Crave Plus: Defining Taste: Amanda Strang poses for Crave magazine

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Cover shoot with Amanda S.

Photography: Jonas Lillie
Stylist: Jolene Lin
Hair & Makeup: Karen Yiu

Producer: P.Ramakrishnan

Can't Curry Love: An exclusive chat with Restaurateur Sarika Jhunjhnuwala

The Interview 

Crave Magazine, December 2011

Restaurateur Sarika Jhunjhnuwala explains how lessons learned in her first venture, Veda, helped make Cafe O a success. 

Text by P.Ramakrishnan 

Portrait by Leila Cranswick

Location: Café O, Central 

Elegant, enigmatic and a total foodie, despite her delicate frame, businesswoman Sarika Jhunjhnuwala  owns several eateries in Hong Kong, including five Café Os, Spice Box and the now-closed Indian restaurant, Veda - a favourite of any connoisseur of high-end Indian food. 

For Jhunjhnuwala, restaurants should be a feast for all the senses, with the aesthetics and textures of the décor, the choice of music and the aromas wafting from the open kitchens as important as the flavour of the food itself. 

“Food is not just the art of eating, it’s an experience, a multi-sensory experience,” she says. “When I look back to my earliest, fondest memories, I think of food from my mum’s kitchen. It was simple vegetarian Indian food – my family was very orthodox Hindu – the vegetables were all grown organically using cow dung in our backyard. I still have those flavours in my soul, my mouth.” 

Raised in a palatial house in Hisar, in the northwestern Indian state of Haryana, Sarika made an arranged marriage to Girish Jhunjhunwala, a watchmaker turned Hong Kong property magnate who owns the Ovolo group of hotels and serviced apartments. She swapped Hisar for Pok Fu Lam, ramping up the luxury levels in the west Hong Kong Island suburb with glittering Diwali soirees, serving exquisite dishes on silver platters.

That combination of glamour and delicious food evokes the glory days of Veda, once one of the most fashionable and highly rated Indian restaurants in Hong Kong. 

“I have all the press clippings of every review of Veda,” she says, when we meet at Café O’s Central flagship. “And I’m still deeply touched by it. Veda was a dream project of mine and it was a hard decision to close it.” 

The shutters might have come down on Veda two years ago, but the memory, like the aroma of a succulent chicken makhani, lingers. “When I look back on it, I am still proud of it. We got great write-ups and had genuine fans. But I learned from the closure of Veda. Price point and location are key. And Indian food was seen as an indulgence; Western and local palates didn’t come for Indian cuisine on a daily or regular basis. “Perhaps the restaurant [on Arbuthnot Road] was a little too hidden away from the hustle and bustle of Central, and our prices a fraction higher than what’s expected for an Indian dish,” she says now, twirling the straw around her smoothie. “But the quality was vastly higher. We had fresh, organic vegetables; we had healthy options. Meals were freshly made – there was no storage of old items, even the spices and mixtures were freshly ground in the kitchen for the day, for that authentic feel. With our open kitchen, anyone could see the quality and effort on every plate.” 

As for the food – which included an intoxicating paneer and spinach curry that still makes the mouth water – for that, she credits someone else. “Chef Rajiv Gulshan is my favourite chef,” Jhunjhunwala declares. “His passion and knowledge I have yet to see in any other chef I have met or worked with.”

But there has been life after Veda. What started as a footnote has opened a whole new chapter. “The buildings my husband owned needed something at street level that was elegant, warm and welcoming. When we first opened Café O, it was a novel concept: a hybrid of a café and a restaurant that served healthy, quick dishes.

“There are no trans-fats; we have fresh ingredients, simple dishes like a quick thin-crust pizza or a take-away samosa. Now there are five more Café Os all around the city. Honestly, I didn’t think it would be such a big hit so quickly. But life is full of surprises.” It comes as no surprise, however, to learn that she enjoys cooking herself. “I love to cook if my time allows. I am not much of a recipe person, I like to just mix things from my pantry and create whatever comes out of it. It is relaxing and very satisfying,” she says. “I’m one of four brothers and five sisters and coming from a traditional family, all of us sisters learned to cook.” 

Any disasters? “This one time, my father bought a strange novelty gadget from a city and I got electrocuted when I tried to make a dish. Got the shock of my life. The entire thing, which must have been quite expensive, was thrown out. Cooking-wise, no major disasters. But electronically, yes!” 

Pick up Dec 2011 issue of Crave Mag NOW! On newsstands as of last week!

My Favourite Things with Sarika Jhunjhunwala 

Crave: What’s always in your fridge or pantry? 

Sarika: Lots of fruits and homemade chilli chutney, which I have with every meal – I carry it with me when I am travelling. There are very few dishes that go with everything, but this one does. 

Favourite Indian dish? 

Although I’m a vegetarian, I would recommend spicy lamb vindaloo or a mild chicken makhani [butter]. For vegetarian kaali daal (black lentil curry). 

Favourite drink? 

Lassi flavoured with ginger and honey. Or freshly squeezed lemonade with a touch of green chilli. Try it, just that little touch gives a simple drink a kick. 

Favourite savoury dish? 

Baked samosa or wholewheat pizza from Café O, of course. 

Top five restaurants in the world? 

Asia de Cuba in Los Angeles, Nobu New York, Otto in Hong Kong, Cinnamon Club in London, Bukhara in Delhi and La Lucciola in Bali. 

Favourite food destination? 

I have had the best time eating in Sydney. There are some very creative chefs Down Under who are challenging the way we make traditional dishes. And when I went to Bali recently, I had a great dining experience and found again that they were Aussie chefs.

Kitchen Confidential: Andrew Kinoshita

When it comes to designing the perfect kitchen, architect Andrew Kinoshita says form should follow function… with a nod to the maid.

Text by P. Ramakrishnan



Pick up Crave in newstands/all good bookstores NOW!

Mix and Match

G.O.D co-founder Douglas Young put the kitsch back into our kitchens. He talks to Crave about dining culture, stew and the trouble with rhubarb.

Text: P.Ramakrishnan

June 2011 issue of Crave magazine.

Claudia Shaw: Chanel in the Kitchen? Crave magazine food feature

Known for her impeccable sense of style, Claudia Shaw’s elegant approach to fashion is reflected in the way she cooks. She talks to Crave about her cookbooks and her culinary passion.

Text by P. Ramakrishnan

E-mail: ramakrishnanp @ hotmail dot com 

With her toned legs and elegant frame, her distinguished lineage – she is the grandniece of media mogul Sir Run Run Shaw – and her association with luxury brands, Claudia Shaw’s credentials as a socialite and fashionista are impeccable.

Her appearances in the social pages of magazines are so frequent one wonders if she could ever have time to do anything other than glide beautifully into Hong Kong’s most glamorous functions.

But with the publication of Delicious and then Too Delicious, two wonderfully instructive cookbooks written by Shaw with her friend Dominica Yang, she has revealed another facet to her existence – a passionate love affair with good food.

The books were publicised by word of mouth with all proceeds going to charity. They have been a roaring success in shops across the city.

And listening to Shaw waxing lyrical about cooking, it is not hard to understand why.

“I have dishes coming out of my ear. I can’t tell you about how much I love good food,” she says.

This love, it transpired, was shared by her friend Dominica Yang and the idea for the book came about over lunch when the pair discovered, through their backgrounds, that they had hundreds of recipes up their sleeves. And the magic was in their simplicity.

“Dominica and I were chatting about how much we both loved cooking and we said, we’d love to put out a cookbook, why don’t we just do it,” she says.

“It’s basically all the stuff that we would make at home, recipes from friends, parents, grandparents – we don’t even know where they all originated from, but in every page, we have dishes that we always make at home.

“Everything is tried and tested by us. For years these have lived with us in our homes and basically it’s food from around the world, Western and Asian, that’s what we eat.”

As you find with most culinary fanatics, the seeds of Shaw’s obsession with good food were sown in her childhood.

“Both my grandparents were great cooks, my mother is a wonderful cook. My father’s side is a family of foodies as well, and my brother is a great cook. We talk about food, we discuss meals, we get together on weekends over food – it means a lot.

“Coming home as a child has a lot of food memories for me. We had a Chinese cook who would always ask: ‘What would you like?’ when we got home. A cookie, or wonton, or any local dish of choice.”

These memories and sheer determination to bring the book out helped Shaw and Yang overcome their lack of knowledge about the publishing industry to make a success of the idea.

And, for anyone unfamiliar with them, they are gorgeous to look at, filled with delectable images.

“Every photo in the book was shot in two days, all 60 dishes,” she recalls. “It was a like a factory, all those dishes were made, shot and then they went off to everyone we knew – the photographers, the photographer’s girlfriend, anyone who walked in.”

With so many recipes to cook at home it might seem surprising that Shaw ever eats out but she, like most of us, has her views about Hong Kong’s restaurants.

“It’s sad that Hong Kong doesn’t have enough quirky places where you can get really good food in a lovely venue that’s not in a hotel atmosphere,” she says.

“I’m not a big fan of Soho or Lan Kwai Fong. Nor are my friends. Jimmy’s Kitchen is nice and so are the usual upmarket places like Caprice and Robuchon. For good food, there’s also Kee Cluband Crystal Jade.

“Rent here is so high and there are some great cooks out there who would like too pen up a place, but they can’t make it because of the criminal overheads. Once you’ve sorted rent out, how can you possibly make a profit?”

It’s unlikely these challenging circumstances for budding Hong Kong restaurateurs will change in the short term. In the meantime, the home cooking revolution continues to gather pace – thanks inno small measure to books like Shaw’s two cookbooks.

Read the entire feature here at Crave magazine.

A Matter of Taste: An exclusive interview with Culinary Legend Pierre Gagnaire in Hong Kong

Even for France’s history of fine chefs, Pierre Gagnaire has made a special name for himself. Crave meets the culinary legend and learns how his global reach has not altered how he judges good food.

Text by P.Ramakrishnan, images courtesy of Mandarin Oriental, Hong Kong

I am sitting with the legendary French chef Pierre Gagnaire at the bar in his restaurant Pierre at the Mandarin Oriental hours before the first customers arrive. Outside the rain is pelting down and Hong Kong is not looking its best. But Gagnaire, ever the gentleman, is speaking generously of the city.

Aside from his restaurant in Tokyo, this is his only establishment in Asia and he clearly has an affection for this city.

“It was the right time, and the right place,” he says of his decision to open a restaurant here. “There was another restaurant at the top floor of the Mandarin before. It was great, so I never thought I would open here but the right opportunity arose. In my career, the right timing has always come along.”

With his suave good looks and gallant demeanour, one feels Gagnaire, 60, could have cut it as a movie star had he turned his hand to acting. Fortunately for the culinary world, he applied his immense gifts to cooking and his story is one of almost unblemished success.

Born in Apinac, in France’s Loire Valley, by the age of 18, he was already a commis chef and within two years he was a cook admiral on the French submarine Surcouf. During the 1970s, he travelled the world, returning to France to work at Clos Fleury, a restaurant run by his father near Saint Etienne. He was honoured with his first Michelin star in 1977, which enabled him to go solo and open a restaurant in the centre of Saint Etienne. In 1986, a second Michelin star followed for a different restaurant, and in 1993, the coveted third star.

Now he is the holder of multiple Michelin stars and has restaurants all over the world (Paris, London, Tokyo, Las Vegas, Seoul, Dubai and Hong Kong). Such is his reputation internationally, the French government bestowed him the grand title of Commandeur des Arts & Lettres.

But ask him to recall his early days and there are no misty-eyed recollections. “I absolutely hated working in the kitchen when I was young,” he tells me.

“The restaurant business is a terrible business. Everyone worked from dawn to late night – early morning, in fact. Everyone was busy running here and there. And then the restaurant failed.” His venture in Saint Etiene eventually closed despite glowing reviews.

“I wasn’t planning a career in cooking,” he recalls. “The chef’s life was not good before. A lot of stress. The ambience was not good. You never see your family. No, I certainly didn’t like it at all.”

But while he might not have liked it, the French public most certainly liked his cooking. Besides the Michelin stars, he was asked to cook for a heads of state summit lunch at the Arche de la Défense during François Mitterrand’s presidency.

“I remember very well why the first restaurant failed – the city was too small,” he says of the Saint Etienne debacle. “The people were not ready for such high-end cuisine. I learned a lot from the closing of the first restaurant. This was more than 40 years ago. The customers were not there for fine dining. Yes, I do think we learn from our mistakes more than our successes.”

Gagnaire’s career took a turn for the better when he began a fruitful partnership with Hervé This, Collège de France professor and father of Molecular Gastronomy, in 2001.

It was during this period that Gagnaire really developed his culinary philosophy, which he describes as “mixing the old with the new, traditional cooking style with modern sophistication”. Hervé This helped him understand how the basic chemical compounds in food affects taste and how to develop a harmony of flavours.

A good example to be found on the menu at Pierre at the Mandarin Oriental is red mullet poached with garlic and lemon. This signature dish wasn’t just thrown at the wall to see if it would stick. There’s a refined science behind it: every element – from taste and texture, aroma and flavour – has been calculated right down to the harmony of the colours on the plate.

Ever modest, Gagnaire prefers to ignore such plaudits when we chat and says, “None of that matters; does it taste good? That’s all I essentially care about.”

Pierre
25/F, Mandarin Oriental, Hong Kong, 5 Connaught Road Central, Central
Tel: 2825 4001

My Favourite Things with Pierre Gagnaire

1. Fine dining is an art. Would you agree?

Yes, but to me, food is an emotion. For me, what I serve is an emotion. I put a lot of attention into what I’m making. I’m nourishing someone, I’m feeding someone, I care about what I make.

2. Does the trend for organic, vegetarian and healthy food affect your menu?

Yes. But I’m lucky that I’ve always worked with natural ingredients. I can make an entire menu that’s purely vegetarian. This was years ago, way before the trend for organic food. In France, everything was organic. We worked with what produce was available to us.

3. Do you change your menus in your restaurant around the world to match local tastes?

No. Fine dining here is the same as fine dining in London or Paris or Las Vegas. Well, with perhaps a little less spice.

4. Which Asian culinary traditions do you admire?

When I travelled to Japan years ago, the food presentation there changed my way of thinking. Presentation became very important and it still is. But it’s always absolutely about the taste. You must get pleasure when you eat. That comes from taste. Hong Kong has choices which I like and an elegance.

5. Is fine dining the way to woo a woman?

It can be. Of course!

6. Is that how you seduced your wife?

My wife? She likes Thai food. Curries. And you know what I do! It’s completely different. But I’m glad my wife isn’t in awe of me and the cooking. You can’t have a balanced married life if a partner is in awe of the other.

7. What do you like to make and eat?

It changes every day, depending on the city I am in, my mood, the ambience … what I feel. You know what I want right now more than anything in the world? A glass of water with a slice of lemon. I’m a simple man.

Top Host: Padma Lakshmi: Interview with Top Chef host, supermodel and actress Padma Lakshmi for food magazine Crave

The host of the Emmy-award winning reality show Top Chef, Padma Lakshmi has been a household name. Crave learns her preferences, her extraordinary palate and her adventurous approach to food.

Text by P.Ramakrishnan

It's hard to see past Padma Lakshmi's tabloid fame. She's a former fashion model who still looks stunning at 40, even with a one-year-old in tow. Her other accomplishments include part-time film and television actress, TV host, documentary filmmaker, author and producer.



Notes:

Pick up CRAVE Feb issue NOW!! Woo hoo. 

Interviewing one of 'the world's most beautiful people' was amaaaaaaaaazing. Its ridonculous how good she looks - and eats as much as she does and keeps that bod! Dayum! Fellow Keralite! =0) 

-- February 2011

A Matter of Taste: Pierre Gagnaire: Interview with a French Icon

Another day, another month, another dishy issue of Crave. Pick up NOW!

Even for France's history of fine chefs, Pierre Gagnaire has made a special name for himself. Crave meets the culinary legend and learns how his global reach has not altered how he judges good food.

Words: P.Ramakrishnan
Images: Courtesy of The Mandarin Oriental.

Full feature and interview in Crave magazine. 

Shaw Thing: A chat with the stunning Claudia Shaw

Known for her impeccable sense of style, Claudia Shaw's elegant approach to fashion is reflectd in the way she cooks. She talks to Crave about her cookbooks and her culinary passion.

Words: P.Ramakrishnan

 

Interview is online here.

NOTES:

Crave hit newsstands earlier this year and I freakin' love this magazine and have recommended it to fellow foodies in the city with the sort of unadulterated passion that mostly emanates from me when there's food involved. 

Like most Indians, I spend an inordinate chunk of time in the day thinking about what to eat. Ergo, presto, pasta, proseco, food-wood for Crave. 

I've had the great joy of writing for Carmen Li, the editor-in-chief and publisher of Hong Kong's premier food mag too. Carmen and I hit SCMP around the same time when we were fresh out of University. I was chubby and foolish, she was (is!) alarmingly polished and erudite. The twain wrecks had to meet. 

The most notable memory I have is her working late into the night and arriving on time the next day in her fancy schmancy car. Why she worked that long and that hard for criminal pay (and made the rest of us look bad) when she should have been getting pedicures and being served canapes was beyond me. 

In my mind, she should have been the Asian equivalent of gossip girl but she worked her tail off like Ugly Betty. Oh look - strands of being a TV junkie are leaking into my prose now... sigh. 

Anyhoo, here we are a decade and then some later, and nothing's changed. 

She still works too hard and still looks too good. We're supposed to be a breed of boozy, overweight hacks that whinge all day at cheap bars over the declining standards of publishing. Li goes against the grain, she doesn't fit the prototype. 

Lots of ups and downs in the biz so when she nose-dived into this arena, that brave quixotic fool (carpe diem!), by launching this polished, glutinous glossy, I'm backing her 100 per cent. 

Putting my money where my blog is, I hobbled (twisted ankle - running. Er... running to a cab but it still counts as running/sports injury) across to Dymocks in Happy Valley to buy my own copy of the first few issues. 

 Its a delicious mag - I wanna spread some Nutella on it and eat it like a cracker. Great pics, informative writing, targeting a niche market, its gorgeous cover to cover, page by page. 

Can't read the text above? PICK UP July 2010 copy of Crave NOW! 

Post script: 

Interview is online here.