Taku - Cologne, Germany

Taku is located about 20 meters from Cologne's famous dom (cathedral) in the basement of the Excelsior Hotel Ernst. This restaurant offering East Asian cuisine has been awarded one Michelin star.

After walking down the stairs and entering the restaurant, one can see some fish swimming underneath a glass covered floor, creating the illusion of a tiny stream. Being in a basement, the lack of natural light was compensated by lots of white light which made the restaurant rather cold. The acoustics were quite bad; only three tables were occupied during our lunch and we could hear the different conversations.

Some peanuts with lemongrass and roasted coconut to nibble on. Notice the chopsticks on the right and the absence of a proper tablecloth.

Bread selection: Krupuk with chilli flakes, 3 types of bread (peanut, curry and sesame) and butter

Three varieties of butter: sesame, mango and coriander

There were 4 options: lunch @ Taku (from 2 to 4 courses, with two options for each course except dessert), Taku classic (which is a Thai red curry dish), a bento lunch box and sushi.

Amuse-bouche

Bite-sized lamb with vindaloo sauce

 The vegetarian alternative was with pakora instead of the lamb.

Starter

Wild salmon / perilla / cucumber

Gado Gado / peanut / tomato

The peanut sauce was served on the side

Soup

Pepper / coconut / pakoras

Pho Ga / breast and haunch of dove / rice noodles
Uncoiling the 2 noodles was interesting. Good but way too salty.

Main course

Tofu / pumpkin / sesame

The meat main course on the lunch menu was pork neck. The waitress offered as a substitute the red Thai curry with fish and crustaceans, a dish that can be ordered individually for lunch. This turned out to be a big portion. Again too salty to enjoy.

Dessert

There was only one dessert option in the lunch menu: coffee / coconut / pistachio
This was very good ; light and not too sweet.

As mignardise, a  board of pralines was brought to our table. There were  about 13 varieties to choose from. Sake, champagne and passion fruit were especially good.

Overall, despite a few dishes that suffered from too much salt, that was a pleasant meal while visiting the Koln Christmas markets.

Taku
http://www.excelsiorhotelernst.com/en/restaurant-bar/taku.html

Culinaria on Tour - August 2013 - Knokke

You've probably heard of Culinaria, an annual event that brings together (mostly) Michelin starred chefs and foodies at Tour & Taxis in Brussels.  We have never attended because for the same amount of money we can sit down for a 4 course meal in a fine dining establishment, without having to wait in line standing and without disposable plates, plastic forks/knives and paper napkins. 

For 2013, Culinaria's concept is that of "Street Food". They also organize a few "Culinaria on Tour" events, and this  Sunday 4 August they were in Knokke. The setting on the beach was quite nice.

 
Notice the dress code at the bottom:

There were three restaurateurs and one chocolatier present:
• Bouchéry - Damien Bouchéry
• La Grappe d’Or - Clément Petitjean
• L’Air du Temps - Sang Hoon Degeimbre
• Pierre Marcolini

Of the 3 savory dishes,  the lobster hotdog by Clément Petitjean looked the most appealing. Anyway it was almost 15:30 and we had eaten already so we just tried the dessert by Marcolini.

There was not much creativity - if any at all - going into this "dessert". I would rather call it mignardises and coffee. It consisted of 4 chocolates and 1 macaron that were already on a disposable plate. Three macaron flavors were available; I picked pistachio. When you order, they take out a small ice-cream cup (caramel au beurre salé) from a freezer, put it on the plate and hand it to you along with a voucher for a Nespresso coffee.We enjoyed the mignardises by a table overlooking the beach.

There was a small stand by Kalios offering tastings of their olive oils, which we had discovered through Gastronomiz last December. Fromages de Suisse was a sponsor and was showcasing Gruyere cheese at its stand next to Marcolini. Now, seriously, if you want your cheese to be discovered or further appreciated, would you charge 3€ for a handful of Gruyere cubes ? This PR approach was rather...cheesy.

For us, the best part about Culinaria Knokke, besides being on the beach on this warm sunny afternoon, was the event organized by Filigranes bookshop in parallel, called « La digue des Auteurs ». They had some writers presenting and signing their books, young cheerful employees were offering complimentary wines and snacks plus they had some beach chairs.

Missed Culinaria Knokke and still want to experience Culinaria on Tour? Don't worry, the next editions will take place in Antwerp (early October) and Brussels (end of November).

Culinaria on Tour

http://www.culinariasquare.com/culinaria-on-tour/

Gastronomiz food box - May 2013 and anniversary bonus box

After a positive experience with Gastronomiz' Christmas box last December, we decided to sign up for their one year anniversary offer, with a previous box offered as a gift for any new subscription of 3 months. Basically it was 4 boxes for the price of 3, and since the contents of the previous boxes are displayed online, I selected the November 2012 box.

We received the following 2 boxes this week:

May 2013 box
Theme: Secrets de Maman

Contents of the box:
Sablés - Sablé Diamand
Pot à épices - Mastrad
Croustine de poulet, goût curry doux - Maggi
Coeur de fond de Veau - Maggi
Tomates rôties au four et olives noires - Sacla
Poudre de citron déshydraté C'oFruit - Fruitofood
Prunes françaises moelleuses - St Dalfour

What a disappointing box! Besides the Sacla roasted tomatoes, St Dalfour plums and the 6 tiny cookies, the contents of this box are not of much interest. The 2 Maggi products, with MSG, chicken fat and plenty of chemical additives among the ingredients, will probably go unused. And sending products with peel-off coupons on them is not very elegant on the part of Gastronomiz. This box is so NOT worth €17 Euros (excluding the €2 for shipping to Belgium) - if only we could get our money back...

Bonus box - November 2012
Theme: Moteur...action!

Box contents:

Jus de Citron Bio Maison Meneau

Epices Massalé Le Comptoir colonial

Epices Libanaises Le Comptoir colonial

Korma sauce Patak's

Préparation pour cupcakes aux éclats de noix de pécan - Francine

Asperges vertes en sauce Sacla

Rillette le Crabe Dormeur La Paimpolaise

I had selected this specific box so knew in advance what the contents would be. Just one complaint though: the cupcakes mix will expire in about 5 weeks, which makes me think that Gastronomiz was picking old products that have been sitting on shelves for quite a while.

We have 2 more boxes with exciting themes left : "Finger food" in June then "Mediterranean" in July. We'll be posting the contents and hopefully they'll be more interesting than the May box.

L'Air du Temps - Liernu, Belgium

Sunday lunch @ L'Air du Temps by chef Sang-Hoon Degeimbre

We had lunch this Sunday 28 April at two Michelin starred L'Air du Temps. The restaurant has moved to a farm in Liernu this past January, surrounded by fields and with gardens for growing veggies and rare herbs. There are 2 points worth noting about the chef. First, he never received a formal culinary school training; he actually began his career as a sommelier. Second, he is Korean-born, grew up in Belgium and this perhaps explains the Asian influence his cuisine.

The main restaurant building:

Inside the restaurant:

The window view from our table

Table layout

Bienvenue

There was already a super thin flatbread sitting on a piece of rock on our table. Soon after we were seated, some "water" was served, a signature welcome drink of L'Air du Temps.


Le Pain - Bread without yeast, with sesame and onion

L'Eau - Eau parfumée à la tanaisie (Tansy perfumed water) - this was an interesting discovery, although not impressive enough for us to order the water menu called "Nos créations sans alcool".

We selected the surprise April 2013 Genèses menu with 5 courses with matching wines (Nos vins d'envie). As always, She requested a pescetarian menu and the staff was totally fine with this request.

Let's begin our meal, which consisted of 4 snacks, 2 bouchées, 4 savory courses, 1 dessert and mignardises. 

Snacking

Cerfeuil tubéreux, Ponzu, Ail Noir

Céléri - Pamplemousse - Salers fumé

Choux rave - Radicchio - Anchois

Chicon - Jambon - Gruyère

Bouchées

Choux fleur - Buratta - Cacahuètes

Oeuf coque - Petit gris (de Namur) - Curcuma

While we were enjoying the second bouchée, oil, butter and salt were brought to our table, followed by bread.

Sicilian olive oil
Fleur de sel d'Angleterre
Beurre fermier - plain and with Yuzu

Bread - some might find the bottom crust too hard and slightly burnt, but we enjoyed it.

Dégustation

Now's the beginning of our 5 courses lunch.

Course 1

Tartare aux couteaux - Veau - Couteau - Bergamote
Accompanied by: Domaine de la Grand Cour Fleurie - Beaujolais - 2010

Course 1 - non-meat


A waiter brought a tree stump board  covered with a glass lid to our table. As he lifted the lid and the steam dissipated, we saw some potatoes resting on some Sphagnum moss.

A few minutes later the potatoes were served:

Pommes de terre cuites à la vapeur
Croustillant faits à base des pelures de pommes de terre
Jus vert à base de Lierre terrestre (ground ivy) et égopode (ground elder)
Fleurs: Tussilage
Feuilles: Lierre terrestre

Course 2

Crème cuite de crevettes grises - Couteaux - Concombre
Accompanied by: O.V.N.I. Objet Viticole Non Identifié J. Mourat - Loire valley - 2012

This dish was barely lukewarm. Perhaps that was the intention, but we would have preferred a warmer broth.

Course 3

Cabillaud - Miso - Crème aigre - Gomasio
Accompanied by: Santorini Argyros - Assyrtiko 2012

Course 4

Agneau de Bellac (Limousin) - Tomates - Bleu - Gingembre
Accompanied by: Chateau Musar Jeune - Bekaa valley  - 2010

What a memorable lamb dish! Plus the beautiful Lebanese red matched the lamb perfectly!

Course 4 - seafood version

Turbot - Coques - Jus vert de shiso et ricotta

Condiment: poivrons rouge, pomme, kimchi et zeste d'orange

Poudre de coraille d'homard

Achillée millefeuille

Desserts

Course 5

MMMMh! Crème catalane - Tonka - Topinambour
Accompanied by: The Madeira Collection 2 - Reserve- dry

Notice the Korean flag! This dessert was good yet, compared to what we had been eating so far,  seemed to be somewhat ordinary. I was hoping to see some more creativity here.

Course 5 - alternative dessert

Carrot-themed dessert

Carottes confites - Mousse au chocolat blanc - Orange - Chips de pommes de terre - Sucre à la coriandre.

Again, no wow factor in this dessert either. For a dessert, it was not sweet enough, the potato chips were to blame. As to the sugar, cardamom would have been a better match than coriander.

What are we to make of these 2 desserts ? While they were slightly underwhelming, we thought that perhaps that was intentional, like in Japanese and Korean restaurants, where the dessert is supposed to be a light sweet ending to the meal as opposed to the heavy desserts in French cuisine.

Mignardises

Sorbet à l'huile d'olive avec un papier de sucre autour (the lollipop)
Caramel pistache-orange (in the foil)
Un Paris-Brest revisité
Guimauve au chocolat (Chocolate marshmallow)
Biscuit (cigare) au chocolat

Verbena infusion served in an East Asian cast iron teapot.

Unlike other Michelin starred restaurants that offer 1-2 extra mignardises along with tea/coffee,  here all we got was some sugars and sweetener served in what resembled a dim sum tray. Perhaps the rock sugar counted as a sweet ? :)

As we were about to leave, a waiter accompanied us to have a look at the kitchen. It was 16:30 by then and the crew was busy plating a couple of desserts and cleaning had begun. Chef Sang-Hoon saw us and walked over to shake our hands and we chatted for a little while.

While one could hope for some improvements on the dessert side, overall this was such a lovely meal by an incredibly talented chef, which was totally worth the hour long car ride from Brussels. This meal was a beautiful exploration of new ingredients, textures and flavors.

L'Air du Temps

Liernu, Belgium
www.airdutemps.be