simon says french food blog

Taste of Amsterdam

By Mara Grimm

 

The most delicious way to kick off the summer is by attending Taste of Amsterdam this weekend. After the success of Taste of London, Taste of Sydney and Taste of Capetown, now Amsterdam’s top chefs will get a chance to show off their best tricks at the food fair in the city’s Amstelpark.

Expect lots of stands where you can sample signature dishes, participate in wine tastings and cooking demonstrations, and stroll through a fine food market. Last night's opening was extremely promising: tons of chefs, producers and even more food lovers enjoying sun, wines and sophisticated dishes.

The highlights? Toscanini’s chef Leonardo Pacenti’s razor clams with potatoes, chef Ron Blaauw's ** soft shell crab tempura with sweet & sour vegetables and of course the vertical (!) Petrus wine tasting on Sunday where five years of Petrus will be compared, attended by winemaker Olivier Berrouet. Who said festivals are only fun for teenagers?

www.tasteofamsterdam.com

Mara Grimm is the editor of Holland's biggest restaurant guide: Lekker. She also writes about new restaurants, shops and culinary trends in Delicious Magazine and has a monthly column on kids and food.

Tattoolicious

By Mara Grimm

In his constant search to integrate different art forms, Holland’s best chef Sergio Herman has come up with edible tattoos. The tattoos will be served as desserts in his restaurant Oud Sluis (***Sluis, The Netherlands) for the rest of the year and are the product of a collaboration with legendary tattoo artist Henk Schiffmacher, famous for the tattoos he did for Nirvana, Pearl Jam and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Herman and Schiffmacher designed two tattoos, a heart for female guests and a naked breast for the males, and had a mold maker turn them into silicon molds so chocolate mousse could be pored into them. The result is suprisingly refined in both taste and appearance, smooth and light in the mouth.  Its delicate chocolate flavour with subtle citrus tones and just a hint of pepper is yet more proof that no one in the world masters the sweet-sour balance better than Herman. It's just too bad the taste doesn’t last as long as a real tattoo. www.oudsluis.nl

Mara Grimm is the editor of Holland's biggest restaurant guide: Lekker. She also writes about new restaurants, shops and culinary trends in Delicious Magazine and has a monthly column on kids and food.

Ceci n’est pas une huître

By Mara Grimm

Is it an herb? Is it a drug? Or is it the newest molecular gimmick? When I first tried one of these thick but perfectly smooth leaves at a party last month I wasn’t quite sure what to think because, quite surprisingly, it tasted exactly like an oyster. Happily, I was not the only one thinking this was too good to be true.

Ferran Adrià from El Bulli (***Rosas, Spain) told me that he serves these so called Oyster Leaves with two pearls of vinaigrette on top, and his guests are so surprised by the taste they think Ferran has come up with a new trick once again. The opposite is true.

The Oyster Leaf is all natural. It has its origin in the Hebrides, North-Scotland, but is now grown by Koppert Cress, a Dutch company that specializes in micro-vegetables. At first, owner Rob Baan grew the leaves exclusively for El Bulli, but he’s decided it’s now time for the rest of the world to share in the joy of eating vegetarian oysters.

Serve them as Ferran does, or as I did last night: on crushed ice with bread, butter and a glass of Chablis. Miss the feeling of a real oyster gently sliding down your throat? Then get some real oysters instead and use the leaves thinly sliced in fish dishes or, since it’s the season, on asparagus.
Check out www.koppertcress.nl for more.

Mara Grimm is the editor of Holland's biggest restaurant guide: Lekker. She also writes about new restaurants, shops and culinary trends in Delicious Magazine and has a monthly column on kids and food.

The most expensive potato in the world

By Mara Grimm

 

After working for seven years as a food editor, hardly any restaurant bill surprises me anymore.

But when I heard somebody paid 500 euros for a kilogram of potatoes I was in complete shock. And in desperate need of a taste. The miniature potato La Bonnotte is number 5 on the list of ‘the most expensive foods in the world’, next to saffron, truffle and caviar. It is cultivated exclusively on the Isle of Noirmoutier, where seaweed is added to the soil in which it’s grown. The result is a potato with a complex flavor that includes hints of lemon, earth and, of course, the sea. To make La Bonnotte even more exotic, it’s available only from May 1st to May 10th, and the local farmers produce not more then 20,000 kilos annually.

This explains the ridiculous pricing (actually the €500 turned out to be a one-time amount; at a local delicacy shop you can expect to pay around €70 per kilo), and why La Bonnotte hardly ever leaves France. So is all this just smart marketing or is this really the most special potato in the world? Dutch chef Jos de Groot of Rotterdam’s newest high-end restaurant VIS was so intrigued by La Bonnotte that he drove all the way to Noirmoutier to get some and then invited me for a four course press lunch. Jos served La Bonnotte as chips with a seaweed mayonnaise as an amuse bouche. Then he roasted them and topped them with vongole, crème fraîche and caviar. He also turned La Bonnotte into a delicate mousseline that paired well with super fresh coquilles, asparagus and lemon mayonnaise.

But my personal favorite was a dish with a fondant of La Bonnotte combined with lobster, sea fennel and the Italian sausage stolghino di culatello: an elegant dish in which both land and sea were in perfect harmony. And that’s exactly what La Bonnotte is all about.

You can try La Bonnotte until May 15^th in French top restaurants and in The Netherlands at De Librije (*** Zwolle), Le Ciel Blue (**Amsterdam),'t Brouwerskolkje (**Overveen), De Bokkedoorns (** Overveen) and Savelberg (* Voorburg).

Mara Grimm is the editor of  Holland's biggest restaurant guide: Lekker. She also writes about new restaurants, shops and culinary trends in Delicious Magazine and has a monthly column on kids and food.

Three star take-out

By Mara Grimm 

A great idea from an even greater chef: Alain Passard of the restaurant L’Arpege (*** Paris) now makes pastry for take-out. We’re not talking about your ordinary tart, but an innovation that has all the potential for becoming a new French classic: tarte aux pommes Bouquet de Roses. This elegant apple tart consists of sliced and blanched strips of apple rolled into the shape of roses and arranged in a thin pastry shell. Each tart is comprised of about 35 flowers, so it actually looks like a real bouquet.  The result is subtle, fresh, light and – thank God – not too sweet. The King of Vegetables himself calls it ‘a tart, a dessert, but also a way to express love’. We just call it the best bouquet of flowers we’ve ever received. How does it work? Just order by phone and pick up your tart 24 hours later. Prices start at €25,-.  www.alain-passard.com

Mara Grimm is the editor of  Holland's biggest restaurant guide: Lekker. She also writes about new restaurants, shops and culinary trends in Delicious Magazine and has a monthly column on kids and food.