With the Amari’s Mantra restaurant promoting their gourmet festival with three visiting chefs to join resident chef Jens Heier, it was too good an occasion for the local chapter of the Chaîne des Rôtisseurs to miss.
The Chaîne dinner was then held on Sunday March 20, featuring the four very talented chefs, from four very different backgrounds.
Chef Werner Snoek came from the Saxon Boutique Hotel, where his culinary expertise is well known in South Africa.
Baille Ranjith Chandrasiri, shows his profound appreciation to the master chefs, Werner Snoek, Giorgio Stephanosian, Jens Heier and Hirokazu Tomisawa for their fine cuisine.
Chef Hirokazu Tomisawa came from Yoshimura, Japan and is one of the country’s famous Japanese chefs.
Chef Giorgio Stephanosian came from Restaurant Galerie, in Monpazier an interesting mediaeval town in France. Giorgio is, however, Italian and a connoisseur of Italian and French food, but he was also trained in Thai cuisine by the Mandarin Oriental.
The fourth chef was resident chef, Jens Heier, a German who has worked in Italy, Switzerland, Korea, Vietnam and China, before coming to us just over 12 months ago, and has already developed a strong following in Pattaya.
As is usual with Chaîne dinners, there is a reception, this time held in the Mantra’s amazing cocktail bar, with the reception wine being a Merotto Colbelo Valdobbiadene Prosecco Extra Dry NV. This was a light sparkler and a palate cleanser before the 45 Chaîne members and guests got down to the serious business of good wine and food.
The first dish was Japanese, from chef Tomisawa-San’s and was an amazing Unami Jully Kake, which featured steamed sea bass, boiled clam jelly, sea urchin, seaweed, Japanese soy sauce and Spanish caviar, which chef Jens told me costs 60,000 THB for one kg! This was washed down with the Hildenbrand Estate Chenin Blanc 2007.
The next wine, the Firriato Chiaramonte Ansonica 2009 was a very special Sicilian wine made from 100 percent Ansonica grapes and was scored by celebrated wine judge Robert Parker as 89/100. This wine was taken with Chef Jens’ butter fish fillet with mango chutney and mint foam and was superb, and was my pick of the combination of dish and wine.
Italian chef Giorgio, who prefers French, made a risotto with green asparagus, morels and Maine lobster, taken with the impossibly long named Michele Castellani Valpolicella Classico DOC Superiore Ripasso 2005.
The wine for the main course of the evening was a Firriato Ribeca IGT 2004, another full-bodied Sicilian wine taken with Chef Werner’s trio of Natal Midland beef. One interesting item was the beef cheeks done in Cape Malay style, which is actually more of an Indonesian dish!
The dessert was a honey and lavender crème brulee with pistachio ice cream. The wine to go with this was a very interesting, Michele Castellani Recioto della Valpolicella 2005.
There is an old English proverb that states, “Too many cooks spoil the broth.” It was obvious at the Chaîne dinner that the four chefs could work together under one roof without treading on each other’s toes.
Members of the Chaine des Rotisseurs and guests enjoy cocktails in anticipation of the main event.
