Raclette dinner and Comté - Chateauform De-Mareil-Le-Guyon, near Paris

Add: Chateauform De-Mareil-Le-Guyon - 78490 MAREIL-LE-GUYON, France
Tel: +33 1 34 57 08 40
Web: http://www.chateauform.com
GPS:
N 48° 47' 23"
E 1° 51' 5"

We indulged in wonderful french cheese all week - Both at lunch as well as dinner time! I slowly learned over the week that my favourite was Gruyère de Comté :-)

Some facts from Wikipedia ... Comté is a French cheese made from unpasteurized cow's milk in the Franche-Comté region of eastern France. Comté has the highest production of all French AOC cheeses, around 40,000 tonnes annually.

 

A raclette is both a type of cheese and a Swiss dish based on heating the cheese and scraping off (racler) the melted part.
This was our wonderful dinner on the penultimate night of our seminar :-) A wonderful communal-eating experience!

 

 

A modern way of serving raclette involves an electric table-top grill with small pans, known as coupelles, to heat slices of raclette cheese in. Generally the grill is surmounted by a hot plate or griddle. The cheese is brought to the table sliced, accompanied by platters of boiled or steamed potatoes, other vegetables and charcuterie. These are then mixed with potatoes and topped with cheese in the small, wedge-shaped coupelles that are placed under the grill to melt and brown the cheese...

 

Kronenbourg 1664, good ol' french beer!

 

If you are lucky enough to enjoy the hospitality of a Chateauform, you will have the privilege of having an open-bar, free-flow of wines, spirits and all other wonderful beverages!

 

Transit plays at Zeta Bar - KL Hilton

Its been a while since I partied at KL Hilton ... A few of us Oldhamites gathered in Kuala Lumpur for E+J's big day, and celebrated the wonderful event with a night out at Zeta :-)

KL Hilton

Add: 3 Jalan Stesen Sentral, Kuala Lumpur Sentral

Tel: +603 2264 2264

Opening hours: 8pm - 3am 

  

Zeta has always had good bands ... Transit was no different, they rocked the house!
Transit's season at Zeta this year: 02 Jul 2012 - 29 Sep 2012
Timings: Fri-Sat, 10:15pm - 2:15am (They also play on Tues-Thurs)

A Michael Jackson impersonator runs onto the stage - The security team tried to remove him, but Transit kept the fella on the stage!

Is that Pit Bull? Haha...

The band played all the latest hits ... and the crowd loved it!

 

Transit is made up of ...

Leader - Bassist and lead singer, John Deschenes

Backup vocals - Jehan El-Dabbagh, with Lafonda Jackson

Keyboard - Andrea Spolti

Lead guitar - Francois “Frank” Pellerin

Drums - Justin Jackson

 

Hakkasan - My birthday at Emirates Palace

Add: Hakkasan Abu Dhabi - Emirates Palace, West Corniche Road, Abu Dhabi

Tel: +971 2 690 7999

Location: Google Map

 

 

Sweet and sour chicken with pomegranate - Very delicious!

Hakka beancurd with chicken and prawn in black bean sauce - Our fave dish of the night!

Stir-fried Wagyu beef cheek with Schezwan peppers - Beef cheek, especially when its from Wagyu beef, is very smooth, and this dish did not dissapoint too!

Crab meat and dried scallop fried rice - Surprisingly generous helping, we managed to scoop about 6 bowls from the big serving!

My 50 AED (RM$40) Lychee Martini - Very potent, but could have been served much colder!

Thanks bbG for the wonderful birthday treat :-) Overall - A great experience, in what is a rather special restaurant, serving some decent halal cantonese cuisine with a slight twist. The meal, with one drink for each of us, came up to 580 AED or RM$480. Not cheap, but it is afterall a branch of the famed London Michelin-starred Hakkasan!

Amarone Bottega - Italian red wine

Thanks for the treat, Ron :-) Oldham Hall mini-reunion in Abu Dhabi, over many glasses of red and the incomparable Infernal Affairs 1 and 3 on DVD!

Description from Wikipedia ... Amarone della Valpolicella, usually known as Amarone, is a typically rich Italian dry red wine made from the partially dried grapes of the Corvina (40% – 70%), Rondinella (20% – 40%) and Molinara (5% – 25%) varieties.

Evans & Tate - Margaret River Chardonnay 2008

Jes' farewell dinner :-( last night ... I opened a bottle of wine I had been saving for over a year now, Evans&Tate Margaret River Chardonnay, 2008. It was worth the wait, beautifully balanced and utterly refreshing.

Along with Cloudy Bay from Marlborough in New Zealand, and Shaw&Smith M3 from Adelaide, this ranks amongst my favourite white wines.
Website: Margaret River - Evans & Tate

Curry Laksa - Home cooked treat in Abu Dhabi

Here are some shots from DL's kitchen ... Looks firey!

Beautifully plated, and it tasted EVEN better. So good, I had two huge portions :-)

The Curry Laksa went perfectly with the Korean beer OK served us, and we loved the leng-chee kang style dessert too ... What a wonderful treat, thanks guys!

Macallan 21 Years - Chinese New Year 2012

More memories of Chinese New Year from our recent trip home in Malaysia ...


Macallan Fine Oak - 21 Years ... revisited. First time I enjoyed this wonderful brew? Hong Kong :-) with TC, 14 months ago!

Ahh... I still remember ... the Macallan 30 I had in HK. But this 21 was special, very special. Enjoyed on a chilled out afternoon in TC's family home in KL, shared between 3 buddies. Gong Hey Fatt Choy!

Hendrick's Gin and Satay at home

What does Chinese New Year / CNY involve in our household ...

(1) Good alcohol - My 1st experience with non-Tanqueray / non-Bombay gin, bought a bottle of Hendrick's from Abu Dhabi Duty Free. Cost about 140 AED or RM$110, similarly priced to the magnificent Tanqueray Ten. Here's a nice article from The Star, Malaysia which describes how it is infused with essence of cucumber and Bulgarian rose petals!


(2) Damn good food - Here's some satay that Y-man personally brought over to our home. Slurrrrrps. Perfect with some good whiskey and gin!


(3) Family and friends ... and gambling :-) Photos will not be posted to protect the innocent!

Volvo Ocean Race : Destination Village - The yachts are here!

Hello from the Destination Village, here are my photos from a Friday outing (6th January) with DS and MD, along with my Nikon D7000. Its free, so I do hope many Abu Dhabians and Dubai-ans drop by!

25 AED or RM$20 for a Fosters, Stella or Warsteiner ... good value :-)

Sure I have always wanted a Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II AF-S but what I have is a AF-S Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G which is 7 times cheaper, and does a great job for me in reasonable light and is significantly lighter as well. Its got a decent build quality, along with ED, and heck its even got VR 2, I can't quite ask for more!

Some shots at mid-range to maximum zoom of the dragon-boaters ...

Hello Abu Dhabi!

Finally, we found the yachts. They were located behind the main stage.

Up close ...

I loved the view from the viewing platform, which is about 8 metres up in the air.

High up in the air!

Team Azzam v Team Telefonica :-)

A great family day out :-)

Observed Team Azzam doing some sail maintenance as I was leaving ... Good luck guys!