Business Times - 21 Feb 2009
Star attractions
The Raffles Grill's guest chefs Bruno Menard and Maria Luisa Valazza boast no less than six Michelin stars between them. By Jaime Ee
YOU know the culinary calendar has kicked off for sure once the Raffles Hotel's annual food and wine experience gets into gear around February. Now in its 14th year, the hotel hasn't lost its ability to attract multi-Michelin-starred chefs to Singapore to cook at the stately Raffles Grill.
This year, there are a few new faces - a nice change from seeing the usual suspects like Alain Passard, Charlie Trotter or Santi Santamaria gracing one gourmet festival after another. While it would have been nice to see a mega-headliner like, say, Thomas Keller (who was the star of last year's event), three-Michelin-starred Bruno Menard and Maria Luisa Valazza are no pushovers either.
Bruno Menard
At two separate lunches this week, Menard of the three-star L'Osier in Tokyo showed what a French chef who finds himself in a country surrounded by bountiful produce can do, while Valazza focused simply on transporting guests to her little village of Sorriso in Italy's Piedmont region.
The result was a nice contrast of modern and traditional - nothing particularly mindblowing but all easy on the palate. Menard, for example, is a master of flavour and technique, evidenced in his amuse bouche of light-as-air whipped foie gras topped with pistachio cream and sorrel espuma, and crunchy croutons to give the frothy combination some bite.
He also lets the succulence of barely cooked langoustine flesh dominate his starter, punctuating the mild flavour with a line of leek cream and briny caviar, and a dab of nori-infused pistachio pesto on the side. The combination of seaweed and pistachio would sound weird on paper, but on the tongue the nutty, briny combination seemed almost natural. One can imagine how much better this dish would taste were it served on his home turf in Tokyo, with freshly caught langoustines.
Menard's skill with flavour came through again with the second course of just-cooked ocean trout served with macadamia 'hummus' - the richness perfectly cut through with 'pralines' of argan olive oil and a citrusy-chocolate 'sauce' made with the Japanese sudachi fruit (see recipe on Page 8). The jolt of flavour woke up the taste buds and showed off Menard's skill at flavour-pairing, not unlike the dish's pairing with a light red wine - Domaine Ponsot's Vielles Vignes 2000 - instead of conventional white.
The main course of roasted squab was more conventionally French, except for the wasabi-black-sesame-breadcrumb crust that kept the meat beautifully tender and rare. Even his pre-desserts showed elaborate flavour detail - a cube of blue cheese served with a piece of banana and wafer-thin slice of spice bread and a mouth-puckering grapefruit sorbet offset with sweet jelly bits and crunchy candy.
His main dessert was a cute take on the Japanese penchant for cream cheese buns. Playfully named 'chocolate burger', a sponge cake ball was split and filled with fromage blanc and chocolate bits - more fun than substance.
Maria Luisa Valazza
Lunch with Maria Luisa Valazza - the first Italian woman to be awarded three Michelin stars - was devoid of whimsy and was all about down-to-earth cooking.
Valazza's cuisine is perhaps a stripped down Italian mama kind of cooking - all the depth of flavour but with a lighter, modern touch. A whole langoustine is displayed complete with head and pincers in a smooth bed of borlotti bean puree enhanced with just a hint of seafood essence for a satisfying starter.
This was followed by two perfect ravioli stuffed with shredded duck, topped with a slice of black truffle and a wafer-thin slice of cooked apple - the natural tart-sweetness of the apple took the edge off the strong duck flavour, while the poppy seed-studded ravioli pasta was spot on in thickness and texture. It was well matched with a Chateau Figeac 1985 red - its soft tannins enhancing the richness of the dish.
The main course of veal tenderloin was an exercise in classicism - take a perfect specimen of meat, so tender that your knife goes through with barely any effort, roast it with a herb-breadcrumb topping and spoon red wine sauce over it. Instead of mashed potato, just a mound of baked mashed jerusalem artichoke will do. The result? Simple, basic goodness.
The ubiquitous warm chocolate cake gets a makeover in Valazza's hands - a pale baked confection oozes a hazelnut and pear flavoured chocolate sauce, which is matched well with the spicy gingery cardamon sauce.
No surprises, just well executed food. Do you need three stars to do this? Well, it's about the overall experience and one reckons this is a super-simplified version of what you would get at Valazza's restaurant in Sorriso, surrounded by the verdant countryside of Piedmont.
As it is with all visiting chefs, it's not about reproducing the three-star dining experience here. That's impossible. But as a taste of what gastronomic delights await you, you may well be persuaded to book your next flight out to Tokyo or Piedmont.
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