Just outside the ski town of Annupuri is the Rakuichi Soba restaurant. This quaint chalet is home to a fantastic noodle experience. You enter and remove your shoes  and don slippers before entering the dining room and sitting at the counter with the menu in Japanese cut into a timber plank. With us speaking no Japanese and them having very little English it is a challenge, but a fun one that ends with you having an amazing meal, worth the effort I would say.

The charming and gracious Midori Rai helps you with your selection, Sam ordered soba with Broth, I the Duck Soba, we split a vegetable tempura to start, a beer for me and a jug of chilled sake for Sam.   Once you place your order chef and master Soba maker Tatsuru Rai takes a small amount of dough out of a large bowl and begins to roll the dough at first like you would pastry and then he wraps it around the timber Dahl and rolls it continuing changing the direction until he has a perfect thin square, then he rolls it and with the knife cuts it into perfect soba nobles, the noodles are placed in a sieve and shaken to remover extra flour.

We then had our tempura of chestnut, eggplant, snow pea, shitake, lotus root, sweet potato and green bean, it was light and delicious and every vegetable had a different texture and taste. The noodles and their broth were both exquisite, soft and tender yet with a biet you only get from fresh made noodles. This is a place where the owners put their charm and skill into every experience. Sam and I will be dreaming of this place until next year, when we will be back without a doubt!!

How lucky are you when you can find great snow, fantastic conditions and amazing food, right there on the mountain.

Boyo-so is a little hut 400 metres up from the base of the gondola at Hirafu, this quaint little place is definitely not run by any large catering organisation employed by the village operator like so many of the places on the mountain. No this is a tiny little place that feels like it has been doing the same thing for the last 50 years and it probably has. The food is simple and really tasty just what you want after a hard morning skiing. Soups come in miso or soy based broth and you can have ramen, soba or udon. Sam had a classic with tempura prawn and it was mighty tasty, I had a special of freshly seared thin pork strips with rice and egg. There’s big bowls of pickles next to the counter and a large spoonful on my egg made this the most delicious and satisfying lunch one could have. Choices include, curry, salmon roe, salmon, chicken and crumbed pork cutlet with rice, all these dishes are served with miso, so with a big bottle of Sapporo black label and your toes warming….what could be better than that???

Took a few hours off the slops today as it was pissing down with snow, tomorrow should be a cracker.

We decided to get a taxi to Niseko and go to the Hilton’s Rera sushi bar . Rumour is its the best Sushi bar in the area, it is true. We sat down at the counter for a very entertaining hour and ate great sushi.

When they pull out a block of toro it is really hard to say no, this fish was amazing - fatt and lush with a great flavour all melting in your mouth as you bit into it. The tuna was great as were the other fish. King salmon around here eats beautifully raw and the squid was no slouch either. The cook Hokkaido crab was awesome too.

I love sushi when you feel every grain of rice, but it all hangs together as you use your hands to eat all the great fish, washed down with a little Kokushi Retsu dry sake. What a great lunch. I thoroughly recommend it.

Last week, Phil Wood, Executive Chef of Rockpool and I were in LA to do a lunch for Qantas and NSW Tourism. We were lucky enough to be helped by Rory Hermann and his amazing team at Bouchon Bistro, but more about that in a later blog. This is all about the beautiful food we ate at Thomas Keller’s brand new Bouchon Bistro in Beverly Hills, where Rory is Executive Chef. 

This is a stunning, classic looking restaurant that has a wonderful feel about it when sitting there and enjoying a meal. The detail and well crafted finishes make this a special place. Add to that the buzz of lots of people enjoying the ambience, food, wine and service and this really is a great experience. 

The restaurant menu features classic after classic, that Thomas and Rorys’ team have cooked with such passion and craft that it transcends your expectations of a bistro or brassiere. It is opulent and sophisticated, and as usual, everything you would expect from a Thomas Keller restaurant. The guys here are doing approachable food amazingly well. This is the type of food that you could eat every day and keep coming back for more. 

We started with a wonderfully fresh grand platter of seafood, moved on to a generous plate of charcuterie, a blend of house made and best hams in the world, a lush salmon rillette, a light and delicious white bean puree, some gorgeous foie gras, the texture that only Thomas seems to get with pistachio cream, followed by roast figs, sunchokes and blood orange, then a crisp skin snapper cooked to perfection, and to finish, a pave of lam leg with roasted vegetables and panisse. Well we thought we were finished, then Scott the pastry chef spoiled us further with a number of incredibly textured and flavoured sweet treats. Among them, crème caramel, pot a crèmes, chocolate slice, lemon tart, doughnuts and chocolate bouchons. A truly wonderful and indulgent meal – completely looked after by great friends. 

The next day, we returned for a quick lunch before setting off for a function I needed to speak at in Newport…a bowl of mussels with saffron and chips and one of the specialties, Roast chicken. As expected, it was yummy and once again displayed the quality at work in the kitchen.

Lotus Bar and Bistro in Potts Point is a really great neighbourhood  restaurant and bar. Like all of the Merivale group of restaurants it is contemporary, stylish and really comfortable. It is also home to Lotus Bar where some of the very best drinks in town are being mixed by drinks doctor Petr Dvoracek in a groovy, sexy space out the back, really cool how you walk through the restaurant and find the hidden bar, very New York.

Dan Hong is also out the back rattling the pans in fine fashion. The menu’s taste and feel reflects his work history, his travels and his rich family background. Dan is a young man going places and I can’t help but feel, that when more of his Vietnamese heritage creeps into his food at a heightened level, Sydney had better watch out!

The tuna with wasabi, the spanner crab, dashi custard, corn puree and crab consommé were delicious. The fish was cooked to perfection with a light ginger and shallot sauce just thickened with Xanthan gum (sorry forgot to take a photo, too busy eating) and the Duck flavours were balanced wonderfully.

A young man cooking modern, well-balanced food at good prices in lovely surroundings, what more could you want?  Well, I bet one day Dan would really love a brigade of 14 or 15 cooks behind him so he can really let loose!

Lunch with the girls at Sydney Madang just off Pitt Street.

Macy loves the BBQ marinated Short ribs and Indy is  a big fan of the fried Dumplings.

I love it all, but the Squid stir fried with hot Korean bean paste and all the kimchi sides are great. I love anything with Korean bean paste really!

For the last few years Sam and I have visited our favourite cheap and cheerful place in Paris is Le Comptoir religiously, the food is simple and really well cooked.  There is a more sophisticated set dinner menu, but we love to sit there at lunch, watch Paris go by and eat beautiful well crafted food. The terrines and other charcutrie are amazing. Suckling pig with lentils and lamb rack with peppers are also simple perfectly cooked and wonderful.

Drink simple wine and relax, then after lunch go for a walk in the nearby Luxemburg gardens…plus the shopping is great in the area as well. In a city where not everywhere you eat is going to be good, this is highly recommended. I believe if you stay in house the breakfasts are delicious and the rooms comfortable, it certainly is in a smart part of town.  

Phil Howard’s The Square restaurant is my favourite fine dinner in London. He changes the menu often to reflect the seasons and his food is really well crafted, with only the best quality ingredients used.

We would have had lots more shots of food only Sam and I left our camera in a taxi in Paris and lost all of our holiday and dinner snaps to a nasty cab driver.

Back to the restaurant, the well renowned gnocchi and scampi dish is famous for good reason, and my eel salad with lots of beautiful flavours and textures was one of my favourite dishes of 2008. As it was September when we visited I had to have Grouse and wasn’t disappointed.  Sam’s turbot was cooked to a moment and so moist and delicious, I love this king of flat fish.

We skipped dessert on that trip and went straight to nougat and coffee as we were doing more stars that day.

On other visits the pastry section has been on fire. There is a great wine list and knowledgeable staff.  A fantastic front of house team finishes off a well rounded restaurant experience. I always wonder why this isn’t a three star restaurant, as to me it ticks all the boxes!