Cooking at pierre

This is my longest break from the blog..I haven't fallen off from the earth nor abandoned this blog for good.. just that work was overloaded and my tiredness has finally kicked in and tore my body apart.

I went on a gastronomic experience with g at pierre two weeks ago. It was supposed to be my bday surprise, of which I do think this is excessively extravagant. Not that many people can afford a hkd>3000 lunch （especially in this current economic environment, even jean georges is offering a $58 4 course dinner!!) nor they care to spend the precious weekend with a celebrity chef. At first I walked in with the guilt of overspending but I ended up having the most fun and enjoyed every second of it!

It was a bit misleading to promote it to be a cooking lesson with Pierre but was actually a cooking demonstration instead. The group involved a couple of japanese country club housewives, food loving couple, and pretentious local girl who is trying hard to climb up the social ladder..a pretty good crowd of professional eaters who had great chats after a few glasses of wine.

We met at 11pm and undoubtedly pierre as a frenchman was fashionably late for 30min, we were greeted by the restaurant manager Herve and Pierre himself and then guided to the kitchen where we were given the MO apron and a notepad for notes taking. On our way to the kitchen our adrenaline was pumped up as we saw a long dining table was beautifully set up with flowers and dining plates...that's how it looks like - the ladies who lunch w/ style and class.

It was a bit disappointing that we didn't get to chop chop chop, it was rather a cooking demonstration than a lesson with pierre gagnaire. anyway, that was fine iwth me that meant we got to have decent food rather than some crappy ones done by the amateurs. It was very interesting to see how pierre cooks, this is such a contrary to a chinese kitchen where people are screaming and swearing to each other and drown with sweats and heat. Everything was at ease and people were happy and chatting at his kitchen, and it was obvious that he was passionate about cooking even though this is his daily routine. Not to meantion the sous chef phillippe and patissier Nicholas were of great help in answering our loads of questions with limited english... and most importantly nicholas is super cute and shy!

Food was amazingly exquisite and the best I have ever had in HK so far. people always criticize the high end restaurants for overpricing and a big portion of the cost is restaurant setting and services. Yes it's true that services and rental are expensive..but it is also very time consuming and complicated to produce something miniscule and insignificant to normal people.

appetizers - in martini glass: champagne jelly and endive mousse with orange sorbet and black truffle; whatever mousse i don't know the name with orange compote.

entree - butter poached sea bass with broccoli and red cabbage puree and a touch of paprika; slow-cook lamb with sweet and sour butternut squash salad.

dessert - apple tart with vanilla cream; strawberry sorbet; coconut ice-cream with passionfruit puree; grapefruit puree

My favorite dish is the lamb dish.. Looks simple but you can't believe the amount of work that put into the lamb. Haha.. i am here to disclose the pierre secret on the web! first using lemon, garlic, orange juice, mint and curry (yes! curry! surprise!) to marinate the lamb overnight, then slowcook with celery, carrots, leeks, laurel, and thyme. For the sauce is the combination of cummin, alise, white pepper, white rice vinegar, sugar and mix with butternut squash to create the salad. The combination of flavors is phenomenal.. that's makes it difficult to describe as something tasty by words, because it would sound gross as sweet and sour and spicy sauce.

For the apple tart, I asked why they didn't put in cinnamon and brown sugar, pierre said it's too arrogant...he seems to despise the american style cooking which makes food rough and unrefined. Coconut ice-cream is a big surprise, i am not a big fan of coconut but this one blew me away.. it doesn't have the asean flavor but very light and fruity to my surprise.

The sommelier pierre served us 2007 sigalas santorini white wine, 2006 Condrieu Les Terrasses du Palat, and another 2004 red which i forgot the name. Love the condrieu.. dry and complex with a lot of spices.


We definitely had our blast at pierre, because as I returned to pierre the next week for a broker's lunch, the whole team was there I was being greeted by the sommelier and servers.. and of course we had our perks of additional amuse buche and free dessert wine...hohoho...=D

For my lunch at pierre the following week, I had foie gras with oyster as appetizer, scallop for entree and 9 conduit (apple sorbet and pistachio cream) for dessert. Love everything offered at pierre.. wouldn't i ask for too much to make myself a regular?...i probably need to make 10x more money in order to do so.