Cambodia - Angkor Thom

Angkor Thom was the capital of the Angkor empire and the location of several temples. Angkor Thom is enclosed by a giant wall and covers an area of 9 square kilometers.  We were lucky enough to visit in the early morning before the crowds arrived and it was so peaceful. 

This is a really cool site to see all the different temples in 3D: http://www.yellowpages-cambodia.com/images/maps/angkor-temples-3d-map.html

Graham Elliot

Graham Elliot Bowles appeared on Top Chef Masters last season.  He has a restaurant called Graham Elliot in downtown Chicago.  Rumor has it this spring he is opening a restaurant called Grahamwich downtown too.  As a good sandwich is hands down my favorite food, I eagerly look forward to trying Grahamwich. 

This may have been Nick's favorite dinner...possibly ever.  And I will admit that we liked it better than our last two forays into fine dining, including Top Chef Masters winner Rick Bayless's Topolobampo.

There are two tasting menus available - a 5 course and a 10 course.  Or you can go a la carte which is what it looked like most patrons were doing.

Instead of bread, they bring out popcorn with truffle oil, parmesan, and chives.  This is something you can easily replicate at home but was delicious!  Only downside was it was a little messy. 

We ordered three appetizers off the hot menu because everything sounded so good. 

First was the potato bisque with chive marshmallow, crispy pancetta, wisconsin cheddar, and sour cream.  When ordering I thought, "how exciting can potato bisque be?"  Very.  This was delicious.  The whole soup had a slightly bacon-y flavor and the chive marshmallow added a great flavor.

The second was the macaroni with strozzapreti pasta, trumpet mushroom, roasted garlic, and truffle bubbles.  Nick doesn't eat mushrooms.  These were apparently special mushrooms.  He ate all of them!   The dish was so light which is so atypical of macaroni and cheese dishes.

The third was the risotto with bouchot mussel, fennel ratatouille, crispy calamari, and lemon aioli.  We thought the risotto was just okay but the calamari was excellent.  Another thing that Nick liked that he's never liked before.  Very light and crispy instead of heavy and weighed down in bread.

For dinner Nick had the wagyu beef with potato confit, root vegetable, and foie consomme.  This meat was so tender there was no need to use a knife.  And the consomme on top was excellent.

I had the scallop almondine with haricot vert, blood orange, marcona almond, and brown butter.  Who knew blood oranges paired so well with scallops?  And the brown butter sauce was very well done.

For dessert Nick had the chocolate with Guinness stout, malted milk, cocoa crumble, and chocolate ganache.  This was an assault of chocolate.  Are you a chocolate lover?  If so, you'll love it.

If you're not a chocolate lover (or even if you are) you should get what I had for dessert, poached pear with gorgonzola gelato, petite frisee, walnut streusel, and port reduction.  When this first arrived at my plate I wondered why anyone would make a dessert with lettuce.  I mainly ordered it as cheese is one of the main loves in my life.  To quote Nick, "It's like a party in my mouth!"  Seriously, this was the most complex dish either of us have probably ever tasted.  The flavors mixed and mingled and the taste was so different if you left any of the ingredients on the plate out of your spoonful.  I think my brain was confused because the gorgonzola gelato looked like mozzarella cheese, felt like ice cream, but tasted like gorgonzola in my mouth. 

I tried two different drinks.  One was called Wine and Roses which had a rose liqueur along with white wine and champagne.  The other was a passionfruit flavor with horseradish infused vodka.  Both were excellent and I love trying drinks made by mixologists.  Nick had Ebel Weiss by Two Brothers, a beer from Illinois that he really liked.

We hope to get back to try the spring menu which is debuting this week.

Cambodia - Angkor Wat Sunrise

We started our second day in the pitch blackness.  We were picked up by our driver and guide before sunrise and went to get a spot at Angkor Wat to watch the sunrise.  We'd hired a guide named Tek Leng and we'd recommend him.  He was sick the first morning but sent another guide in his place.  It was actually nice to get the perspective of two different guides over the two days.  Guide and driver are $30 each per day with a little extra for early mornings or temples that are far away.

Sunrise takes a long time but it's very interesting to watch the progression of colors over the temple.  The good thing about getting up for sunrise is we were able to get a lot done before it started getting hot out at 9 am.  In fact, we ended our day around 1 pm after we ate lunch even though we'd hired the guide and drive for the whole day.  At that point we'd been going for 8 hours already anyway and the pool and the masseusse was calling my name.

Cambodia - Angkor Wat

The next stop on our trip was Siem Reap, Cambodia to see the Temples of Angkor.  We didn't have a guide booked the first day but we headed out to Angkor Wat to get an overview.  We hired a tuk-tuk outside of our hotel for a few bucks.  He would be our driver for the whole afternoon.

Of course the walk up to Angkor Wat was awe-inspiring.  Realy there's no words to describe the temples, you just have to see them for yourselves.  Unfortunately there was a little maintenance going on while we were there and there's a green sheet in our pictures.  It's amazing how long they were undiscovered and how they are still standing today.  Instead I just have lots of pictures from our first day and again when we went with our guide.

Bangkok - Eating

After a whirlwind last minute trip to Paris last weekend, several deadlines at work, and a host of other things going on in life, I'm back to the blog for the last post on Bangkok.

Unfortunately we didn't get too many pictures in Bangkok of our food.  We had some wonderful experiences though.

Pad thai out near the Tiger Temple.  So good and for only $3 or $4.

Lunch at the Fishing Village.  We had a whole fish, crab claws, a spicy soup, and some little fried things with a very spicy dipping sauce.  Wonderful.

Tiger beer on New Years Eve.

Amazingly I had the best Italian food I've ever had at Biscotti restaurant at the Four Seasons.  Unfortunately since that dinner was over 3 months ago I can't remember exactly what we ate but here's a link to the menu if you're going to be in Bangkok: http://www.fourseasons.com/bangkok/menu_3536.html   Nick had a delicious caprese salad for an appetizer.  For dinner he had the gnocchi with parmesan fondue while I had a creamy pasta with crab in it and a fried softshell crab on top.  Highly recommend this place and it's not too expensive even though it's in the Four Seasons.