Amuse Bouche and Yin Yang

26 June 2010: I thought the two restaurants we tried this week were really worth mentioning. One was Amuse Bouche and the other Yin Yang.

Amuse Bouche is run by Ken, formerly at Restaurant Petrus. There were so many appealing items on the menu that we all decided to have two starters and one main course. Prepped by a little Louis Roderer, I started with the house special rich lobster bisque with morels, intensely flavoured, perfectly textured. Then I had a half portion of pasta with shaved truffle and chicken-flavoured rich gravy - I actually thought I could taste a little of the water that the pasta was cooked in. I think this dish could have turned out better as a risotto dish rather than a pasta dish. Then came the house special duck confit - just perfect! Other praisworthy dishes included the deep fried egg with langoustine and asparagus, which looked really tasty and quite original, as well as the slow cooked short rib of Welsh lamb.

As for the wines of the evening, our white was a 1996 Leflaive Puligny-Montrachet Les Pucelles. It was divine, with an intense and complex bouquet of smoky, toasty, toasted hazelnuts, honeyed notes, and a vivid minerality. The wine tasted still youthful and well-balanced, with vibrant acidity, roundness and concentration. Lingering finish. Drinking at peak now, and will drink well for another 3 - 4 years for maximum enjoyment. 18/20

The 1988 Mugnier Musigny that followed was rather disappointing. Very obvious brettanomyces detected on the nose. After a while, the red fruit and spiciness came through. The wine tasted lean and unattractive, with not much of a mid-palate. Drying on the finish. Past its peak. 14/20

Our friend Richard brought us a 2000 Les Forts de Latour and what a change from the tired and uninteresting Musigny. Lively fruit of blueberries and blackberries led to violets and tobacco notes, adding to the complexity. An attractive and pleasing wine with fruit concentration, complexity, balance with acidity and firm but fine tannins. Medium plus length. A perfect accompaniment to our various main courses. Drinking well now, and will evolve over 4 - 5 years. 17/20

I thought the service at Amuse Bouche was really excellent. Very good ambiance, with a few private room-like areas. The lovely sight of so many great wine bottles was inviting and assuring! The only thing that annoyed me slightly was the way they calculated the bill....they decided to charge us "a la carte" prices instead of the more reasonably priced 4-course menu for us, because I picked a half portion of pasta and Richard picked the coco bean soup from the menu degustation. At least we were able to use the 10% discount voucher that I cut out from some magazine! My ratings: food (4/5), service (5/5), ambiance (5/5), price (4/5).

Yin Yang's chef/proprietor is Margaret Xu who uses a lot of organic ingredients in her cooking. All the dishes were very creatively presented, with interesting names sounding like "satin and laces"! I thought the main courses were really tasty - I particularly liked the crisy skin pork and the salt-baked fish. Very generous of our hosts Marcus and Su-Mei. I remember trying a very minerally 2002 Jobard Meursault Clos de La Barre and a 1999 Brunello bursting with fruit, with a strong backbone of acidity and firm tannins. I also quite liked the Henschke Shiraz blend. The Cornas was elegant, spicy and well-made but unfortunately on this occasion, rather shadowed by the big fruit neighbours! My ratings: food (3/5), service (5/5), ambiance (4/5), price (3/5).

The weather took a rather nasty turn this morning. Torrential rains and gloomy skies! Just the perfect excuse to stay at home and recover from an indulgent and exhausting (on different levels) week!

Perfect evening with good friends, great wines and Richard's Coq au Vin Jaune

19 June 2010: Our dear friend Jonny, who moved back to New York in 2007, is in Hong Kong for the weekend to catch up with old friends. So we decided to cook him a simple supper at home, just like the old days and we invited Patrick as well, whom we haven't seen for a while and we had wanted to hear about his account of the visit to the Normandy battle fields.

We opened a 1996 Pol Roger Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill and we tucked into Richard's famous smoked trout pâté, with our favourite toasted Poilâne bread. The 1996 Winston Churchill was quite different from what we remembered from our last tasting which was about 10 months ago. The nose was still complex but much more evolved: brioche, ripe pears, dried apricots, marmalade, dried citrus peel and honey. The acidity level was less pronounced and made the wine taste a little flabby. I wonder if it had suffered from slight madeirisation. 15.5/20

Then came the pièce de résistance: coq au vin jaune with morels and white asparagus. Richard cooked this dish based on a recipe by Chef Jacques Reymond (based in Melbourne). It was a great effort - the chicken was moist, packed with nutty and savoury flavours from the two-step cooking, and the morels well soaked in the vin jaune cream sauce! (See end of this blog for a description on vin jaune.) Apologies for my slightly undercooked white asparagus!

We chose a 1992 Leflaive Chevalier Montrachet to go with the chicken dish. For me, it was the wine of the evening. A glorious mature white burgundy, with a golden robe, immense complexity, concentration, balance and length. A distinct and developed character showing lemon curd, marzipan, ripe pears, grilled macadamia nuts, toasty and honey, over a hint of smokines. Excellent balance between acidity and roundness, with a lingering finish. Superb wine. Drinking perfectly at peak now, and will drink well for another 5 - 6 years - not sure I would want any of its elements to evolve any further. 19/20

Richard believes that no dinner would be complete without a bit of red - although I would be much happier to have my cheese course with white wine! We opened a 1991 Comte Georges de Vogüé Musigny Vieilles Vignes. A perfumed nose of red fruit, coffee, smoky and sweet spicy character. Very elegant, just about well-balanced. A little drying on the finish. Drinking just past peak perhaps but should drink well for another 3 - 4 years. 17.5/20

Next was a half bottle of 1999 Comte Georges de Vogüé Musigny Vieilles Vignes - a much more lively wine, from a vintage with excellent growing conditions. Complex and intense nose, velvety texture of fine tannins, sweet red fruit character with plenty of minerality and a very lengthy finish. Drinking beautifully now, and will continue to evolve over next 6 - 8 years before reaching peak (for 750 ml and bigger size bottlings). 18.5/20

Jonny brought us a "football-shaped" mango mousse cake for dessert, supplemented by some cannelés that I picked up from Monsieur Chatté's shop late afternoon. (I was going to save some cannelés for breakfast but some unwelcomed guests (aka cockroaches) tucked into them while we weren't looking! Rather annoying!)

A perfect evening with good friends, great wines and a delicious coq au vin jaune!

And here's some basic information on vin jaune:
Vin jaune or "yellow wine" is a specialty from the Jura region of France, made in a method that is similar to that for sherry, except without the fortification. The grape variety is savagnin. Grapes picked at late, at ideal ripeness of 13 - 15% potential alcohol. Fermentation and ageing take place in slightly ullaged casks so that a film of yeast called "voile" forms, quite similar to the flor that is critical for fino sherries. The whole process for the voile to fully develop takes much longer, because of the cold temperatures of the Jura. After full development, the voile fades away and then comes a period of oxidative ageing. The wine is typically bottled into 620 ml clavelin bottles 6 years and 3 months after the harvest. Typical character of vin jaune is savoury, light curry-like spiciness and nutty. Vin jaune should be well aerated before enjoyment, and best matched with chicken cooked in the wine itself or even Comté cheese.

Can't fault this Meursault!

16 June 2010: Public holiday in Hong Kong. Richard cooked roasted rack of pork, with a piquant tomato salsa! Delicious! Our white for the evening was a 1999 Guy Roulot Meursault Les Tessons Clos de Mon Plaisir. An alluring golden colour. A well-developed and complex bouquet of grapefruit and lemon curd, layered with honey, smoky and toasty notes and distinct minerality. Beautifully matured, balanced, perfectly poised with just the right amount of acidity and alcohol, complexity and depth of character. A lingering finish, leaving one to admire the excellent craftsmanship that produced a wine in total harmony with its character, age and development. 18/20

Following on, we had a red burgundy from the same vintage, which boasted perfect growing conditions, 1999 Robert Arnoux Nuits-Saint-Georges Clos des Corvées Pagets. A well-made Premier Cru, balanced, good length, but lacked the concentration, depth and complexity of superior wines. Character of red fruit (raspberries, dried strawberries), sweet spices, coffee and vanilla. Ideal with our pork dish and a slice of Comté. 16/20

Comparing two Richebourgs

Last week we enjoyed a couple of Richebourgs.......quite different in styles, both reflecting terroir and vintage. My thoughts on them:

1990 Anne & Francois Gros Richebourg
Tasted 8 June 2010: Superb burgundy. Beautiful fruit, impeccable balance, poise and elegance, silky texture. A true beauty. Drinking perfectly now, will show well for another 5+ years. 19/20

The 1990 vintage conditions: Warm July, followed by perfectly timed rain in August to help accelerate the ripening process. Very healthy grapes. Over 200 hours of sunshine before harvest. No over ripening. Remarkable acidity, good sugar levels. Exceptional quality, perfectly balanced, concentration of flavours, complexity. An ageworthy vintage.

1996 Meo-Camuzet Richebourg
Tasted 15 June 2010: A medium ruby colour. Medium-bodied, with silky tannins and a good level of acidity. On the nose, the ripe red fruit and sweet spice led to coffee, burnt cream notes. This brulee character reminded us of the vintage conditions. The wine needed an hour and a half to open up. Then it became much more harmonious and elegant, still with the burnt character and rewarded us with a lengthy finish. Drinking at peak now and will continue to drink well for another 4 - 5 years. 17/20

The 1996 vintage conditions: very hot summer months, starting from end May, when temperatures were often higher than 30 degrees Celsius; some cold showers towards end of August caused concerns for grey rot, but the vintage was saved by a north wind which started early September. Rigorous sorting was important.

Discovering Montepulciano d'Abruzzo

8 June 2010: Casual supper at Cine Citta with a couple of friends - your typical pasta, red wine and banter evening. I chose a bottle of 2006 San Clemente Montepulciano d'Abruzzo by Cantina Zaccagnini. We were all very impressed by it. A lesser known region than its more famous neighbour of Campania and Puglia, but Montepulciano in Abruzzo manages to shake off those animal savoury pungent notes and harsh tannins typically associated with Montepulciano (not to be confused with Vino Nobile di Montepulciano which is based on Prugnolo Gentile, a clone of Sangiovese). What we had was a fruit-driven deep ruby-coloured wine, well-balanced and structured, with aromas of ripe black fruit (blackberries, black cherries), liquorice, sweet spices and vanilla, a medium body, with medium level of fine tannins. Perfect accompaniment to our respective pasta dishes. This wine had been aged in new oak for 18 months, followed by 12 months in stainless steel tanks and 6 months of bottle age before release. Website: http://www.cantinazaccagnini.it/)

The ABC of good honest cooking!

5 June 2010: We decided to try a new place for dinner with some friends - we picked A Better Cooking (ABC) Kitchen inside the Queen's Street Cooked Food Market (on Des Voeux Road). We all had some difficulty getting there - probably because of miscommunication of the address on my part! It was a classic local gastronomic scene - about 20 food stalls busy serving the dinner crowd on this fluorescent-lit floor at this indoor Cooked Food Market. Each stall offered different cuisine, from Cantonese to Beijing Dumplings, to Vietnamese to Indian and at one corner, complete with the familiar bistro-style checked tablecloths, there was ABC Kitchen. We all took the 4-course set menu, which came with a glass of cava and 2 glasses of red wine, which we didn't try as we brought our own wine. The staff (under Joe Lau's leadership) largely came from M at the Fringe after the latter got evicted from its previous location on Ice House Street. Here amongst the modest settings of the Cooked Food Market, the quality of the food that arrived at our table was on a par with that at the original restaurant. We all thoroughly enjoyed sharing the mushroom risotto and the linguine with clams, followed by really delicious roast suckling pig and rack of lamb. I even ordered some samosas, naan bread, dal and broccoli from the Indian stall next door, which Joe did not seem to mind! The chocolate souffles and sticky toffee puddings were very much welcomed at the end! Great job, Joe and the team!

For this evening, we first had a Jean-Marc Boillot Puligny-Montrachet Les Mouchères 2001, which had lots of mature aromas and a creamy texture. Then we did a tasting of 2005 pinot noirs, including the Hatherleigh Pinot Noir made by our friend Nick Bulleid MW plus 2 French burgundies, a Michel Lafarge Volnay and a Leroy Volnay. The Leroy was corked unfortunately. The Michel Lafarge Volnay was probably not ready yet....it remained very closed and astringent for almost the entirety of the evening. The Hatherleigh showed youthful fruitiness, plenty of red fruit and some sweet spicy complexity, and a very silky texture. A very approachable cool-climate style. Richard said it was "light and pretty".

Our friend Nick (a different Nick) brought two wines for the evening and they certainly helped lift the quality of the selection! 2002 Charmes Chambertin by Bernard Dugat-Py - a beautiful wine with a lot of charme, as suggested by the name, much complexity, subtle richness and a lingering finish, well balanced and structured. An excellent food wine.

The 1970 Léoville Las Cases was a delicate and mature wine, graceful but rather fragile - it needed drinking almost immediately. Very lovely smoky and cedar character at the beginning, but rather low on fruit and acidity. It started to fall apart after an hour of decanting. Perhaps we should have left it in the bottle, and not bothered with decanting.

ABC is highly recommended and worth being promoted! I like to support people who begin small and work hard.....they need our support to carry on and to show to the world that good effort can make a difference, that good honest food can come from the most unexpected surroundings! My ratings: 3.5/5 for food; 5/5 for value; 1/5 for ambiance; 4/5 for service.

By the way, I forgot to mention that the cost for the 4 course set menu is HK$ 368 for two people, i.e. HK$ 184 per head (around US$ 23 or £16 per head at current exchange rates)!

Cheval Blanc 1950

2 June 2010: A belated birthday celebration for our friend Paul, who just turned 60! Perfect occasion for us to present to Paul, a vivacious 60-year-old, a bottle of Cheval Blanc from his birth year of 1950, and to be able to enjoy it with him and Fanny. The wine: above the shoulder level, medium-deep ruby core, with silky tannins, lively acidity, velvety textured light body, and an elegant presentation. Intense and complex nose of smoky character, leather, violet, mocha and sweet spices. A little short on the length, with an almost caramel-like sweet finish. A gracefully aged wine, just past its peak. 16.5/20.

Congratulations, Paul! Thank you for giving us the opportunity to share this special bottle with a very good friend!