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Six of us decided to take off for the weekend and have lunch on Friday Nov. 23rd 2012 at this most exquisite place, certainly the best restaurant in my experience. The room is airy and calm, built around a central triangular glass atrium of birch trees, with the tables set far apart from each other, and additional privacy being provided by the movable furniture used to store things like menus, plates and glasses but acting like discrete room dividers, without cutting up the space. One feels comfortable at El Celler, there is no rush and everyone who works there is tuned into making your stay pleasant. The service is perfect, available when you want it to be and always ready to explain in detail what you are eating. Davide was our waiter, as he had been for our last visit in 2008, when El Celler strangely had only two stars. We all opted for the 165 Euro Menu Festival.

Unlike eating at El Bulli, with all the basic flaws that I listed in a blog review back then (basically: monotonous mushiness of all dishes, complete lack of consideration for wine, fundamental errors in the balance of tastes, manifest desire to mask out any taste associated with the ingredients), eating at El Celler is a precision affair. The techniques pioneered by Adrià are used here not to make the ingredient’s taste disappear, on the contrary, tastes are exalted and therefore Joan Roca uses prime local seasonal produce. Instead of making mushy or explosive or simply acrid morsels to shock a jaded decadent bourgeoisie like the master of Cala Montjoi, Roca keeps everything under control and always perfectly delicious and varied. In addition he develops a kind of narrative about an imaginary world tour, exploring the intricate relations between the local Mediterranean traditions and the many exchanges that happened throughout history between the Mare Nostrum and many faraway places. He is aided by his brothers, Josep, a brilliant sommelier with an interest in all wine (and not just Spanish), and Jordi, a pastry chef of incredible talent.

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Villa Más, S'Agaró

This second visit to Villa Más was prompted by my father’s 80^th birthday, and since he lives a few miles away from S’Agaró, I invited my parents for lunch there. The site is quite nice, especially at this time of the year, when the weather is good but the tourists are far away. The beach is a few steps away, so the Villa Más terrace is an ideal place for Sunday lunch for five.

My blogging is fairly sparse these days, so I hesitate to refer to my friend Joan Gómez Pallarès and Vincent Pousson as “fellow wine bloggers”; anyhow, both live in Barcelona and strongly recommended going back to Villa Màs.

I remembered from the previous visit how spectacular the wine list was, particularly on French wines , and especially Burgundy. What I did not remember is how good the prices are. Grange des Pères and Peyre Rose are both 70 Euro, which is amazing, considering that in France you would pay close to double that amount. Catalan restaurants have this nice habit of not charging 4-5 times the purchase price, which is standard in France.

The food at Villa Más is quite remarkable too. The chef really knows what he’s doing. My pig’s trotters (peus de porc) with sea cucumbers (esparenyes) were beautifully served – 4 circles of finely chopped meat topped with a thin disc of crackling and an espardenya. Beautiful visuals led to a wonderful array of textures, from the rich soft slowly cooked meat with its gelatinous consistency to the cracking crackling and the delicate fibrous sea cucumber, a great match, perfectly executed. Same goes for the rest of the family’s choices, like monkfish with iberic bacon, or “macaroni” with Idiazábal cheese.

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Jardin Japonesque

Where to go for a light birthday lunch? We hadn’t been to Jardin Japonesque for quite a while so I grabbed a bottle of Pol Gessner from the fridge and we headed off.

On their lunch menu the description of Vegetable Domburi looked good, and so it turned out. Each generous serve included cubes of tempura tofu, silverbeet tsukudani, and  avocado – on a bed of sushi rice – accompanied by a bowl of light miso soup. Great value at $14.00.

For dessert we shared a dish of Uji Kintoki Parfait  - $9.00.

I’ll quote the menu description: “Green tea ice cream, green tea sauce, green tea sable, azuki paste, condensed milk, green tea powder, whipped cream.”

Uji Kintoki Parfait

The velvety, green tea ice cream was, to use a rare phrase, absolutely goluptious.

Glasses of mellow Pol Gessner (an inexpensive champagne from the house of Lanson) matched the food admirably.

Jardin Japonesque, BYO only. 3 Arcadia St, Noosa Junction, Qld. (07) 54480724.

There are few three-star restaurants that have the enchanting location and the splendid views of Gérald Passédat’s Le Petit Nice. More importantly, this is one of the best eateries I have ever experienced; I would put it on a par with El Celler de Can Roca (see review).

The view from Le Petit Nice - Anse de Maldorme, Marseille

Apéritif: Anchois en Tempura, sable céleri-rave, radicchio poulpe mangue xérès

Perched high on the rocks overlooking the Mediterranean sea, Passedat towers over any other restaurant on this French coast.
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Dinner time at another newish place in sleepy old Noosa Junction. This one is Jardin Japonesque, run by chef / proprietor Kisa Juri Kobayashi – ex Noosa’s renowned Wasabi Restaurant.

First impressions were the unobtrusive minimalist white decor and the exquisite, antiquey looking serving bowls.

“Otsumami” appeared at the top of the menu, translated in brackets as “Appetisers / Tapas”.

And so we chose a few tapas-sized serves. First up was Soy-burned Roasted Organic Garlic. Four plump juicy cloves, caramelised to sweetness and with a mild, roast  garlic savour. Read the rest of this entry

Not so crazy

Ipazzi Ristorante is a tiny new eatery in Noosa Junction, a couple of minutes over Noosa Hill from the Hastings Street resort strip. It is fast gaining a reputation as the best Italian restaurant in town.

Ipazzi, Ruby explains, means something like “We’re crazy!” Ruby runs everything front of house and Fabio, her husband, is chef.

The narrow room features well-separated small tables and is all red and white checked tablecloths with candles burning in old bottles. It looks like a full house would max out at 25 covers.

Fabio, I learn, prepares house-made pasta each afternoon and the choices on our menu are fettuccine, spaghetti and maltagliati. Read the rest of this entry

Uber-chefs, gourmets, cashed up bogans, credulous restaurant reviewers &c, are forever banging on about certain de luxe menu items. I contend that this is not because taste is the main consideration but is mainly due to factors of rarity, fashion and the ability to indulge in conspicuous consumption.

Here are the top five we’ve tasted over the years – without excitement.

Foie gras: bland, fatty, force-fed, cirrhotic goose liver.

Caviar: salty, fishy tasting sturgeon eggs of uncertain age and erratic quality.

Buffalo mozzarella: excellent texture, usually tasteless, has to be all dressed up “like a pox doctor’s clerk” to serve. Read the rest of this entry

XO Bistro Wine Bar Sunshine Beach Queensland

Melbourne visitors treated us to dinner at this newish eatery. Impressive. Busy and bustling. Helpful and friendly staff. Lovely gnocchi and the best pizza I’ve had in a long time. Extensive list of wine by the glass or choose a bottle from the integrated wine shop and pay a little more than retail to drink at your table.

By Noosa standards the prices were excellent. Highly recommended.

Two kinds of Tofu

Gary Hounsell, owner of Toolangi Vineyards in the Yarra Valley recently hosted a lunch at Urbane in Brisbane to celebrate Toolangi’s 10th anniversary; your itinerant reporter was there.

Gary showed guests a selection of his estate and reserve chardonnays and pinots dating back to the 2001 vintage. In an unusual approach to winemaking he explained that in its short existence, Toolangi wines were made by different winemakers at a number of wineries, among them Giaconda, Shadowfax and Yering Station.

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iS Tapas Bar (249 Gympie Terrace, Noosaville, Queensland, 07 5447 1818). In usually sunny Noosaville it was gusty and alternately raining and shining, looking for a light lunch we stopped at the open-fronted iS Tapas Bar and were given a table with views of the Noosa River.

iS is fully licensed but allows patrons to bring their own wine ($4 corkage fee per bottle) and we took along a 2003 Petaluma Hanlin Hill Riesling. Despite its rather warm cellaring in our house it was in excellent condition – sprightly and lemony with just an occasional hint of that aged riesling character that we all know and love yet find hard to describe without annoying winemakers.

From the longish menu we chose Chili mushrooms – in a light sauce/marinade of butter, lemon juice, chili, garlic and finely chopped herebs; Parmesan crumbed artichokes – these were served with the stems (quite edible) attached and looked a little like chicken drumsticks – served with a truffle and lime mayonnaise; Manchego cheese croquettes – crumbed, about the size of pool balls – with a quince paste sauce, and Tempura vegetables on skewers -tiny morsels of crisp veg in the lightest of batter.

The food presentaion was attractive, the waiter was hip and we really enjoyed each dish. The bill for two, including corkage, totalled $42.

Highly recommended.