tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20359937576618494462024-02-21T00:10:33.262+08:00Bu Pun Su's Gastronomy AdventuresThe main purpose for this blog (so far) will be my reviews and opinions of some of the best restaurants in the world that I've visited, in particular Michelin 2-star and 3-star establishments.Bu Pun Suhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01692166862692528975noreply@blogger.comBlogger86125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2035993757661849446.post-8866863041234268242019-12-31T00:28:00.003+08:002019-12-31T00:28:40.074+08:00Ecriture Maxime GilbertHong Kong is one of the most dynamic cities in the world, including its food scene. The city is never short of top quality (new) restaurants with high caliber chefs. By Michelin standard, some recent addition at its multi-star levels were: Ecriture, Ying Jee club and Arbor. In May this year as I visited HK with my family, we had an opportunity to have a lunch at Ecriture, which means "writing" inBu Pun Suhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01692166862692528975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2035993757661849446.post-46369932427613591182019-10-28T08:57:00.002+08:002019-10-28T08:57:32.546+08:00L'Arpège Alain Passard - 9th visitArpège is a restaurant that has a special place in my heart. My first meal took place for dinner on Easter Monday of 2006, the day when most (gastronomy) restaurants in Paris were closed. I was blown away by everything in particular the spectacular food followed by the impeccable hospitality. The restaurant was about 3/4 full. Instantly, it became my favorite restaurant in the world albeit Bu Pun Suhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01692166862692528975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2035993757661849446.post-27763866216074594232019-08-28T13:57:00.000+08:002019-08-29T23:57:59.692+08:00L'Ambroisie Bernard Pacaud - 8th visitL'Ambroisie, named after the food of the gods according to the Greek mythology, is arguably the Parisian restaurant I'm most familiar with at the moment. This haute cuisine temple is known to consistently serve traditional French cuisine at a very high level and its location is hidden in the serene and elegant Place des vosges. People walking around the square might easily miss this place as evenBu Pun Suhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01692166862692528975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2035993757661849446.post-42366973208666814272019-08-12T07:36:00.001+08:002019-08-12T07:36:39.678+08:00Le Cinq Christian Le SquerLocated inside one of the most opulent palace hotels in Paris, Le Cinq has always been a popular restaurant especially among wealthy foreign businessmen and tourists staying inside the Four Seasons hotel. Despite its popularity, even during Philippe Legendre's period as the executive chef and his replacements after, Le Cinq never received the "respect" at the level of Pierre Gagnaire or Guy SavoyBu Pun Suhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01692166862692528975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2035993757661849446.post-28356616933050879422019-07-27T17:44:00.000+08:002019-07-27T17:44:10.011+08:00L'Hotel de Ville Franck Giovannini - 2nd visitFor positive reason(s) or not, Restaurant Hotel de Ville Crissier has become more and more popular - not that it's relatively unknown before. To be the "best" restaurant according to La Liste 2016 and the ability to retain 3-star Michelin + 19/20 of Gault & Millau under 4 different chefs until now are impressive accomplishments. The latest award this place received was the 'best' restaurant Bu Pun Suhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01692166862692528975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2035993757661849446.post-54916649229761791692019-06-24T08:46:00.000+08:002019-06-24T08:46:47.210+08:00L'Astrance Pascal BarbotIn the beginning of 21st century, with the big wave of Spanish cuisine and several years later, Nordic cooking ... some so-called pundits thought that French gastronomy food might be 'dead' soon. In the France itself, more and more chefs would rather open bistro / brasserie / simpler restaurant than fine dining places. However, the most famous alumni of L'Arpege and Alain Passard's protege named Bu Pun Suhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01692166862692528975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2035993757661849446.post-34450380381077313532019-05-21T13:22:00.000+08:002019-05-21T13:22:47.084+08:00Lung King Heen Chan Yan TakLung King Heen (LKH), located on the 4th floor of luxurious Four Seasons Hotel, is arguably the most famous Chinese restaurant in the world. It was all because of the unprecedented 3-star Michelin award given to this place more than a decade ago as the first recipient coming from a dining place serving Cantonese cuisine to be more precise. I've been to this place about 2-3 times prior to this Bu Pun Suhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01692166862692528975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2035993757661849446.post-9028405478443652932019-05-03T21:53:00.000+08:002019-05-03T21:53:14.422+08:00Pierre Gagnaire Paris - 6th visitAs a foodie, ideally, I should go and visit as many new restaurants
as possible. Probably either I often choose the easy way out or I simply
love Paris. As it has always been, at least half of my top 10 favorite
restaurants in the world are located in the city of lights. The yellow
vest acts did not deter me to return to Paris in January this year - in
fact, I was blessed as somehow my shortBu Pun Suhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01692166862692528975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2035993757661849446.post-71231646967698706772019-04-12T23:30:00.001+08:002019-04-20T00:50:01.741+08:00Restaurant Überfahrt Christian JürgensGermany is blessed with numerous top restaurants holding Michelin 3-star awards. However, reaching most of them was generally not an easy task as they're not located in the country's major cities. My latest adventure was visiting the under profile restaurant named Uberfahrt, located in the small town of Rottach-Egern (around 50 km South of Munich). The hotel where Uberfahrt resides, overlooked Bu Pun Suhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01692166862692528975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2035993757661849446.post-81502951476410444342019-03-21T11:00:00.000+08:002019-03-22T13:43:13.939+08:00Épicure Éric Fréchon - 2nd 'visit'2019 is a special year for restaurant Epicure and its illustrious chef Éric Fréchon. This year, he is celebrating his 20th anniversary as the Executive Chef of Hotel Le Bristol. Chef Fréchon rapidly led the restaurant to attain the 2-star Michelin in just 2 years after arriving here, however the elusive 3rd star did not come until 2009. Clearly, he has cherished the passion, hard work and sense Bu Pun Suhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01692166862692528975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2035993757661849446.post-88233064380234755002019-02-16T06:47:00.000+08:002019-02-16T06:47:02.984+08:00Odette Julien RoyerEver since the closure of Joel Robuchon Sentosa and Restaurant Andre, Odette is arguably the best restaurant in Singapore in terms of serving modern French cuisine; Les Amis should be the island's finest delivering classic French fine dining. Odette, opened in the late 2015, was the collaboration of its patron chef, Julian Royer with the Lo and Behold group. It took me some times to have a full Bu Pun Suhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01692166862692528975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2035993757661849446.post-45067481881612539512019-02-06T21:22:00.002+08:002019-02-06T21:22:52.081+08:00Hajime OsakaHajime, located in Osaka, is possibly the most famous Japan's restaurant outside Tokyo. It's consistently ranked in the top 50 of the world best restaurant, according to the restaurant magazine. The restaurant was quite small and there were only 2 tables occupied on that Monday evening - mine and another local couple celebrating something. Despite this fact, the restaurant still strictly insistedBu Pun Suhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01692166862692528975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2035993757661849446.post-61218699088447508332019-01-07T21:14:00.000+08:002019-01-07T21:20:09.772+08:00Alain Ducasse at MorpheusAlain Ducasse, a successful chef and restaurateur, is currently the world's most decorated Michelin star chef alive (if not mistaken, he's holding 23 stars). After a while, finally this Monegasque chef opened a gastronomy place bearing his name in Asia around mid 2018. This meant serious business and usually, he would aim for a 3-star award. Under the leadership of Ducasse veteran, Pierre Marty (Bu Pun Suhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01692166862692528975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2035993757661849446.post-6965161147863784492018-11-23T22:22:00.000+08:002018-11-23T22:22:04.387+08:00Amber Richard EkkebusRichard Ekkebus and Amber, the flagship restaurant of the luxurious Landmark Mandarin Oriental, are inseparable nowadays. Executive Chef Ekkebus has been holding this role since 2005 and under his guidance, Amber was awarded 2-star Michelin and has retained the award for a decade. What brought me to this fine restaurant serving modern French cuisine was when I had found that Amber would be Bu Pun Suhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01692166862692528975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2035993757661849446.post-90376620393654114502018-11-17T21:33:00.002+08:002018-11-17T21:33:39.843+08:00Nihonryori RyuGin TokyoThinking back to the year of 2013 when my wife and I did our gastronomy trip to Japan, initially RyuGin was among the top choice. However, as I did deeper research somehow the choices leaned towards the more exclusive Japanese dining places that had no sister restaurants anywhere. After 5 years delay, eventually we had to opportunity to have a dinner at the famous Nihonryori RyuGin in which SeijiBu Pun Suhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01692166862692528975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2035993757661849446.post-55155464819448958832018-09-26T21:43:00.002+08:002018-09-26T21:43:57.352+08:00Les Prés d’Eugénie Michel GuérardOne of the most respectable French chefs alive that not many people talk about as much as they should be is Michel Guérard. He began his career as a pastry chef and became the head of the pastry section at Le Crillon in '56. A couple of years later, Chef Guérard received the prestigious and notoriously rigorous Meilleur Ouvrier de France award for pastry. Despite his background, Chef Guérard wasBu Pun Suhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01692166862692528975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2035993757661849446.post-28049041968966216692018-08-19T21:08:00.002+08:002018-08-21T22:53:56.321+08:00L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon Hong KongWhile I might not be old enough to eat at Jamin, Joël Robuchon's legendary restaurant prior to his early retirement in 1995, I have been fortunate to have visited several of his formal gastronomy restaurants in particular the ones in Asia. On the contrary, I rarely ate at his more casual restaurant - the L'Atelier - a concept Robuchon created upon his "comeback" in 2003, inspired by the sushi Bu Pun Suhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01692166862692528975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2035993757661849446.post-14597138268047379052018-07-26T20:49:00.000+08:002018-07-26T20:49:02.271+08:00Epicure Éric Fréchon My official review for Epicure, the flagship restaurant of Hôtel Le Bristol, has been long overdue. This restaurant is actually somewhat special for me since it was the first gastronomy dining place I ever visited in Europe. It was a lunch in the Easter Monday of 2006 when it still held 2-star and used separate dining rooms depending on the season. I ate at its Winter dining room whose decor was Bu Pun Suhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01692166862692528975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2035993757661849446.post-33600983547686700912018-06-12T23:02:00.000+08:002018-06-12T23:02:19.490+08:00Cheval Blanc Peter KnoglSwitzerland is a developed country known for its high quality stuffs in many aspects - competitive & efficient, world class infrastructure, top notch education and health care etc. Logically, it should be like Germany in terms of the food too with ten or more 3-star establishments or at least half of them. In reality, there were only 3 of them and the latest one was Cheval Blanc which Bu Pun Suhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01692166862692528975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2035993757661849446.post-5898000744563720112018-05-27T08:09:00.000+08:002018-05-27T16:47:48.287+08:00Ta Vie Hideaki SatoTa Vie, from its inception in mid 2015, has become the talk of the town. It should be no surprised because Ta Vie's head chef and part owner was the former chef de cuisine of Tenku Ryugin (2-star) named Hideaki Sato. Ta Vie's name was translated as "Your Life" in French and "Journey" in Japanese. It's Chef Sato's intention from the beginning that his restaurant will be the place for the people toBu Pun Suhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01692166862692528975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2035993757661849446.post-14583023972174422822018-05-01T15:55:00.000+08:002018-05-01T15:55:23.525+08:00De Librije Jonnie BoerBenelux region has been relatively quiet regarding world class restaurants when compared to other countries in Europe such as France, Spain or Germany. In the mid 00's, Oud Sluis put Netherlands on the map and became the talk among (serious) foodies. Little did we know that a couple of years earlier - in 2004 to be exact, a restaurant named De Librije, located in the beautiful small town of Bu Pun Suhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01692166862692528975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2035993757661849446.post-84353620830756336452018-04-06T00:54:00.001+08:002020-03-15T13:24:51.357+08:00Le Grand Restaurant ParisOnce upon a time, Alain Ducasse had a very capable right hand man (besides Franck Cerutti) that some might have argued that he could be better than Ducasse himself and his named is Jean-François Piège. Jean-François Piège had been working at the flagship of Alain Ducasse restaurants in Monaco and Paris for more than a decade before he became the Executive Chef of Hotel de Crillon in particular inBu Pun Suhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01692166862692528975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2035993757661849446.post-6809348627043354402018-03-13T19:33:00.000+08:002018-03-13T19:33:22.754+08:00Pierre Gagnaire Paris - 5th visitPierre Gagnaire, nowadays, is a celebrated French chef whose empire has included more than a dozen restaurants across three continents. His success story started in Saint-Étienne, a city in the east-central France, when in 1993 Gagnaire's restaurant received 3-star Michelin. Since economically challenging to run a gastronomy restaurant in a small town, Pierre Gagnaire decided to move his Bu Pun Suhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01692166862692528975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2035993757661849446.post-78819256161857540192018-02-26T22:01:00.000+08:002018-02-26T22:01:13.182+08:00Hashida Sushi SingaporeHashida Sushi in Kachidoki Tokyo was the original branch of Hashida Sushi Singapore, now located on the 4th floor of Mandarin Gallery. It might be lesser known in Tokyo when compared to Jiro, Saito or Sawada, but Hashida was supposedly a good sushi-ya too and Tokio Hashida was a senior and respectable (master) chef. Established in 2013, Hashida Sushi quickly rose as one of the prominent sushi-yasBu Pun Suhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01692166862692528975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2035993757661849446.post-42446957723883035602018-02-12T10:12:00.000+08:002018-02-12T10:12:11.453+08:00L'Hotel de Ville Franck GiovanniniRestaurant de l'Hotel de Ville at Crissier, a lovely suburb near Lausanne, has been synonymous with top quality dining place serving French cuisine. Fredy Girardet was the only non-French chef selected by Gault-Millau as chef of the century in 1996. Attaining Michelin's 3-star award was certainly not an issue. Despite his stature, Chef Girardet would spend most of his time in the kitchen managingBu Pun Suhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01692166862692528975noreply@blogger.com0