka-ching!).

The “petit fours”weren’t what you’d expect. One was a chocolate devils food cake cupcake and the other was slabs of dark chocolate bark with sesame seeds and cashews.

“Bar & Grill” is a strange moniker for this restaurant, because it’s not really the casual experience that summons up. I suppose it’s called that to differentiate it from the higher-end Rockpool near our hotel. That one had a menu that involved too many thing that really do come from tide pools, so I’m glad we chose this one. It was definitely a better meal than the one we had at Becasse.

rockpoolwineglasses — The ceiling of the bar at Rockpool

Hunter Valley Wineries

This post was shamelessly cribbed from Dani’s blog.

Today we went to the Hunter Vally wine country. This was exciting for Dani because it was her first time on a wine tour someplace where she’s over the legal drinking age.

At 8:30 we met both Pamela and our guide/driver for the day, Trevor. Trevor loaded us into a fairly comfortable four wheel drive SUV and set off for wine country. There was some confusion over names at first (Trevor started calling Pamela “Barbara,” and she started calling him “Henry”) but after the first few kilometers everyone was properly sorted.

The drive up was very scenic, even though we kept on the main highway to save time. Large swaths had been cut through sandstone mountains to make room for the road in spots. When we asked Trevor why one side of the bluff had so much water running down it and the other side was bone dry, he proved very knowledgeable and explained how water collected on internal deposits of clay and lime stone, only to trickle out. The other side was dry because it got the brunt of the sun everyday and dried out quickly after rainfall.

Trevor was very knowledgeable about everything from wine, to geography, to history. We’re looking forward to our trip up to the Blue Mountains with him on Tuesday.

We arrived in wine country by 11:00 and Trevor knew his way around brilliantly. Our first stop was Audrey Wilkinson. They had several very nice whites, including a semillon and a very nice lightly-oaked chardonnay with a nose that smelled smoky, almost like a smoked sausage. The reds were a little disappointing, more a sour cherry style than the big Aussie fruit bombs we expected.

The view from the winery was spectacular. The “cellar door” (in the US it would be called a tasting room) was on top of a hill overlooking the valleys on both sides. Trevor told us that during the summer when there are lots of leaves on the vines to provide shade, kangaroos come out and lie in the vineyards on the slope.

After that we went to Brokenwood winery. This was a very nice winery and the girl at the counter was very knowledgeable about exactly where the grapes for the various wines were grown, what kind of soil they grew in, and what that did for the flavor/smell of the wine. She poured us lots of different wines to compare. Brokenwood was also nice because they have a US distributor, which means that we could actually order some wine shipped home.

After Brokenwood we took a break from wine and went to “The Smelly Cheese Shop.”

As it turned out, it wasn’t actually that smelly (all the cheese had been wrapped up). We selected some triple cream brie to take to Pamela’s cousin’s for lunch. Her cousin, Janis, and her husband Adriaan had graciously invited us over for lunch.

They live on a unique property. It is a residential winery. Everyone who lives there owns a share of the grapes produced. Their house was just lovely. The view was beautiful, Adriaan’s garden was in full bloom, even in winter, and their kitchen reminded us of ours at home. Janis set a table outdoors on the patio in the shade. The weather was just perfect for an outdoor lunch, 70s and a light breeze.

Janis downplayed her cooking, saying lunch was “only a light salad” but what she made was so tasty! The salad had prawns, pineapple, lychee fruit, cucumber, diced red onions, avocado, mayonnaise, mustard, cream, and a dash of olive oil. It was just delicious. This was accompanied by fresh seeded bread from the market in Cessnoch and a selection of cheeses. Adriaan opened a couple of bottles of wine from their winery, Kelman, which were just delightful and refreshing (a semillon and a semillon/sauvignon blanc).

We only had an hour to spend with Janis and Adriaan, but they were simply lovely people. Janis is originally from Australia but Adriaan is actually Dutch, though he grew up in Brussels. They met while Janis was traveling, married, and lived in Banyuls France. About five years ago they moved back to Australia and built their house on the winery. Now they’re thinking of moving in closer to Sydney, though they still love their winery.

Trevor collected us again and took us to two more wineries, Pepper Tree and Tower Winery. Pepper Tree was in a lovely spot, but their wines were the weakest offerings of the day (although they had a well structured merlot).

Tower had some shiraz that was a bit bigger, but we finally decided that the Hunter Valley style is simply lighter. In fact, our discovery of the day was that Hunter Valley’s styles for all their varietals is very consistent from one winery to the next. A semillon from Audrey Wilkinson tastes very similar to a semillon from Tower, and so on.

The traffic getting back into Sydney in the afternoons can be beastly, so Trevor warned us that we needed to leave the valley by about 2:30. We dropped Pamela off at her new apartment on Breakfast point, just north of Sydney, and then returned to the hotel.

Trevor will be taking us to the Blue Mountains next Tuesday. We were struck by how he didn’t require us to pay for today’s excursion, but just shrugged and said we could pay for both next week. It’s a great country.

For dinner we walked a few blocks over towards The Rocks, a trendy shopping and dining district, and sat outside under the heaters, sharing an Italian salad and Marguerita Pizza.

Becasse

This post was cribbed from Dani’s Blog

We met Pamela in the lobby at 5:30 and headed over to Bécasse for dinner. The restaurant recently relocated from a 90 seat location to a 24 seat spot in an upscale mall. After passing through a wrought iron door threaded with ivy and then walking down an exceedingly long hallway decorated with trees whose seasons changed, we approached the main seating area.

The room was cozy, plush, and a bit avante garde. Service was friendly rather than formal.

Pamela had never had a tasting menu before, but we talked her into the nine course menu degustation, which turned out to be 12 courses with 12 matching wines. She acquitted herself quite well.

The food was frankly a bit disappointing. While each plate was beautiful, and the individual ingredients were exotic and interesting, no dish ever combined to be more than the sum of its parts. There were no home runs.

Nevertheless, it was a delightful meal, with great conversation and a relaxed atmosphere.

Many hours later we strolled home, enjoying the cool night air.

Kable’s

Kable’s is the fine dining restaurant at the our hotel, the Four Seasons Sydney. Although the hotel has a spectacular view of the Opera House and Sydney Harbour, Kable’s, surprisingly, doesn’t, as it is located on the mezzanine of the lobby. (I’ve included some views from our room instead.)

After our long night and a busy day walking around town, we decided to take advantage of the proximity of Kable’s, and had a lovely dinner. The menu consists of fair-sized tasting plates, with an emphasis on sashimi and other fish dishes with Asian-influenced preparations. Although there is an umpteen course tasting menu with matching wines, it’s also a good place for a light meal, with each plate costing just $15.

Sushi Pop

At last! There’s a sophisticated and trendy restaurant in Orlando. Sushi Pop in Oviedo combines highly creative sushi with a touch of molecular gastronomy and an anime-inspired decor to create a top notch experience worthy of New York City. Highlights were:

Edamame with garlic salt
Ceviche roll (hamachi with avocado, tempura shallots and chipotle lime sauce topped with flounder, siracha hot sauce, micro cilantro, Hawaiian pink salt and wedge of lime)
Hot Mess roll (smoked salmon, avocado and tempura flakes with maple soy, topped with baked tuna, salmon, yellowtail, flounder, spicy mayo, smelt roe, scallions and rendered bacon)
Hamachi Kama (grilled yellowtail collar glazed with sweet soy, topped with toasted garlic, scallions, lime wedge and ponzu dipping sauce)
It’s No Yolk (fresh cubed salmon tossed with lime juice, olive oil, shallots, thai basil with sunny side egg of sweet coconut milk and mango puree, served with seaweed rice cracker)
Maple ice cream with candied bacon

The seating is a combination of tables, couch-like booths and bar stools. Servers wear individual quirky costumes. Anime plays on flat screens, and the wall art is manga. Reservations are a must, as the place was packed, inside and out, during our three-hour gastronomic tour. Highly Recommended.

Thirst of the Nation

Last night Linda and I went to a charity fundraiser, Taste of the Nation, at the Marriott World Center. Similar events are held in cities around the country. It’s one of those events where a few dozen restaurants and wineries set up tables in a convention center and donate their food and wine, while donors eat, drink and bid on silent auction items to raise money. (Let’s set aside the irony of doing this to stop childhood hunger.)

I can’t speak too harshly of this event, because it was for charity, and because the restaurants and especially Marriott put a tremendous effort into it. And the food was fantastic. I’ve been to dozens of such events, and this was the best food I’ve encountered.

The problem was the wine. There almost wasn’t any. Or anything else to drink, for that matter. With hundreds of guests, I doubt there were a dozen bottles on offer. In fact there was such a shortage of beverages that soon lines formed at the Nestle water products table!

This had a secondary disastrous effect, because the silent auction is, let’s face it, fueled by intoxication. And with the auction ending at 9:30, but the VIP spenders arriving at 6:00, I doubt there were many left to bid. I can’t say for sure, because we left after sixty minutes and went to the Vineyard Grill at the Ritz Carlton. For a bottle of wine.

Asiate

The reviews of Asiate all said it had a great view. That’s all they said. So I was a little worried about making it our final meal on this New York trip. But it was right across the street from our hotel, on the top of the Mandarin Oriental in the Time Warner Building, so we gave it a shot. It turned out to be a good choice. The sashimi appetizer I had was the best ever, and I eat a lot of sashimi. The tuna was perfect–buttery and plentiful–and it sat on a bed of complex ingredients and sauces. The salmon entree was also quite good. And as you can see, the view can’t be beat.

A nice end to a nice trip. We packed a lot into these three days in New York.

l’Atelier NYC

We finished our last full day in New York with a visit to Joel Robuchon’s l’Atelier in the Four Seasons Hotel. I really enjoy the relaxed atmosphere and great food at l’Atelier. We’ve tried them in London and Las Vegas, and this one was just as good. The servers are friendly and informative, and the sushi bar-like setting is unique.

Priscilla Queen of the Desert

Some Broadway shows have plots so convoluted that it requires advance study to follow them. This is a not a problem for Priscilla Queen of the Desert. The entire plot may be summarized as: three drag queens and a bus.

That’s not to say the show isn’t fun. It is. Filled with stunning costumes (cupcakes, human paint brushes, a dress made of flip flops), top notch musical performances, and a collection of pop hits from the 70s and 80s, the show will delight anyone who enjoyed La Cage Aux Folles (although that show actually has a deep story).

As good as the cast was, they were at times upstaged by the bus. It twirls, spins, opens up, hangs over the front rows of the audience, serves as an anchor for a twenty foot long high-heeled shoe, and eventually every surface of it is revealed to be a video wall. If it sounds tacky, it is, but all in good fun. The audience ate it up.

Earlier in the day we had lunch at Jean Georges, one of our favorites, and New York’s best lunch deal. It was a novelty to simply walk downstairs from our room to go to the restaurant.

Then we went for a long walk in Central Park. I’d never really had a chance to explore before, and we climbed to the top of Belvedere Castle. It was fun, but hot, and we all needed showers when we got back to the room.

Our late dinner after the show was at db Bistro Moderne. So nice to be in a town where you can make an 11pm dinner reservation and not be keeping the waiters up late.

Eleven Madison Park

A few months ago Linda and I went to Eleven Madison Park with our friends Ron and Bev, and had the best meal of our lives. So it was with some trepidation that I made a reservation for a return visit during this trip. Everything was so perfect in that earlier meal that I was afraid we were set up for disappointment. But it was just as perfect on this visit. Both food and service were just as delightful.

The amazing thing about the food here is the number of discrete flavors identifiable in each and every dish, and then the way they come together into something greater than the individual elements. Through about twenty different offerings on the tasting menu, each course offered new tastes, as there were few repeats from our previous visit. This time we had the matching wine pairing, which was also a little bit of genius. Definitely our favorite restaurant anywhere.

Road Trip Wrap Up

10 Days, 11 States: Chicago IL, Detroit MI, Cleveland OH, Pittsburgh PA, Hot Springs VA, Beckley WV, Asheville NC, Sevierville TN, Charleston SC, Savannah GA, Jacksonville FL and home to Orlando. A little over 2000 miles.

Attraction Highlights

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Forbidden Caverns, and The USS Yorktown aircraft carrier and USS Clamagore submarine at Patriots Point.

Hotel Highlights

Best service and amenities were at the Ritz-Carlton Cleveland, with its club lounge. Best room was the condo at The Residences at Biltmore.

Restaurants

We tried to find the best restaurants in the places we stayed, but only hit two home runs on the road trip. Here’s how I’d rank them:

Excellent

Very Good

Good

Mediocre

Matthew’s

We arrived in Jacksonville in the afternoon and went to Matthew’s for dinner. It was an excellent meal, and it was nice to end our road trip on a high note. The six course tasting menu was well thought out and very reasonably priced, as was the wine pairing. Our server, Kelly, was super, and had a lot of fun with the wine pairing when she figured out I was into wines, bringing options for each course. As a result, I ended up with a lot of interesting things to try matching with the food, all for $70. Quite a deal:

Moet & Chandon Imperial (89)
King Estate Pinot Gris (87)
2009 Domaine Napa Chardonnay (93, like butter cream frosting)
King Estate Pinot Noir (89, earthy finish)
ZD Cabernet Sauvignon (92, really chewy)
2006 Abbaye de Saint-ferme “les vignes du soir” Bordeaux blend (89, minerals)
Fonseca 20 year tawny (90, carmel)
La fleur d’or Sauternes (84, chlorine)
Alvear’s Fino Montilla (not my thing!)

Coincidentally, we learned that the highly regarded pastry chef at the Peninsula Grill in Charleston where we dined last night came from this Jacksonville restaurant!

Asheville, NC

Before checking out from The Homestead we had breakfast in the dining room and used our resort activity credit to take the shuttle up to the ski lodge and try our hand at archery. Lots of fun, but we made it a quick stop, because we didn’t want to get sun-burned. Then we headed south through the Allegheny and Appalachian Mountains to Asheville, North Carolina.

Along the way we stopped at the King Tut Drive In for an authentic drive-in experience, complete with car hop service. The menu is extensive, to say the least.

In Asheville we checked in to a lovely one bedroom condo at The Residences at Biltmore, and then drove to Greenlife, a Whole Foods spinoff, to pick up some supplies for breakfasts.

We had an excellent dinner at Fig, a nearby bistro. It was the cheapest, and one of the best meals of the trip.

After some chill time back at the condo, we headed for the local cineplex, and the 12:04am showing of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Today we visited The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, one of Alcorn McBride’s largest midwest installations. We were greeted by Meredith, the curator of the new Women in Rock exhibit, who gave us a fabulous personal tour of the exhibit. Then we spent about two hours touring the rest of the exhibits on our own, finally meeting Rob, the technical manager, for a peek backstage. They have the largest stack of installed LightCues that I’ve seen.

Throughout our time at the museum I was impressed by how the exhibits engaged their guests. The artifacts are really interesting, and the interpretive material is just the right amount— informative without being overwhelming. I was also impressed by how friendly all of the employees were. A very nice attraction.

We had a late but light lunch at Shooters on the water, and watched a really, really large ship squeeze under the railroad bridge and up the river.

Dinner was at Michael Symon’s Lola. It’s on 4th Avenue, a cute pedestrian street with lots of restaurants. Good meal, but not sure how he won the James Beard award as the best chef in the midwest.

The Girl and the Goat

The Girl and the Goat is the new restaurant by Stephanie Izard, winner of Top Chef. Barely open a year, it has already won a James Beard award, and is the hottest restaurant in Chicago. I reserved our table three months in advance.

I was a bit wary of going the day after Moto, and some of the menu items seemed a bit scary (oven roasted pig’s face). What a delightful surprise this restaurant turned out to be! We loved all the plates we shared. We tried all three fresh baked breads of the day. Each was served with two different accompaniments, such as Worchestshire butter. Our favorite dishes were:

Wood fired chicken with fried pickles and grilled naan.
Sauteed cauliflower with pickled peppers, parmesan cheese, mint leaves and pine nuts.
Goat belly confit with lobster and crab.

Service was really professional yet friendly, and the vibrant environment and wood smoke filled room is the perfect setting for such fun and tasty food. The Girl and the Goat is a new Chicago favorite.

Moto

Saturday night we made our annual visit to the molecular gastronomy weirdness that is Moto. We often use a limo service to get to Chicago, because the cost for a town car is about the same as a cab. But every once in a while they run out of town cars, and we get a stretch limo, as was the case last night. It was fun playing with the inscrutable controls and watching a movie on the way.

At Moto we had the 20-course grand tasting menu. It sounds like a lot, but most courses are only a couple of bites or sips, and it takes almost five hours, so you don’t leave feeling stuffed. We also had the matching wine pairing, 14 small samples of wines.

Moto was packed, and they turned the tables of those having the ten-course menu twice. I felt that the service wasn’t quite as fun and the food not quite as consistent as in the past. There were still some wonderful courses, but also a fair number of neat looking but not particularly awe inspiring dishes. The wines seemed better than usual, though, and all of them perfectly matched their courses.

I managed to photograph most of the courses, but forgot a few. Favorites: Pretzel soup, baseball snacks, most of the red meat courses, the banana split and the smores bomb. Big misses: Shrimp and grits, cookie crumbs.

Moto isn’t the sort of place I’d go more than once a year, but if you haven’t tried molecular gastronomy, it’s definitely worth the experience.

Hall and Oates at Ravinia

Here’s a trivia question for you:

What is the biggest selling musical duo of all time?

Awww, you peeked. Yup, it’s Hall and Oates. Don’t bother to try to guess who’s number two. (It’s The Pet Shop Boys.) Clearly, there are not a lot of musical duos.

When we were at Ravinia for Deep Purple last week, I thought it was sold out. Turns out, though that the lawn can hold a lot more people. I mean, a LOT more people:

Basically, Hall and Oates is mostly Hall (the blond with the personality, who sings almost every song). Of the eight piece band, the sax player and lead guitarist do most of the heavy lifting. They put on a good show, but were hampered by audio problems that kept the crowd from really getting into it until the end of their less than 90 minute set.

Before the show we talked our way into the Park View restaurant, although our reservations were really for the Mirabella buffet downstairs. Really impressive food for a seasonal restaurant staffed by college kids.

Leaving the concert during the second encore was a good move, as we rolled home on the Metra train as thousands of people gathered to wait for the next one.