Sunday, September 21, 2008

Sun, Sept 21 - Anisette

10.38am - Silver Palate oatmeal boiled in coconut-rice milk, with caramelized apples and walnuts and some leftover chocolate sauce, at home, with Ritesh.2.07pm - leftover Indian food from last night, at home.
2.13pm - the cherry-lychee-vodka sorbet I made last week is still good!
Spent the afternoon reading through the Bouchon and French Laundry cookbooks and I can tell you, there are only so many recipes for French onion soup and other bistro fare that you can read before you begin to get some serious craving. French onion soup, apparently, needs to be started a couple of days before consumption, and involves, amongst other things, caramelizing onions for five hours. While stirring every 15 min. Having obviously missed the boat for today (we don't even have any onions in the house, for starters), I had no choice but to head over to Alain Giraud's new bistro, Anisette.
Anisette does manage to have a French feel, half a block from the Third Street Promenade. Love the red leather banquette, and the tiles on the floor remind me of my grandma's kitchen. Did I tell you my grandma owned a restaurant? Not for nothing that I'm a little obsessed w/ food...
5.31pm - and here it is, ta da! Anisette's famed soupe a l'oignon!
5,50pm - moules frites, at Anisette. Best fries I've had all year! Perfect!
6.19pm - an impeccable creme caramel, with a nicely tart passion fruit caramel. On the side, a couple of lemon cookies (hiding in the handle of the cream container), and some real whipped cream w/ vanilla bean. Heaven!

4 comments:

The Speaking Goat said...

French onion soup - surely there's no need to take so long over caramelising the onions. I reckon that recipe is merely reflecting rustic cooking apparatus.

How's the cheese making coming along? Not heard anything for a while. We're smothered in the stuff (now there's an image - one day we'll have scratch and sniff computers)

Petra said...

The recipe is Thomas Keller's, world's best chef as they say, so it's likely reflecting his status more than that of his cooking apparatus. I totally agree though that five hours seems excessive. Although I can't say I'm not tempted to try and see if there is a noticeable difference...I'll let you know!

Cheese making is hampered by absence of a relentless daily supply of fresh, organic milk...you guys are lucky! Would love to try some of yours! But have plenty of cheesemaking kit left and will make some more when it's less hot...

The Speaking Goat said...

Hmm - I still suspect there's a kind of snobbery going on - 5 hours is ridiculous!

I'm sure you will get to try our cheese one day - especially if you're moving to London - it'll be an adventure to use up those long holidays we Brits award ourselves. It's not organic at the moment - organic feed is too expensive, but going organic is still under consideration.

Petra said...

yeah, I agree with your suspicion, that's why I'm inclined to do the test to prove it. On second thoughts though, I'm not sure that the proof would be worth five hours of running the gas stove ... bit wasteful this experiment innit?

the London thing is dragging along... and I bet once they've decided what the position is going to be and for how much, they'll want a decision in 48h or something...