GASTRONOMY

 

Mumm champagne presents gourmet-journeys.com

In keeping with the founders’ taste for adventure, Mumm champagne is launching today a new website with a unique perspective on gastronomy and design.

Gourmet-Journeys.com presents a journey around the globe in some of the world’s most vibrant cities for gourmets: St. Petersburg, Paris, New York, Tokyo and Seville.

French chef Frederick e. Grasser Herme has devised a range of exquisite menus that reveal the world’s culinary variety

and G.H. MUMM’s Cellar Master, Didier Mariotti, pairs each dish in the menu with the appropriate Champagne from the G.H.Mumm stable.

The latest trends in entertaining and furniture design are illustrated in settings to make the most of your gourmet experience.

Menu recipes, music, video-art wallpapers and exclusive shopping tips are all available for download as part of a playfully luxurious tool kit designed by G.H.Mumm.

 

Heart Watermelon

 

Issimo, JIA Shanghai Goes Express

Like the boutique hotel in which it resides, Issimo in JIA Shanghai has all the trappings of a designer’s showpiece.

The woodsy theme of this Italian restaurant is matched with mirrored staircases, hammered copper walls, antlered-shaped sculptures, Tom Dixon lighting shades and Jaime Hayon lamps.

However, to preserve the eclectic mix of the old and new (as JIA does so seamlessly), founding chef Salvatore Cuomo has shipped in a wood-fired copper-clad pizza oven from his native Italy.

The posh interiors belie the casual fare that’s served up by the culinary team of Enzo Carbone and William di Nardo – just plain authentic Italian pizzas done the Neapolitan way.

Celebrating its one-year anniversary, Issimo will launch a special set lunch menu targeted at busy diners from March 1 all through to May, starting from 88 RMB. Called the ‘Expressimo’, the menu includes salad, pasta and of course, pizzas, rounded off by Illy coffee – an Italian favorite.

 

If in the event you can spare a couple more minutes after lunch, make your way to the Anti-Bar area and order one of their signature cocktails. Or you can return with your entire family come weekend for a Sundissimo. That’s the Italian idea of “a long Sunday lunch”.

 

 

World's Most Expensive Tongue Insured for £10 million

The phrase “it’s a matter of taste” takes on a whole new meaning and perspective when applied to Gennaro Pelliccia, chief coffee taster in a coffee company based in the UK.

That’s because Pelliccia’s employers, Costa Coffee, have taken out a £10 million insurance policy on his tongue at Lloyd's of London.

Costa Coffee took the unprecedented move after results of a recently published research listed Costa’s cappuccino as the preferred choice among Britons, ahead of Starbucks and Nero, with 7 in 10 coffee lovers surveyed rooting for Costa’s cappuccino. 

This effectively makes Pelliccia, Costa’s Italian Master of Coffee, the undisputed “champion taster”, as he is responsible for tasting every single batch of raw coffee beans that leaves the company’s roastery in Lambeth, London. That translates to 108 million cups of Costa Coffee in Britain and around the world each year.

 

Said Pelliccia: "In my profession, my tastebuds and sensory skills are crucial. My 18 years of experience enable me to distinguish between thousands of flavors.  My tastebuds also allow me to distinguish any defects, which enable me to protect and guarantee Costa's unique Mocha Italia blend."

Considering that the average human tongue has about 10,000 taste buds, and Pelliccia probably has more tastebuds than the average person, each taste bud in Pelliccia's tongue is probably worth £1,000.

 

 

 

 

 

Tokyo's Inakaya Opens At The Times, NY

Popular Japanese robatayaka (Japanese barbecue house) can now be savored at The New York Times building, following the official opening of Inakaya New York last week.  

Inakaya NY is the first overseas outpost of the original Inakaya in Tokyo’s most exclusive address, Roppongi.  Their specialty grilled dishes are served with quality ingredients, boasting fresh produce, meats and fish, with their signature dish being the $65 Kinki fish, flown in from Japan’s famed Tsukiji Market everyday.

Delicacies are not the only attractions at Inakaya, for the atmosphere at the restaurant is also unique to its own, featuring raucous staffers and grill chefs who yell out orders and serve doled upon large paddles.

With all that going on in a 19-foot ceiling and 3000 square foot space, Inakaya New York is definitely not a place to enjoy a quiet, romantic evening but a venue priding itself on the authentic, rowdy Japanese robatayaka experience.

 

Completing this exotic dining experience is their daily mochi-pounding ceremony, where lucky diners would be chosen for this traditional Japanese exercise, where sticky rice are pounded repeatedly into balls on a giant mortar and pestle.  Remember to bring a pair of ear-plugs.

 

 

Chocolate Easter Egg Academy at The St. Regis Singapore

By JULIET HUANG

This Easter, "enrol" your children at the Chocolate Easter Egg Academy at The St. Regis Singapore. 

Under the expert guidance of Executive Chef Frédéric Colin, your children will get to exercise their artistic talents and learn different methods of decorating chocolate Easter Eggs.

The classes will run on the weekend of 4 - 5 April and the Easter weekend of 11 - 12 April from 3pm to 5pm. Graduates from the Academy will receive their own chef’s apron and hat and a certificate by the chef at the end of the session.  Other delectable Easter treats such as fruitcakes and hot cross buns will also be served to the participants with hot chocolate.

The fee for participation is SGD65++ per Easter Egg per child, and each child can be accompanied by a maximum of two adults to the class. Special Easter brunches are also available at The St. Regis, and parents can leave their children in the playroom with an in-house nanny during their meals.