And the Winner of the World Cup of Pastry is...SPAIN!

I was not exactly keen on attending a trade show for the catering industry until I realised the World Pastry Cup would also be held at the same event.  Two hours on the TGV to Lyon was not going to deter me from getting a piece of the action in Le Coupe de Monde de la Patisserie.  19 national teams competed for the coveted title over two days.

In ten hours, the trio teams had to churn out three chocolate desserts, three frozen fruit desserts, an ice sculpture, a chocolate sculpture, a drawn-sugar sculpture, plus a dessert on a plate which would then be tasted by a panel of judges.  Ten hours might seem a long time, but it was a gruelling race against time. The skills and creativity seen here demonstrates the best trends of the moment in pastry, chocolate and ice-cream making.

Outside of the contest, the trade show was equally fascinating in many areas.  Everywhere I turned, there was something delectable that caught the eye.

The best-known patissiers show off their handmade delicacies.

The creative use of macarons

Cakes by the slab

From the largest industrial catering equipment to the tiniest chemicals for molecular cuisine and in fact, anything else in between can be found in this bi-annual international event.  For a food professional looking for new ideas, this is heaven!

Lecitina de soja is the foamy stuff on your sauce.

These look like hair accessories more than they do chocolates.

I suppose there are few places more fitting to host this event than Lyon, the food capital of France.  Lyonnaise cuisine is typically served in bistros called bouchons that specialise in boudin noir, foie gras and dishes from your mother's cooking.

Louise Bourgeois's homage to Eugenie Grandet

The last time I saw Louise Bourgeois's work at Tate Modern, her retrospective exhibition left me with a lasting impressive of an extraordinary woman artist who had lived through all the avant-garde artistic movements in the 20th century and yet her work had defied tradition and remained individual, inventive and experimental.

Her monumental spider sculpture Maman and what are being shown at the confined space of Maison de Balzac cannot be more different in terms of the scale and approach.  Bourgeois's series of work for this show were dedicated to Eugenie Grandet, the heroine from the 1833 novel by Honore de Balzac who lived under the tyranny of her father and died a spinster.   

Ode to Eugenie Grandet

Portrait of Eugenie Grandet 

Bourgeois, who had a complex relationship with her own father, openly identified with Grandet.  As if to convey the frustration of a woman from realising her own identity, the works leaned towards handicraft - needlework and embroidery that symbolise the feminine role in the society.

The mundane, repetitive routine of Grandet's futile existence is seen through the clock - an element which appears in many of the works shown here.

This is one of the last series of work that Bourgeois made before she died at the age of 98 in 2010.  Her oeuvre includes sculptures and installations on the grandest scale.  Perhaps it was time she felt the need to return to a more intimate level through exploring the life of Eugenie Grandet that paralleled her own. 

  

Beware of caramel!

Coming from a cuisine background, patissiere just seems much more calm, cool and collected.  I was foolish enough to be sloppy in handling caramel and ended up with a burn - the first of many accidents to follow no doubt if I fail to pay respect to what I am doing.

Saint Honore is quite a beautiful cake only if you have mastered some basic French pastry techniques - the pate sucree, pate a choux, creme chantilly, caramel and piping PLUS a big appetite for fresh cream.

Chen Zhen shows at Musee Guimet

The Cradle, 1995

When Chinese diaspora Chen Zhen from Shanghai first arrived in the Paris art scene in the mid 1980s, he took it as a compliment when the French press commented on his work as being "indicative of something incomprehensible."  It is true for most contemporary Chinese artists from his generation, they do not address problems head on.  They speak through allusions, evocations and metaphors.  This artistic language obviously had contributed to Chen's success in France and internationally.

He left behind a sizeable body of work when he passed away in 2000 at the age of 45.  Ten years on, I think his legacy still lives as he is the first artist chosen to show at Musee Guimet, a museum not known for featuring contemporary art, alongside its permanent collection of oriental art. The five works shown included The Cradle that refers to the permanence of the cycle of life.  Presented in the rotunda was the high-profile Round Table which symbolises the ideal human order of mutual respect, equality and multi-culturism.

Round Table, 1995

Chen's other works form an interesting dialogue, both formal and spiritual, with those objects in the dimly-lit Chinese gallery. Stele / The Coffin is one of his early works from the 80s. The Hibernation / Wandering and Altar 9 are from 1993 and 1994. The play of words and texts as well as typewriters and keyboards as media through which meaning is created, is evident in these works.   

Interestingly, his contemporaries in Mainland China at that time were also fervently exploring the complex relationship of the Chinese text and the production of cultural meaning. In the context of the significance of the written words during the Cultural Revolution, it seems likely that Chan was questioning the very nature of language.  Some texts are immortalised and preserved like those inscribed on ancient Chinese steles, while others are being relegated to everyday consumption.

Stele / The Coffin, 1989

 The Hibernation / Wandering

Altar 9, 1993

Is great food only to be had in Michelin-starred restaurants in Paris?

Judging from all the foreign patronage received at the top restaurants in Paris, I began to wonder if the French are equally keen to splurge on meals worth 300 euros, wine excluded.  Of course, then the question is where do ordinary French people eat?  

* Starter *

Soupe de legume

Terrine of Foie Gras

* Plats *

Confit de Canard Pomme Sarladaise

Grilled pork with homemade egg pasta

* Dessert *

Tarte Tatin

Caramelised apples with vanilla ice cream

Who would have guessed all these mouthwatering dishes came from a cosy little bistro with only 20 seats on the Ile St Louis? More incredible is that it is a fix-price lunch menu that costs 16 euro!  I have yet to find another place in Paris that provides better value for money than this one. Voila! Mystery solved.  Ordinary French people eats in brasseries and bistros like this one. Wrong! On the day of my visit, there were two other tables of Putonghua-speaking Chinese and no French.  These days, we are just about everywhere!

As if all these were not enough for one meal, Berthillon is just around the corner. Their ice-creams are simply divine. Shame that all I could manage was a tiny scoop of sorbet to satisfy my craving.

Delightful les cocottes in the 7th arrondissement

Reservation for restaurants in Paris is almost essential if not compulsory even for the smallest of places.  So Les Cocottes de Constant seems like the perfect choice for impromptu dining as it operates on a first come first served basis.  The hip, informal and cosy atmosphere is fitting for the cocottes that this modern eatery is famous for.  The new twist on such classic dishes as stuffed pig's feet and potatoes and beef bourguigone are unmistakably versions from the 2010s.

Pig's feet with potatoes

Jerusalem artichoke with white truffle oil

Beef Bourguignon

Les Cocettes is one of the three Christian Constant creations after his long career as the executive chef for the 2-star Michelin Les Ambassadeurs at Le Crillon Hotel.  Here, the simplicity of the food only accentuates the quality of the ingredients and that is what I love about it.  I can't wait to check out his other two restaurants, Violon d'ingres and Cafe Constant, on the same street at Rue Saint Dominique.

A lesson for the New Year - be vigilant!

What did I do on New Year's Day?  As a house guest, I just had to go along with what the host proposed. As though the feast from the night before was not damaging enough for my arteries, I woke up to another round of gorging just eight hours later!  The French are not big on breakfast and usually a croissant or a piece of bread with coffee is ample for them. Today was exceptional. In addition to croissant, bread, apple compote, home-made marmalade and coffee, Joelle even baked a cake called Far that had originated from Brittany.  It reminded me of the English bread and butter pudding but the French version comes with prunes, a chewy texture and tastes better.

Far originates from Brittany

The sumptuous breakfast left me feeling sleepy again but I realised it was time to leave.  As I stepped outside of the building, there it was - debris of some vandalised vehicles and a signpost lying just around the street corner.  I then quickly slipped my iphone securely inside my bag and zipped it up.  It had been recently reported in the news that two women was killed in a robbery involving mobile phones.  The lesson for the new year is to stay vigilant.  It is better to be safe than sorry.

Auld Lang Syne

For years I have been celebrating New Year's Eve with my best friend whose birthday falls on Jan 1.   Being in Paris this year has made that impossible.  In the true spirit of festivities, I arrived at my friend's apartment with a bottle of champagne and a box of chocolate, 30 minutes after, not before, the designated time of arrival.  The pre-dinner chat happily lasted another hour while we kept pouring more bubbles into our glasses.

Sipping Cristal champagne was one of the highlights of the evening

Joelle, our hostess, is a great cook and the entire meal for 5 persons was prepared by her single-handedly in a matter of an afternoon.  As for me, I was more interested to experience and witness the ritual of a New Year's Eve dinner at a typical French home than what I was actually eating.   I would not say the menu was elaborate but it was thoughtfully prepared with the use of the choicest ingredients.

* Entree *

Terrine of Foie gras d'oie with truffles, poached pear and pear sorbet in liquor


* Plat *

Stuffed guinea fowl with boiled potatoes and buttered mushroom

*  Fromage *

Brie de Meaux cheese platter

If the presentation of the dishes lacks the refinement of fine dining, the flavour more than made up for it.  Everything was so delicious that by the time the chocolate cake and ice cream were served, I was simply too full to enjoy them.

Over the dining table, I learned that cars torching on New Year's Eve has become a 'national sport', with Paris being one of the cities worst hit by the wave of vandalism. It also emerged that the tension between the French nationals and foreign immigrants is escalating to the point that the French felt threatened and unsafe to be in some parts of the city.  It remains to be seen how the government could help diffuse such tension and bring people from all ethnic backgrounds together for the benefit of the nation.  

Bravo Hermes!

I was completely over the moon on visiting the new Hermes store on Rue de Serves, its second largest store to date. The site was previously home to the Lutetia Hotel's indoor swimming pool constructed in the 1930s. The original balustrade and mosiacs have been preserved and restored to provide the perfect backdrop for the three shed-like structures that fill the massive space of the pool.

I have no difficulty in visualising this work as an art installation in a contemporary art museum. I was somewhat surprised that the masterful use of space was the work of the Hermes' inhouse design team. This will be one of those memorable interiors that will stand the test of time.

Guy Savoy - checked on my must-do list

Let's face it - Guy Savoy is a 3-star Michelin restaurant and one should not expect anything less from an establishment which has retained this title since 2002.  My lunch at Guy Savoy was interesting from a rather different perspective because our party of three was arranged to occupy an area with other non-French speaking guests - mostly Americans.  In a dining room of less than a dozen tables, tourists contributed to almost 80 percent of their business and to me, that is not exactly an encouraging sign.

Our waiter was a Frenchman who spent many years in England and we struck up a conversation where he even pointed me to a nearby FNAC to get a wireless printer!  Well, on service, I think Guy Savoy scored highly just on that note.

For a fraction of what it would cost in the evening, the lunch menu offers a reasonable range of fish and meat dishes in generous portions.

* Amuse-bouche *

Mushroom veloute

Foie gras on toast

* Entrees *

Asparagus soup with black truffles and parmesan cheese

Terrine of foie gras with green and white asparagus and truffle sauce

* Plats *

Grilled sea bass

Roasted rack of veal with mashed potatoes and carrots served at the table

 * Desserts *

Dark chocolate cake with ice cream

Chocolate fondant with caramel and hazelnuts

It is easy to draw your conclusion even without tasting the food.  It certainly did not impress me, both in terms of flavour and presentation, to the point that I will be returning any time soon.  Good, yes. Exceptional, no.

La Grande Epicerie - a mecca in gourmet food

Even those who are mildly interested in food would find a visit to La Grande Epicerie at Le Bon Marche a feast for the eye, if not for the stomach.

A stellar selection of all things edible is available for anyone with a deep pocket.  It was New Year's Eve and the place was completely packed with shoppers who were all too happy to pay heftily for the pleasure of a gourmet meal to celebrate the festivities.

Le Bon Marche itself is an interesting piece of history for the retail industry as it is regarded as the first department store in the world dating back to the first half of the 19th century.

Vintage vs Contemporary

If you are into collecting anything at all, then Paris is probably the best place to embark on your treasure hunt.  A stroll in the district of Marais would not disappoint.  From stores that carry classic furniture from the 1950s to design shops that focus on contemporary lighting, they demonstrate the varied taste of the French population.

I read with a certain degree of doubt that the French society is highly structured in its social hierarchy. But if this is the case, then it makes perfect sense that the French wants to react against conformity by being outwardly individualistic, even though it may only be skin deep.  For now, I reserve the right to deliberate on this view.

Andree Putman - Parisien Style Guru

Museums in Paris are known to exhibit some of the best works around in the field of art and design. Andree Putman's retrospective show at L'Hotel de Ville is a stark reminder of how classic designs could be rediscovered and successfully integrated into contemporary settings.  Even at the age of 85, her designs for boutique hotels and apartments around the world, including recent projects in Shanghai, Tokyo and Hong Kong, are still highly sought after.

What particularly interests me is the social side of Putman who was not professionally trained as an interior designer.  She started her eclectic career as a musician, then a journalist.  Her personal connection with famous artists and designers, like Niki de Saint Phalle and Karl Legerfeld, seems to have won her the recognition and support of the elites of French society and helped establish her reputation in the international arena.

Putman's signature black and white chequerboard design

Bonjour Paris! Let the feast begin...

I count this as one of my few blessings to be invited to spend my first day in Paris with the Bettembourgs, a French couple whom I have the pleasure of knowing in Macau. Luckier still, the Chinatown is situated 200m from their home in the 13th arrondissement so it gave me the perfect opportunity to stock up on all the essential ingredients from Paris' most famous Chinese grocery store, Tang Freres. Who else except 'une Chinoise' would visit a friend carrying a sac of rice and two bottles of soy sauce? I was not going to worry about social etiquette when I could blame it on being new here.

A delightful little poissonnerie in the neighbourhood

The weather was horrible as it was freezing cold and drizzling. Nevertheless, I was so relieved to be greeted by not only my gracious host, but also a warm bowl of vegetable soup, cheese souffle and salad that did wonders to my dampened spirit.

The expansive view from their balcony highlighted the many faceless tower blocks in the 13th arrondissement from the 60s and 70s. Short of any notable monuments, the Bibliotheque Francois Mitterand is perhaps its most visible landmark. Apparently this district is also home to many artists and intellectuals who reside in the hidden village streets which have escaped modernisation.  

The design of this facade was one of the earlier attempts
to maximise energy efficiency.

Interestingly, their flat is atop a semi-office tower that was built in the modernist style of the 1970s. It seems like an unusual arrangement nowadays to have seven levels of underground parking and nine floors above the ground, of which the first five are exclusively for business use. Despite its lack-lustre architectural landscape, I am sure I will be returning to the 13th district in no time as one can never be far from its cultural heritage.