A traveling foodie's gastronomic diary from around the world...

Monday, August 13, 2012

L'Arnsbourg (Baerenthal, FRANCE) ★★★★★

What a difference 24 hours have made. Yesterday around the same time, we were still indulging ourselves in the classical French recipes of L'Auberge de l'ill near River L'ill. But very quickly today we found ourselves in the remote Baerenthal searching for a more innovative and unconventional French cuisine at L'Arnsbourg.

Under the guidance of Grand Chef Jean Georges Klein, L'Arnsbourg has been a 3-star Michelin establishment since 2002. The restaurant along with Hotel K, was hidden in the Baerenthal forest where even our GPS did not have coverage.

Collection Amuses

Amuse bouche was a collection of small nibbles starting with a cherry pastry and a cracker with eel fish and sliced apple. A bit of acidity to get our adrenaline going.

The next one was a spoonful of liquor and apple sorbet, following by a bread topped with smoked mackerel fish that was pretty nicely executed.

Finally, there was a baked egg yolk with bites of ginger to wrap up the amuse bouche portion of the meal. This was definitely one of the most impressive array of amuse bouche we have ever experienced (if not the best).

Variation of corn

Next up was the "Variation of Corn". In all honesty, we had no clue what would be coming up by looking at this topic. But as it turned out very much like our amuse bouche, it came with a trio of dishes labeled with the "sweet corn" theme.

The first dish was something they called "popcorn with goose liver" - a small bag of sweet corn roasted with goose liver flavor. It was interesting to note that the sweetness of corn actually worked pretty well with goose liver.

Then, there was this little dish with noodle, sweet corn, chicken, sesame and vinegar. Very Japanese. And last by not least, a corn sorbet with yogurt foam to get our palates ready for the next starter.

While we were still waiting for our next starter to show up, the restaurant manager came and asked if we liked oysters. We nodded and all of a sudden, he brought us a "bonus dish" which was a fresh local oyster with cherry mousse and a ball of sour cream. I am not an expert in oysters but this one was very nice and sweet in taste.

"Olympics 2012" Goose Liver
So after some seven or eight dishes, our first "real" appetizer finally came and it was gold, I meant gold-medal gold!

It was a goose liver terrine made into the shape and design of a 2012 Olympic gold medal. The surface of the "medal" was made with nut cream to form the engraving of the London Olypmpics logo. They were so attentive to details that even the ribbon and decorations were presented beautifully. This was simply a piece of creative art!

And the result was a silky smooth terrine served with a comforting strawberry purée. This was an amazing dish with a fantasic presentation.

Seabass, ginger hollandaise sauce, exotic citrus fruits vinegar

Our fish dish was a seabass pan-fried in a surprising lemon and orange flavored oil. The key was really the special oil that provided an extra orange fragrance for the seabass making it particularly tasty and unique. It was perfectly complemented with a nice mashed potato, ginger bites and sea garlic purée.

All around the Tomato

Before our other main courses came, the kitchen served up a change of pace for us with a tomato course. Very much like the previous "sweet corn" themed course, this one was all about tomato, different kinds of tomato.

There was a small portion of a green tomato, tomato with avocado cream, sugar tomato, tomato with cheese, cherry tomato, tomato confit etc. I am not a huge fan of tomato but this one I found quite refreshing.

Our server hinted he would have a surprise for us but needed to wait until we finished our tomatoes. When we were done, he suddenly removed the plate and hidden underneath was a lasagna made of tomato skin served with pine nuts, parmesan cheese, eggplant and spinach. It was very rich in taste indeed.

Blue lobster, carrots bonbon, rice foam and passion fruit

We were now down to our final two main courses. The first was a blue lobster served with a passion fruit jelly and rice foam. I have never came across a blue lobster that I didn't like in my life but this one was surely a subpar effort. I did not enjoy the passion fruit jelly with the lobster at all.

Roasted pigeon breast, reduced jus with jasmine, morello cherry and hazelnut

The meat dish was a pigeon breast served with hazelnut cream, cherry mousse and goose liver parfait. I thought the pigeon breast was a bit on the hard side and did not have the rich flavor one would expect from a pigeon. The sauce was decent but not overly impressive.

Potato and truffle cappaccino
Imagine mixing potato soup and coffee together. Did not finish this one.

The Dessert Collection
We moved forward to the dessert courses and first up was a tart of strawberry pudding accompanied by a herb ice-cream. Perfectly refreshing after a rather heavy meal.

Less impressive was a peach sorbet in a fruit foam atop with some cous cous style crackers.

Then we were presented with a nice-looking petite four. The star-shaped marshmallow was the best of the bunch there. And when we turned to look at the clock, it was already 5:30pm! What a long lunch it was.....

Apart from the high-quality haunte cuisine we already expected from L'Arnsbourg, the team here also did an incredible job of setting the pace on delivering our food (It's not easy to handle 12-13 courses all together) one by one. Everytime when we started craving for more, the next course seemed to arrive just in the nick of time.

Food Rating: 10/10

Price: €€€€

Address: 18 Untermuhlthal, 57230 Baerenthal, France
Tel: +33 3 8706-5085

Website: www.arnsbourg.com

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Saturday, August 11, 2012

L'Alsace à Table (Strasbourg, FRANCE) ★★★☆☆

We didn't have time for a long dinner tonight so the plan was to slowly walk back to our hotel with hope of finding a casual diner for a quick meal and call it the night. Next thing we knew, we were walking along Rue des Francs-Bourgeois, one of the main roads in central Strasbourg. From there, Jelloman suddenly spotted a chef opening up fresh oysters in the open kitchen of a French bistro called L'Alsace à Table.

We decided that French oysters would be too good to turn down so we came right in. But an interesting situation was about to develop.

An older gentleman wearing a big smile came up to serve us; but just one problem here. He speaks fluent French and some German but very limited English. And since the food menu was written in French only, it presented us with a huge problem. How do we order from the menu?

After a few rounds of exchange (including some body language) without success, our server suddenly thought of a way. He took off and returned with this......a French-English dictionary! Finally, we were able to order albeit there was a bit of effort involved (with the translating).

Thank goodness we got this one right. 6x Fine De Claire oysters n°4. We forgot to ask about the origin but at this point, we didn't really care. Briny!

Next up was ham and melon, served with a small garden green on top. I haven't had a proper salad all week so this was a nice start to the meal for me.

Pan-seared French duck breast with cherry. There was something I love about the texture and flavor of French duck that I could never put into words.

Jelloman had a small pasta dish with prawns and tomatoes, tossed in a homemade pesto. And by the time we finished up on our main dishes, it was almost 11:30pm!

Couldn't believe it was already midnight when we walked past Place Kléber, Strasbourg's main square. Luckily, there're only 5 more minutes to go before we reached our hotel.

Food Rating: 5/10

Price: €€

Address: 8 Rue des Francs-Bourgeois, 67000 Strasbourg, France

Tel: +33 (0)3 8832-5062

Website: www.alsace-a-table.fr

Sofitel Strasbourg Grande Ile (Strasbourg, FRANCE)

We spent a few hours in the historic centre of Riquewihr tasting wines from different vineyards and by the time we finally drove over to Strasbourg, our final destination of day, it was already starting to get dark (Almost).

We are spending tonight here at Sofitel Strasbourg Grande Ile, a nice 5-star hotel in the heart of Strasbourg but first, we needed to solve the problem of parking first.

As the hotel didn't have its own parking facility, we had to park in front of the neighboring Église protestante Saint-Pierre-le-Jeune. But on a Saturday evening, hopefully no one would notice.

The hotel lobby was a very modern and spacious one but surprisingly, not a single soul here.

I wasn't happy about them putting us on the second floor but the front desk guy said that's the only room they could find with twin beds.

The room turned out to be really small. I could hardly have enough space to work the luggage around but the bathroom was much more reasonably sized.

They have a custom sized tub built into the bathroom. Full marks for their effort for fitting everything into the modestly sized bathroom; but they should have done the same for the bedroom.

Strasbourg is a walking city that is small enough to navigate by foot. The Cathedral, one of Strasbourg's main attractions is just a comfortable 8-minute walk from our hotel.

The beautiful canals and scenic viewpoints were also not far off.

Of course, the area called Petite France, a historic quarter of the city with all the narrow streets and half-timbered houses built in the late fifteenth century, is the crown jewel of Strasbourg. Sadly, there wasn't much daylight left when we got to Le Petite France. We only managed a few shots and was forced to leave when it got all dark.

Our 36 hours in Alsace region is about to draw to a close. We like what we see so far so I am already jotting this down as a destination for a more in-depth tour in the future.

Rating: ❤❤❤

Price: €€€

Address: Place Saint Pierre Le Jeune, 67000 Strasbourg, France

Tel: +33 (0)3 8815-4900

Website: www.sofitel-strasbourg.com/en/

Au Petit Délice (Riquewihr, FRANCE) ★★★☆☆

The fame of the Riquewihr village mainly came from its vineyards but we were pleasantly surprised to find other elements of interest during this brief visit. That included something less familar to us - the traditional coconut macaron.

Arriving at Au Petit Délice in Riquewihr, we couldn't help but marvel at all these wonderfully decorated traditional macarons in different colors.

We are more accustomed to the double-decked macarons these days but this traditional coconut macaron recipe must have to go way back.

The taste was quite different from the double deckers. Amazingly, it tasted a lot like our Chinese style coconut tart.

Food Rating: 4/10

Price: €€

Address: 45 Rue du Général de Gaulle, Riquewihr, France

L'Auberge de l'ill (Illhaeusern, FRANCE) ★★★★★

Our 36 hours in Alsace France started off with a delightful lunch at the L'Auberge de l'ill. After a 2.5 hour drive from Stuttgart, we finally made it to Illhaeusern, a beautiful little town in Eastern France near River L’ill. From the restaurant's parking lot, we saw license plates from different European countries (Germany, Italy, Switzerland etc). Gourmets from the European Union seemed to be well-represented here.

L'Auberge de l'ill has garnered 3 Michelin stars since 1967 and has one of the longest streak of three stars, only second to Paul Bocuse. It has been run by the Haeberlin family since 1878, almost 150 years and counting. That was an amazing history on its own.

The restaurants are divided into three separate dining rooms with three different themes. You won't find any innovative French dishes around here, only classic French cuisine.

Amuse bouche of the day was an Asian style shrimp tempura served in a light curry sauce. A little bit boring. Is that a sign of things to come?

My starter was a lobster served in a minestrone soup. The broth was surprisingly light and that was a great complement to the fresh lobster.

The other starter was one of the restaurant's specialities, a goose foie gras terrine. Our server took two large slabs or scoops of freshly made foie gras pate from a pint and put them alongside a sweet fig puree. That was a lovely dish. The foie gras was silky smooth and had a great balance of liquor to add to the flavour.

Salmon soufflé, another house specialty was picked as my fish course. Fresh salmon fillet topped with a thick layer of cheese soufflé, then served with a beurre blanc, tomato puree and puff pastry. This was brilliant and from someone who rarely eats fish, that speaks volume.

Paled in comparison was the other fish course, a baked st-pierre fillet on a bed of green peas and tomato.

The meat courses arrived and I had the roasted veal served with a toast of tomato and mozzarella and its own juice. Another disappointing dish.

We had the pigeon stuffed with black truffle and foie gras as the other meat course. That was another very nice dish. The combination of several flavourful ingredients posed a sharp contrast to our palates.

Dessert and petit four wrapped up a wonderful culinary journey. We also took the opportunity to have a warm coffee at the outdoor terrace overlooking River L’ill. That was priceless. (Actually there was a price. €121 per head to be exact.)