Travelling With Your Fork

Navigator // eating out Antonio’s, Tagaytay, The Philippines A former airline steward, who also trained as a

TRAVELLING WITH YOUR FORK ASIA’S 50 BEST RESTAURANTS LIST HAS PUT ON THE RADAR CULINARY EXPERIENCES THAT MUST FACTOR IN YOUR TRAVEL PLANS. IN THE FIRST OF A THREE-PART SERIES ARE GASTRO STOPS IN CAMBODIA, TAIWAN AND THE PHILIPPINES. TEXT: GAVIN NAZARETH

From A bove : Lechon de Leche or Roast Suckling Pig ; Chef Tony Boy Escalante ; the restaurant ; Escargots de Bour ; Whole fish baked in bread.

dentist, and then as a chef, Tony Boy Escalante says it was his travels that “made me realise that some of the finer restaurants were not in cities, but in rural settings.” Which is why his fine-dining restaurant is a two-hour drive from Manila in an elegant colonial mansion surrounded by gardens and its own farms.

While the restaurant’s picturesque setting serves as the perfect backdrop for a meal, it is the stylish mix of modern European and traditional Filipino recipes, the warm, gracious service and attention to detail that has diners returning repeatedly.

Their farm next door supplies the kitchen – as well as their two other restaurants, Breakfast and The Grill – with most of the produce, which is then transformed into outstanding dishes such as ‘Pork ear salpicao’, ‘Pan-seared duck liver, glazed with honey peppercorn on golden waffle’, ‘Crispy deboned lamb ribs on garlic egg noodles with Hoisin sauce’, ‘Panfried Visayan sole, drizzled with olive oil, parsley, lemon and chili and served with crushed potato’, or the ‘Felchlin Maracaibo chocolate terrine with double ice cream & roasted pistachio’.

Tony, who studied cooking in Australia, before training at the Mandarin Oriental’s Tivoli Grill, says if there is one dish that defines him and his style, it is “our version of ‘Lechon de Leche’ (roasted suckling pig). Served tableside at Antonio’s, it speaks of how I see food. It’s about tradition, family and celebrating the best qualities of each ingredient.”

In his version of the Filipino classic the organic suckling pig is deboned, rubbed with a special blend of herbs and spices, oven-roasted until the skin is a crisp dark caramel and the flavourful flesh is of melt-in-the-mouth consistency. An array of side dishes including aromatic rice, sweet-savoury mango chutney, balsamic-infused pearl onions and house-made liver sauce enhance the feast. www.antoniosrestaurant.ph/antonios/

Fave food combination?

A crusty loaf of bread, a bowl of warm beef and tomato stew.

Ingredients that inspire I enjoy exploring possibilities that a whole pig can bring to a menu – nose to tail.

How does travel inspire your cooking?

Travel is about discovery.

Finding differences and similarities in cuisines from other cultures and enjoying dining in other countries. My menus are always expressions of my experience, my travels.

A restaurant in your city that you recommend?

I enjoy Spanish food, so Terry’s Selection in Makati City always tops my list of places to eat.

Your favourite culinary travel destination.

San Sebastian in the Basque region of Spain. It is a concentration of culinary genius in a very small area.

Your food adventure companion/s.

I enjoy travelling with my family. We are a food family and travelling abroad always means discovering new tastes, flavours and ingredients.

Which restaurant are you looking forward to?

list of 50 best restaurants in the region was released earlier this year amid the usual glamour and controversy at Singapore’s Capella Hotel. Advocates for Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants sponsored by San Pellegrino & Aqua Panna claim it to be “an incubator for culinary creativity”, and an “organising principle for a movement … the global revolution in fine dining”, and also praise it for its “forward-looking approach to new culinary trends”.

The awards’ official website says it is “recognised around the world as the most credible indicator of 52

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the best places to eat on Earth.” The naysayers, a few culinary heavyweights among them, on the other hand say the judging process is indiscriminate and susceptible to cronyism.

All that aside, while most of the restaurants on the list have been around for a while, with fan followings of their own, their ranking does add another spotlight to their efforts to give diners a meal with a difference. In the first of a three-part series, are three chefs who have been raising the bar long before their listing: Tony Boy Escalante of Antonio’s (No 48 on list), Cuisine Wat Damnak’s Joannès Rivière (No 50), Chen Lan-shu of Le Moût (No 26).

I will be travelling with my son to New York. We are looking forward to eating at Katz’s Delicatessen. Not the fanciest of places, but have you tried their pastrami sandwich?!

A food trend you like and one you dislike?

No food trend I particularly hate. But I love the idea behind food trucks.

A guilty food pleasure?

I am such a sucker for cream-filled cakes and pastries.

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Navigator // eating out Cuisine Wat Damnak, Cambodia

Chef Joannès Rivière’s concept is quite simple: use only the very best local, seasonal produce to translate traditional dishes typically seen on the streets into haute Cambodian cuisine; served in a traditional Khmer house and garden in Siem Reap.

A native of the small town of Roanne in the Loire region of France, this former executive chef of Hotel de la Paix in Siem Reap, came to the country in 2003 to teach cooking and hospitality skills to underprivileged young Cambodians at the French NGO-run Sala Baï Hotel School. During his time there, he also wrote the school’s cookbook, one of the first cookery books about the Cambodian cuisine to be internationally published.

Joannès is a true farm-to-table disciple.

Indigenous and often rare ingredients are sourced from local farmers, fishermen and even foragers to wow his diners. Many of whom will have never heard of fruits such as ambarella, feroniella and kuy, let alone tasted them, or, even the local fish and shellfish unique to the Mekong and Tonlé Sap lake.

There is no fixed menu. Instead the two degustation menus – five or six courses – change every Tuesday and are priced at US$24 and 28 respectively. Superlative dishes such as ‘Grilled Sanday fish in betel leaf with fresh and green pickled papaya salad’; ‘baked curry rice with pumpkin and Mekong langoustine’; and ‘fresh pomelo with lime meringue, sorbet and candied pomelo skin curd’, have kept the restaurant in the news and on the palates of top chefs David Thompson, Justin Quek, and Raymond Blanc, who once wrote, “Oh, Mon Dieu, this man can cook, he is blessed.”

Joannès says the one dish on his menu that defines him and his cooking style is “our black sticky rice porridge. By taking something very traditional and replacing the rice with black sticky rice we get something very contemporary and really tasty.” www.cuisinewatdamnak.com

Your first food memory?

Raw vegetables directly from the field. My parents were vegetable farmers and I still remember picking up tiny carrots, cleaning them on my shirt and eating them straight, still covered with soil.

Anything you won’t eat?

Canned button mushrooms.

I run away when they show up.

I hate them… you hear me?

I hate them!

A restaurant in your city that you recommend.

For French food, Abacus, otherwise, Mie Café

Does travel inspire your cooking?

Hugely, especially in terms of presentation and technique. The restaurant scene in Cambodia is not the busiest in the world, so we need regular trips for inspiration.

A fave family recipe/dish?

My family lived in Laos in the ‘70s and came back with a chicken lap recipe that evolved over time. But they always prepared it for special occasions and it reminds me of happy family times, when everybody was still alive or seemed to get along. Everybody would work, grilling the meat, toasting the rice, picking the herbs. I like to call it the “classic chicken lap from Loire valley”.

One food trend you like and one you dislike?

From A bove : Chef Joannès R ivière ; the restaurant ; Black sticky rice porridge with Mekong langoustine and crispy pork shank ; Wild honey and rice wine roasted chicken with elephant ear taro stem salad.

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I like the fermentation thing, because it takes time. Real luxury is not expensive things, it is time and I can see the beauty in something that has been prepared days or years in advance.

I do not dislike anything. There is always something to keep from even the stupidest trend. I get confused seeing how food can sometimes be over intellectualised in modernist cuisine.

Yogurt sprayed, liquid nitrogen frozen deep-fried potato seems to be a waste of resources and energy for example.

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Navigator // eating out Le Moût, Taichung, Taiwan

From A bove : Chef Chen Lan-Shu, view of Le Moût ; M aine Lobster with Cauliflower ; Oyster and Pearl.

It takes its name from the French term for the fermentation of grape juice into fine, complex wine.

And Chef Chen Lan-Shu wants her fine dining establishment to be the culinary interpretation of this process by transforming simple ingredients into dishes of greatness. Named Veuve Clicquot Asia’s Best Female Chef 2014 on the Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants list, she trained at Le Cordon Bleu, Paris, then interned under leading French chefs such as Jean-François Piège, Jérôme Chaucesse and Patrick Pignol, followed by a stint at Thomas Keller’s The French Laundry. She set up Le Moût in 2008 to create haute cuisine that balances her Taiwanese roots and the art of French cuisine. The elegant jewel-box restaurant offers a truly opulent culinary experience with antique chandeliers, large mirrors, classic furnishings, Bernardaud china, Christofle silverware and Laguiole cutlery.

Her cooking, she says, is always about, “looking for the harmony of tastes and textures in a dish.

There is a saying about Chinese cuisine, ‘Balance the five flavours, and hundreds of flavours are completed in a dish’. Besides the flavours, texture is also important. The way we present the texture can change the way we feel about the produce and also decide how long that taste lingers. So with a change of textures and different groups of fragrances we can create a complete experience with the top notes, middle notes and base notes in a dish.”

A dish that defines this philosophy is a small appetiser: ‘foie gras royal topped with Marsala caramel and espuma, sprinkled with coffee powder and accompanied by a paper-thin potato lemon chip’.

“First we sense foie gras, then the sweet fragrance of Marsala. The smoothness and fat help the mild creamy taste linger, while the bitterness of coffee increases. The paper-thin lemon chip cuts through the fattiness with its sharp acidity. And because the chip is thin, the acidity and crispy texture will disappear together with the creamy part – a harmonious ending.” www.lemout.com

Your first food memory?

I was five. My father came to my kindergarten to pick me up. He waited outside of the gate, eating litchi. I ran to him and he passed me one he had peeled. It was so sweet, juicy and fragrant.

Anything you just won’t eat?

Insects?

A restaurant in your city that you recommend.

The KeKo beef noodle restaurant.

What ingredients are inspiring you now?

Rice and traditionally sun-dried vegetables in Chinese cuisine.

A person you’d like to take along to a new culinary destination.

My boyfriend. He is a food connoisseur, wine lover and a great travel companion.

We exchange ideas about food and always have a lot of inspiration from each other.

A restaurant you are looking forward?

There are many, but at the top of list in Japan: Narisawa, Ryugin and some very classic Kaiseki restaurants there.

One food trend you like and one you dislike?

I like when value is put on local culture and terroir: people who embrace where they are from and try to keep the tradition and refine it.

I dislike when dishes are mostly created by composing ingredients rather than by cooking them together. They have no ‘style’ – a piece of meat, some powder, some gel, some chips, some leaves, some flowers… it looks beautiful but has no taste or soul.

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