Morzine and Avoriaz

My blog is not always about food, it's about travel too...

One of my other passion is downhill skiing. We are a crowd who has since 5 years back been travelling to the Alps for another experience than we get here in Sweden.

Last year was amazing with a heliski off pist... in St Anton, Austria.

This year we wanted to try the French Alps..well we did get some Swiss Alps aswell :-)

Flying into Geneva and from there a 1 hour shuttle to our hotel in Morzine, France.

We where a group of 6 guys who enjoyed the sunshine and the great snow!

The ski system is huge. There is 650km of slopes to ski at!!

We where superlucky with the weather. But it could have been a bit warmer actually...-26° isn't always so nice...

Stunning views and a lot of snow, so who's complaining?? :-)

Avoriaz is the modern "city" located up on top of the mountain and this is where the Portes du Soleil ski area is taking place.

This is what you look at after you come down after a hard day skiing....

The Swiss wall! Hard at the top but great further down wher the snow was a bit fluffy!

But hey! What about the food?? Well it wasn't bad. Here is my Plates du jour. Half roasted chicken with orange sauce and fries. Pretty good!

But this is why we kept coming back to this place for lunch. A perfect pizza! Paper thin crust, very tasty tomatosauce, mozzarella cheese, ham and mushrooms...YUUUM!

This is our hotel in Morzine with the humble name... Le Petit Cheval Blanc...if you know wine...:-) Great place though, with an indoor pool!!

Martin Picard at Vassa Eggen Stockholm

Alright...where to start describing this crazy amazing evening...??

Well Chef Martin Picard runs his own place Au pied de cochon in Montreal, Quebec.

Pig is their thing so to speak... well other stuff too....of course.

He totally shows passion about his cooking but it's pretty freaking far from culinary art or fine dining so to speak. His food is rustic, bold, fatty, funny and damn tasty! Chef's food!!

This special evening was just so much fun, unpretentious, wild and at the same time relaxing in a strange way. By relaxing I mean, usually eating at a guest appearance it's mostly fine dining chefs in the kitchen and the audience is people with a lot of money and a slightly stiff atmosphere....

Not this time, no way!! This was like having your own party at your favourite restaurant and you invited the craziest bunch of people you know!! Or didn't know...:-)

What will you get...? A hell of a great evening!

We went for the "all in" menu. Menu "More" Dekadent...

Oysters as a small starter...

Temaki caribou- reindeer tartar temaki with a quailegg. This was one of the best the whole evening.

Sooooo goood!

Tripe and meatballs in tomato sauce and parmesan.

This was also supertasty!!

Everything was served family style, straight on the table for us to share.

Duck and calamari with black mushrooms and squid ink sauce. This tasted really good but the duck was a bit undercooked so it got a bit chewy...

Then the party started! Pigs head with lobster and boudin tart. Yes the lobster head is placed in the pigs heads mouth...:-) Freaky? no, Crazy? defenitly!, bold? Hell yes! Good? Yes, but we wanted the skin crispy otherwise it's not so good to eat... The boudin tart was great!

A picture of the last pieces of the whole foie gras topped with Perigord truffles. Yum!! Getting full just watching?? Yup, by this time it was getting tough...

This is the crazy, happy, fantastic, great, insane table of men who sat behind us!!

There is a link on YouTube and you need to check that one out before you say something...Hahaha! Unreal!

Cheese course with veal brain, sweet bread and more foie gras....hahaha! unreal dinner...

We started to get crazy at our table too... Finishing off with a cheese cake topped with maple meringue...I mean what else?? :-)

And there is Mr Picard himself...

Today I bearly had some brekkie and I had lunch at 3pm.... go figure..

Swedish Chef of the year awards

This event is the largest happening in the swedish food industry. The Chef of the Year!

There is 6 chefs in the finale who compeets about this prestigieuse award.

These chefs have gone from being selected in the first round of 147 down to 24 in the semifinale and now to 6 chefs.

The criteria for the finale this year was to make 14 dishes of a beef on the bone from Gotland. This ingredience was known to the chefs in advance so they have been practising like crazy on this one.

The other dish was revealed the night before to the chefs and this year is was lobster. The needed to create 14 hot and 14 cold lobster dishes! The time they have is 5 and a half hour.

Loads of pressure!

The competition was this year held in the new Stockholm waterfront building. An excellent spot in my opinion!

Here is a picture of the diffrent kitchens where the compeditors are working. Loads of people are watching! TV is there, reporters and sponsors. You are also being interveiwed while you are cooking... More pressure!

Here are the judges table, They are the most renowed chefs in the country. There is also a guest judge. This year it was Bo Bech from Denmark.

I was lucky to win a lunch in Electrolux chefs table where Tommy Myllymäki gave us a supertreat! Tommy is a fantastic chef. He won the chef of the year award in 2007 and he won the silver medal in the Bocuse d' or last year. So this guy knows what he's doing :-)

Right here they present the first course with Norwegian lobster. Insanely good!

Second course was halibut baked with red seaweed, a bluemussel sauce, cucumber and salmon roe. Yum!!!

Then a perfectly cooked beef with beetroots and onion. On the side we got a cocotte with fried mushrooms, a brown butter espuma and loads of Perigord truffles!! hahaha! What a lunch!

Thank you Tommy for the show!

Then at the evening after some mingle it was time for the price cermony...

They start by announcing the third price. Albin Wessman was number 3.

On the stage stands two chefs who at this moment doesn't know if they are number one or number two... Klas Lindberg and Daniel Engellau. The winner is announced by HRH Prince Carl Philip. Hanna Halpern is the CEO of the competition is also on stage.

And the winner is......................Klas Lindberg!!!

He is a worthy winner and an amazing chef!

Time for the banquett. 900 people sitting down for dinner... The dinner is presented by Andreas Hedlund and Magnus Johansson. Pretty tough assignment I must say, I mean there is a few chefs in the crowd....

We started off with Kalix roe, creme fraiche with lemon and a toasted brioche. Very nice!

A loin of a special breeded pig. It's been fed with grapeseed oil and it was delicious! Here with a cream sauce, herbs and pickled vegetables.

There was also entertaining going on during the festivities. Titio was performing a few songs and she nailed it!! Very nice!

Magnus Johanssons dessert! A bavariose on an almond crust topped with bramble sorbet! Soo good!

A picure of a very happy winner!!

I feel lucky to be invited to this banquett for the second time now and this year was an amazing venue!

Revisit, Restaurant Djuret. Stockholm

I know it wasn't such a long time since I was there and "raving" about this place. Check blog in Oct 2011...

Perhaps I should try something new?

Ahh.. who cares?

This is a restaurant who once again proves to be one of the absolute top restaurants in this city.

The constantly high quality they deliver is also something for the michelin guide to consider..this is fantastic food!

Well, fish and pure veggie dishes is not really an option here...Read the name, Djuret=The Animal!

Chef Michael is showing very high skills in this profession.

I mean this type of food very few cooks of today knows how to make...

I've worked with cooks who never got the opportunity to learn how to cut out a whole leg of lamb or likewise. A lot of meat that arrives to restaurants today is vacuum packed and cut up in the pieces you ordered. How can you then teach young chefs the respect for the animal and the true fact about this animal died for the sake of our survival? Ok more of this later in another blog...

As you can tell we where very satisfied this time around too :-)

The beautiful bonemarrow with Kalix roe, pickled red onion and toasted brioche...YUUUUUM!

Beautiful food, not just rustik and rugged.

Here is a tartar of the steak from the animal this week, Reindeer.

Topped with Kalix roe and eggyolk. Served with borscht purée and horseradish.

A fantastic dish!!

This is what I meant about chef Michael's special skills. Top picture is supercrispy pork cheeks with black pudding cream. Then a insanely good trey of home made charcuterie.

I just wanna hug the world!! And the chef of course :-) This is craft, pure craftmanship!

Here is the loin of the reindeer with bourgogne braised parsnip, parnsip purée, brusselsprouts and a redwine sauce infused with brown butter...ohhh mama!!

We also ordered from the "always on Djuret menu". Redwine braised pigfot, stuffed with a chicken and sweetbread mousseline. Tons of black truffle and just amazingly astonishingly good! Haha!

A sausage made from the neck and the shoulder of the reindeer with Iberico de bellota Gran reserva inside aswell...

Pickled salsify, jerusalem artichoke purée and more of the black truffle.... God stuff comes togheter and taste super!!

We also had a cheese tray but I didn't took any pics.. I was getting very full...

Dessert was 2 in one..

Breadpudding with a coffee and caramel ice cream flavored with prunes.

Chocolate tarte with a rosehip and milk ice cream and a spice infused pear.

Wow!! Soo good and well balanced!

Now you know where to go next time you are in the city of Stockholm!!

2011 bye bye and welcome 2012

Hello readers!

I want to wish you all a Happy New Year!

To take out some "chocolate chip's from the cookie" of the incredible 2011 is pretty hard but there is a few thing that stands out...

The trip to Mexico and New York in the beginning of the year was very nice.

Best visits that trip:

Gramercy Tavern, NYC

Morimoto, NYC

Scarpetta, NYC

Eataly, NYC

Pujol, Mexico City

February:

Veal tounge at Restaurant Volt, Stockholm

Such a fantastic dish!

March:

Seared Weever at Stefan Eriksson Matstudio, Stockholm

Soo amazingly good!!

Another thing in march...

The unbelieveble heliskiing in St Anton!! Wow! Just Wow!!

April and May:

We moved to our new apartment! Not so much dining and wineing... but..

We did had a superb dinner at Vassa Eggen in Stockholm!

June:

The trip to Piedmonte was very nice!

Eataly, Turin. Visit a Grada Padana producer. Real Balsamico vinegar, Modena,

The best risotto ever at Dulces Vites by Chef Bruno! Yes, truffles from Alba in Alba :-)

July and August:

The grand trip! 5 weeks travelling through Europe

The whole trip was incredible! Epernay, Champagne, Herve Mons, Roanne

Troigros, Roanne. Last pic was the fennel dish at Martin Beresategui.

One of the top destinations. Cinque Terre, Italy.

We also visited Montenegro, Serbia, Austria.

Here Dr Loosen's fabulouse wines and the Riesling grapes from Leitz.

Kiin Kiin in Copenhagen was also one of the very top restaurant visits we made!

October:

Good things comes towards the end of the year.

Frantzén/ Lindeberg Stockholm

No doubt, the best visit this year!

Troigros was also very very good but F/L was a bit sharper...

Djuret, Stockholm

What a great evening! Everything served with love for the product!

December:

The Christmas table at Fjäderholmarnas krog.

The best X-mas buffé ever!

Looking back I feel lucky to have experienced all this in 1 year.

I could only ask that 2012 will be as great as 2011.

There is a few things planned already..

A skitrip to French alps and one week in NYC is in the agenda.

I hope you will follow on the blog.

Cheers,

M