A life of travel, shameless gluttony, hedonism and occasional enslavement

I was gobsmacked today, really really taken aback by a simple taste comparison between two chocolate bars made from the same batch of cocoa liquor from Jamaica.  Basically, we got cocoa liquor from a supplier who processes the beans into liquor, basically grinding it down into a paste.  This supplier from France also makes their own chocolate bars, but it will not be a brand name you will recognize, as they are quite under-the-radar.

This was the best example to date of how different processing techniques on the same cocoa liquor produces totally different results.  Though I’m still recovering from a cold and taste functions are quite muted, the marked difference made it all the more shocking.

Bar 1 = Artisan du Chocolat’s Jamaica Bar.  Bar 2 = French made Jamaican Bar.

Bar 1 had a slight acidity as the first note which ushered forth dried mango and tamarind paste sandwiched between dried banana chips (Yes, weird association, but it is a very very fond flavour memory of mine).  This brought me back to Talat Thai Wholesale market in Bangkok, where tropical fruits scented the aisles.

At the end, the flavour of civet cat poo coffee from Vietnam unveiled itself (Actually, my flavour bank’s civet cat poo coffee is from Chiang Rai in Thailand, but everyone associates it with Vietnam).  

Perhaps the cold virus was playing mind tricks on me, but it was that unmistakable flavour of coffee with a fruity/nutty bouquet and a bit of acidity without any bitterness.

Bar 2 on the other hand was lifeless and flat, no ups or downs, just the horizontal stroke of a corpse hooked up to an ECG machine.   Apparently, copious amounts of vanilla was added, but I could not really taste it clearly, other than the very familiar taste of el cheapo supermarket branded chocolate bars.  

The classical belief that long conching develops flavour and adding more fat creates beautiful mouthfeel is just old fashioned rubbish.  How many chefs still believe that you have to sear/brown your steak to seal in the juices when you are actually doing the opposite?  

2 makers, same cocoa, different results.  Making chocolate indeed is an art and a science, and I am forever indebted to my bosses at Artisan du Chocolat for sharing their knowledge whole heartedly and giving me the chance to experience REALLY making chocolate as opposed to just melting it.

With a name like that, you’d be expecting a place serving dishes lovingly created from the most delectable parts of the pig.  Not to be confused with Au Pied de Cochon in Montreal, Canada, which is a foodie’s paradise, or so I heard.  This Au Pied de Cochon in Paris, a short walk from Forum Les Halles, is seriously bad.  Now, why would you want to read a blog post about bad Parisian food?

Continue reading ‘Gourmet Tourist Trap Paris – Au Pied de Cochon’

Fate must have aligned our paths once again as I returned to Artisan du Chocolat’s production ‘Atelier’ just in time for the Sloe Season.  These wild plums grow abundantly in the ‘bush’ behind the fences and last year, they escaped me, as it was late October when I noticed these sloes and it was the season’s end.

This year, in mid-September, they tasted awful, with a mouth puckering astringency and bitterness that laid “eat ‘em all” dares and bets around the lunch table.  Tasting them every other day, it wasn’t until now, early October that they tasted ‘right’.  The astringency was there, but tamer, the plum flavour more pronounced and most importantly, the previously starchy centre bits have now turned into plump, juicy flesh.  

40 minutes of picking during the lunch break yielded 4kgs worth of tiny sloes and probably 200g of assorted spiders, wood lice and other creepy crawlies that probably now inhabit my kitchen!  So, how do you tell a sloe from a damson from a bullace and from a plum?

Continue reading ‘Sloe Jam – A different kind of plum…..’

If readers are getting bored of the ‘best this and best that’, thats too bad, because so often in Paris, just because IT IS PARISIAN does not make it oh so damn delicious and awesome.  The search for this ‘No.1 List of Stuff’ is a personal benchmark as references for my own stuff, and as the adage goes, one man’s tea is another’s poison.

Thats how I came across Ble Sucre, owned by Chef Fabrice Le Bourdat, who took some time out to have a chat and reminisce about the hawker food in Singapore.  He spent 3 months at the Oriental Hotel in Singapore and remembers his time there fondly.

Yes, I was in Paris searching for the perfect Croissant, which up till now, had the top spot taken by the croissants we used to make at Pasteleria Totel in Spain.  Here at Ble Sucre, they had 3…hmmm no, maybe 4 items that occupy top positions in ‘The List of Best Stuff’.  It is all thanks to this man, Chef Fabrice Le Bourdat.

Continue reading ‘Ble Sucre – My Paris No.1 for Croissants, Madeleines and Financiers’

Philippe Gosselin………..who?  Yes yes, another one of these lame introductions.  Philippe Gosselin, he of the delayed cold fermentation Baguette a l’Ancienne.  Thin, knobbly baguette sticks with huge airy holes that tastes and feels in the mouth unlike any other baguette I have eaten.  What is cold fermentation you ask?  And how the devil do I know so much about his methods?  First, we have to start from the beginning.

Continue reading ‘Best Baguette? Philippe Gosselin makes my list.’

Just who is Jacques Genin?  For many many years, he had a small little studio of a production space which, when I visited him, had 2 enrobing machines and barely enough space for two people to pass each other sideways.  Today, he finally has his own shop on Rue de Turenne near the metro station Filles du Calvaire.

Having originally been a chef and owning his own restaurant, he fell in love with chocolates and switched to the dark side.  Prior to having his shop, he made chocolates for the best restaurants in Paris and the occasional foodie who knocked on his window.  Finally, after so many years of hearing about him, I finally got to taste his chocolates.  Even though we had spoken a year before at his old production studio, he declined my offer to buy a kilo of caramels and a kilo of chocolates.  This is not a problem now!

10 Euros for a box of 9 chocolates from Jacques Genin seems a little cheap, compared to the prices charged by other ‘big names’.  Packaged in a slick, modern-looking aluminum box with a minimalist design, you wonder if he makes any money at all.  I would have gladly paid 15 Euros for this, considering it is Jacques Genin.

Continue reading ‘Jacques Genin Chocolate Tasting – Part 1′

My first brush with Bernachon chocolates came several years ago in Melbourne, when the chocolate bug bit, and a copy of Bernachon’s ‘Passion for Chocolate’ arrived at the apartment.  Names like Amandine Princess, L’Aveline and Le President stoked the fantasies of a nascent passion for chocolates.

It was only this year, when I got to taste Bernachon chocolates for the first time at the Salon du Chocolat in Tokyo, where their seemingly ‘plain Jane’ Palet d’Or was the most mind blowing chocolate I ate.

Fast forward a few months and I found myself in Paris, with L’Etoile d’Or being the only shop in the world that can retail Bernachon chocolates, I made it the first destination to explore what Denise Acabo’s chocolate world was like.  Let the Maison Bernachon taste experience begin!

Continue reading ‘Bernachon Chocolates, Lyon’

If you have only 2 hours to spare for chocolates in Paris (That is a wasteful sin, by the way), make L’Etoile d’Or your one and only stop.  Just a short walk from the Moulin Rouge (Metro Line 2 – Station Blanche), you will enter a world of some of the best chocolates you can ever find in France.  

Meet the owner and veritable global food celebrity, Denise Acabo.  She’s been in magazines in different languages and she has 2 Japanese assistants to cope with the flood of Japanese tourists.  Besides being highly knowledgeable about chocolates, she stocks chocolates from the best chocolatiers in France (Wait, I said that already!).  Basically, she sells what she herself only likes and she is such a character that she is the only person who sells Bernachon chocolates outside of Maison Bernachon in Lyon.   This was also the reason I paid her a visit.

Continue reading ‘L’Etoile d’Or and Chocolates of France’

If you haven’t heard of Jacques Genin yet, don’t worry, you are not alone as he spent years and years as a reclusive chocolatier making little gems of deliciousness for the bigwigs of French cuisine.  More comfortable out of the limelight in this celebrity-chef driven world, Jacques Genin probably aspires to perfection on his own terms, and this philosophy comes through in his chocolates and desserts.  So, at great risk to personal health and financial well-being, I visited his new shop in Paris and tried some of his desserts.  As you can read, its hard to be snarky and sarcastic when the experience was good!

Continue reading ‘Jacques Genin’s Desserts and Patisserie’