Roy Choi is a classically trained chef and valedictorian of his class at the Culinary Institute of America, though he is best known as the father of the Korean Taco. Co-founding Kogi BBQ, one of the names at the heart of California’s taco truck revolution, the Korean-Mexican fusion he helped create has taken the food community by storm with the business now spanning five trucks and three restaurants since inception four years ago. Amazing.
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If I was rich enough to fly out anywhere for a drink tonight, it would likely be to Hong Kong, for the luxurious Ritz-Carlton’s OZONE Bar. Show the rest of this post…
Designed by Wonderwall, the OZONE Bar is the highest bar in the world, position in the top floor of the Ritz-Carlton hotel, itself occupying the top 15 floors of the International Commerce Centre, Kowloon. Unexpectedly demanding a smart-casual dress code (no sandals, shorts or short-sleeved shirts), they specialise in “an exotic selection of Asian tapas and Japanese specialties” and a quite wonderful selection of cocktails. You WILL want to go back.
Eating at the Anantara Kihavah Villas Resort in the Maldives is probably unlike anywhere you’ll have dined before. You’re underwater. Show the rest of this post…
The Sea.Fire.Salt.Sky. dining complex is a “one-of-a-kind” experience – no kidding, you’re eating with the ocean on all four sides – but the food is great too, with an expansive menu that take in local fresh fish to more exotic cuisine and a wonderful choice of rich deserts. It’s worth a night at one of their villas just to experience, though the resort on a whole is pretty amazing anyway.
I know what you’ve been thinking, what don’t we post enough of on FAN THE FIRE? Glass jars. Chabatree’s Limipid Jar, however, should rectify that; a throwback to the classic kitchen containers your parent and grandparents would have used. Here though, the lid is made from beautiful acacia wood, giving it a rich, almost indulgent, look and feel. They’re rubber ringed too, to keep contents air-locked. Available from Merchant No.4.
Jack and Coke has been the drink of tight-trousered indie kids for some time now, but for off the rack bourbon in bars, Jim Beam is still head and shoulders above it’s better known American cousin. And now they have strain from the underworld. Made from the trappings inside the wood of an empty barrel, mixed in with an extra-aged blend, Jim Beam Devil’s Cut is certainly full-flavoured but still a surprisingly smooth whiskey, perfect on ice.
Asking four Toronto chefs to remix a McDonald’s Big Mac combo, The Grid have tried to turn the fast food joint’s efforts into something that could really be considered delectable food and (at a stretch) not look out of place on a five-star restaurant’s menu. Show the rest of this post…
But without any other ingredients allowed, it sure was a tough challenge, that they probably didn’t quite succeed in. Some amazing creativity in the kitchen still though, and a lot of fun trying. Photography by Reena Newman.
Fabio Bondi’s (top) took three tries, but in the end, he tuned up a mortadella (an Italian cold cut) out of emulsified patties, lettuce, onions and sweet-and-sour sauce, but when he poached it, it exploded. Then the same in a hot pan. In the end he had to use the restaurant’s backyard smoker, while the buns were toasted into crostini and the nodini (bread knots) made from fries.
Father-and-son team Raj and Aravind Kozhikott aimed to recreate something in the style of their restaurant’s Indian cuisine, dicing the meat for a samosa filling, then mixing it with the onion, using barbecue sauce as a binding agent. Two rolled out buns formed the wrap, while the fried were bundled up using strips of their cut up box. The cheese was scraped off the patty and used as sauce.
“I wanted to keep it kitschy, which is what we do here at The Drake,” explained chef Anthony Rose, icing the burger with a blend of fries, ketchup, special sauce and Coke. Extra fries were then used as candles but actually lit up when blasted with a blowtorch because they were so greasy.
Craig Harding and Nigel French went for a (sort of) pasta dish, juliening to fries to creat a sort of spaghetti, served with a patty and ketchup bolognese. A grated, toasted bun acted as parmesan.