Archive for May, 2008

Buonissimo Restaurant – Chiang Mai, Thailand

Thursday, May 22nd, 2008

111/5 Moo 3, Chiang Mai Prao Road
Tel. (053) 853098-9
Fax: (053) 247346, 849744
Tel. 053-853098-9, 053-849744
Website: http://www.buonissimo.co.th
Opening Hours: 11:30 am – 2:30 pm, 6:30 pm – 10:30 pm
Credit Cards: All Major
Inexpensive – Moderate

The muddy Ping RiverBuonissimo is an Italian restaurant, delicatessen, wine shop and bakery by the Ping River on Faham Road. The main restaurant is outside covered by a huge canopy; there is another section further down on the bank of the river. The most comfortable place to be seated is the small; 50-seat air-conditioned enclosed restaurant that is elevated a few meters above ground level to enable a view of the Ping River.

The owner Sergio, imports products and wines from Italy and sells them to the hotels and other restaurants in Chiang Mai as well as using them for Buonissimo.
The main attraction to dine here is to look at the river while you drink wine from their enormous, mainly Italian, selection of wines. This is probably the best wine list in Chiang Mai and the best pricing I have seen in Thailand due to his being a distributor for wine companies in Bangkok.

All breads and pastas are homemade, and the café deli offers an array of products to take home.
The menu is very extensive as are most of the Italian restaurants in this area.

Riverside Restaurant – Chiang Mai, Thailand

Thursday, May 22nd, 2008

9-11 Charoenrat Road.,
Chiangmai 50000
Tel. 66 5324 3239, 66 5324 6323,
Fax. 66 5324 251
http://www.theriversidechiangmai.com
Opening Hours: 10:00 a.m. – 1:30 a.m.
Credit Cards: All Major
Prices: Inexpensive – Moderate

Riverside Restaurant with view of boat and riverI have been in Chiang Mai in the North of Thailand for a few days, and I will be posting a few restaurants today, predominantly Italian, from the area. The old walled city surrounded by moats is quite attractive although the city itself has grown with little or no planning and is not well laid out, on the other hand, the surrounding countryside and mountains are beautiful.

The Riverside is a crowded restaurant and bar located, as the name suggests, just above the river on two floors with a boat tied up below that you may choose to be seated for the dinner cruise. The 75 minute dinner cruise down the Ping River leaves from our pier at 8 p.m. every night, after boarding the boat at 7:15 you may choose from a wide variety from our regular restaurant menu then enjoy drifting past old temples and houses that lie on the river banks.The place has a pleasant view of Doi Suthep and the old city of Chiang Mai and the river and is quite popular with foreigner tourists. I think you are better off to order from the Thai menu although they have a range of European food.

Riverside always crowdedLater in the evening, they have live music either a guitar duo or a pianist depending on the evening.
Light jazz is performed on Sundays only.

To list a few of the Thai items on an immense menu:
“Kao Soi” (egg noodles in curry with chicken leg Northern Style), Chinese Crab and Pork rolls, Spring Rolls, Crab Rolls, Deep Fried Fresh Squids.

Il Piccolino – West Hollywood

Monday, May 19th, 2008

Il Piccolino Trattoria
350 N Robertson Blvd
West Hollywood, CA 90048
Tel. (310) 659-2220
Credit Cards: All Major
Moderate-Expensive

Eddie Kerkhofs who owned Le Dôme (Now BLT Steak) for many years and Silvio Di Mori who was involved in restaurants Cafe des Artistes & Mimosa among others, joined together and turned a little-known Mexican café on Robertson into a chic meeting place for the Hollywood crowd called Il Piccolino, serving—you guessed it—Italian cuisine.

It is the simple, casual feeling of the place in combination with the long-time restaurant history in L.A. of the two genial owners that attracts an up-scale crowd to Il Piccolino, who would rather spend time here than in the more elaborate and stuffy restaurants in the area that seem to be rapidly disappearing.
At night you can easily find the restaurant, which is hidden by dense foliage that blocks the view of the patio from busy Robertson Blvd, by looking for the hundreds of white, sparkling lights intertwined in the shrubbery.

The food is mainly Italian mixed with a few California-style salads and a few French touches to some of the dishes. Overall, everything comes off well and having dined there once you certainly will return.
They have a good wine list with proper representation of Italian, French and California selections.

In Paris: Takeout Escargots

Monday, May 19th, 2008

Paris: Doreen Carvajal has information on where to buy “Snails To Go”.

La Maison de l’Escargot, with a history dating back to 1894, is located on a tranquil side street of Rue Fondary. There is no longer any competition so the sole survivor in Paris is La Maison l’Escargot.

She says, “I usually buy my escargots from snail farmers at weekend markets. But with an escargot emergency for a celebratory dinner, I ventured out in search of the maison where I half expected to see live snails crawling around in basins and pots of bouillon. Instead I found an airy shop with baskets stocked with two common varieties of wild French snails—bourgogne and petits gris—rated and priced according to different calibers.”

Wine: Good News and Bad News

Monday, May 19th, 2008

Hong Kong has done away with their 40% import duties at the end of February, Thailand should take a hint from this, and reduce their outlandish 400% tax on imported wine, they would sell a much greater quantity of wine and in time, do away with gray market and black market wine trade.

The wine markets have soared as Asian and Russian collectors are hoarding vintage wines. The most disturbing news is that hedge funds, investment banks and others are buying wines to hold and sell at a later date at a higher profit.

Robert Mondavi Dies at 94

Sunday, May 18th, 2008

I remember well when I first met Robert Mondavi, it was at my French restaurant in Hollywood called Au Petit Café. He was visiting all the best restaurants in Los Angeles to promote his own wine from his newly formed Robert Mondavi Winery, after an unhappy break-up from the family business.

Obit MondaviIt was difficult to tell him that I could not put his wine on my list, due to it being a French restaurant, which had an exclusively French wine list with all the best Grand Cru and other top French vintages; and that is what my customers expected. I did however, offer to change my cooking wine and give him that business; you must remember at this point California wine was not recognized as fine wine—and in the future he changed all of this. He did not accept my offer and left very disappointed.

Above: AP Photo (originally provided by Departures Magazine)

I sold his wine years later, including Opus One in my wine bar called Bouchon, in Brentwood CA, where we offered 100 wines by the glass and had many selections of California and other New World wines. I was invited to attended some wine functions at the winery and went on several occasions.

When Robert Mondavi and Baron Phillippe de Rothschild formed a limited partnership to bring out Opus One in 1979, Miklos Dora, then head of world-wide promotion for Mouton Rothschild and I discussed how it might go over with such a large price tag for a wine grown in California. The reality is, It became a big success due in no small part to Robert Mondavi’s unfailing persistence.

He was indeed, a major influence in the California wine industry and my sympathetic thoughts go out to his family and friends.

More Delays for Vache Brasserie – San Francisco

Saturday, May 17th, 2008

I have been patiently anticipating the opening of a French Brasserie on the former site of Prego at 2000 Union Street in Cow Hollow by Bacchus Management (Spruce, etcetera). It was to be called Vache Brasserie, although according to the San Francisco Chronicle and Eater San Francisco it seems certain that there will be more delays and a possible name change might be in store.

Poggio – Sausalito, San Francisco Bay Area

Saturday, May 17th, 2008

777 Bridgeway (at Bay), Sausalito
Tel. (415) 332-7771
http://www.poggiotrattoria.com
Breakfast 6:30-10:30 a.m. daily
lunch and dinner 11:30 a.m. – 10 p.m. Sunday-Thursday
11:30 a.m. – 11 p.m. Friday-Saturday
Credit Cards: All Major
Valet parking
Prices: Moderate

Photo below: Larry Mindel, Owner & former chef Christopher Fernandez. Chef Peter McNee who was sous chef is now the chef. (photo credit: San Francisco Chronicle photo by Chris Stewart)

Owner Larry Mindel and Chef Christopher Fernandez, Photo Chris Stewart SF ChronicleI enjoyed an excellent repast, in a location idyllic for a restaurant—the Casa Madrona Hotel with windows that face onto the street and the bay beyond, and on the hillside above they tend an organic garden in a terraced plot overlooking the little town of Sausalito.
I was not surprised to find out that Poggio was the inspiration of Larry Mindel as it had all the earmarks to be one of his concepts, as I have followed his career from Ciao to Prego and on through the Il Fornaio years. In 1980, I was one of the three founding partners of the original Cruvinet Wine Preserving System and responded to an inquiry from his company, Spectrum Group; I met Mr. Mindel in his restaurant MacArthur Park in Palo Alto where I spent a few hours trying to convince him to buy a Cruvinet. He was very discerning, examining every aspect of the sales and technical data with more discussions continuing over the following weeks, before he finally bought one to test it in one of his restaurants. His company bought many more over the five years I was involved in Cruvinet.
As for the menu at Poggio (place in the hills) try any of the meat dishes cooked in the wood-burning oven, all pasta creations are also meticulously prepared and a marinated beet salad, with arugula and ricotta was as refreshing as it was well put-together.
We tried many different tasting glasses of different wines both large and small from their assortment. It was a good way to try different wines paired with each dish, similar to the Cruvinet without the machine. The wine list offers a good selection of Italian wines with many choices of well-known and some lesser-known wines in various regions of Italy and prices are realistic.

No Robuchon in Bangkok

Saturday, May 17th, 2008

A rumor was circulating a few weeks ago that Joël Robuchon would open a restaurant sometime this year in Bangkok. This has been denied by his assistant?

Gordon Ramsay, Michel Richard, Tod English Open in L.A.

Friday, May 16th, 2008

Gordon Ramsay will open his restaurant in Los Angeles in the London Hotel, formerly the Bel Age sometime in May or June according to press releases. Also, in the news: it is possible that he might open a second restaurant in L.A. in joint-venture with David and Victoria Beckham while three of his restaurants have been shut in the past six months. . .

My friend of many years, Michel Richard, has opened a restaurant in Los Angeles called Citrus at Social located on the site of the former Hollywood Athletic Club. He also owns Citronelle in Washington D.C. and a new casual-style operation called Central in Washington D.C. both of which are doing extremely well. He will not be moving to Los Angeles quite yet but will monitor the new restaurant by visiting himself or sending a chef monthly to check on the operation. . .

On Hollywood Blvd and Ivar Tod English’s new Latin-style restaurant Beso, helped out by heavy, publicity hype due to the involvement of investor Eva Longoria (Desperate Housewives) is opening to lukewarm – to really “horrible” reviews.