July 2019

Southeast asia

july 2019

A night out in Asia

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eating osaka, Hue street food, Black pork on the menu, Hong Kong through a chef’s eyes

THE SIZZLING TASTES OF LAWRY’S THE PRIME RIB.

A premium grand dining restaurant since 1938, Lawry’s is renowned for the tender melt-in-yourmouth Signature Roasted USDA Prime Rib of Beef which is aged up to 28 days and the sweet succulent Atlantic Lobster Tail. Accentuated with delectable food, impeccable service and lavish glamorous interiors, the customers at Lawry’s are always pampered with legendary dining experiences.

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Terms and Conditions: 1. Except for single diners, Card Members and their guests have to order a minimum of two main courses in order to enjoy the varying savings. 2. Savings is not valid on the eve of Public Holidays, Public Holidays and special occasions such as Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Valentine’s Day. 3. For full Terms and Conditions of Love Dining, please refer to amex.co/lovediningrestaurantstnc.

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July

contents

features

74

Getting Lost in Japan’s Kitchen How can you not love Osaka, a city that reveres its culinary traditions high and low as much as it welcomes visitors from near and far? By Stephanie Zubiri.

Photographed by Shinsuke Matsukawa

84

74 90 96

Black Pigs Black pork migrates from hillside villages to the luxe side of Bangkok.

Joe Cummings trails the juicy, marbled meat across borders and through the ages.

Illustrated by Riety

90

c l o c k w i s e f r o m t o p l e f t: S h i n s u k e M ats u k awa ; l e st e r v. l e d e sm a ; a n d r e a w y n e r

Snack Capital In the old Vietnamese capital, Lester V. Ledesma finds an enduring monarchic influence in the food of the commonfolk— the banh Hue.

96

Rome With the Kids Can travel turn our children into better people? Taffy Brodesser-Akner and her family consider their place in the world. Photographed

by Andrea Wyner

ON THE COVER

In Manila, every night is an eating and drinking adventure.

Photographed by Scott A. Woodward

t r av e l a n d l e i s u r e a s i a .c o m / j u ly 2 0 1 9

5

contents In Every Issue

T+L Digital 10 Contributors 12 The Conversation 13 Editor’s Note 14 Deals 68 Wish You Were Here 106

23 The Cool Kids on the Block

38 Brew North Though known for

Shaking off its polarized rep, Manila’s nightlife has now staked out an edgy middle ground in Poblacion, a neighborhood full of bars fueled as much by refined menus as free-flow fun.

27 Grazing the South Famous for coconut curries and burning spice, Southern Thai food goes beyond the massaman and khanom jeen classics.

30 A Drop of the Himalayas A new

ambitious new restaurant boasts Bangkok’s first Michelin threestarred chef on the floor—and up in the clouds.

its blooming gardens and scenic riverside, Hamilton, a small town in the center of New Zealand’s North Island, has more to offer than just bucolic charm.

Just south of Portland, the small town of Biddeford is having its own culinary renaissance, thanks to a wave of new craft breweries, tasting rooms, and a stellar restaurant.

Special 53 The T+L Guide to Drinking in

Asia Thirsty? There’s no reason to be, with a host of new tipples in Singapore, the team of top Bangkok barkeeps, the inside scoop on where to drink in Taipei and new-look wine-tasting notes. Oh, you can also stir things up in Hokkaido and Saigon, or country-hop for some stellar craft beers or the fresh concoctions from some of the region’s top female bartenders.

42 Have You Eaten Yet? Where do a food writer and her Michelin three-starred husband dine out in Hong Kong? The couple serves some of their favorites.

46 On the Cava Trail Catalonia’s

mountain resort in Darjeeling offers an intimate chance to get away from it all while experiencing West Bengal’s teamaking traditions in style.

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50 The New Artisans of Maine

j u ly 2 0 1 9 / t r av e l a n d l e i s u r e a s i a .c o m

gastronomic prowess is wellknown, so why is nearby Penedès, the birthplace of Spain’s sparkling wine, still a secret?

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o tt o e m e z z o b o mb a n a ; l e i g h g r i f f i ths ; c o u r t e s y o f I d l e w i l d

34 Of Butter and Bubbles An

Macau restaurant with no menu; Rangoon’s heritage row for foodies; enjoying a meal with Vietnamese moms; and more.

f r o m l e f t: s c o tt A . w o o d wa r d ; c o u r t e s y o f 8

19 Reasons To Travel Now A

SPONSORED SERIES

Masters of Margaret River

A culinary journey with Lexus into the gastronomic heart and winelands of Western Australia reveals a contemporary dining scene driven by the area’s unique native ingredients “I NEVER THOUGHT I’D EAT A LEXUS GRILLE,” marveled one of the guests dining on chef Shaun Quade’s innovative creations at the exclusive Lexus ‘Escape to Amazing’ event in Western Australia. But it’s that level of imagination, attention to detail and originality that links the exquisite craftmanship of Lexus cars with the creativity of the culinary world. And if that sense of wonder and awe was what Lexus was going for, they nailed it with aplomb.

As a partner of the annual Margaret River Gourmet Escape, Lexus whisked 35 guests on a luxury journey through this world-renowned wine-growing and foodie region. Amidst an intoxicating, Australianafeel backdrop of jarrah trees, pristine coastline and rolling vineyards, Lexus hosted a four-day series of immersive epicurean experiences. It was a collective passion project of the iconic carmaker, some of the country’s best winemakers and chefs, and global food personalities—the fare was delicious and the excitement was infectious.

LexusAsia.com/TastefulTravels

As one of the most iconic features of the Lexus brand, the 2019 Lexus ES grille, crafted with custard, took front-and-centre at chef Quade’s experimental dinner. “The menu tonight is very playful, we’ve used technology to make the dessert based on the actual physical design of one of the Lexus cars,” chef Quade said, as he put finishing touches on lamb roasted over eucalyptus with broccoli, asparagus and spring garlic miso.

The young chef is acclaimed for his use of tech: in 2016 his Melbourne restaurant Lume became the first in Australia to utilize augmented and virtual reality in the dining experience. Here, surrounded by trees and manicured lawns, the chateau-like Fraser Gallop estate hosted the chef’s ‘Reimagined Wine & Dine’ dinner, one of six exclusive chef-led dining experiences that comprised the Lexus ‘Escape to Amazing’ event.

A short drive from Perth, Margaret River is home to 217 vineyards and 187 wineries, and is best known for its Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon and Cabernet Sauvignon. The love

connoisseurs have for luxury cars and fine wines have long drawn comparisons. But the similarities between Lexus’s range of cars and Margaret River’s grapes have never been more apparent than when paired in the same setting. Guests, chauffeured or selfdriven from their base at Pullman Bunker Bay Resort Margaret River in the comfort of a fleet of SUV Lexus NX and RX models, were quick to remark on the smooth drive and sumptuous feel of the leather interior.

Bark and gum leaves cracked softly underneath the wheels as the Lexus convoy approached Leeuwin Estate on welcome night. It was a wonderfully apropos preface to the back-to-basics philosophy of the ‘Feast in the Forest’ dinner, which played with natural elements of open fire and smoke, within a converted shearing shed in a natural marri and jarrah forest. It’s here, in the Safari Barn of Leeuwin Estate, one of the region’s most esteemed wine producers, where Barbados-born, Australian-based chef Paul Carmichael cast his beguiling spell.

SPONSORED SERIES

As the executive chef of Sydney’s awardwinning Seiobo, chef Carmichael is rightfully beloved for his knowledge and exploration of some of Australia’s most underutilized native ingredients. “In essence, I’m a craftsman. Cooking is a craft, it’s not just a job,” said the charming chef. Known for his Carribean flavours, he magicked up a menu that surprised and delighted everyone, highlighting Margaret River’s local produce and seafood, with tastes of plantain, mullet roe and St John’s Brook Cheese followed by jerk pork jowl, abalone caramel, escabeche and sweet potato, salted cod and lobster.

Indeed, the wine region’s unique native ingredients claimed pole position during the Gourmet Escape. And it was inspiring to see how each of the chefs worked them into their dishes. Energetic chef Paul Iskov, who whipped up a four-course meal at Wise Winery titled ‘Bold Ingredients. Amazing Flavours,’ wasted no time in getting us acquainted with the aromatic flavours of the Aussie bush. “I’ve been out foraging this morning, really trying to showcase the native ingredients and beautiful local herbs

LexusAsia.com/TastefulTravels

we have,” he said before the event, as Lexus guests joined him on a merry bushwalk to get the inside track on some of the coastal flavours. “With the range of different ingredients we have, we’re able to take [guests] on a journey and tell them a story.”

Chef Iskov’s culinary tale began with a cast of canapes headlined by bold Australian flavours, such as marron and coastal rosemary, roo tartare with wattleseed lavosh and Davidson plum and brown crouton with cured emu and saltbush yolk. A first course of macadamia, bloodroot and lemon myrtle was paired with dry Riesling, while the second course of kangaroo, youlk, quandong and saltbush was sipped down with a Shiraz or Cabernet Sauvignon. For dessert, everyone devoured wattleseed with Geraldton wax, muntries and blood lime.

Petit fours of saltbush fudge, riberry jube and quandong nougat rounded off the meal.

Now in its seventh year, the Margaret River Gourmet Escape has brought together 100,000 foodies and wine-lovers since its launch in 2012. The 2018 event featured 60 culinary stars from Australia and the world,

It was a collective passion project of the iconic carmaker, some of the country’s best winemakers and chefs, and global food personalities—the fare was delicious and the excitement was infectious including Nigella Lawson, Rick Stein, Julien Royer and Skye Gyngell. Many chefs gave cooking demos and talks at the Gourmet Village, at the Leeuwin Estate. There was an air of excitement around the Lexus ‘Escape to Amazing’ guests, who cheekily snuck off for a curated collection of VIP experiences, including a private art tour, front-row seats at chefs’ cooking demonstrations, and refreshments in the exclusive Lexus Lounge.

Try not to be overcome by wanderlust or, indeed, food envy, when checking out the party at LexusAsia.com/TastefulTravels.

Encircled by rugged bushland and azure coastline, Margaret River is stupefyingly beautiful, so it’s no wonder the event’s biggest name came back for a second serving in 2018. Former journalist, author and TV chef Nigella Lawson made her debut at the Gourmet Escape in 2017 and, while in conversation with host Kate Langbroek at ‘Supper with Nigella’ this year, joked in her self-deprecating style about how easy the choice had been to return. Listening at Xanadu Winery to her cooking tips and favourite reads, it felt like a chat with an old friend—albeit one whose love of snacking could inspire eight wine-paired courses of

decadent canapes, designed by Xanadu chef Melissa Kokoti. Savoury bites such as ocean trout, beetroot, black sesame and pearls were trumped only by delicate desserts of rosewater dumplings with pistachio and fairy floss, in homage to Nigella’s sweet tooth.

Nigella Lawson’s flair and flamboyance has made her a household name. But on home soil, chef Aaron Carr is one of the hottest chefs in Western Australia and the apron behind one of Margaret River’s mosttalked about new restaurants, Yarri. In keeping with the native theme, the team at Yarri use seasonal ingredients to create simple yet flavourful dishes that celebrate the region’s growers, farmers and fishermen.

Doing good by eating well. As a tribute to Lexus’s Japanese heritage, chef Carr dreamed up a finale brunch, beginning with a Japanese rolled omelette with edamame, daikon and trout roe, followed by marron benedict with ox tongue, foccacio and saltbush.

It was a fitting farewell, ensuring the Lexus ‘Escape to Amazing’ guests came away with more than a new appreciation for contemporary Australian cuisine. They dined, dished and drove their way through an experience truly like no other.

t+ L d i g i tal

this month on tr avel andleisureasia.com

This Chef Is Reviving Ancient Lao Recipes After dazzling Bangkok with her innovative, Michelin-starred Thai cuisine, chef Bongkoch “Bee” Satongun is taking Luang Prabang by storm.

HOTELS TH AT D EF INE THE DESTINATIO N ™ Nestled among vivid tropical gardens and a pristine sand beach, The Laguna, a Luxury Collection Resort & Spa, Nusa Dua, Bali is an exquisite retreat with seven lagoon pools, one for each day of the week.

Experience the true essence of your holidays with our Advance Purchase offer. Book 14 days in advance and enjoy up to 20% savings on your next tropical island getaway.

EX P LO RE THE DESTIN ATI ON AT THELAGU N A BA LI .CO M

The Datai Langkawi Just Got an Incredible Overhaul While this Malaysian beauty already boasted a lovely location, a complete refurbishment has made it positively stunning—and a sustainability idol.

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Shishi-Iwa house in Japan is an architecture buff’s dream; road-tripping across Cambodia’s northeast; a walking tour of Manila’s Chinatown; the latest travel deals and much more. travelandleisureasia.com

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contributors

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Shinsuke Matsukawa

Mei Anne Foo

“Getting Lost in Japan’s Kitchen” Page 74 — “When I go to Osaka I have to prepare myself in advance to get hungry because there is delicious food all over the city, and it is reasonably priced. The best time of year to visit is spring: you can enjoy all the mouthwatering offerings while viewing the cherry blossoms. At any time of year, my favorite restaurant is Chitose at Sennichimae shopping street.

Order nikusui (beef soup with tofu) with steamed rice on the side. While shooting this story, I had a great time with Takuto, the Bar Linda owner and a musician who also performs there.” Instagram: @shin_suke.

“Brew North” Page 38 — “I moved to Hamilton from Singapore in February, though I was born and bred in Malaysia. My favorite café here is CallumBrae. The interior is actually pretty kitsch while outside there’s a sea of green—I had a swell time playing putt-putt high on caffeine. Elsewhere, head to the charming Hamilton East neighborhood, Grey Street specifically, for the city’s best food, including Grey Street Kitchen, Duck Island for good ice cream, and Winner Winner for amazing chicken dinners. There’s also the Hamilton East Street Market on the first and third Sundays of each month.”

Instagram: @meiannatee.

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Lester Ledesma

Joe Cummings

“Snack Capital” Page 90 — “I discovered banh Hue the first time I ever set foot on the city’s Dong Ba Market, back in 2005. The concept of banh isn’t too different from our Philippine kakanin, so I took to it naturally. It’s food for any occasion: when you’re peckish, happy, sad, anxious or just feel like putting something tasty between your teeth. Banh is the Vietnamese cure for the munchies. My top pick is banh khoai. I love crunchy, savory things that go well with beer. The fact that you eat it with vegetables just serves to clear my conscience about eating too much.”

Instagram: @skylightimages.

“When Pigs Fly” Page 84 — “Pork from Thai black pigs is tender, juicy and flavorful.

The animals themselves are also really cute, almost too cute to eat. An added selling point is that they are quite sustainable: Small farms raising black pigs tend to avoid the use of chemicals in all phases of breeding and rearing, which is good for both the land and the consumer. The best dish I tasted while reporting this story was tonkatsu made with black pork leg and served in the kitchen at Surin Farm in Thailand. I’ve never had tonkatsu anywhere else that comes even close.” Instagram: @joejcummings.

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W r i t er a nd P h o to gr a p h er

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W r i t er

W r i t er

f r o m t o p : c o u r t e s y o f sh i n s u k e m ats u k awa ; c o u r t e s y o f m e i a n n e f o o ; c o u r t e s y o f l e st e r l e d e sm a ; c o u r t e s y o f j o e c u mm i n g s

P h o to gr a p h er

t h e c o n v e r s at i o n

exotic & idyllic retreat ...where life is a private celebration

Around Asia, there are reportedly more than six million millionaires, so we were curious about their travel habits. Are they really the trendsetters when it comes to travel?

Agility Research & Strategy interviewed more than 900 of them for ILTM Singapore, offering a perfect opportunity to compare your own travel habits with these high-networth travelers.

Where Have They Been?

Over the past 12 months, the favorite destination for jetsetters from Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and South Korea was Japan by a wide margin.

Only Indians broke this mold, favoring the U.S., Australia and Singapore.

Where Are They Going?

Japan figures across the board in upcoming travel plans, but Australia (for Indians and Singaporeans) and the U.S. (for Chinese and Indians) rate highly as well, with many from the Subcontinent looking to venture to the U.K.

#TLASIA

What Are They Doing?

Shopping is the most popular activity for travelers from Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea. Mainland Chinese love amusement parks, while Indians prefer to head to the beach.

we’ve gathered some of your most scrumptious shots from this month.

A banana leaf curry platter in Kuala Lumpur. By @strangertalk.

Mangosteen is definitely the queen of fruits. By @corey.jones310.

Sanur I Ubud I Nusa Dua I Jimbaran

P. 62 361 705 777 F. 62 361 705 101 E. experience@kayumanis.com

Hand-pulled dandan noodles in Macau. By @eatspammusubi.

In Vietnam, street food is a way of life. By @lucalaselva.

JOIN US @

Share an Instagram photo by using the #TLAsia hashtag, and it may be featured in an upcoming issue. Follow @travelandleisureasia

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editor’s note

From above: Six Senses Maxwell; the heirloom beetroot salad.

@CKucway chrisk@mediatransasia.com

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From My Travels Just in from Changi airport, checking in to the Six Senses Maxwell (sixsenses. com) I had food on my mind.

So it was off to the Murray Terrace Food Alley, a neat corner of this collection of restored shop houses. Six Senses specializes in organic cuisine, so I ordered an heirloom beetroot salad and steak frites that came with a detailed explanation of the beets, the homemade salt on the table and the tender pieces of Wagyu. It was such a great lunch, I wanted to order it all over again, but first had to check out this design-oriented hotel, and then had plans for dinner at Yellow Pot, a block away at the group’s Duxton property. It was Singapore after all, where you can never eat too much.

f r o m l e f t: I r fa n S a m a r t d e e ; c h r i st o p h e r k u c way ( 2 )

I’d be reading a travel story about black pigs, but this is our annual food issue and, around Asia, everything is on the menu. “When Pigs Fly” (page 82) is an intriguing look at this prized marbled meat as it’s served in Thailand, though its roots stretch to England and China. It’s a delicious reborn trend you should search out.

Putting this issue together is like going to a restaurant where you want to order the entire menu. Around Asia, there’s never a shortage of food stories, so winnowing the topics to a manageable size is always difficult. This month, we also venture to one of the best food cities in the world, Osaka, for a lesson that is really about enjoying life (“Getting Lost in Japan’s Kitchen,” page 74), something those in the Kansai region know how to do well.

“A Drop of the Himalayas” serves up fresh tea with a view, (page 30), we get a caffeine high in New Zealand (“Brew North,” page 38), and if hanging with “The Cool Kids on the Block” after-hours in Manila (page 23) isn’t enough, check out our T+L Guide to Drinks for the best beverages in Asia (page 53). Over in Hong Kong, a chef leads off a food tour with, “Have You Eaten Yet?” (page 42)—but, as for me, if anyone is up for some Wagyu-worthy pork, I’m free for lunch. never thought

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Regul ar contributors / photogr aphers Cedric Arnold, Kit Yeng Chan, Marco Ferrarese, Duncan Forgan, Jenny Hewett, Lauryn Ishak, Grace Ma, Morgan Ommer, Aaron Joel Santos, Scott A. Woodward, Stephanie Zubiri chairman president publishing director publishER digital media manager TRAFFIC MANAGER / deputy DIGITAL media manager Sales Director Singapore, Mal aysia Sales Director Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, Philippines Regional Manager Thail and, Vietnam, Cambodia, Burma, Maldives chief financial officer production manager circul ation as sistant

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A premier fine dining Chinese restaurant, Si Chuan Dou Hua Restaurant is lauded for its quality and authentic Sichuan and Cantonese cuisines.

SI CHUAN DOU HUA RESTAURANT

Terms and Conditions apply.

Find out more at amex.co/lovedining

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Visit amex.co/platg or call 6396 8838 to apply.

Terms and Conditions: 1. Except for single diners, Card Members and their guests have to order a minimum of two main courses in order to enjoy the varying savings. 2. Savings is not valid on the eve of Public Holidays, Public Holidays and special occasions such as Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Valentine’s Day. 3. For full Terms and Conditions of Love Dining, please refer to amex.co/lovediningrestaurantstnc.

American Express International Inc., (UEN S68FC1878J) 20 (West) Pasir Panjang Road #08-00, Mapletree Business City, Singapore 117439. americanexpress.com.sg Incorporated with Limited Liability in the State of Delaware, U.S.A. ® Registered Trademark of American Express Company. © Copyright 2019 American Express Company.

REASONS TRAVEL NOW j u ly 2 0 1 9

TO

T+L’s monthly selection of trip-worthy places, experiences and events.

no.

courtesy of yi

Fried tilefish with egg whites and crab “coral,” just one creation from Yi.

When Macau’s shiny new Zaha Hadid–designed Morpheus hotel opened last year to great fanfare, Yi restaurant (cityofdreamsmacau.com; mains from MOP168) sidled into the property’s 21st-floor, glass-walled skybridge, quietly but confidently positioning itself as one of the most innovative Chinese fine-diners in the city. Led by acclaimed chef de cuisine Angelo Wong (he also opened

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This Macau restaurant has no menu, and that’s exactly why you should go.

Howard’s Gourmet in Beijing), the restaurant has a “non-menu” omakase-style concept, with daily-changing tasting menus that combine regional Chinese cooking techniques and super-fresh, whatever-is-in-season produce (the restaurant doesn’t have a freezer, it’s ingredients are that green). Daily plates have included succulent roast pigeon smoked with lemongrass, or a

fried tilefish on a bed of crab “coral” made recently for a six-hands dinner with the head chef of Hong Kong’s Tate Dining Room, Vicky Lau. Based on the classic Chinese philosophy of Yi (a belief that nourishment leads to wellness and good fortune), the thoughtful menu by Wong and executive chef Wilson Fam is one to remember… just don’t expect it to be regular. — Eloise Basuki

t r av e l a n d l e i s u r e a s i a .c o m / j u ly 2 0 1 9

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A heritage row in the former Burmese capital gives us food envy.

Lined with crumbling fin-de-siècle buildings, Rangoon’s Pansodan Road transports visitors back to the former capital’s colonial yesteryears. But now, on-trend restaurants are breathing new life into the heritage edifices that once housed government offices and banks.

Take a stroll down the avenue’s imperfect pavement, where you’ll also pass by stalls selling secondhand books and women carrying baskets of fruit on their heads, to these spots that have made Pansodan the city’s celebrated culinary hub. — Veronica Inveen Cocktail hour at Gekko.

At stylish The Pansodan. inset, below: Café Deja Brew in a cup.

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2. Café Deja Brew This humble little shop only uses Burmese coffee beans, which is increasingly rare around the city. Here, you can count on a solid latte, but don’t be afraid to opt for specialties like the Sunkist-presso, a refreshing concoction with fresh orange juice and espresso. fb.com/cafedejabrew.mm.

A pour at Rangoon Tea House. inset, above: Chicken roti at Sofaer and Co.

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3. Gekko In Japanese, gekko means “moonshine,” but don’t fret, the drink menu at this Nipponfocused diner sticks to high-end bottles of sake and Japanese whisky, plus cocktail recipes

from the mixologists at Singapore’s 28 HongKong Street. It all pairs well with charcoal-fired yakitori or crunchy bites of gyoza, but the restaurant, which is housed in a grandiose building built in 1906, also offers a few worthy Korean and Vietnamese dishes. gekkoyangon.com; mains from K12,000.

4. Rangoon Tea House A hipster spin-off of a traditional Burmese teahouse, this eatery draws as many locals as expats.

With a white-tiled coffee bar, leather couches, and walls that feature black-and-white photos from Rangoon’s past, the upscale-cozy surrounds complement a diverse menu spanning Burmese favorites like mohinga noodle soup and lahpet thoke (tea leaf salad), and fancified bao bun sandwiches and chicken-tandoori wraps. fb.com/rangoonteahouse; mains from K9,500.

5. Sofaer and Co The cobalt-blue façade of this hip spot is hard to miss, but go for the eclectic Southeast Asian bites. Here, burgers range from soft-shell crab with papaya salad to chicken katsu with morning glory. More traditional plates include Vietnamese bun cha and Burmese banana blossom salad. fb.com/sofaer andco; mains from K9,500.

f r o m to p : c o u rt esy o f th e pa n s o da n ; c o u rt esy o f ca f É d eja b r e w ; c o u rt esy o f g e kko ; c o u rt esy o f s o fa e r a n d c o ; c o u rt esy o f r a n g o o n t e a h o u s e

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1. The Pansodan From its chevron marble flooring to the glimmering gold leaf–capped ceiling, this new buzz-worthy restaurant is a journey to a bygone age.

Dressed as an old colonial brasserie, The Pansodan serves traditional Burmese dishes with a European flair—think mutton bone marrow and Burmese pâté.

Some of Rangoon’s most creative culinary minds are behind the menu: the place was founded by Pun + Projects, the same team responsible for cool haunts like drinking house Port Autonomy (portautonomy.com; mains from K14,000) and pub-grub eatery 50th Street (50thstreetyangon.com; mains from K10,000). thepansodan. com; mains from K11,000.

It’s the time of the year for a great family getaway!

Take the family on an educational trip around Singapore’s well-known precincts and multi-cultural enclaves to learn more about Singapore’s unique history and diverse culture or spend the day lounging by the resort-style pool, complete with water slides that will surely delight.

To make you feel right at home, Swissôtel Merchant Court, Singapore provides families with the option to have the room(s) transformed into a Swissôtel Kids Room with special amenities.

Sweeten your stay with the following: - Two connecting rooms - A complimentary dairy ice cream treat for children up to 12 years old - A special gift prepared specially for children up to 12 years old - Swissôtel Kids Room set-up and age-appropriate amenities * Terms and conditions apply.

FOR ENQUIRIES AND RESERVATIONS, PLEASE CALL +65 6337 9993 OR EMAIL RESERVATIONS.MERCHANTCOURT@SWISSOTEL.COM SWISSOTEL.COM

AMERICAS | ASIA PACIFIC | EUROPE | MIDDLE EAST

r e a s o n s t o t rav e l n o w

A villa with a view at The Anam Cam Ranh.

no.

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This five-star Vietnamese retreat makes dinnertime a family affair.

They may have no Michelin stars, they might not rank on any bestrestaurant lists, and, well, they’re not even trained as chefs, but the cooks who infiltrate the kitchen twice weekly at The Anam Cam Ranh have something even more Vietnamese menus made by mamas.

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special to offer: a heaping portion of motherly love. Armed with their centuries-old Vietnamese recipes, three moms of members of The Anam’s full-time staff take over the cooking station at the resort’s Lang Viet restaurant every Wednesday and Friday for “Mama’s Cooking.”

Take in the outdoor, tropical vibe as you watch the skilled matriarchs Nguyen Thi Phuong, Nguyen Thi Nhiem and Vo Thi Xuan Huu cook traditional bo nuong la lot (grilled beef in betel leaf), bun bo Hue and banh xeo. And with new twobedroom spa villas adding a decadent draw to the Long Beach property, you’ll have no choice but to make yourself at home. theanam. com; Mama’s Cooking VND780,000 per person; two-bedroom spa villas from VND17,200,000 for up to four guests, including daily spa treatments. — E.B.

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Utilizing the fresh springwater that flows from the hills of Yunnan province and Chinese sturgeon from the Amur River that borders Russia’s far east, Singaporean Benjamin Goh’s caviar is now ready for your aperitivo hour.

Swimming in 800 hectares of farmland in Yunnan that Goh purchased 20 years ago, his sturgeon are fed an organic, antibiotic-free blend of traditional Chinese medicinal herbs, salmon oil, deep sea shrimp, fish and nutritional supplements, and must mature to at least 10 years old before they can yield the best-quality caviar. All the long-game nurturing is finally paying off. Five species of sturgeon create Caviar Colony’s range, including the buttery and briny Amur; the Kaluga, the most expensive at S$110 per 10 grams; and the AI-developed Russian Hybrid, which offer bursts of fruity sweetness. You can buy the caviar online now; soon at Singaporean restaurants Alma, Meta, Nouri, Pollen and 28 Wilkie; and in Bangkok in September for a month-long Caviar Colony pop-up in Audemars Piguet Bangkok.

— E.B.

f r o m l e f t : c o u rt esy o f th e a n a m ( 2 ) ; c o u rt esy o f cav i e r c o lo n y

Twenty years in the making, this Singaporean caviar brand has finally hit consumer shelves.

after hours

The Cool Kids on the Block

Shaking off its polarized rep—too seedy, or too snooty—Manila’s nightlife has now staked out a edgy middle ground awash with bars fueled as much by refined menus as free-flow fun.

Stephanie Zubiri goes night-crawling in Poblacion, and finds its dark laneways are now paved with gold. Photogr aphs by Scott A. Woodward

Polilya serves local brews by Engkanto Brewery.

“Here, Steph, have a bite of your shawarma.”

My friends push the meat-stuffed, garlicky wrap toward me as a remedy to my obvious tipsiness. After a night out in Poblacion, booze food is a 3 a.m. necessity.

Far from the glitzy cosmopolitan entertainment districts in big glossy developments that Manila is usually known for, Poblacion has exploded in just the past few years to become a hip new party neighborhood with a rough-around-the-edges locale essential to its charm.

The streets of Makati’s north, formerly known as “Williamsburgos,” have now fully blossomed into a gritty urban creative paradise. With lower rent, unusual ArtDeco structures, makeshift patched-up buildings from the 70s, and an overall slightly decrepit allure, the area has become a hotbed for small bars and contemporary restaurants run by the passionate and adventurous.

Each little joint invariably feels more special than the last—a vintage chic space with delicious modern Filipino food and a killer Negroni, a quirky rabbit hole with a gin list as long as my forearm, a tiny black room with music to rival any small indie electro club in Paris, to give a few examples. So with friends visiting, I organized a night on the town, a hop among the latest eating and drinking venues to arrive on the small streets and dark alleys that mushroom out either side of Kalayaan Avenue.

As I told them, the best way to experience Poblacion is to dress down and wear sneakers—a necessity for walking from one gin joint to the next and avoiding the occasional gutterside roach. Just say, “Yes!” to the night and wherever it takes you, even if it means you have to pay for it the next morning… or soak it up with a pre-bed shawarma session. >> t r av e l a n d l e i s u r e a s i a .c o m / j u ly 2 0 1 9

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after hours

For Vintage Sips and a View

Don’t be put off by Dr. Wine’s (fb.com/dr.wine manila; drinks from P190; mains from P580) odd name—although partowner and self-proclaimed healer-by-vino himself Vincent Landais will tell you that a glass is the cure for everything. Dr. Wine has all the makings of a typical bar-bistro in the artsy, hip Republique area of Paris—repurposed wood, crates, vintage fleamarket finds, leather sofas and a long communal table in the middle. The name speaks for itself, so we order from their excellent wine list—a well-curated

selection of good value-formoney bottles from around the world and some beautiful, special drops like an Alter-Ego de Palmer in a ready-to-drink 2007 vintage—and pick on a board of cheese and charcuterie. Their homemade terrines, pâté and rillettes are to die for along with their foie gras mi-cuit terrine. You could also order something heftier like osso-buco or cassoulet from their dinner menu before heading upstairs to the rooftop bar, Kartel (fb. com/kartelrooftop; drinks from P250), for stronger drinks and an upbeat vibe.

Charcuterie and a vintage red at Dr. Wine. Top left: Rooftop bar Kartel.

Bar snacks at the boho-chic Polilya.

A Tap Room With a Twist “Have you figured out what you want yet?” glares the neon sign above the bar that tends to take on an existentialist air once I’ve had one too many pints.

I’ve found myself quite often at this philosophical crossroads coming up with the one logical answer to that burning question: a cold beer. Fueled by the young and local Engkanto Brewery, Polilya (fb.com/ polilya.mnl; bar snacks from P160; drinks from P140) pours some bold

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stouts, hoppy IPAs and fresh lagers along with amazing beer cocktails and excellent bar chow to match. Come early to nibble on kaffir-lime infused spicy crabcakes, Gangnam-style chicken wings or beer-steamed mussels before staying late to watch the boho-chic crowd flood the space to party. If you must have a seat, you’d better remember to reserve in advance because this place gets more packed than a tin of sardines.

Cocktails in Wonderland Hidden on the grittier side of Poblacion, Run Rabbit Run (runrabbit.run; drinks from P400) does feel a little bit mysterious with its dark and moody interiors.

Just like Alice, I allow myself to be lured into the realm of the Mad Hatter and settle in with a big balloon glass of craft gin, forgetting all notions of time and space. A seat by the long bar on the ground floor provides the perfect view to the making of their amazing cocktails; while they do the classics well, if

you’re feeling adventurous try their more out-there concoctions like the Kaya Toast cocktail with coco jam, peach liqueur and spiced rum. Huddle up here with a friend for long chats set to the beat of chill hip-hop, or venture up to the bar’s second floor for the cozy lounge area that has ample space for a bigger group to enjoy their curated selection of gin from around the world.

Alternatively, the large, open-air terrace offers a brighter and more vibrant ambience.

Modern-Filipino eatery Lampara. below: The bistro’s longganisa sausage rice cups.

Native Eats in Super Style

The Kaya Toast cocktail at Run Rabbit Run.

A flickering lamp leads us up bare white stairs into Lampara’s (fb.com/ lampara.pob; mains from P380; drinks from P280) gorgeous airy space with a distinct vintage, Midcentury vibe. Contrary to the usual street-eats and bar bites in the neighborhood, this NeoFilipino bistro serves up delicious and honest food from a pared-down menu cooked with modern techniques and laced with all kinds of familiar, local flavors. Think silken tofu with pork floss, a crisp duck leg with soy and liver pâté or a roast pork that’s equally crackly and tender.

Start with one of their signature cocktails, The Gasera ni Simoun, a flaming rum and grapefruit concotion with torched rosemary, or an

excellently executed classic Negroni, then order several, or as we did, all the menu items to share among friends. Don’t forget to end with their yema and tsokolate dessert, a sweet and savory, rich local dark chocolate confection with egg custard caramel and crunchy bits that are worth the extra calories.

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after hours

Moody speakeasy vibes at Panaginip. below: Wantusawa’s grilled prawn laksa.

WHERE TO DANCE:

Since you’ve got your sneaks on, might as well put them to good use in one of these joints run by serious audiophiles. Fair warning: No top 40 nor EDM here.

The Futurist A dark, tiny space bursting at the seams with some truly mindblowing deep house music. instagram.com/ futurist.ph.

Nokal From soul to Motown and hiphop at the ground floor to electro and house music on the level above, if you feel like moving, this place is a must. fb.com/ nokal.mnl.

Meet the Residents of Tambai Alley My very first encounter with Poblacion during its initial gentrification days was sinking my teeth into some seriously tender pork yakitori while pounding cold beers on the streetside plastic stools of Tambai (fb.com/tambaiph; yakitori from P50; drinks from P60).

A bastardized way of saying “stand by,” tambai is a colloquial local expression meaning “to hang out,” and the concept has expanded down the laneway. Set behind this pioneering eatery, “Tambai Alley” has a handful of tiny specialized establishments run with a lot of soul—once you’re in,

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it’s hard to leave.

Wantusawa (fb.com/

wantusawaoysters; mains from P350; drinks from P200) is a seafood-focused izakaya. Start with fresh oysters from Aklan province, followed by a bowl of yaki udon tossed with scallops and crab fat, a creamy laksa, or grilled octopus, and wash it all down with some sake or a gin highball. Next, head over to Ebi 10 (fb.com/ ebi10ph; mains from P165.), a hole in the wall, where the air is thick and sticky with with the vapors of deep-fried goodness. We go for über crispy tempura and indulgently stuffed sushi rolls, where each piece seems like a little

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mountain laden with spicy tuna, scallops, tobiko and more. If you want to keep the drinks flowing, sultry and sexy, live jazz and Motown speakeasy Panaginip (instagram.com/ panaginip.ph; drinks from P300) is just the place.

Boogie Don’t be fooled by the young crowd; the music here is all about oldschool hip-hop and they’re pretty serious about it. fb.com/boogiemnl.

Late night eats Yalla Yalla Express Because nothing beats sinking your teeth into a shawarma after a big night on the dance floor. fb.com/yallayalla​ expressph.

six dishes

Oysters

(hoy nang rom) Following the Kradae Canal until it spills out into the Gulf of Thailand reveals one of Surat Thani’s hidden treasures: a clutch of stilted seafood restaurants hovering above the river mouth’s mangroves.

At Nai Ao Seafood, families pass steaming bowls of prawn tom yum, plates of grilled horseshoe crab and blood clams, and always a dozen plump, glassy oysters fresh from local riverside farms. Mix and match each shell with the offered accoutrements: fried onion, garlic, lime and three types of chili. Kadae, Kanchanadit, Surat Thani; 66-77/379-311; oysters from Bt35.

Grazing the South

It’s famous for coconut curries and burning spice, but southern Thai food goes beyond the massaman and khanom jeen classics. From Chumphon down to Songkhla, we try six other specialties with influences from Chinese migrants to neighboring Malaysia. By Eloise Basuki. Photogr aphs by Leigh Griffiths

stir-fried liang with egg (bai liang pad khai) The

glossy green liang leaf is a hallmark of the south, commonly swirled into coconut-shoot broths or wok-fried with egg and garlic. Like the also ubiquitous prawn and stink bean stirfry, you can find bai liang pad khai at almost every southern restaurant.

At the overwater Tha Rua in Kra Buri, Ranong, both dishes come with a view of Burma across the riverine border. Nam Chuet, Kra Buri, Ranong; 95-9/0565-6916; mains from Bt100.

steamed buns (salapao) As you

head north from Ranong airport and the province’s untouched isles shrink from view, the highway leads to another bestkept secret: Ban Thapli, an actual salapao (steamed bun) “village.” Flanking the road are strings of stalls stacked with steamers warming cloud-like, not-at-all doughy buns.

Sunanta has a wide variety, from sangkaya to taro to barbecue pork. Phet Kasem Road, Kra Buri, Ranong; 66-82/270-3426; from Bt6.

Hat Yai fried chicken (kai tod Hat Yai)

As the capital of the south, the busy hub of Hat Yai has a diverse cuisine. Its famously crisp fried chicken has a Malay twist, infused in a herby cuminand pepper-spiced marinade. At popular Decha restaurant, you can order the bird with Malay-style yellow rice or the more common sticky rice, plus the essential fried-onion topping. Chee Uthit Road., Hat Yai; 66-81/098-3751; from Bt50.

Trang-style roasted pork

(Trang moo yang) Ears, cheek, hock and

King mackerel (pla insee) Forty

kinds of curries, soups and stir-fries pile the counter of Mae Cha-liao, a family-run shophouse in Lang Suan, Chumphon, but their king mackerel is a star. Third-gen owner and chef Tim Mantharanon sources her seven-kilogram fish from the nearby Gulf, which she says has a more buttery flesh than those from the wavier Andaman Sea. Order it in golden fried steaks or in a tamarind-laced kaeng som curry. Khan Ngoen, Lang Suan, Chumphon; mains from Bt35.

belly—you’re going to want a little of each on your plate when ordering Trang moo yang, the province’s famous pork.

Marinated overnight in Chinese spices and honey, then barbecued whole for at least four hours, the result is a tangle of caramelized crunch and fall-off-the-bone meat. Go for breakfast at Trang Moo Yang restaurant, and pair it with the province’s other specialty, dim sum, which arrived with the early southern Chinese migrants. 201/5 Huai Yod 19 Rd., Trang; 66-89/723-9328; mains from Bt40.

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Centara Sandy Beach Resort Danang on Non Nuoc Beach.

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D i s c o v e ry

Chamong Chiabari is surrounded by Himalayan peaks.

Tasting the local brews in Chamong’s garden.

A Drop of the Himalayas A new mountain resort in Darjeeling offers an intimate chance to get away from it all, while experiencing West Bengal’s teamaking traditions in style.

By Marco Ferr arese .

Photogr aphs by Kit Yeng Chan “We have arrived, sir.” My driver bids me

Taking in the view from the balcony.

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farewell and drops me in front of a gate festooned with fluttering Tibetan prayer flags.

To my left, the hill tumbles down and turns into an endless, dark-green labyrinth of prized Darjeeling tea plantations. On the opposite side of the valley, silhouettes of Himalayan mountains loom on the horizon.

“Welcome to Chamong Chiabari,” shout two young and sinewy Bengali bellboys as they come forward to help me with my luggage.

Composed of four old-world bungalows, Chamong Chiabari is a new heritage retreat in the remote village of Pokhriabong—one hour from the Darjeeling hill station—offering travelers a full immersion into the legacy of the Chamong Tea Estate, a plantation that dates back to 1871. The hotel’s nine rooms were once the original cottages of the tea planters, and now belong to Chiabari Retreats, whose portfolio also includes heritage bungalow Tumsong Chiabari in Ghoom, another town in the region.

Besides the resort and the tea fields, Chamong Tea Estate’s 332 hectares are still densely forested, making them a paradise for birdwatchers—250 different species soar these

skies. But I’m here to experience the prized Darjeeling teas produced in this historical, yet lesser-known, Himalayan estate: from black to green, white and oolong, Chamong’s handpicked, completely organic Darjeeling teas are famous for their unique floral aroma. Spending the night among these fields seems the perfect way to drink it all in.

Once I’m settled in my spacious and modern

Queen suite, GoGo, one of the two bellboys, returns with my first pot of Chamong tea. I follow the wooden floorboards out to my balcony that offers unrestricted views over the tea fields guarded by distant Himalayan giants.

I sip the dark orange, bittersweet tea on the balcony as the sun goes down, watching the last tea pickers climb back home through that endless maze of green paths. To my right, I spot the resort’s own Nepali temple dedicated to Shiva high on a crest. Less than a kilometer beyond it, a mountain peak marks the border between India and Nepal.

Chamong’s tea factory is about two kilometers away from the resort. Early the next morning, a chauffeur drives me along a paved road that zooms through ferns, shrubs and tea fields peppered with Nepali pickers, mostly petite, strong-looking women with big baskets hanging from their heads.

The tour starts from the factory’s drying room, where a colonial-era machine is still used to hold and dry the tea leaves before they are mechanically sorted by weight and size. A tall man with a well-groomed, long and curly mustache introduces himself as Mr. Chaudury,

Mr. Chaudury gives a tea tasting class.

As the sun goes down, I watch the last tea pickers climb back home through that endless maze of green paths Tibetan prayer wheels at the reception.

Local teapickers out in the fields.

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D i s c o v e ry

the factory manager and also my tea-tasting master.

“Each season brings a different quality of tea,” he says.

“The strongest comes after the post summer monsoon.” not as simple as I’d expected. Mr. Chaudury chaperones me to a desk strewn with little ceramic cups and gives me the lowdown: Take a sip of freshly infused tea, breathe in heavily and hiss without gulping the liquid down, taste, and then spit it all out into a tall dustbin. Mr. Chaudury makes a sharp whistling sound as he breathes in the tea’s aromas. When it’s my turn, my hiss is embarrassingly off-pitch, but I still feel like I’m able to appreciate the drink’s flavor.

Made with leaves plucked from the finest trees in the estate, my practically silver-hued white tea is delicate and lightly bittersweet.

I return to Chamong Chiabari in time for breakfast.

Sitting on the lawn beneath my balcony, I refuel from the tasting with a mix of Indian paratha and vegetable curry served next to bacon and eggs—and another pot of Chamong tea, of course. My options for the rest of the day literally lay in front of me: the resort’s new Ayurlaya spa lures guests in with floor-to-ceiling windows that take in the valley views, and a full range of Ayurvedic treatments.

Just down a stone staircase are the tea gardens, which Chamong’s guests can explore at their leisure.

But the mid-morning sun is perched high above the mountains, and the valley brims with incredible light, all its bends and nooks coming into full view. For the moment I prefer to sit back, pour myself another cup of tea, and keep taking in all of this beauty. With nobody listening, I have another go at improving my tea-tasting whistle. chamongchiabari.com; doubles from Rp15,000, including meals.

The tea tasting process is

A Chamong waiter serves organic Monsoon Tea.

Basking in India’s Tea Gardens Find your perfect cup in these other historic tea regions.

Temi Tea Garden, Sikkim Opened by the former Chogyal (king) of Sikkim in 1969, Sikkim’s only tea estate produces some of the world’s best tea using a completely organic process. You can stay at the factory or in several local homestays, such as pretty Aansham Kutir (aanshamkutir. com; doubles from Rp1,500), and enjoy paragliding, mountain biking, and night cultural shows with bonfires. Below Tendong Hill, Temi; doubles from Rp4,000, including meals.

Gatoonga Tea Estate, Assam Northeast India has been the cradle of the country’s tea production even before Darjeeling.

Gatoonga, near Jorhat town, is one of the main estates in Assam. You can stay at Banyan Grove, a heritage cottage with seven classic rooms boasting fireplaces, wooden four-poster beds and checked tiles, all set next to a pleasant swimming pool. 91-943/551-4177; doubles from Rp8,800.

A Queen suite with a mountain view.

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Glenburn Tea Estate, West Bengal This pioneering tea tourism operation in Darjeeling offers eight suites in two colonial bungalows set on the immaculate lawns of a 19th-century mountain tea estate. glenburnteaestate.com; doubles from Rp43,710, including all meals, return transfers and local tours.

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And it has just launched two new liveaboard packages to fully immerse you in the otherworldly natural surrounds and all the raw romance of Komodo National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site brimming with pristine undiscovered spots and a protected habitat for those world-wonder Komodo Dragons.

Hop aboard your water-borne home from the already-famous, scenic Naga Pier at AYANA Komodo Resort, Waecicu Beach. Guests who choose to cruise from Saturday to Sunday will head for Menjerite, whose crystal-clear waters are perfect for snorkeling and kayaking. Sundowners that evening are joined by some very special guests: the thousands of flying foxes endemic to this archipelago who sail across the sky at nightfall.

Those guests sailing from Sunday to Monday will first head for Kelor Island, which has a scenic lookout point atop its lush hill, just begging to be climbed. Although, you’ll be forgiven if you prefer to do your sightseeing in the water: this is also a prime spot for snorkeling and other watersports. For sunset, you’ll find yourself docked off the mangrove-adorned Kalong Island.

On day two, it’s time to meet the dragons! Have a gourmet breakfast aboard the ship, and then disembark at Rinca Island, home to the world’s largest living lizard. You’ll be amazed at these seemingly prehistoric beasts who wander around their paradisaical natural environment as they have for millennia.

Komodo National Park holds myriad treasures, fauna and flora below the waves and on its isles, and they’re best admired from the comfortable decks of AYANA Lako di’a. Use it as a launch for island-hopping, dolphin-spotting or diving. The main deck has been handcrafted to hold up to 150 guests—which makes it the perfect venue for both a romantic overnight jaunt, or a fabulous group gathering, for instance, the wedding to end all weddings.

The clarity of the ocean coupled with vast striking landscapes will take your—and all your guests’—breath away. AYANA.COM

debut

Vincent Thierry plating king-crab tiramisu at Chef's Table, in lebua at State Tower.

Of Butter and Bubbles An ambitious new restaurant boasts the Bangkok’s first Michelin three-starred chef on the floor—and up in the clouds.

By Jeninne Lee-St. John.

Photogr aphs by Leigh Griffiths

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Let us now pr aise butter. Butter churned with the cream of cows ethically raised in the rolling fields of Khao Yai, in Thailand, and delicate fleur de sel hand-raked from the salt marshes of Brittany, France. Sweetcreamy, whisper-of-salty butter, the most ethereal in Bangkok, a simple spread made transcendent—the same way your perspective on the oft-banal urban jungle is elevated to new heights by the view from the 61st-floor dining room. When a man who has earned three Michelin stars is paddling out your butter tableside, you know its heffing good butter.

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This spring, lebua at State Tower—home of cloud-perched SkyBar and Michelin two-starred Mezzaluna—launched a stunning new secret wing that houses Pink Bar, which serves the city’s largest selection of champagnes by the glass and is a flirty antechamber to Chef’s Table, a sublime, awards-bait finediner. Chef Vincent Thierry is captaining this 46-seat, degustationonly expedition, a mission for the finest imported proteins and topgrade Thai produce, fueled in part by the first bespoke blend of bubbles Perrier-Jouët has ever crafted for a >>

debut

hotel. Back in the day, Thierry opened Caprice, in the Four Seasons Hong Kong, and led it to its first Michelin three-star rating, which makes Chef’s Table the only place in Thailand where such a decorated maestro is running day-to-day operations and cooking your food.

And his presence isn’t limited to the butter presentation or occasional check-in. The pièce de résistance of Chef’s Table is the bespoke-designed, handcrafted, gilded-roofed Molteni kitchen, a stunning theater-in-theround for Thierry and his team’s culinary dance. The atmosphere is at once rarefied and congenial.

“When you are spending three hours at the table, you shouldn’t feel the time pass,” Thierry says. “We want to create interaction between chefs and guests.” Which is how I found myself plating our mains with sous chef Pierre Chomet. I propped up the milk-fed veal rack OK, and my tweezers-placed zigzag of the garden veggies (all from Thailand) wasn’t the worst, but I could really do with some plate lip–cleaning and moussesqueezing control classes.

Part of my jitters came from awe at being in that bank-breaking beaut of a kitchen. The floor is cooled so the chefs always look their pictureperfect best, and a unique ventilation and air-filtration system encircles the whole thing like a force field so that you can barely smell anything outside the ring of fire.

Once it hits your table, though (or in the case of my dining companion’s

The custom Molteni kitchen.

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Foie gras: a mid-meal dessert.

Sommelier Richard King.

duo of Challans duck, I deliver it with a little curtsy while trying not to trip in my stilettos) the scents are layered and divine, mingling with the notes of wine generously poured by cheerful somm Richard King. The menu offers two options for each of six courses (plus cheese—and you want them all), and each of those has its own standard or premium wine pairing. Best of the best? The cherrymeets-tobacco, balanced BiondiSanti Brunello di Montalcino 2012 that swooped in with that duck.

We loved the Scottish langoustine and sweetbread lasagna, the Normandy sole fillet with black olives, and the seared foie gras with citrus mosaic and carrot fondant, which was like a decadent mid-meal dessert. Longtime Thierry fans will be happy to find his signature kingcrab tiramisu leading off, but he’ll be changing most items intermittently to keep things surprising, and to go with the seasonal flow (look out soon for a showcase of the year’s best eggplant). “I try the maximum to use local ingredients if they are high quality,” he says. “It’s easier to work in this direction in Thailand, as here we have the producers close to us.”

In fact, Theirry says some good Thai fleur du sel is being made and he’s transitioning to that soon. I’m already plotting my return to dive into a new vat of silky-saline all-Thai but totally French beurre. Maybe he’ll even teach me to paddle it out. lebua.com; seven-course menu Bt7,900; standard wine pairing Bt4,500; premium wine pairing Bt6,900; tea pairing Bt3,500.

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lebua’s Bespoke Booze

The Chef’s Table kitchen was the first stove system 100-year-old French producer Molteni has built in four pieces for assembly on-site, as that was the only way to get it in the hotel. Such is the sway of lebua CEO Deepak Ohri, who has also coaxed some of the world’s top alcohol brands to make him their first-ever private labels. Here are three you can only imbibe at lebua:

Perrier-Jouët By & For lebua Champagne, vintage 2011 How many made: 120 bottles Get it in: Chef’s Table

Absolut Elyx Vodka, lebua Limited Edition How many made: 3,000 bottles Get it in: All lebua bars

Chivas Regal Single Cask Scotch 1985, Exclusively for lebua How many made: 96 bottles Get it in: Alfresco 64

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Brew North

Though known for its blooming gardens and scenic riverside, Hamilton, a small town in the center of New Zealand’s north island, has more to offer than just bucolic charm. Mei Anne Foo finds a coffee capital gaining ground.

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café culture in this half of the world, credit usually goes to Australia. But this ignores their southern sister’s love of a good brew: surveys have shown that New Zealand has more roasters per capita than any other country, and is the 13th largest coffee consumer in the world, ahead of the U.S. and Australia. And while it’s said that Wellington has more cafés per capita than New York City, it’s New Zealand’s fourthlargest town, Hamilton, that caffeine addicts should make a beeline for.

Though far from being a major tourist hub, Hamilton does have a handful of attractions— notably the celebrated Hamilton Gardens, the modest yet modern Waikato Museum, and the annual iconic Balloons Over Waikato hot-air balloon festival. The region even is home to the only commercial tea plantation in New Zealand, Zealong Estate, which grows 100-percent organic oolong (zealong.com). But it’s Hamilton’s burgeoning high-quality coffee scene that is set to rival the rest of the country.

Thanks to a rapid population growth, its close proximity to Auckland, and some entrepreneurial locals, this riverside city now oozes quiet self-confidence with many owneroperated cafés extending Hamilton’s signature hospitality. Dove Chen, with his popular Grey Street Kitchen, is one of them—this year he won the New Zealand Barista Championship for the second time. Originally from Shenzhen, Chen moved to pursue an economics degree at Hamilton’s University of Waikato. After realizing that economics was not his, well, cup of tea, he started to build café businesses here.

Chen’s love affair with coffee began when he was just a kid, saving up his allowance for a weekend treat of a canned coffee drink. It was the sugar that pulled him in but the flavor that kept him coming back for more.

He chose to stay in Hamilton for its geographic and demographic potential.

“Hamilton is a small market. In fact, the number of people in this whole country [less than 5 million] is probably the same as my suburb in Shenzhen!” Chen says. “But it’s definitely growing here. And people care more about coffee now. Back in the day, they were more focused on the food.”

Many baristas, including Chen, point to the boys at Rocket Coffee Roasters, an industry pioneer in Hamilton since 1995, for pushing the trend of high-standard coffee in the city.

Hamilton’s strategic central location in the Waikato region also makes beans from other

from top: courtesy of CallumBr ae; courtesy of dove chen

When we think of the standard-bearer for

regional specialty roasters easily accessible, including Raglan Roast from the nearby namesake beach town and Coffee Supreme from Wellington. Each roaster has its own characteristics, which makes the café scene in Hamilton a smorgasbord of flavors that showcase the North Island. Here are a few of Chen’s favorite places to caffeinate.

from top: courtesy of Grey Street Kitchen; courtesy of cafe Agor a

Grey Street Kitchen Chen has owned a few Hamiltonian coffee joints in the past, but Grey Street Kitchen, first opened in 2007 and bought by Chen in 2013, is his dream café. The interior bursts with natural light, and wood furnishings are contrasted by indoor greenery against white walls. To stay on top of his game, Chen constantly experiments with different blends and styles. During the recent World Barista Championship in Boston, Chen presented an anaerobic fermented Gesha coffee variety from Finca Nuguo, Panama. Some of his coffee concoctions, like the fruity Gesha espresso, pop up on the menu for a limited time, so you can expect the unexpected with each visit. Pair your latte, typically made with beans from popular Kiwi brand Coffee Supreme, with a selection of scones, cakes or something from the brunch menu, which includes buttermilk fried chicken waffles and bread-and-butterpudding French toast. fb.com/greystkitchen; coffee NZ$1.80–$7.50.

from top: At Grey

Street Kitchen; Café Agora and its aerosol-art welcome.

opposite from top: Mini-golf and

local roasts define CallumBrae; barista Dove Chen talks up local brews.

Crompton and Glen Woodcock often collaborate with other cafés in the region as the go-to partner to roast specialty beans. “They’re the best humans on the planet,” Chen says. “Very knowledgeable and humble. Rocket coffee is consistently good and high-quality, and at my café, I sometimes use their beans for limitedtime offers.” Rocket’s own café area is filled with trinkets and memorabilia from coffeemaking’s yesteryears. At the back, the massive rocket-like roaster sits proudly as the brand’s symbol, from which the aroma of freshly roasting beans permeates every nook and cranny of the store. You can bring home a bag of their grind to prepare a shot of your own, or watch the roasting process while sipping on drinks prepared by one of the Glens. “We only use Rocket as guest coffee due to their high quality and it’s owned by a good friend,” Chen says. rocketcoffee.co.nz; coffee NZ$4–$5.50.

Café Agora Agora, which means marketplace in Greek, is a café that values community, and not just its own neighborhood in Frankton. One of Chen’s favorite beans from Agora is the La Mai from northern Thailand, which supports Hill Tribe Hope, a New Zealand charity project that helps to provide water, sanitation, irrigation, health and education to two villages near Chiang Mai. The café’s charitable journey is spray-painted

Rocket Coffee Roasters As owners of one of the most established modern roasters in the country, Rocket’s Glen t r av e l a n d l e i s u r e a s i a .c o m / j u ly 2 0 1 9

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on the venue’s interior and exterior walls via New Zealand–based aerosol artist Cracked Ink, and head barista Takashi Ueno, who specializes in pour-overs and latte art, will happily chat to customers about the coffee-centric cause. cafeagora.net.nz; coffee NZ$3.50–$7.50.

CallumBrae Family Golf & Café You probably couldn’t conceive of a concept more pretension-free Kiwi than a just-thisside-of-cheesy pitch-and-putt green where the refreshment stand is dedicated to seriously good coffee. In his cheery café with retro-geek middle school–style desks, barista, owner and chill surfer-dude John Sung serves smooth brews that use beans from local roasters, including the Laroma Coffee Company, which

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As well as singlebatch brews, Camarosa emphasizes modern dishes.

specializes in nutty yet fruity flavor profiles.

“My favorite coffee from CallumBrae is their Ethiopian filter. It’s super floral and has a great balance of sweetness and acidity,” Chen says.

Sung’s true talent, however, is creating softly textured milk, the primed canvas to form his flawlessly shaped Rosetta. callumbrae25.co.nz; coffee NZ$4.50–$5.50.

Camarosa Opened late last year, Camarosa is the newest destination to grab some perfect brews, plus an on-trend range of modern food (you know, pickle-brined keto fried chicken with Sriracha).

The menu was created by award-winning chef Andrew Clarke, while the city’s best baristas, including Jassher Clayton from Grey Street Kitchen, were brought in to front the coffeemaking process. In the Scandinavian-style, naturally furnished space, try the single-origin batch brew from Rwanda, roasted by Wellington coffee company Flight Coffee, while taking in the strawberry-field view out front. camarosa.co.nz; coffee NZ$3.50–$9.50.

courtesy of camarosa

In his cheery café, barista and surfer dude John Sung serves smooth brews that use beans from local roasters

insider intel

Where do food writer Juliana Loh and her head chef husband, Guillaume Galliot, of the Michelin three-starred Caprice at the Four Seasons, dine out in Hong Kong? From cheap eats to high-end, the foodie couple serves us some of their favorites in the city.

clockwise From top Left: Guillaume Galliot

at Caprice; food writer Juliana Loh; a classic dining table set for yum cha at Imperial Treasure; Beijing-style jiaozi at Wang Fu.

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clock wise from top: courtesy of four seasons; Lilian Yeung; courtesy of imperial treasure; mo h.

Have You Eaten Yet?

about being married to a chef is that I get to eat Michelin-starred meals every day, but the truth is I do all the cooking at home. Guillaume and I first met more than 10 years ago in Beijing, where I was a corporate hound, but moonlighting as a food writer. Of course, it all started over dinner, at a wine event at the former Beijing Raffles Hotel, where Guillaume was working as chef de cuisine at Jaan restaurant.

Like other parts of our marriage, when it comes to food we always agree to disagree; he makes the fine-dining decisions, and, since I speak Cantonese and grew up on double-boiled soups, I’m in charge of local food discoveries. When we moved to Hong Kong, choosing where to eat became a constant debate. The plethora of options runs from dai pai dongs to refined Michelin-starred dim sum. After four years of grazing across the city, several venues have become like second homes, while new restaurants have won us over with their modern flair. These are some of our current favorites.

A common misconception

Yat Lok

J.L.: A good Hong Kong barbecue roast is a hallmark of Cantonese cuisine. We’d been coming to this little hole-in-the-wall roast goose restaurant in Central for years before they were awarded their first Michelin star four years ago. I always ask for extra servings of the sweet-and-tart plum sauce to drizzle on my roast goose with rice.

Communal tables for sharing with strangers make for an authentic local dining experience.

G.G.: I order the goose drumstick over rice or sometimes with noodle soup, depending on how I feel. The skin is crisp; the flesh is moist and full of flavor, without feeling too greasy. I also recommend ordering a side of char siu—it’s subtly smoky, with just the right amount of fat— with a plate of blanched kalian greens with oyster sauce.

34–38 Stanley St., Central; 852/25243882; mains from HK$56.

f r o m t o p : c o u r t e s y o f M a k ' s n o o d l e s ; c o u r t e s y o f yat l o k ; A l a n Ta n ; c o u r t e s y o f T s i m c h a i k e e

Wang Fu

J.L.: We met and dated in Beijing when we were both living there, so northern Chinese dumplings (jiaozi), whose rice-flour skin wraps are slightly chewy and thicker than the egg-based wanton wraps, always brings back fond memories of the city. I usually order the wellseasoned pork and chive version.

G.G.: I seldom eat jiaozi since I left China, but the mutton and greenonion dumplings here are very flavorful without being too gamey.

In Beijing, they eat a lot of mutton and the taste often can be hit or miss. This place is also a good chance to practice ordering in my rusty Mandarin.

65 Wellington St., Central; 852/21218006; mains from HK$40.

Mak’s Noodles

J.L.: This shop was featured on Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown

from top: Prawn wontons from Mak’s Noodles; Yat Lok’s Michelin-starred roast goose; and its long queues; fish cake and noodles at Tsim Chai Kee.

series, and the fame continues to draw in a crowd. While the portions are small, they do perfect al dente noodles and great shrimp wontons with translucent, delicate thin skin, and juicy prawns.

G.G.: The noodles don’t have the chemical alkaline powder taste like some places do. The beef brisket is a must order for the tender and gelatinous “mouth feel,” as the Chinese describe it. maksnoodle.com; mains from HK$40.

Tsim Chai Kee

J.L.: Tsim Chai Kee serves up generous portions of noodle soup.

My go-to version is with king prawn dumplings and fish cakes (they look like large shapeless blobs but feature more fish than processed flour). Add on the spicy chili oil to amplify the taste and flavor.

G.G.: I love the light but tasty broth that has the delicate sweet flavors of a seafood and pork base, and garnished with spring onions to serve. The king prawn wontons are fresh and crunchy.

98 Wellington St., Central; 852/28506471; mains from HK$32.

insider intel

Tung Po

J.L.: I joke that this is a chef’s canteen as we’re always bumping into other cooks on their off-days here. Chef Daniel Calvert does a fantastic job with modern French cuisine. The roast chicken is a signature, but my heart is with the scallops with pomelo, and the scarpinocc burrata pasta. Oh, and you must finish with the chocolate tarte and mille-feuille. Every dish is a perfectly balanced taste grenade with subtle layers and textures.

G.G.: The pigeon pithivier is fantastic and Daniel’s riz au lait dessert reminds me of my childhood—my mother made the dessert regularly when I was growing up in France.

Daniel takes it up a notch with seasonal strawberries.

From Top: Belon’s whole roast

chicken; the restaurant’s neoParisian interior; order the fish at Imperial Treasure; sea cucumber gets elevated at VEA; watch from the counters.

belonsoho.com; mains from HK$228.

VEA Restaurant and Lounge

J.L.: Chef Vicky Cheng marries traditional Chinese cuisine with French cooking techniques at VEA. The beautiful restaurant offers front-row seats at the open kitchen.

He brings out the best in squishy sea cucumbers, turning them buttery and gelatinous and balanced with the acidity of aged huadiao rice wine.

G.G.: I like the approach that Vicky gives to his food. Modern technique on French-Chinese cuisine is very distinctive, and Vicky is one of the best in terms of knowledge in this specialty. We also learn a lot about Hong Kong local produce whenever we come here. vea.hk; tasting menu from HK$1,680.

2F, Java Road Municipal Services Building, 99 Java Rd., North Point; 852/2880-5224; mains from HK$90.

8½ Otto e Mezzo Bombana

J.L.: For special occasions, our default is Michelin three-starred 8½ Otto e Mezzo Bombana for perfectly executed, refined Italian food. My favorite is the Sicilian prawn pasta, and I love the generous truffle shavings that chef Bombana adds to many of his dishes.

G.G.: I love everything here. It’s simple, good food made luxurious. ottoemezzobombana.com; mains from HK$560.

Imperial Treasure

J.L.: Dim sum is a regular affair on Sundays. We go to one Michelinstarred Imperial Treasure, a Singapore import to Hong Kong.

Get a big party together to share the suckling pig stuffed with glutinous rice.

G.G: The steamed dim sum baskets are a treat—in the har gow, the shrimps are crunchy and fresh and the delicate skins are almost translucent. I love the cheung fun (steamed rice flour rolls) stuffed

f r o m t o p : c o u r t e s y o f b e l o n ( 2 ) ; c o u r t e s y o f i m p e r i a l t r e a s u r e ; c o u r t e s y o f V EA ( 2 )

Belon

J.L.: We take visitors to legendary dai pai dong Tung Po for a kooky experience over good Cantonese-style seafood dishes. It’s dinner with a side of entertainment. Robby, the owner, is the live wire of the party and often dances to 90s hits from the jukebox, moonwalking in his rubber boots.

G.G.: I like the crispy chicken generously topped with fried garlic chips, and the local seafood is really fresh. I often order the sweet giant mantis shrimp simply blanched and served with lemon wedges or the duck-yolk battered deep-fried shrimps, which are sinfully rich and tasty.

clockwise from top left:

A modern Sri Lankan spread at Hotal Colombo; New Punjab Club's eclectic space; chef Umberto Bombana from 8½ Otto e Mezzo; Rempah’s prawn noodle soup; Singaporean laksa at Café Malacca.

c l o c k w i s e f r o m t o p l e f t: c o u r t e s y o f h o ta l c o l o mb o ; c o u r t e s y o f n e w p u n j a b c l u b ; c o u r t e s y o f 8 ½ Ott o e M e z z o B o mb a n a ; c o u r t e s y o f r e m pa h ; c o u r t e s y o f C a f é M a l a c c a

with deep-fried dough sticks and fresh shrimps. It’s basically carbs in carbs, but so delicately done.

Singaporean and Malaysian

J.L.: We both have a weakness for butter chicken. I can eat that and all the vegetarian dishes at New Punjab Club for days. Hotal Colombo, with pastel pink interiors, reminds me of a Wes Anderson movie set. You can feast like royalty on authentic Sri Lankan cuisine here without breaking the bank.

G.G.: The hoppers at Hotal Colombo are fantastic. Everything is punchy and fresh and though it’s spicy, it doesn’t overpower the other flavors and textures—you can still taste the ingredients and what you’re eating.

J.L.: I was born in Singapore, so for a taste of home, we go to Café Malacca at Hotel Jen. My childhood favorite is bak chor mee—minced pork egg noodles dressed in tart black vinegar sauce and pork lard. It’s four times the price here compared to home, but certainly the antidote to desperate cravings. The seasoning of this dish is hard to replicate at home for that exact ratio of tart, sweet and savory, finished with just the right amount of lard.

G.G.: I like the Penang char kway teow, aromatic thick rice noodles with the smoky kiss of the wok at Café Malacca, as well as the laksa, which is rich and very well balanced.

Nyonya restaurant Rempah, in Wan Chai, also do a satisfying laksa, both in a gravy and a dry version.

The gravy is aromatic and just the right consistency.

newpunjabclub.com; mains from HK$148. hotalcolombo.com; mains from HK$108.

hoteljen.com; mains from HK$108. rempahnoodles.com; mains from HK$98.

2F, Crowne Plaza, Causeway Bay; 852/2663-9919; mains from HK$138.

South Asian Comforts

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detour

On the Cava Trail Catalonia’s gastronomic prowess is well-known to travelers, who flock to Barcelona for its tapas bars and temples of modernist cuisine.

So why is nearby Penedès, the birthplace of Spain’s sparkling wine, still a secret? A long weekend reveals a region ready for its moment.

by Tom vanderbilt. Photogr aphs by Adrian Morris

sparkling wine, originated roughly 150 years ago in the quietly prosperous Catalan town of Sant Sadurní d’Anoia. If you visit today, you can see its impact everywhere. There’s the sleek CIC Fassina Cava Interpretation Center, housed in a 19th-century distillery that once transformed the effervescent wine into brandy. Giant barrels and other wineinspired objects sit in roundabouts and town squares; bottle-shaped bollards on the sidewalks protect pedestrians. On the outskirts of Sant Sadurní, large bodegas run by mainstream producers, including Freixenet and Recaredo, loom over the landscape. At harvest time, slow-moving tractors churn along the narrow roads, the shoulders of which bear stains from dripping juice.

Sant Sadurní lies at the heart of cava country, in Penedès, a sprawling region that runs from the sea to the mountains, about a 30-minute drive southwest of Barcelona.

Millions of years ago, the valley was covered by what’s now the Mediterranean. When the water retreated, it left behind untold numbers of fossilized sea creatures whose carbonized remains riddle the soil, helping give cava its characteristic tang. Like many travelers, I had enjoyed a cava or two in one of Barcelona’s cozy champanerías, as well as at my own dinner table, without ever really associating it with any particular terroir. So when my family and I were invited by Pepe Raventós, scion of the most famous family in cava, to visit his winery, Raventós i Blanc, we decided to use it as a jumping-off point to explore this largely overlooked region.

On the weekend I rolled into Sant Sadurní with my wife and 10-year-old daughter, summer was giving way to autumn and the town was celebrating. Residents packed the streets for Festa de la Fiŀloxera, a raucous annual gathering that commemorates the

Cava, Spain’s signature

from top: Local producer Pepe Raventós assesses a

glass of his winery’s cava; racks of cava bottles inspired the architecture of Hotel Mastinell.

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eradication of the yellow-hued louse, which in the late 19th century decimated the wine industry, not only here but across much of Europe. Along with thousands of others, we watched townspeople parade in outlandish yellow louse costumes. Joan Amat, the town’s former mayor, pointed out statues honoring seven local men who had helped defeat the pestilence. One of them depicted Josep Raventós Fatjó, Pepe’s ancestor and the creator, in 1872, of cava itself.

Penedès is dominated by the jagged Montserrat mountains, the site of the Santa María monastery, Catalonia’s most sacred retreat. The landscape is a mix of grapevines clinging to hillsides, wine-production facilities and elegant early-20th-century Modernista buildings built by wine fortunes. In Vilafranca del Penedès, a 20-minute drive from Sant Sadurní, you’ll find wine culture hub Vinseum, housed in a 13th-century building that was once the seat of the Catalan-Aragon kingdom. It gives a fascinating spin through viticultural history, with a tasting at the end. (I tried a Cygnus Brut from 1+1=3, which had a mineral and citrus tang that offset the afternoon heat.)

Outside town is the striking Hotel Mastinell, which was built to mimic a rack of cava bottles.

Not far away, at Hotel Castell de Gimenelles, an old masia, or farmhouse, turned rustic inn, Jordi Urpí, the co-owner, eagerly showed me the stone bathroom of one guest room.

Centuries ago, he explained, it was a cistern for storing wine.

At Raventós i Blanc, Pepe pried the lid off a massive steel tank and gestured for me to scale its ladder for a look. Inside was a first

fermentation, topped by brumera marrona, a brown foam that was fizzing and churning. The murky, unfiltered liquid below the froth would later be clarified, bottled and stored in the caves below for secondary fermentation and aging. In two years, this would become one of the company’s premium wines, Textures de Pedra.

Nearby, Pepe had buried a few amphorae, allowing the ambient heat of the earth to provide the proper temperature for fermentation. “It makes me wonder why we need a winery,” he said.

Raventós i Blanc is not open to visitors, but Penedès is filled with all sorts of agroturisme opportunities. One could stay 10 minutes outside Sant Sadurní at Mas Palou, a simple but elegant masia complete with a pool and working vineyard, which sells grapes to Raventós. Maria Vallès Beneit, who grew up in the house and now helps run the inn, pointed out a curious bench in the yard around which a tree had grown. “The family hid jewelry in the ground there during the Spanish Civil War,” she told us.

With some 200 cava producers in the region, visitors are spoiled for choice. Pepe’s open-tothe-public favorites include Can Ràfols dels Caus and Pardas. He also raves about Enric

from top:

The village of Vilafranca del Penedès, a former stronghold of the Catalan-Aragon dynasty; tapas at Cal Xim, a restaurant in Sant Pau d’Ordal that’s popular among locals.

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detour

from left:

Mussels are the specialty at seafood restaurant Xiringuito Miramar; the decades-old beachfront eatery overlooks the Mediterranean Sea.

Soler and natural winemaker Toní Carbó. And just across the road from Raventós i Blanc sits Cavas Codorníu, an older winery owned by Pepe’s relatives. The site is worth visiting for its design alone—namely, the soaring, vaulted winery building and fairy-tale structure designed by Josep Puig i Cadafalch, an often overshadowed contemporary of Antoni Gaudí.

Visitors ride a tram through some 30 kilometers of arched caves, all lined with millions of bottles of wine.

My family also stopped by Sant Sadurní’s Chocolates Simón Coll, which has been making confections since 1840—before even cava. In the factory, sixth-generation CEO Maria Coll told me that she had left Penedès for a time but returned to become the first woman to run her family’s business.

One of the best places to drink cava is Cal Xim, a restaurant Pepe virtually demanded we visit. Located on a quiet square in Sant Pau d’Ordal, it’s a favorite haunt of local vignerons.

The meal was a full-on Catalan Sunday lunch: roast duck with raisins and pine nuts; pa amb tomáquet, the ubiquitous, and delicious, bread

Sp a in

Exploring Penedès Getting There Singapore Airlines flies nonstop to Barcelona–El Prat Airport from Changi Airport. From there, Sant Sadurní d’Anoia is an easy 45-minute drive.

Where to Stay The light-filled Hotel Mastinell (hotel​mastinell.com; doubles from €201), in Vilafranca del

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Penedès

Barcelona

Penedès, nods to Modernista architect Antoni Gaudí. Mas Palou (maspalou.com; doubles from €101), in El Pla del Penedès, and Hotel Castel de Gimenelles (gimenelles.com; doubles from €97), in Sant Jaume dels Domenys, typify charming Catalan masias.

Food and Drink Near Vilafranca, you can visit the vineyard Can Ràfols dels

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with tomato; and escalivada, a plate of vegetables, grilled over oak. Just across the square, we stopped for an espresso and a game of foosball at the café of the Centre Agrícola, a Wes Andersonesque cultural center.

A virtue of this disparate region is that you can be at the seaside for lunch but easily back in the country for cocktail hour. One day we headed to the city of Vilanova i la Geltrú for a meal at Xiringuito Miramar, a busy seafood restaurant that Pepe ranks among his favorites.

We then zipped down the coast to Sant Salvador to tour the former summer house of the renowned cellist and composer Pablo Casals.

Just outside, my daughter decided to plunge into the ocean, still warm in September. We were back at the winery in time for what became a treasured ritual during our trip: us adults enjoying a glass of cava and tapas by the pool as we all watched the harvest workers finishing up in the vineyards below, the sacred peaks of Montserrat hovering hazily in the distance. Terroir, sweet terroir.

Caus (can​rafols​delscaus.com).

Close to Torrelavit, there’s Pardas (celler​pardas.com), and just outside Sant Sadurní, you’ll find Cavas Codorníu (codorniu. com). The latter is also home to heritage chocolatier Simón Coll (simoncoll.com). In Sant Pau d’Ordal, enjoy a regional feast at Cal Xim (34-938/993092; mains €10–€24), followed by coffee at the café of Centre Agrícola (34-938/900-815).

For seafood, the must-visit spot is Xiringuito Miramar (xiringuito​miramar.com; mains €11–€36), on the beach in Vilanova i la Geltrú.

Travel advisor Yaron Yarimi, a Mediter­ranean specialist on T+L’s A-List of top travel advisors, can customize an agroturisme trip in Penedès.

1-212/784-0391; yaron.yarimi@ frosch.com.

on the rise

Round Turn Distilling tasting room at Pepperell Mill Campus; books and wine at Elements; Elda’s grilled lobster with lobster-infused butter.

The New Artisans of Maine Just south of Portland, the small town of Biddeford is having its own culinary renaissance, thanks to a wave of new craft breweries, tasting rooms, and a stellar restaurant. BY STEPHEN METCALF PORTLAND, MAINE, is now such a food destination that it

has created a spillover effect. About 25 minutes south lies Biddeford, a small city overlooking the Saco River. Rents are cheap, and the town is becoming home to some of the same craft-based enterprises that have transformed Portland. Biddeford’s downtown is a modest crossroads where pickups gun their engines at oblivious out-ofstaters. On a recent visit, my family and I followed the slope of Main Street down to the river, on the banks of which lie old textile, lumber and grain mills. Splayed

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around a sky-piercing smokestack, these structures are medieval-fortress huge. The biggest of the Goliaths has been rechristened the Pepperell Mill Campus (pepperellmillcampus.com). It’s a magnificent hive, filled with shops, restaurants, galleries and apartments.

If the idea behind Pepperell’s rebirth is to throw open its vast honeycombs to aspiring entrepreneurs and see what grows, well, mission accomplished. Round Turn Distilling (roundturndistilling.com), the maker of Bimini Gin, has opened a tasting room, and of all the gin joints in the world to walk into, it’s arguably the cutest and most urban-zen. Next door is the rompin’, stompin’ Branded Brewing Co. (brandedbrewing.com), and next door to that is the delicious Maine Pie Co. (themainepieco.com).

Beyond this labyrinthine campus, Biddeford is slightly unpolished (pawn shop, busted pay phone), but with islands of comfort, including a classic American diner and a few chummy craft-brewing establishments. Our favorite stops were Elements (elementsbookscoffeebeer. com), a bookstore/coffee shop/beer bar, which is perfect for an afternoon of browsing and sousing; and the town’s first real claim to chef-driven cuisine, Elda (mains US$26–$30; eldamaine.com), the brainchild of Bowman Brown, previously of Salt Lake City’s widely admired Forage. Everything about Elda—from the open kitchen to the seafood-centered menu—is impeccable and warm.

c l o c k w i s e f r o m t o p l e f t: c o u r t e s y o f p e p p e r e l l m i l l c a m p u s ; K at i e P i n a r d / c o u r t e s y o f E l e m e n ts ; c o u r t e s y o f e l d a

clockwise From Far left: The

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Drink s

I l l u st r at i o n b y s a r a h h e l l e r

T he T + L G uide to

A visual tasting note for Jean-Louis Ermitage Cuvée Cathelin 2003, by Sarah Heller: "dense; chalky tannins; dried black fig; finishes with brightness."

Thirsty? No need for that with next-gen tipples in Singapore, the team of top Bangkok barkeeps, the coolest spots in Taipei and new-look wine-tasting notes.

Oh, you can also stir things up in Hokkaido and Saigon, and country-hop for stellar craft beers or fresh mixes from some of Asia’s best female bartenders. t r av e l a n d l e i s u r e a s i a .c o m / j u ly 2 0 1 9

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s i ng a p o r e

Molecular Gastronomy in a Glass

From saucy to wacky, cleverly concocted cocktails are bringing kitchen techniques behind the bar. Grace Ma filters and distills Singapore’s tastiest new tipples.

clockwise from top left: Madame Fan Bar's (Not) Classic PBJ comes with snacks; Michele Mariotti experiments at MO Bar; the Beehive cocktail at

ultra-hidden b bar; the head bartender of Smoke & Mirrors, Jorge Conde; a nori cocktail called Sea Level on the 70th-floor SKAI Bar; settle into throwback seating at Idlewild; head bartender Kavinn Raaj elevates homey to haute at JAM at Siri House; snap peas garnish IB HQ's Snap That.

o p p o s i t e , c l o c k w i s e f r o m t o p l e f t: c o u r t e s y o f m a d a m e fa n b a r ; c o u r t e s y o f M O b a r ; c o u r t e s y o f b b a r ; c o u r t e s y o f sm o k e & m i r r o r s ; c o u r t e s y o f sk a i b a r ; c o u r t e s y o f i d l e w i l d ; c o u r t e s y o f j a m at s i r i h o u s e ; c o u r t e s y o f i b h q

These days, it's hard to distinguish between a bar and a chem lab. Move over infusing: techniques such as fat washing, milk washing and smoking are increasingly common to imbue drinks with more layered profiles.

Rotary evaporators have practically become standard equipment—even though they cost anywhere between S$8,000 and S$20,000. Bartenderowner Kamil Foltan of IB HQ, for one, only broke even on the price of his rotavap, including staff, utility and ingredient costs, after about 1,500 drinks. But, we assure you, his next-level innovations are worth it.

With more mad scientists investing in toys like bee smokers and sonic wave machines, now is the best time to have your drink and eat it, too.

JAM at Siri House Sour-cream potato chips, sesame oil and burnt butter are just some of the homey ingredients lending their whiffs to the cocktail list of JAM restaurant and bar in chichi Dempsey’s lifestyle space Siri House.

Head bartender Kavinn Raaj recreates a refined yet fun homedining atmosphere with delish foodand-drinks combos such as the Spudni, a blend of gin and housemade sour-cream liqueur—the latter a mix of vodka, sour cream and sugar—that is topped with three wee cubes of onion chutney jelly balancing on a rice crisp. sirihouse. com.sg; cocktails from S$15.

IB HQ Industry veteran Kamil Foltan and his wife Zurina Bryant run this labbar on the upper floor of a shophouse, spinning odd, local ingredients such as curry leaves, bananas and jackfruits into brilliantly balanced drinks that leave a lingering, often unforgettable, aftertaste. Go sweetand-spicy with the Maharaja, or be a daredevil with the Pi Pa, which was inspired by cold parsnip-andpineapple soup. Their house-made bottled cordials are available for purchase, too. ibhqsingapore.com; cocktails from S$24.

Madame Fan Bar Border-jumping tipples and nibbles with an Oriental twist is the mission statement from Italian-Filipino mixologist eye-candy Davide Boncimino. Shoot for the unorthodox (Not) Classic PBJ concocted from peanut butter fat–washed Glenfiddich whisky and caramelized kumquat liqueur, which comes with a bamboo tray of three smoked chocolate-coated macadamia nuts and chili puree. madamefan.sg; cocktails from S$22.

Smoke & Mirrors What you see is not what you get at this rooftop bar with smashing sunset skyline views. New head bartender Jorge Conde conjures up flavor illusions such as a clear Bloody Mary and his weirdly delicious Dali’s Self Portrait, which completely befuddles your mind about the typical Manhattan, as he makes his twist on it with smokybacon fat, artichoke and swirls of rosemary smoke added to a vermouth and whiskey base. Come when you’re feeling particularly adventurous. smokeandmirrors.com. sg; cocktails from S$20. b bar Don’t let this bar’s western outskirts address nor its hidden location in the wine-and-spirits section of a supermarket deter your hunt for it.

From toasted sesame seeds in honey lining the glass of a Beehive to a bee smoker sending delicate sandalwood wafts into the Rhubino cocktail with tart rhubarb notes, bar manager Anton Gornev pulls out all the stops to deliver drinks ranging from low to high ABV, depending on your mood for the night. instagram.com/ bbar_sg; cocktails from S$18.

Idlewild Fly high in this live-music bar decorated with golden-age-of-travel paraphernalia, including a cabinet of curiosities featuring rare and exotic spirits (go ahead, ask for a tasting shot). Bartender Andy Griffiths has a

few kitchen shenanigans up his sleeve. Think sous-vide, reductions, carbonations and original syrups, all of which translate to heady blends such as the Sugarloaf, where pineapple rum, cognac, housefermented pineapple skin tepache, tamarind, lime and palm sugar are mixed together and the final result garnished with a mini taco rolled from pineapple skin and pickled watermelon rind. Whew. idlewild.sg; cocktails from S$22.

MO Bar Mandarin Oriental Singapore’s sophisticated bar has a beguiling cocktail list inspired by the flavors and cultures in Southeast Asia, the Pacific Ocean and the Coral Sea. Liquid treasures in bar manager Michele Mariotti’s experimental chest include a barrel-aged water and herb cognac in-house concoction called Rough Waters by the Coral Sea, topped with an edible coral garnish that is dotted with mild redpepper sauce. In the 7,000 Leagues Ahead is the unlikely scientific mix of gin and oils from kaffir lime skin using a sonic-wave machine that results in a highly concentrated version of the light and zesty gimlet. mandarinoriental.com; cocktails from S$24.

SKAI Bar On the 70th floor of Swissotel, The Stamford, the heights that offer killer views act as a metaphor for the theme of elevation that divides the 12-cocktail menu into the categories of sea, rainforest, high desert and alpine. Salty sips Samphire and Buckthorn Cliff change to fruity and herbal gems such as The Shaman (which has curious earthy undertones from house-made shiitake syrup) before giving way to thirst quenchers such as the Desert Rose and ending on a herbaceous high in drinks such as Rolling Stone, where rye whiskey is blended with an Austrian Amaro that has been sous-vided with fragrant wild thyme. skai.sg; cocktails from S$25.

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Danny yeung Head Bartender Smalls

Supawit Muttarattana (Palm)

pinsuda pongprom (ann)

Group Bar Manager VEsper

Head Bartender The Bamboo bar

Dedsakda Thianthong (Kenny)

jamie rhind Bar Operations Manager The bamboo bar

David jacobson Founder Smalls

Senior Bartender VEsper

b a ngk o k

This year, seven Bangkok watering holes made it onto the Asia's 50 Best Bars list. Credit these guys and gals for the great drinks, good vibes and all-important je ne sais quoi.

m i x l i k e a pr o

secret recipes

We persuaded the bars to let you (try to) recreate their winning tastes at home.

Bar: Backstage Drink: Forgetful Painter • Vodka infused with chamomile tea, 45ml • Passionfruit juice, 20ml • Pineapple juice, 20ml • Lime juice, 20ml • Maple-and-caramel syrup, 10ml • Absinthe, 2 dashes • Egg whites, 15ml fb.com/backstagecocktailbarbkk

Niks anumanrajadhon Founder Teens Of Thailand

Bar: The Bamboo Bar Drink: Hawker • Coconut fat–washed tequila, 45ml • Lemongrass syrup, 20ml • Lime juice, 15ml • Coriander bitters, 4 dashes • Kaffir lime leaves, 2 Shaken and topped with ginger beer. mandarinoriental.com/bangkok

philip stefanescu Co-Founder tropic city

Bar: Rabbit hole Drink: CRY ME TO THE MOON • White-truffle fat–washed gin, 45ml • Apple juice, 45ml • Homemade pandan syrup, 15ml • Citric solution, 10ml rabbitholebkk.com

a aron joel santos

top of their game

Paradee Sahathanasomboon (Bell) parom malakul (leo)

Arron grendon Bar Manager Tropic city

Assistant Group Bar Manager Vesper

Senior Bartender Backstage cocktail bar

The gang gathered at Tropic City, in the ever-hipper Charoenkrung neighborhood.

Suwincha Singsuwan (Chacha) Head Bartender Rabbit hole

Bar: Smalls Drink: Lucid Dreams • La Maison Fontaine Blanche, 20ml • Martini Bianco, 20ml • Punt E Mes, 20ml • Homemade grenadine, 10ml • Lemon juice, 15ml • Kaffir lime leaf Topped with tonic. fb.com/smallsbkk

sebastian de la cruz Co-Founder tropic city

Bar: Teens of Thailand Drink: Guava-Salty Plum GT Macerate guava with salty plum, then infuse it with gin.

• Special guava plum gin, 50ml • Dash of fresh lime • Guava slice for garnish Topped with Mediterranean tonic. fb.com/teensofthailand

Noppasate Hirunwathit (depp) Senior Bartender Rabbit hole

Bar: Tropic City Drink: Tropic Thunder • Jerk spice–infused Appleton Reserve Rum, 40ml • Plantation OFTD Overproof Rum, 10ml • Falernum, 15ml • Ginger syrup, 20ml • Pineapple juice, 25ml • Lime juice, 25ml Shaken and topped with soda and Angostura bitters. tropiccitybkk.com

Bar: Vesper Drink: Spatial Concept • Campari, 30ml • Clarified milk punch with espresso, vermouth and gin, 60ml vesperbar.co

g u i d e d r i n ks

Staff Only Club Like most speakeasies worth their salt, the first rule of Staff Only Club was, “do not tell anyone.” But good news travels fast, and soon after opening late last year, this membersonly club became Taipei’s worst-kept secret. Set against a backdrop of rickety dwellings in an unlikely corner of the Zhongsheng suburb, its team has transformed a former soysauce factory into a Gatsby-esque hideout, replete with plush velvet couches and copper chandeliers. The cocktail menu (presented in vintage pop-up books) focuses on elevated takes on tried-and-tested classics, and locally inspired mixtures.

Signature drink Navy Club, for example, combines kaffir leaf– infused gin, house-made oleosaccharum, peppery capsicum juice, and saline solution into a punchy drink, perfectly capturing the local palate for salty-and-sour. The list extends during the monthly “Part Time Bartender Project,” which sees the movers and shakers of Taipei’s cocktail scene whipping up their signature drinks during guest shifts. There is a strict “no card, no entry” policy, but out-of-towners can call ahead for a travelers’ pass (NT$2,000 for a week). staffonlyclub. com; cocktails from N$430.

Heading for the tiny kitchen of Room by Le Kief. left: Owner Seven Yi.

ta i p e i

New Capital of Cool

Hidden above coffee shops and behind pizza parlors, Taipei’s drinking dens are pushing the cocktail envelope. Get on-trend tipsy in the Taiwanese capital.

Story and photos by Chris Schalkx

Staff Only Club's signature Navy Club. left: Buy a travelers' pass to this members' club.

Room by Le Kief This tiny cocktail kitchen in buzzy Da’an district actually serves up a full culinary experience. In his space of dimly lit booths around a stagelike bar, owner Seven Yi takes guests on a two-hour tasting journey. As a chef at Joël Robuchon’s kitchen in Taipei, Yi didn’t just pick up a French cadence; he also learned to push his ingredients to perfection.

From his lab, he concocts wildly creative spirits, redistilling them with such items as toasted bread, kombu and grass. The menu rotates with the season and combines matching canapés, ever-changing decor, and music to hit all the senses.

Yi took inspiration for his latest menu from A-sha instant noodles, a brand that lies deep in the country’s collective nostalgia. Each drink is named after a sauce: The Sesame tastes like a comforting bowl of ma jiang mien (spicy sesame noodles), derived by redistilling gin with sesame, and garnished with a fruit leather–like sheet of dehydrated pickle juice; the Tomato is a clarified Bloody Mary infused with Sichuan peppercorn that delivers a tonguenumbing hit. There are two seatings per night (from 8 p.m.), and booking ahead is highly recommended. fb.com/lekief.00; NT$1,200 for flight of three drinks and three canapes.

Draft land “We make cocktails for people who usually order beer,” says Angus Zou, the brains behind Draft Land. After building a name for himself at Alchemy, a trailblazer in Taipei’s speakeasy scene, he opened this taproom in 2018 to take the fuss out of ordering a mixed drink. “I try to avoid the often-dreaded ‘What are you in the mood for?’” he says. All drinks served in this utilitarianlooking space are tapped straight from the keg. The ever-rotating drink list spans fizzes to cobblers, all served sans gimmicks or garnishes.

Patrons are encouraged to sample a sip before committing to full pours—which start at a dangerously affordable NT$200 a pop. Upstairs, The Testing Room functions as a sandbox for new concoctions. Here, Zou collaborates with pioneering local restaurants such as Gen Creative to develop new drinks.

After each two- to three-month sprint, the favorite recipes are made into keg-ready batches (a process involving clarification and carbonation) to be served from one of the 18 valves downstairs. draftland.tw.

Draft Land speaks for itself. below: The bar's ever-rotating row of taps.

Eurasian-fusion cocktails at The Tavernist. above: Clubby and photogenic.

The Tavernist Occupying the 12th floor of the recently opened Kimpton Da’an hotel, restaurant-slash-bar The Tavernist offers yet another reason to venture around this district after dark. For their first opening in Asia, Kimpton has tapped into the cocktail knowledge of James Barker, the Hong Kong–based British bar manager at institutions like Duddell’s and Potato Head. “The drink list brings together the best of British and Taiwanese ingredients,” Barker says. Relying heavily on both local whiskies and Scotch, the signature cocktails deliver flashbacks of childhood memories with witty English names like the Taking the Biscuit, a combination of peaty Scotch, dry sherry and tropical fruit that hints of Taiwanese pineapple cake. Or try the Savory Sour, which combines two Macallan single malts with Earl Grey tea and house-made scallop powder. thetavernist.com; cocktails from NT$400.

Cé La Vi With last year’s completion of Nan Shan Plaza, Taipei 101 is no longer the only tower poking through the clouds on a foggy night. Perched on Nan Shan’s 48th floor is Cé La Vi, a ritzy rooftop lounge attracting the city’s young, hip and well-heeled like bees to a nine-meter-long copperclad bar. Snug, sunken seating booths dot the semi-open-air skydeck on all sides, each equipped with climate control units to offer comfort year-round. Bottle service (starting at NT$5,500) is the name of the game here, but that doesn’t make the cocktail menu any less creative.

Signature drinks include a grownup spin on Taiwan’s ubiquitous bubble tea (black tea–infused vodka, honey, milk and herb jelly), or a riff on the Old Fashioned, given a local touch with Taiwanese tea–infused bourbon and orange bitters. Awardwinning local Kavalan whiskey shines in the Dancing Bird, a sweet number with plum liquor, white wine and pineapple juice. tw.celavi. com; cocktails from NT$400.

Drink with a view at Cé La Vi. below: The copper-clad bar.

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A Feast for All Senses Even the most seasoned oenophiles can do with palate primers.

Janice Leung Hayes chats with a Master of Wine whose visual tasting notes ensure you aren’t at a loss for words.

can seem abstract.

Words such as “soft” or “earthy,” “stone fruit” or “ripe berry” have been the most common way that flavors, aromas and textures in wine have been communicated for decades. But as the appeal of wine spreads far and wide, the idiomatic nature of such descriptions has become apparent; words are in danger of being lost in translation.

Enter Sarah Heller, the youngest Master of Wine in Asia-Pacific.

Heller shares striking works of art as an extension of her written tasting notes on her social media channels (principally Instagram: @sarahhellermw). She calls them “Visual Tasting Notes,” and they provide a pictorial mind map of her interpretations of wine.

“There are a few consistent elements in each note,” she says.

Tasting notes

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“The background color is supposed to evoke the overall flavor category— is the wine a grassy, greenish white or a luscious, golden white? The outline, which you read from top to bottom, is a chart of the impression the wine makes over time. Some wines start really faint then seem to get bigger in body and flavor intensity, others seem massive and fade quickly. Additional elements are sometimes fairly literal, for example, recognizable fruit if those fruit aromas are clearly present, and sometimes more metaphorical like textures or abstract patterns that come to mind when I taste.”

In speaking to oenophiles multilingually, Heller finds a picture can be worth all the words in The Oxford Companion to Wine. “The major advantage is that images don’t rely on words, which are so culturally

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LQV Les Quinze Vins “The spot in town for relatively affordable, intriguing bottles from every corner of France, frequently with some age as well.” lqvgroup.com; 9 Swatow St., Wan Chai.

Nocturne “The most calming, quietly luxurious urban oasis of a wine bar you’ll find in the city; but expect to pay Tokyo prices!” nocturnehk.com; 35 Peel St., Central.

Brut! “A rotating selection of thoughtfully sourced, international 'natural and friends' wines, charmingly explained

by owner Camille Glass.” brut.com.hk; Shop C, GF, Tung Cheung Bldg., 1-11 Second St., Sai Ying Pun. Francis “Somm Simone Sammuri brings his magic to the list at this Israeli eatery (the food is brilliant too).” francis. com.hk; 4 & 6 St. Francis St., Wan Chai.

Giando “Chef Gianni Caprioli has dug into his own cellar for beautifully matured Italian gems hard to find elsewhere in Hong Kong.” giandorestaurant. com; Shop 1, GF, Tower 1, Starcrest, 9 Star St., Wan Chai.

S a r a h h e l l e r (4)

h o ng k o ng

specific. Clearly you can’t totally avoid cultural disconnects—using a specific fruit that isn’t available outside of Asia can create confusion for someone who has never tried it— but this more abstract medium has helped me bridge some of the gaps I noticed with verbal notes,” she says.

“They also stimulate discussion and seem to excite non-technically minded wine drinkers; it puts them at ease and makes the whole subject more intuitive.”

Some elements of her digitally layered images are hand-drawn, some are painted (physically or digitally) and others are her own photographs or those sourced from stock—an in-depth creative process that makes sense from an art graduate of Yale University, which awarded her the departmental prize for an installation that was her senior year thesis. Heller opened her own graphic-design consultancy, all while falling in love with wine and working towards her MW. Heller calls Hong Kong home, and when she’s not traveling or being called on to share her expertise, you might find her in her favorite wine spots there getting inspiration for her next visual tasting note. Here’s what she has to say about them:

hokk aido

Winter Warmers

c l o c k w i s e f r o m t o p : c o u r t e s y o f N i k k a w h i s k y; c o u r t e s y o f o c c i G a b i ; c o u r t e s y o f ta n a k a S a k e B r e w e r y

Japan’s most northerly island isn’t just for thrill-seekers.

Julian Ryall bypasses the ski slopes for three distinct tastes of the prefecture’s best booze.

Though it’s better known for its winter powder, Hokkaido also produces some of the best food and drink in Japan. Given that snow sports leave me cold, I’m here to exercise my tastebuds on a tour of its native brews, wines and spirits.

My first stop is Tanaka Sake Brewery (tanakashuzo.com), which has been making the traditional rice wine in the west-coast port city of Otaru since 1899. The brewery’s heritage building is entirely made of wood, and when I walk in during the middle of winter, icicles taller than a man hang from its eaves.

I join the brewery’s free guided tour and see first-hand the polishing, washing and fermenting processes.

All the rice is locally grown, and the brewers insist it is the best in the country because of Hokkaido’s cooler climate and clean water. Like on all good brewery tours, we inevitably end in the shop, where staff offer tiny tumblers of sake to taste.

While mass-produced brews can be harsh on the palate, these smallbatch bottles are as smooth as a Hokkaido snowdrift. The Junmai Ginjo is sharp, clean and warming, with a taste that lingers on the

tongue. The 40-percent Junmai Daiginjo Takaragawa is sweeter and more fruity, with a good depth to the flavor. Stock up here, because the brewery’s limited output means these sakes are primarily sold locally and difficult to find off the island. severe winters, I’m surprised to learn that heavy snow and sub-zero temperatures aren’t an obstacle to cultivating the vines needed for high-quality wines.

But more than 280 wineries spread across the prefecture. At OcciGabi (occigabi.net), in Yoichi, winemaker Kiyoshi Kura takes advantage of the city’s fertile soils and slightly milder climate, and has spent decades perfecting his product, which he makes of 40 varieties of European grapes he brought to Japan after graduating from the National Wine School of Germany in the 1970s.

On a tour of the vineyard, we pass rows of aromatic French barrels, which Kura says add depth and character. I swirl a splash of Zweigeltrebe 2017 around my glass; aged for six months, it is smooth and light with hints of incense. The Dornfelder 2016 is brighter in color

Snowbound at Nikka Whisky distillery.

and more rounded, with the barrelaging showing through in the taste.

Ultimately, Kura envisions Yoichi, with several established wineries already in town, becoming Japan’s Napa Valley. This lofty goal is confident proof that his labels stand up to some of the best wines out there.

Given Hokk aido’s

OcciGabi grows 40 varieties of grapes. left: Tanaka Sake craft brewery.

home to one of Hokkaido’s most famous and historic brands, albeit one with its roots in the Scottish highlands. The Nikka Whisky (nikka.com) distillery was first opened in 1934 by Masataka Taketsuru, after he finished several whisky apprenticeships in Scotland.

Like Kura, Taketsuru chose Yoichi for its climate and nature: its proximity to the ocean; mountains on three sides; fresh water; and crisp, clean air—which reminded him of his time abroad. He insists on using direct coal-fired pot stills to give his whisky a bold and smoky flavor, a method rarely used today because controlling the temperature requires skilled distillers.

At Nikka, the practice lives on. As a member of the distilling team opens the heavy metal doors of the furnace beneath each still and heaps fresh coal on the glowing embers, I take an involuntary step backwards at the white heat that emerges. This task is carried out every 10 minutes, around the clock, to prevent the distillation from burning.

Taketsuru’s vision has paid off.

The whisky world’s head was turned in 2001 when a single cask, 10-yearold Yoichi won the “Best of the Best” category in the U.K.’s Whisky Magazine competition. The brand has continued its winning streak, scoring World’s Best Blended Malt at the World Whiskies Awards this year. I’ll drink to that.

Yoichi is also

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Rabbit Hole was founded to perfect the Negroni.

saigon

Coming of Age Story

Young, discerning cocktail drinkers and single-malt connoisseurs are raising the stakes in Vietnam. Connla Stokes sips his way to the source of this intoxicating tale. in Saigon, a night of cocktail consumption most likely involved a hastily made mojito or a slapdash margarita, typically shaken and served in a clamorous club or a flashy rooftop bar. But lately a more mature species of watering hole has created a far mellower habitat for those who prefer more considered concoctions.

Not so long ago

Curiouser, and curiouser…

Rabbit Hole is an urbane,

underground lair with a long bar and chiaroscuro lighting that attracts a young, cosmopolitan clientele through the night. I am immediately tempted by the themed cocktails and Drink Me (gin, Lillet Blanc, Chartreuse Green, orange bitters) would seem an appropriate starting point for the evening but, emerging from the shadows, co-

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owner Leon Nguyen reveals the catalyst for Rabbit Hole was a citywide search for just-so classics rather than creative cocktails: “We drank a lot of Negronis that night, but couldn’t find anywhere that nailed one, so we opened our own bar to do just that.” Despite Leon’s hint, I can’t resist summoning The Mad Hatter (Earl Grey–infused bourbon, strawberry syrup, lemon juice, homemade spiced palm syrup and tonic). BF, 138 Nam Ky Khoi Nghia, Dist. 1; cocktails from VND200,000; open 6 p.m. to 2 a.m.

The Murakami effect With a sheepish grin, Hoang Nguyen admits he hadn’t heard of an Old Fashioned just a few years ago. Now he’s the co-owner of In the Mood, a snug but sophisticated speakeasy, squirreled away in a French-period

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apartment block by the Opera House.

“I started to drink whisky after reading novels by Haruki Murakami in my 20s,” says Hoang, who became so obsessed with single malts he traveled to Scotland, Taiwan and Japan solely to visit distilleries. Now thanks to pioneers like him, in a city where peaty Scotch and premium spirits were once exclusive to the corporate domain, hip, young Saigonese think nothing of sipping on Bruichladdich or a Sazerac made with Pikesville Straight Rye. Overwhelmed by an inventory of 180 scotches and whiskies, I opt for an After Dark (cacao bourbon, Campari, Martini Rosso and the essence of sous-vide shiitake) and raise my glass to Haruki-san. 3F, 151 Dong Khoi, Dist. 1; cocktails from VND220,000; open 6:30 p.m. to 12 a.m.

The backlash theory Despite the au courant portal (an ersatz cash machine at the end of an otherwise typical Saigon alleyway— fear not: you don’t need a pin code), there’s a throwback vibe inside The ATM Cocktail Bar and Kitchen: jazz music, a gorgeous high wooden bar, and low, leather seating in a lounge area. “I used to have customers asking for an Old Fashioned with apple juice, but day by day, drink by drink, everyone’s knowledge has been growing,” says the ever-dapper and utterly charming owner, Tan Pham, who partly attributes Saigon’s speakeasy trend as a backlash to the city’s brash clubs and pubs, where deafening tunes negate confabulation.

Make sure to try Tan’s Mekong Negroni that eschews Campari for a

f r o m l e f t: c o u r t e s y o f R a bb i t h o l e ; c o u r t e s y o f i n th e m o o d . o p p o s i t e , c l o c k w i s e f r o m t o p l e f t: c o u r t e s y o f y o u n g m a st e r ( 2 ) ; c o u r t e s y o f ta i h u b r e w i n g ; c o u r t e s y o f th e atm c o c kta i l b a r a n d k i t c h e n

Murakamiinspired speakeasy, In The Mood.

homemade bitter melon infusion, and for those in need of ballast, there’s also a full dinner menu. Lane 27, 10 Nguyen Binh Khiem, Dist. 1; cocktails from VND170,000; open 5 p.m. to 12 a.m. (1 a.m. weekends).

The time has come Following a creaking staircase to the third floor of a French-colonial building, a soundproof door opens to reveal Drinking & Healing, a livelier affair than its peers (i.e., less soft jazz, more throbbing bass). “Drinkers” and “healers” trade banter across a funky, photogenic bar lined with fermenting potations, botanicals and syrups—all house-made—and distinctive glassware (I’d caution against the signature creation Your Toilet). Though there’s an iPad with a fun, build-your-own cocktail platform, I elect for a top-shelf G&T (Monkey 47 with Thomas Henry and berries, served balloon-style). “It’s crazy. We’re full every single night, even Mondays,” says head “healer” Vien Du as we step out onto the smokers’ (and, of course, vapers’) balcony, facing the 68-story Bitexco Tower—a handy visual reminder of how quickly this city moves when the time comes. 3F, 25 Ho Tung Mau, Dist.

1; cocktails from VND210,000; open 6:30 p.m. to 2 a.m. (3 a.m. weekends).

Sorry, it's a bar, not a bank.

beer guide

On the Cutting Edge Asia’s craft suds scene keeps getting better. Craig Sauers checks in with six exciting breweries using local flavors and ingredients to push beer boundaries.

Take your pick at Young Master.

Taihu Brewing taiwan Taihu might be Asia’s most progressive brewery. The bathrooms are gender neutral, for starters, and when it comes to beer, head brewer Winnie Hsu is as relentless in her devotion to quality as she is in her rejection of traditional boundaries. That leads to some ground-breaking brews, like the Old Fashioned, a barrelaged Berliner weisse that replicates the flavor profile of the classic cocktail (“A pain in the ass to brew, but a hell of a beer,” says cofounder Peter Huang), and the Woo May, a smoked sour ale brewed with Taiwanese smoked plums.

Where to try it: Taihu beer is now served at Taiwanese institutions like Din Tai Fung, The Regent Hotel and even Starbucks.

It’s also available in Osaka at Watering Hole and in Shanghai at 233. taihubrewing. com.

Young Master Hong Kong If Hong Kong’s craft beer is finally getting the global attention it deserves, thank Rohit Dugar. His brewery Young Master has continually pushed the boundaries since opening five years ago. Now, the brand hosts an international beer festival and boasts a huge barrel-aging program that produces some wild creations.

Those include a white stout called Bak Mo Sheung, which comes in variations like matcha-vanilla “soft serve,” as well as an IPA brewed in collaboration with Norway-based Lervig that uses a farmhouse yeast strain and juniper straight out of the Scandinavian fjords.

Where to try it: Young Master operates four bars in Hong Kong, including Second Draft and TAP, plus The Guild in Singapore.

The beers frequently appear at Mikkeller Bangkok, as well. youngmasterales.com.

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Heart of Darkness vietnam Inspired by Joseph Conrad’s seminal novel, John Pemberton turned his homebrewing hobby into a full-time profession in 2015. Vietnamese beer hasn’t been the same since. Heart of Darkness made its name on bold, hoppy IPAs, like Kurtz’s Insane IPA and the Loose Rivet hazy IPA, two of 250 beers to come out of its Saigon operation. But some of its most fascinating beers lean local: the White Surf, a passionfruitlaced Berliner weisse, and the Hot and Cold, a pilsner brewed with cucumbers and Vietnamese chilies.

Where to try it: The home base in Saigon’s District 1 and the new Heart of Darkness brewpub in Singapore have the biggest range. They also export to Thailand and Hong Kong. heartof darknessbrewery.com.

Anglo Japanese Beer (AJB) japan

Magpie Brewing Co. south korea

Pizza-and-beer pioneer Magpie helped make craft beer a thing in South Korea with its pale ale, an easydrinking brew with hints of apricot that seven years on is still its most popular. Now, Magpie is throwing beer geeks a bone. Look out for imperial stout Black Rock when it comes at the end of summer. “Pastry stouts are super popular globally,” says co-owner Erik Moynihan, “but we wanted to do one that was a little bit more Korean, so we based it on the chocolatey, marshmallowy flavor of the Lotte Choco Pie.” Where to try it: Magpie has bars in Itaewon and Hongdae in Seoul, as well as two venues in Cheju.

The beer should hit Hong Kong’s shores this year. magpiebrewing.com.

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“When we started the brewery, we didn’t want to be confined by styles.

Allowing ourselves the space to work outside conventional parameters enabled us to create some really unique beers,” says Thomas Livesey, co-founder of AJB. That’s putting it mildly. Consider the Nagano-based brewery’s Momo Sake Gose. Livesey and company take a traditional German gose (a salty/sour beer) and mix in sake ingredients and local peach to create a distinctly Japanese beer rooted in German traditions.

Now, AJB is also aging beers in French foeders (large wooden barrels) to develop some especially wild and funky flavors.

Where to try it: AJB is relatively small, but its beers can be found at craft beer bars across Japan, including Watering Hole in Osaka. anglojapanesebeer.com.

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e xp l a i n e r

Mead What is it? Believed to be one of the world’s oldest beverages dating back thousands of years, mead is made from a fermented blend of honey, water, fruits and other spices that takes about a year to mature.

Where can you get it? On the third floor of a small, nondescript industrial space on the outskirts of Singapore, one of the country’s most unique alcohols is fermenting. Rachelle The Rabbit Meadery (rachelletherabbit.com) is the Lion City’s first ever meadery.

Named after the daughter of owner Simon Zhao, this allnatural, no-additive meadery is making this golden elixir with honey from South Africa and Malaysia combined with Asian flavors and ingredients.

A selection of the brand’s five flavors can be found at nearly 40 bars, restaurants and retailers around Singapore starting at S$40 each. Keep an eye out for their masterclasses, sometimes held at Native, one of Singapore’s best bars, as well as their new line of spirits distilled from mead.

What to order? Although the honey wine flavors may sound cloyingly sweet, they’re surprisingly not. Rachelle’s Bandung is a play off the rosesyrup beverage of the same name, but it is dry in texture.

Rachelle’s Uppercut, a mix of ginger and lemon, is light and refreshing. Their newest seasonal flavor, Rachelle’s Fireball, combines honey and Canadian maple syrup, while Rachelle’s Double Kick tastes like Christmas in a glass: a combination of orange, cinnamon and clove. — K atie Lockhart

c l o c k w i s e f r o m t o p r i g ht: c o u r t e s y o f r a c h e l l e th e r a bb i t m e a d e r y; c o u r t e s y o f a j b ; c o u r t e s y o f m a g p i e b r e w i n g c o . ; c o u r t e s y o f g o a b r e w i n g c o m pa n y; c o u r t e s y o f h e a r t o f d a r k n e ss

Goa Brewing Company india The Subcontinent probably isn’t the first country that comes to mind when talking about craft beer in Asia. But if Suraj Shenai has anything to say about it, that’s about to change. The founder of Goa Brewing Company is bringing the craft movement to the south of India, brewing beer in an old heritage home while striving to be as sustainable as possible. That means making beers with local ingredients like lemon and pineapple, the latter of which goes into a refreshing pineapple saison.

It’s funky but tropical—“the perfect beer to have after a dip in the sea,” Shenai says.

Where to try it: Goa Brewing Company, based in Sangolda, is only available in India at the moment.

Try the beers fresh at restaurants in Goa like Gunpowder and Bomra’s. instagram.com/ goabrewingco.

Natalie Lau.

Priscilla Leong.

on the rise

Unmanning the Bar Meet some of the cool women shaking things up in Southeast Asia’s best drinking dens. By Alessandr a Gesuelli

talented young women are making their mark in the hitherto male-dominated bar industry. Hong Kong is the stomping ground of Victoria Chow, the mastermind behind The Woods and Kwoon, Asia’s first artisanal prebatched cocktail series. In Singapore, Sasha Wijidessa manages Operation Dagger, where the hooch bottles have no labels, and Bannie Kang is head craftsman at Anti:Dote, using spices and herbs from her native Korea.

In Bangkok, multi-award-winning maestro Pailin “Milk” Sajjanit heads up hard-to-find, plush den 008. Here are some other outstanding ladies manning the bars across the region.

f r o m l e f t: c o u r t e s y o f th e o l d m a n ; c o u r t e s y o f L o n g b a r ; c o u r t e s y o f j u n g l e b i r d

the world over,

Priscilla Leong, head bartender, Long Bar at Raffles singapore

Way back when Long Bar was the place for gentlemen and plantation owners to gather, etiquette dictated that ladies couldn’t consume alcohol in public. Long Bar’s Ngiam Tong Boon saw an opportunity and created a cocktail that looked like juice but was actually brimming with booze. Hello, Singapore Sling.

Almost a century on, Priscilla Leong has taken over the renovated Long Bar, and is renovating their classic drink. Much like Raffles Singapore, reopening next month to its original colonial splendor with contemporary innovations: “we wanted to retain Long Bar’s heritage, and stay true to the integrity of the iconic Singapore Sling recipe, while revitalizing it with craft ingredients to suit the modern palate,” she says.

The grenadine is all-natural, the custom bitters “provide a backbone of spice to play off the cocktail’s fruity notes,” Leong says, and the bespoke gin, Widges, is made by Langley’s Distillery in England.

The new Singapore Sling is a touch more gin forward, which we think is exactly what the ladies—and maybe gentlemen, too—always wanted. raffles.com; Singapore Sling, S$28.

Natalie Lau, bar manager, The Old Man hong kong In 2017, Agung Prabowo had big ambitions for his new Hemingwaythemed bar, and he poached Natalie Lau from American Bar at The Savoy in London to fulfill them. Today

Lolita Goh.

The Old Man sits atop the Asia’s 50 Best Bar list and in the top 10 of the World’s 50 Best. They’ve opened two other venues, The Sea, in Hong Kong, and The Old Man in Singapore, and are running a pop-up til August 31 at The Bamboo Bar in Bangkok.

“We created a new standard for Hong Kong,” Lau says. “All the staff are bartenders, and everyone is proactive in speaking with guests about the cocktails—or about anything in life.” Bartending here means mastering the use of culinary gadgets and lab equipment to combine flavors, coaxing out interesting notes rather than making eye-catching garnish, an attitude she says is new in the Hong Kong market.

Take Lau’s favorite drink, The Sun Also Rises: copra fat–washed Applejack, curry leaf–infused gin, sweet vermouth, sous-vide pandan leaves, and kaffir lime. “It is a very complex drink. The flavors come up layer by layer, and it creates a long, lingering taste.” Much like the novel that inspired it. theoldmanhk.com; The Sun Also Rises, HK$90.

Lolita Goh co-founder, JungleBird kual a lumpur If 250 hand-curated rums sounds like caramel-colored heaven, then fly as fast as you can to JungleBird, Kuala Lumpur’s first rum bar, cofounded in 2017 by Lolita Goh. It is one of the hottest destinations in the

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Non-Alcoholic Spirits

Shelley Tai.

city and the most awarded bar in the country. Goh’s latest passion project is a fermentation program, making ginger beer, vinegars, tepaches and lacto-fermented fruits using local ingredients and leftover produce that would otherwise have gone to waste.

Kakariki Orchards is a New Zealand– inspired gin cocktail with homemade kombucha, plus feijoa, lemon, honey and lavender-infused kombucha soda.

The bar is named for the Jungle Bird, a rum drink with pineapple juice, lime and Campari that was invented in the 1970s as a welcome beverage for guests at KL’s old Hilton Hotel’s Aviary Bar. “This tropical creation has seen a recent revival,” Goh says. She serves it with Diplomatico Mantuano rum, which imparts soft and sweet notes with herbal hints. But if that’s not your bag, hey, there are 249 more options— plus their homemade grog. junglebirdkl. com; Jungle Bird, RM38–RM80.

Shelley Tai bartender, The Quinary hong kong Her warm smile and graceful manner lend her strength as a host at work, where she never cracks under pressure, essential for working at Quinary, a high-volume multisensory bar helmed by master mixologist Antonio Lai. “Bartending to me is two parts: the bar and the tender,” she says. “The bar represents the craftsmanship and the creativity. The tender part allows me to show care and hospitality.”

Only in her early twenties, she uses her talent and love of experimenting to contribute to the menu of cocktails

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engineered to stimulate the senses, using techniques from the kitchen world. Tai’s favorite creation is a drink made of Yuk Bing Siu, a Cantonese rice liqueur. It’s infused with coriander, mezcal, amaro Montenegro and toasted rice syrup. It has a smoky, sweet, spicy flavor with aftertaste of toasted rice that lingers pleasantly. quinary.hk; Yuk Bing Siu, HK$150.

Suwincha “Chacha” Singsuwan, head bartender, Rabbit Hole and Libération bangkok When your aunt and sister are bartenders, a career mixing drinks is as steeped in your blood as that whitetruffle oil you’ve fat-washed in gin.

Suwincha “Chacha” Singsuwan heads two popular speakeasies, the sultry, award-winning Rabbit Hole and its even harder-to-find baby sis, Libération. “My cocktail style is minimal. I do a lot of preparation, and present the finished drink quite neat,” she says. At Rabbit Hole, the menu is categorized according to nose: “We process them a lot to get the most aroma to the cocktail.” Prep time might be a full day, like for one of her faves at Libération, the Vegan War. She clarifies tomato juice, heats up red cabbage to extract the purple color, and adds carrot slices to prize out their taste. The alcohol is vodka redistilled with basil.

Look out for a third Singsuwanhelmed joint coming to Bangkok’s Langsuan area in November, which “will be vintage deco and play jazz most of the time.” rabbitholebkk.com, liberationbkk.com; Vegan War, Bt390.

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Where can you get it? Pioneer Seedlip is widely available in Singapore and Hong Kong; try top-ranked mixology valhallas Operation Dagger, Native and The Old Man. Diversifying the nonliquor cabinet, Lyres (lyres.co) has a full line of “spirits” that range from absinthe-like to coffee “liqueur.” They’re now only available in Australia, but are moving into Southeast Asia soon.

What to order? The Old Man has a section of non-alcoholic options on the menu wryly titled “Not Hemingway’s Favourites.” Order the African Safari for a zesty mix of rosemary, Seedlip Spice, turmeric-tamarind cordial, and citrus. — Veronica Inveen

f r o m l e f t: c o u r t e s y o f th e q u i n a r y; c o u r t e s y o f r a bb i t h o l e ; c o u r t e s y o f s e e d l i p

Suwincha “Chacha” Singsuwan.

What is it? Imagine an herbal G&T that you can sip on all day without fear of a hangover, health risks if you’re pregnant—or that dangerous sense of confidence that'll let you text an ex. You’re the target for Seedlip (seedlip. com), a line of gin-like, booze-free spirits made by blending individually distilled botanicals. It is part of a larger trend towards mixed drinks with less or zero alcohol-by-volume. “Low ABV cocktails allow bars to be even more inclusive for potential guests. Bars can be intimidating to people who choose not to drink alcohol,” says Charlie Ainsbury, of craft-spirits distributor and bar consultancy Proof & Co. In fact, studies show that millennials are actually drinking less than their predecessors—but a glass filled with soda water or a sugar-bomb of a mocktail just doesn't cut it.

COCKTAILS INSPIRED BY HISTORY AT AMRITH BY THE SONG OF INDIA Enjoy bespoke, high-end whiskies and handcrafted cocktails, amidst the quiet, lush garden of sister restaurant, The Song Of India. Amrith is perfect for small intimate groups and private conversations. Be sure to try out unique cocktails with Asian influences, including the likes of Thai Milk Tea and Hainanese Chicken Rice.

Present your American Express® Platinum Credit Card to enjoy a 1-for-1 First Cocktail from now to 31 December 2019.

Not an American Express® Platinum Credit Card Member?

Visit amex.co/platg or call 6396 8838 to apply.

Terms and Conditions: 1. For full Terms and Conditions of Chillax, please refer to amex.co/chillax American Express International Inc.,(UEN S68FC1878J) 20 (West) Pasir Panjang Road #08-00, Mapletree Business City, Singapore 117439. americanexpress.com.sg Incorporated with Limited Liability in the State of Delaware, U.S.A. ® Registered Trademark of American Express Company. © Copyright 2019 American Express Company.

d e al s

t+l reader specials

SPECIAL OCCASION THAILAND

Hit all the hotspots in Kuala Lumpur, take the entire family to Macau, or check out the latest in Bangkok luxe—this month’s packages aim to suit any budget and scratch any itch.

Cape Fahn Hotel Turn up the dial on your destination wedding, family reunion or corporate event with your very own private islands in Koh Samui. Cape Fahn’s pair of luxury isles in the Gulf of Thailand consist of 22 pool villas, including the private two-bedroom Fahn Noi villa—and the entire property can be yours with this once-in-a-lifetime offer. The deal includes serviced accommodation for all villas; Bt80,000 daily credit for food and drink; return airport transfers; daily buffet breakfast; and a day voyage on the Fahn Maiden Yacht for up to 12 guests. The Deal Private Islands offer: a night from Bt620,000, for all 22 villas, through December 31. capefahnhotel.com.

At Cape Fahn, book your own private island.

SUPERSAVER Pavilion Hotel, Kuala Lumpur

Save when booking ahead: reserve at least 30 days in advance to receive 15 percent off the best available rate. Managed by neighbor Banyan Tree, the Pavilion Hotel has access to the Banyan Tree Spa. The hotel also features elegant skyline-view rooms, an infinity pool, and Malay and Japanese restaurants.

The Deal Advanced Purchase Offer: a night in a City Oasis King, from RM510, through December 31, 2020. banyantree.com.

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CHINA

Raffles Shenzhen The newly minted Raffles Shenzhen has an incredible opening deal to indulge its first guests. The Ultimate Launch Package includes a three-night stay in Raffles Shenzhen’s Presidential suite; daily breakfast; Aston Martin airport transfers; a bespoke Michelin dinner; two local experiences, which could include a private helicopter tour or golf lesson; and more. But the VIP treatment doesn’t stop there.

Next, guests will get roundtrip business-class flights to Paris. Included with your trip to the French capital are three nights in Raffles Paris’s Le Royal Monceau suite; daily breakfast; airport transfers and immigration and customs escorts; two-hour private guided art tour of the hotel; dinner at Michelin-starred Italian restaurant Il Carpaccio; four-hour jewelry-making class at Van Cleef & Arpels ateliers; and more. The Deal Ultimate Launch Package: three nights in Raffles Shenzhen Presidential suite

and three nights in raffles Paris Le Royal Monceau suite from RMB688,888 per couple, through December 31. raffles. com.

FAMILY MACAU

Mandarin Oriental Keep the kids entertained at the Macao Science Center’s The Golden Age of Arabic Science exhibition with this educational deal from Mandarin Oriental. The display tracks centuries of history through scientific development, and features more than 60 interactive exhibits, short films, workshops and a 3D Dome Show in the Planetarium. The 1001 Inventions Exhibition Project offer includes accommodation in a Deluxe City View room; three-course set dinner menu for two adults and two-course set dinner menu for one child at the Lobby Lounge; Macao Science Center entry for two adults and one child under 12; Macao Science Center 3D Dome Show tickets at the Planetarium for two adults and one child under 12; exclusive savings and a welcome gift with any purchase at Macao Science Center Gift Shop. The Deal 1001 Inventions Exhibition Project package: a night in a Deluxe City View room, from HK$2,455, through October 31. mandarinoriental.com.

when dining with a parent; three hours free at the Explorers’ Club; and a guided heritage and nature tour that visits the Marble temple, the Tai Muang Chinese temple, a local community, a turtle sanctuary and the Wat Khao waterfall. The Deal Family Fun Local Discoveries package: a night in a Grand Deluxe Pool Villa, from Bt10,555, including package for two adults and up to two children, through December 20. aleenta.com.

WELLNESS LAOS

Pullman Luang Prabang The tranquility of the former Lao royal capital will really take over with the help of this relaxing offer from Pullman Luang Prabang. Book at least two nights in the rice-paddysurrounded resort and you’ll get 30 percent off any spa treatment during your stay; free access to wellness facilities, including all three swimming pools, the Pullman Spa and Pullman Fit gym; complimentary breakfast for two; a healthy snack; and free Wi-Fi. The Deal Time for Wellbeing offer: a night in a Deluxe Garden View room, from US$120, through

September 18. pullmanluangprabang.com.

JAPAN

The Kiroro, a Tribute Portfolio Hotel Unwind in the mountains of Hokkaido and embark on an off-season wellness journey.

The package includes accommodation at The Kiroro; buffet breakfast for two at Pop; a daily bath in the Kiroro onsen, a natural caldera hot spring; daily massage at Kotan salon; daily guided morning walk; daily yoga class; complimentary access to resort pool and fitness centers; and complimentary tennis, paddle tennis and miniature golf. The Deal Kiroro Wellness Package: a night in a Deluxe King Bed room, from ¥18,400, through September 29. marriott.com.

CITY HONG KONG

The Murray Upgrade your stay in Hong Kong with this offer from The Murray. Bookings of two nights or more in an N3 Grand Deluxe room or any of the hotel’s suites receive complimentary coffee, tea and soft drinks at The Tai Pan, Garden Lounge

and Murray Lane; canapés, champagne and house wines at Garden Lounge from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.; daily breakfast for two; a nutrition consultation with the hotel’s in-house nutritionist; access to Lane Crawford Platinum Lounge; priority seating at Popinjays with a welcome champagne flute; unpacking service for suite guests; and more. The Deal Murray Experience package: a night in an N3 Grand Deluxe room, from HK$4,807, through September 10. niccolohotels.com.

THAILAND

Rosewood Bangkok Explore the newest kid on the Sukhumvit block, the Rosewood Bangkok. Book a night in their residential-style suites to receive a special package including round-trip airport limo transfers; a choice of a 60-minute Ancient Thai, Bespoke, Jetlag or Relaxing Foot Massage at the Sense Spa; Bt2,000 credit at food and beverage venues in the hotel; butler service; and free WiFi. The Deal Signature Suites Stay: a night in a Manor Suite King, from Bt17,550, through March 31, 2020. rosewoodhotels.com.

At the Mandarin Oriental Macau.

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THAILAND

Aleenta Phuket Resort & Spa Book a beach break with the whole brood at this resort in Phang Nga. Add on the Family Fun “Local Discoveries” Package to your stay for just Bt6,000 and you’ll get a complimentary bottle of sparkling wine for the parents and fruit juices for kids; a choice of cupcake-decorating class or pizza-making class for the whole family; free meals for kids under six and 50-percent discounts on meals for kids between six and 12

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f o o d gu i d e s , w e lc o m i n g v i b e s , s q u i d b a lls a n d pr e c i o us b e e f. s t r a p o n t h e f e e db a g —t h e r e ’ s way t o o m uc h t o e at a n d dr i n k i n

osak a p. 74

t h i s l i t t l e p i gg y w e n t t o e n gl a n d . . . t h i s l i t t l e p i gg y s tay e d h o m e . t h e i n t e r n at i o n a l , h i llt r i b e -t o h a u t e j o ur n e y o f t h a i

black pork p. 84

in the ancient vietnamese c a p i ta l , s t r e e t f o o d h a s a w h i ff o f r o ya lt y a b o u t i t. g o rg e yo urs e lf o n h i s t o r y, a n d s n a cks k n o w n a s ba n h

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sh i n s u k e m ats u k awa

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Party time on the Dontonburi River, in Osaka, page 74.

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Cruising Dotonburi in search of the next meal.

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Kakiage of julienned vegetables, at Tempura Tarojiro.

opposite from top:

Briny delights at Tempura Tarojiro; surrender your stomach to food guide Kuni Okamoto.

We were sitting in a small and very bright tempura joint, the air hot and sticky from the oily fumes of the fryer, that enticing smell of golden crispness clinging to everything.

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Our four-hour flight from Manila to Osaka had been rendered nearly double by painful delays, and when we had finally landed and were out on the town, all we wanted was good food and cold sake. But when we asked, our guide Kuni abruptly said, “No. Try hot sake… with blow fish.”

Blow fish? The famously toxic fugu? Wouldn’t that kill me?

My husband, Jonathan, and I had been planning this trip with another couple, Arrun and Shanaz, for quite some time. We didn’t have much of an itinerary—just an appointment with this highly recommended man

about town, Kuni, food guide extraordinaire. Everyone from Manila who has been to Osaka knows Kuni, to the point that he was my friend on Facebook for two years before I even met him. Everyone who had told me he was hilarious and so fun, but when we made his acquaintance, he was almost... gruff.

But we were starving and certainly did not want to question the man who would determine the fate of our hunger. What arrived was a hot cup of sake boiled with a grilled fugu tail, set alight then covered.

When the flames died down, I was instructed to sip slowly. The vapors hit my nose like an alcoholic punch; the following sip warmed my entire body. The sharpness of the heated rice wine was made earthy and smoky by the roasted fish tail. It was a strange combination that was surprisingly very pleasant, almost calming, definitely not deadly.

Everything in Tempura Tarojiro was divine, not greasy, but light and airy with a perfect crunch. A simple kakiage of julienned vegetables was truly next level. By the time a suspicious plate of white balls came to our table, I was all in. Kuni didn’t have to tell me what it was—I knew.

And that sperm sac was pretty damn good. OK, Kuni. You have my trust.

Under the bright lights and waving mechanical crab legs of

eating strip Dotonbori, we let him guide us through the night, and straight into its depths. Turned out Kuni had just had a tiff with a sushi chef—as you do—but he was in fact as fun as advertised. Following him, his recommendations and our own internal compasses, we went on a decadent food and alcohol journey, spanning Osaka’s eating and drinking spectrum, from a temple to the most deliriously melt-in-yourmouth beef I’ve ever had, to a proper izakaya with killer tori karaage and the town’s famous takoyaki squid balls, to a tiny watering hole from a Tarantino movie in which Gloria Estefan got everyone on their feet.

It’s not a secret that strange things can happen in crazy, urban Japan. Tokyo alone offers innumerable opportunities for going through parallel universes—and the only way to experience it is to let the city own you and engulf you.

Osaka, however, is completely different. The strangest, most unusual situations come up at you from nowhere, and you embrace it.

And perhaps more importantly, it embraces you back, warmly and joyously. The city’s nickname is “Japan’s Kitchen,” a good hint that food here comes with a lot of heart.

Unlike in Tokyo, with twice as many Michelin stars and therefore restaurants booked out months in

advance, in Osaka I felt at home, not like an outsider looking in, but an integral part of the dynamic energy the city possesses. I set out to explore the city guided by its very own motto, “kuiadore”—eat until you drop.

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s the evening wore on, Kuni warmed up.

Maybe it was our company, or maybe it was the beef. In a little black room, the light only shone on the griddle and the meat. The altar was set for its glorious sacrifice. The process of getting this precious Matsusaka beef from Mie prefecture so marbled that it’s pink not red is a closely guarded secret. But I’d say the cattle’s royal treatment must extend beyond the beer-feeding and massage-giving to produce such incredible flesh. We followed Kuni’s orders, lightly searing the meat on the flames. No adornment needed.

The sauces and the salts were unnecessary. We ate with reverence and drank with merriment.

Kuni then took us to his favorite bar, a 10-seater named Crystal run by a Romanian named George. He joined us for countless shots of cold Jaeger and a precarious game of drunken Jenga. We asked if we could put on our own music and George said yes. We took over the bar, we made it our own and everyone knew all our names in quick order.

felt at i in osaka integral ’s home, an city the of part energy dynamic

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Naruto Taiyaki's famed red-bean paste–filled pastries are worth the queue. opposite: Izakaya Sumiyakiyo does perfect squid balls and tori karage.

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For some reason we left for a club.

After I found myself dancing on the ledge between two stripper poles, everyone felt it was time to go home.

But to the dismay of tired Jonathan and Shanaz, “home” for me, Arrun and Kuni was back to Crystal. As we entered, the whole bar cheered and applauded with joy at our return. As a swansong, we played Bohemian Rhapsody and got everyone singing, crying out for their mamas. It was incredible, we were invincible, or at least I felt so: I wound up in a sparring session outside the bar with an old man who turned out to be a former boxing coach. The night could have kept going. Karaoke perhaps? My husband laughingly shook his head no and basically dragged me home.

couldn’t help but turn my head in excitement every two seconds. From swimmingly fresh seafood in aquariums to hand-pulled noodles to obscenely large strawberries, it was quite literally a feast for the senses.

I could not resist the allure of grilled snow crab. Two-fingers wide and as long as my forearm, the crustacean legs are fired over a coal hibachi and served as is. Again, there was no need for sauce or seasoning: it was like a salty, briny, fluffy cloud of Neptunian goodness.

Then I had fresh sea urchin, served directly in the shell with just a smidgen of tamari and grated wasabi—it was so plump and sweet I could only close my eyes, blush and let out a soulful sigh.

I don’t usually have a sweet tooth but in our quest for coffee we passed by a corner shop that smelled invitingly divine, like a beautiful mix of sugar and dough. Naruto Taiyaki is known for red-bean or yellow sweet-potato paste–filled cakes shaped like fish and, that February morning, I couldn’t resist their fresh, piping hot confections. I gingerly took a nibble. The golden, crisp outside yields to a silky smooth sweet paste. It took expert precision to not get burnt: bite, blow and chew, bite, blow and chew.

Another not-to-be-missed experience is the cheese toast at

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saka is hangover heaven. From ramen to kushikatsu (panko-fried skewered meat and veggies) to fluffy souffle pancakes to their other famous griddle cake, the umami-loaded okonomiyaki, there is something for every craving. It seems as though the whole city is enveloped in a perpetual delicious fog from the billows of smoke and steam that rise from the various pots, skillets, cauldrons, ovens, griddles and grills that line the busy streets. Kuromon Ichiba Market is a prime example of this, a place where even the most disciplined and serene foodie will have a serious case of whiplash. I

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Marufuku Coffee Shop. The 80-yearold institution serves an excellent, strong siphon-brewed coffee but also, more surprisingly, a cheese toast that’s somewhat like a croque monsieur but not quite. Made with what was probably the most pillowy white bread I’ve ever encountered, topped with a mixture of egg yolks, butter and cheese, then gratineed, it felt like a truly indulgent and comforting childhood snack.

As if we hadn’t eaten enough, we made our way to Gyoza-Oh! for dinner. I’m a sucker for dumplings. I love how one small package can hold the perfect little serving of meat, vegetables and juices, and my favorite incarnation is the gyoza.

Crisp and browned on one side, steamed and paper thin on the other, the heady touch of sesame, and the bright tang of ponzu. It’s all kinds of hangover heaven in a single bite. The restaurant surprised us with a beautiful Japanese wine, Kawachi Osaka white made from a local grape—it was light and citrusy and perfect with the yuzu-tinged gyoza.

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e wanted a last drink on our final night. A Google search brought us to Top Rank, a jazz bar whose sign outside read in bold letters: we are

Self-grill the marbled beef at Matsusake Gyu-Yakiniku M, sans adornments. Below: Kuromon Ichiba Market. opposite from top: Massive produce at Kuromon Ichiba Market; pillowy cheese toast at Marufuku Coffee Shop.

The grills at Kuromon Ichiba Market feed Osaka's delicious fog of steam and smoke. Top: Making magic at Tempura Tarojiro. opposite: Quirky hangout, Bar Linda.

expensive. It was a dusty place, filled from top to floor with records and old-fashioned high-quality glasstubed Hi Fi systems. The owner stared at us like we weren’t welcome because we didn’t seem serious enough about the music so we politely eased our way out. It turned out that the building housed a bunch of other highly specialized music bars, so we figured, why not explore?

What happened next was pretty much like a Scooby-Doo cartoon, where you’re in one door and out another into different worlds and parallel universes. One entryway opened to a dark space with men in berets and cigarette smoke filling the air, beatnik jazz in the background. Another revealed an even darker space covered in Rolling Stones paraphernalia and a jack-o’lantern suspended in the air. Two ladies with way-too-long hair and band shirts smiled at us, like good witches from the kingdom of rockand-roll. It felt like if we entered, we would get stuck in this dark, odd blip in the time-space continuum.

So, we did an about-face. We had to call it a night. It was Sunday. We were wandering aimlessly.

Everything was too stuffy, too serious, had too high of a cover charge, felt just plain strange. We began disappointedly walking home along the large avenue we always took; usually bright with gaudy lights and eateries, it was darkened

by Sunday closures. But underneath the overpass on the second floor of a nondescript building was a window with flickering lights. The window was filled to the brim with what was, upon closer inspection, a display of all kinds of canned goods framing a small sign: Bar Linda. We looked at each other and shrugged. A cannedgoods themed bar? Let’s do it.

Who knew this would be the highlight of our trip?

We climbed up the stairs, which opened up into a small room with a U-shaped bar. Two gentlemen sat at the corner, one in a well-tailored suit, clean cut with eyeglasses. The other, wearing a French-style mariniere, sat legs-crossed on the counter, languidly smoking a cigarette. The bartender incongruously had a welcoming round faced, and was happily housed in his little personal stadium at the very center of the place. All eyes

turned to us. “What were we doing here?” they asked. “We just wanted a drink,” we half-smiled hopefully.

One drink turned into two and then three and pretty soon they were popping open cans of mackerel with flourish, like they were bottles of champagne, shouting, “Happy Birthday!” to Arrun though it wasn’t exactly. With a combination of minimal English and hand gestures, we all became fast friends. One of the men stepped out to buy us chocolates as a present, and the other created an Instagram account just to follow me. The bartender let us take over the music until the man in a suit exclaimed, “Cong-gah!,” exuberantly lifting one arm over his head and tossing the other across his chest in a comical flamenco pose.

Just then, the familiar strains of Gloria Estefan’s hit came on the stereo—“Come on shake your body, baby, do the conga”—and our motley crew of seven started wiggling our shoulders and banging our chopsticks on the glasses and bottles.

It was all kinds of weird and amazing and was the perfect sendoff from a town that had made us feel right at home.

“Eat til you Drop” in Japan’s Kitchen

Strap on the feedbag and head to Osaka for a long weekend; there are direct flights from all the major cities in Southeast Asia. tour Guide Osaka Food Crawl with Kuniyoshi Okamoto Kuni will plot a dining and drinking tour based on your likes, and if you’re lucky, even bring your to his favorite bar. WhatsApp or Viber: 81-80/41421754; Instagram: @toyonaka_bunny; tours from ¥15,000 per person for three locations in three hours for two people, all food included.

Eat+Drink Matsusaka Gyu – Yakiniku M Dark interiors set the stage for excellent beef. matsusakaprojects.com; Matsusaka tasting platter from ¥3,000 per person, Matsusaka and Wagyu tasting platters for two from ¥13,800.

Tempura Tarojiro Ultra-fresh sashimi and über-crisp tempura are the two lures here. tarojirou.

com; food and drinks for two ¥3,000.

Izakaya Sumiyakiyo A cozy, authentic Japanese-style pub with great karaage and takoyaki. sumiyakiyo.com; food and beer for two ¥1,800.

Gyoza-oh! The paper-thin wrappers crisp nicely on the outside, while keeping the inside succulent. Perfect little gyozas!

Vegetarian options available, too. fb.com/gyozaohdotonburi; 81-6/6210 4403; food and drinks for two ¥3,000.

Marufuku Coffee Shop Oldfashioned interiors with excellent siphon coffee and the fluffiest cheese toast around.

1-9-1 Sennichimae, Chuo-ku; 81-6/6211-3474; food and coffee for two ¥1,200.

Naruto Taiyaki A great little fish-shaped snack that definitely

hits the sweet spot. 2-7-2 Sonezaki, Kita-ku; taiyaki.co.jp; red-bean pancakes ¥180 per piece, sweet-potato pancakes ¥200 per piece.

Kuromon Ichiba Market The best place to satisfy all food cravings. Visit anytime between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. to find the most market stalls open. 2 Chome-4-1 Nipponbashi.

Sam and Dave One From Top 40 to deep house, this is the place to boogie the night away.

Pole-dancing optional. samanddave.jp; cocktails from ¥600. — S.Z.

Crystal Dive Bar A small bar with lots of good energy. A great place to mix with both locals and foreigners. fb.com/ crystalbarosaka; drinks for two ¥1,200.

Bar Linda Best described as a quirky neighborhood local, perfect for a nightcap and a good chat with the bartender.

1-18-10 Nambanaka, Naniwa-ku | Shibuya Bldg. 2F, Naniwa; 816/6647-7050; beers from ¥480.

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When Pigs Fly Black pork migrates from hillside villages to the luxe side of Bangkok, with a few historical stops in between. What endures, writes Joe Cummings, is the taste of this marbled meat: juicier, tenderer and tastier, no matter the cuisine. Illustrations by Riety

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I I’m mucking around in the pig pens with a Michelin-starred chef. Black pigs covered in soft hair, with taut hinds like a bull terrier and floppy ears like a pug, are tumbling all over each other. They’re extremely cute—especially when they’re rubbing snouts with their pink cousins, who are waddling their more traditionally rounded backsides on the other side of a fence.

“I fell in love with the pigs very quickly,” says American expat and IT consultant–turned–hog wrangler Randall Ellis, while showing me and chef Antony Scholtmeyer around the well-kept, super sustainable Surin Farm, which he owns with his wife in Santapong, Thailand, 30 kilometers south of Chiang Mai. “They’re really smart, they love people if you treat them well, and they grow a lot of meat real fast.”

The high-dollar market for Surin Farm consists of pigs of up to 110 kilograms, the optimum weight for the finest cuts of pork. Although many of Surin Farm’s 500-plus pigs are red Duroc or white Landrace, black pigs are the most valuable because of their highly desirable meat, especially among chefs and consumers in Thailand’s evergrowing fine-dining arena.

Scholtmeyer, who headed Elements restaurant in Bangkok when it first earned a Michelin star, is now executive chef at Capella Bangkok, a 101-room luxury hotel slated to open

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on the banks of the Chao Phraya River later this year. He will be buying a steady stream of Ellis’s black pigs to use in the hotel in everything from porchetta to pâté.

“It’s a premium product,” he says.

His admiration is validated by chefs across the culinary spectrum.

Example: Menya Itto is Tokyo’s No. 1–rated ramen shop, and for its Bangkok branch, co-owner Nicholas Lam buys Ellis’s black pork when available to cook a deluxe version of their signature tsukemen, in which noodles and an intensely flavored broth are served separately. “Thai black pork beats anything we can import,” Lam says. “Whenever we’re able to get it, I use it for rosu chashu (pinkish roast pork) and pork belly chashu, very lightly simmered to create a dense but melting texture with the pure taste of pork.”

One smells a sizzling trend. It wasn’t that many years ago that Thai black pigs were favored only by northern Thai hilltribes, who presumably lacked the cash for nice fat hogs with bloodlines stretching back to Denmark, Belgium, England or New Jersey, the kind fancy people dined on. But over the last three or four years, that once-widespread attitude has been changing. There’s a growing craving for perfectly marbled pieces of all-natural pork, reared in-country. “I try to use products that are as authentic and local as possible,” Scholtmeyer says.

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“Plus, the Thai black pig comes with a story, a mystique about it, that sells, like Thailand itself.”

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Berkshire black pigs have been praised for centuries for their intramuscular fat that makes the meat marbled—the result being juicier, tenderer and tastier. The British crown gifted some of them to Japan during the Meiji period and the Japanese were so impressed with the pork that they bred the Berkshires over the next hundred years to become Kurobuta (“black pig”), a closely related pedigree whose legs are black rather than white—and which in recent years have become as popular an export for Japan as Wagyu and Kobe beef.

Where did those sweet British swine come from in the first place? A study published in Nature magazine found a significant amount of domesticated Chinese-pig DNA in Berkshire pigs, which the authors say dates to the onset of the agricultural revolution—when fleshy, waste-fed Asian pigs were brought in to fatten up the stock of their leaner, free-range Euro cousins. “In the county of Berkshire in England, a reddish or sandy colored pig strain (sometimes spotted) was latterly refined with a cross of Siamese and Chinese blood (~300 years ago), bringing the color ngland’s

pattern we see today along with more efficient meat production,” says the 2014 study.

The study’s authors were based in China, so they might have had some skin in the game, and as for us in Southeast Asia, it’s a gratifying notion to think such a highly esteemed porcine pedigree is related to black pigs raised in the mountains of northern Thailand for centuries.

I’ve yet to find solid evidence that confirms a link. But it’s possible.

Whether or not they’re part of Berkshire root stock, everyone agrees that Thai black pigs produce meat with the same desirable characteristics: pink-hued and heavily marbled cuts which, after cooking, yield an upgraded intensity of flavor coupled with juicy tenderness. A high fat content also means the pork stands up to longer cooking at higher temperatures than its white counterparts, a boon for chefs like Chandler Schultz who place meats high above a live fire so that they take on a smoky crust without burning.

As I enter Le Cochon Blanc in central Bangkok, head chef Schultz is stoking logs at the bottom of the restaurant’s fire pit. It’s 90 minutes before the doors open, but bright magenta flames from the massive pit are already throwing off an intense heat that threatens to barbecue my kneecaps.

Schultz is an avid fan of local black pig. “Sure, we’re known for the finest imported ingredients,” says the ginger-bearded young chef. “I import probably the best butter in the world, I have amazing Atlantic seafood, and I have really great Australian beef. I believe those are the best, so that’s what I use.

“But when it comes to pork, I would rather serve Thai-raised black pork than Japanese Kurobuta or

Spanish Iberico. It’s the marbling, the texture, and most of all the flavor of local black pork that sets it apart from anything else I’ve tried,” he says, as he slaps a thick, bone-in pork tenderloin—what the menu calls Pork Tomahawk—onto a cast-iron grate above the flames.

It tastes intensely porky, but without a trace of dryness, and with a velvety mouth feel imparted by thick veins of fat margining seamlessly with the meat. There’s an irony here, given the French name of Schultz’s restaurant means “the white pig”—but I decide it makes sense in reference to the intense heat this magic meat can withstand.

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e Cochon Blanc gets its black pigs from Nan. In this northern Thai province that borders Laos, Thai chef Phanuphon “Black” Bulsuwan and a few friends manage their own black pig farm in order to supply the chef’s Blackitch Artisan Kitchen in Chiang Mai as well as KRBB, the farm’s boutique butcher shop in Bangkok.

Regular KRBB customers include Schultz, as well as Chalee Kader from 100 Mahaseth, a nose-to-tail specialist who evangelizes the virtue of local meats over imports.

Thai black pigs have never been a certified breed, but under the stewardship of the Department of Livestock Development, that may soon change. Through a systematic cross-breeding program, the department has established a genetic standard that promises to yield a certifiable breed roughly two years from now. The tentative name for the new pedigree is Moo Dum, Thai for—you guessed it—“black pig.”

According to Ellis, who works closely with the department, Moo Dum is a cross between native Thai black pig,

Piétrain, Duroc and Meishan, a black pig native to southwestern China.

“The first time I tasted it was two years ago at my farm,” Black says. “It was so clean and odorless that we enjoyed eating the liver and heart raw.” At Blackitch Artisanal Kitchen, where Black is known for his exclusive tasting menus using only high-grade local ingredients, he served me one of the signature dishes: pork jowl marinated with fermented tofu and then charcoalgrilled and served with chili, ginger and mountain herbs. The meat’s juicy flavors practically leapt off the plate; this was definitely a dish I would come back for, the hour-plus flight from Bangkok totally worth it.

Black says that clamoring for the tasty meat has reached a level where demand outstrips supply. “At our farm, we’re able to raise just enough black pork for ourselves and a small circle of customers. Thailand will need more farms raising black pigs very soon or it may all but disappear from menus,” he says. Adds Schultz: “That’s the thing with any fledgling artisanal product—keeping up with demand once the public has tasted it.

Black pork is a totally different experience, so everyone that’s tasted it wants more. There’ll be growing pains for sure, but it will smooth out as productions expands, I think.”

“It’s good for chefs to demand and to support this kind of product,” he says. “It’s local, so the added value stays in country, and with the small farms we buy from, it’s sustainable.”

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Surin Farm, piglets reared from birth to around 25 days old are sold to Thai farmers who are establishing satellite pig farms as part of a cooperative Ellis hopes will help maintain steady supply lines to Bangkok, and solve the shortage problem. The farm’s surprising ack on

middle market buys small- to medium-sized pigs to offer at village ceremonies and feasts. In fact, many of northern Thailand’s mountain inhabitants raise pigs primarily as a source of sacrificial animals for spirit worship, to assure against possible financial difficulty or crop failure. Hilltribes won’t use white pigs for such purposes; using anything other than native black pigs goes against their beliefs.

Ellis treats all of his pigs, whatever the color of their hide or size of their bellies, exceptionally

For such efforts, the Thai government has certified Surin Farm as a training facility for pig farmers around the country seeking better methods of animal husbandry. The United Nations Environment office in Bangkok has also recognized the farm as a model of sustainability.

“We don’t use hormones and will only resort to antibiotics when an animal is actually ill,” Ellis says.

“Equally important is to treat the pigs with loving care right up until we arrange a quick and humane

Ellis’s staff grills thick slabs of pork loin in the farm kitchen for Scholtmeyer and me to try. Due to a short supply of fresh black pork, what we eat comes from frozen stock. And yet it is an amazing mouth experience, tasting like pork cooked for divine audience.

“The Wagyu of the pork world!”

Scholtmeyer proclaims. I’m busy enjoying some of the best pork I’ve ever had, so can only nod in agreement. Now I understand why the hilltribes offer only black pig to the gods.

Black pork is a different experience.

Everyone who’s tasted it wants more well. Farm pens are designed to allow plenty of space for exercise (Ellis refuses to follow the free-range trend, believing it puts the animals at greater risk of infection), and are cleaned twice a day. Only a few meters outside the pens, the property is virtually odor-free, ringed as it is by trees and thick vegetation, whose leaves capture drifting smells that are then rinsed into the ground when it rains. The chemical-free farm also employs a small methane gas plant to clean wastewater and protect the air.

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death. Studies show that stressedout pigs deliver lousy meat.”

For Capella, Scholtmeyer will buy primals (basic large portions of the pig, numbering three or four) and then butcher them himself. “That way we can get exactly the cuts we want, and they’re fresh,” says the chef. “We also plan to make our own bacon, sausages, smoked hams, and our own French-style charcuterie such as pâtés and terrines. We’ll go for porchetta, chops, loins and fillets for main menu items, and turn the bits and pieces into other things.”

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The Details Blackitch Artisan Kitchen Nimmanhemin Soi 7, Chiang Mai; 66-9/9258-79979; blackitch.com; set menu Bt1,800.

Capella Bangkok capella.com; slated to open Q4 2019.

Le Cochon Blanc Soi Phromchit, Sukhumvit Soi 33, Bangkok; 66-2/6623814; lecochonblanc.com; pork tomahawk Bt990.

Menya Itto LG/F, Erawan, 494 Phloenchit Rd., Bangkok; 66-2/250-7669; fb.com/menyaittobkk; ramen from Bt270.

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snack capital

The gate to the royal citadel in Hue, Vietnam's ancient capital. opposite: Banh beo served by the dozen.

L e st e r v. L e d e sm a . l e f t: a l a m y st o c k p h o t o

Vietnam’s last dynasty may have built extravagant monuments around its imperial citadel, but Lester V. Ledesma says the enduring monarchic influence is found in the food of the commonfolk—the banh Hue.

Sta nding in 3 February Park, a leafy sculpture garden that commemorates an important battle of the Tet Offensive, I’m looking out to a riverside boulevard lined with stately French-colonial buildings.

The Perfume River sweeps quietly under a fog-obscured bridge. Couples stroll and little kids scamper around their parents’ legs. It’s a lovely afternoon in the city of Hue, but my thoughts are somewhere beyond this picturesque spot. Specifically, I am looking at the food hawkers at the far side of the plaza, their carts, stalls, shoulder poles overflowing with all sorts of temptations.

I walk over to them and order a bunch of banh nam—strips of steamed rice flour topped with a layer of seasoned, finely ground shrimp and pork. The vendor unwraps them from their bananaleaf packaging, and I dig into this tasty, savory-sweet delicacy. The views may be historic and the atmosphere serene, but food like this is the real reason I came to Hue. I’ve always been fascinated with Vietnamese cuisine, its subtle flavors and simple, fresh ingredients. But of all its categories there is one that I love most. It’s called banh—a word that means “cooked food from flour,” or more simply “cake,” and is used broadly to describe a variety of small, often handheld, snacks. These can be anything from simple rice dumplings (banh chung) or porkand-mushroom-stuffed steamed rice-flour rolls (banh cuon), to battered and fried banana fillets (banh chuoi chen) or Western-style cakes (banh kem). Most banh by themselves aren’t taken as meals— instead, they’re more like a remedy for the munchies: bits of carbs plus usually protein or sugar that serve as instant pick-me-ups.

There are some incarnations of banh that can only be found here. In

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fact, although Hue’s most famous culinary export is its fiery, beefladen bun bo Hue noodle soup, it is the more homespun, less easily categorized banh Hue (or “banh from Hue”) that most Vietnamese indulge in when visiting the imperial capital.

“Banh is everyday food for common people. When I was small I ate this for breakfast, lunch or dinner if my parents didn’t have enough money to prepare more substantial dishes,” says 37-year-old Nguyen Tay Hoang, who runs the popular Hanh Restaurant near the city center. “But I notice tourists have become aware of banh Hue. People ask for it in my restaurant all the time. It’s amusing to know that this humble food is now being appreciated by visitors.”

For 143 years, Hue, on Vietnam’s narrow waistline, was the seat of culture, religion and politics. It was the home of Nguyen dynasty kings who were responsible for many of the country’s cultural emblems: the ao dai national dress, and several important Buddhist

shrines, for example. In such a revered place, you might think the enduring culinary tradition would be royal—and there are indeed lovely restaurants that recreate the fancy victuals that graced the tables of emperors, including Le Parfum at the newly rebranded Azerai La Residence, Hue, the city’s 89-year-old grande dame.

But here’s a little secret: not everything eaten at court took hours to make or was jammed with expensive, rare ingredients. It couldn’t have been when the kings often demanded 50 dishes in a sitting. While the common folk were officially forbidden from copying and consuming regal fare… well, let’s just say I’d probably risk my life for some really delicious banh khoai, a kind of savory pancake that is said to have originated in the royal kitchens.

This juxtaposition of haute and humble intrigues me. “To the Vietnamese, banh Hue is a taste of old Vietnam,” Hoang tells me.

For my first stop, he suggests I head to the city market, Cho Dong Ba. Clustered on a strip of pavement outside, facing the main entrance, are hawkers offering all sorts of gustatory delights.

An important rule to remember on banh is that there’s actually no convention on what its supposed to look like. I see a smiling lady sitting on a stool, with a basket of tiny, translucent dumplings.

“Banh bot loc!” she points to them, and without asking starts scooping them in to dish. A slice of cha lua pork sausage, a heap of coriander and some chili paste later, and I am holding a bowlful of banh in my hands. The little parcels of shrimp and tapioca flour are soft, chewy and savory—and when paired with a salty-sweet, fish sauce-based nuoc cham dressing, they become delightfully complex. I empty the bowl in a minute and, easing off happily full, I have to remind myself that it technically wasn’t even a proper meal.

The following day I begin with a breakfast stop at a roadside hawker for banh bao, which are fist-sized dough buns stuffed with

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ginger and pork—the Vietnamese version of the Chinese steamed bao. Then I hop on a motorbike and make my way south to the famous tombs of the Hue emperors, a side of Vietnam often overshadowed by its more recent history.

At the mausoleum of Tu Duc, I follow manicured walkways that meander past pleasure gardens, temples and a lakeside pavilion. At Minh Mang’s tomb, a single road leads me straight through a procession of buildings, lotus ponds and courtyards, to a modestlooking shrine that houses the emperor’s final resting place. Most impressive of these, however, is the tomb of Khai Dinh: an eyepopping blend of Vietnamese, Romanesque and Gothic designs carved in three levels on the mountainside. Monarchic rule ended when the Democratic Republic of Vietnam was established in 1945, but the timelessness that envelops a visitor in these grand sprawling monuments actually makes the era of these emperors feel far more ancient.

The weight of that conundrum makes me hungry. On the way back to downtown, I spy an eatery with a stack of tiny plates out front. This is a telltale sign of another Hue specialty, the banh beo—a gelatinous disc of steamed rice flour topped with bits of crunchy pork, salted shrimp and spring onions—and the midafternoon line of locals is convincing evidence of the cook’s skill. I queue up and am eventually served a dozen tiny plates, a personal buffet with nuoc cham dipping sauce on the side. Carved out with a spoon, the banh beo go down smoothly, the delicate flavor of the tiny pancake subtly highlighting its main ingredients. A pair of kids at the next table are comparing their stacks of used plates. “They’re competing to see who can eat the most,” their bemused father says.

The a ncient citadel, the once-proud capital of the Nguyen dynasty, still anchors the center of Hue. Massive gray battlements rise from a surrounding moat, their facades still bearing bullet holes from 1968. At its heyday in the 1800s, this walled city boasted an imperial palace, theaters, temples and royal residences. Sadly, much of it was destroyed during the American War, and despite ongoing restoration efforts, parts of the citadel are forever ruined.

The damage isn’t just physical, as many of Hue’s historians, artists and intellectuals were purged during the conflict, their work destroyed when the city was bombed. Not surprisingly, post-war reconstruction focused more on building the future than rediscovering the past. One can say that today’s Hue is a city of commoners, of entrepreneurs and blue-collar workers who experience the legacy of the Nguyen kings through the occasional cultural show—and in their everyday cuisine.

For my final dinner, I head with Hoang to from top: Banh his restaurant, Hanh. It’s known for banh nam are rice-flour khoai, made with practiced ease, on a cooking rolls topped with station dedicated to frying these crackly, shrimp and pork 15-centimeter-circular sheets of turmericthen steamed in banana leaves; tinged flour. Shrimp, minced pork and bean discarded dishes of sprouts are added to each sizzling piece before banh beo; modern it is folded into something akin to a Vietnamese meets traditional taco. In contrast to the more popular banh xeo, in a pool villa at Banyan Tree Lang a similar delicacy from the south that sports a Co. opposite from coconut or rice milk–infused batter, the banh left: Crispy banh khoai is a thicker, crispier and more umamikhoai; old-world laden treat. To eat it, you simply break off a glam at Azerai La piece, dip it into a curiously thick sauce, and Residence Hue.

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The Details Where to Stay Since Hue’s local cuisine is often served amid humble environs, it’s a rare treat to experience it with a touch of luxury. In an ornate mansion on the banks of the Perfume River, Azerai La Residence, Hue has 122 rooms in classic French-colonial style, around a saltwater pool that’s welcome after a day touring the city. The recent renovation by Adrian Zecha’s boutiquehotel brand expanded the spa and reenergized Le Gouverneur Bar and Le Parfum Restaurant, which serves Western and Asian favorites alongside Hue specialties like royal cuisine, bun bo Hue and several kinds of banh Hue. azerai.com; doubles from VND4,000,000.

South of the city, the all-pool villa Banyan Tree Lang Co lies on a stretch of white sand facing the South China Sea. This top-end resort, with a beautiful championship golf course, is also a dining

destination: The Water Court specializes in Vietnamese flavors, and its sister property Angsana Lang Co Resort hosts the twice-weekly Seedlings Street Food Market, where local vendors serve Hue’s favorite street eats. banyantree.com: villas from VND8,455,380; angsana.com: doubles from VND3,160,000.

What to Eat Banh Nam Truong Dinh Street near the riverside plaza is home to a row of eateries specializing in banana leaf– wrapped rice-flour rolls for VND2,500.

Banh Bot Loc A handful of vendors sell these chewy dumplings by the Dong Ba Market front entrance, at 2 Tran

Hung Dao Street.

VND20,000 should be plenty for a bowl.

Banh Bao The smiling vendor at the corner of Hai Ba Trung and Tran Cao Van streets peddles her fat, stuffed, steamed buns for VND7,000 apiece.

Banh Beo Located near the tomb of Tu Duc at 83 Le Ngo Cat, the humble eatery Quan Banh Beo serves a mini-buffet of 12 banh beo plates for VND50,000.

Banh Khoai Hanh Restaurant, Nguyen Tay Hoang’s family business, at 11 Duong Pho Duc Chinh, sells a variety of banh dishes, but is known for its crackly, savory banh khoai, which costs VND25,000 per plate. — L.V.L.

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then shove it into your mouth along with a pinch of fresh greens from the table.

Hoang sits at my table and tells me more about the house specialty.

“I think most banh khoai crepes would taste similar no matter which place serves it,” he admits. “What sets banh khoai apart from each other is the sauce. Ours is a mix of peanuts, sesame, soy beans and liver that’s cooked for ten hours straight.”

Depending on which grandma’s recipe you follow, this dip can pack ingredients ranging from pork stock to grated lemongrass to hoisin sauce.

Enamored as I am of banh Hue, I still find it interesting that this idiosyncratic peasant food is gaining popularity among visitors. “Hue is a very traditional place, and we still like to do things the old way,” Hoang says. “Banh Hue is complicated to make, but every restaurant still prepares it the way our parents did, going to the market, and using recipes they passed down to us. This is uncommercialized, traditional, everyday food.” Popping the last bit of banh khoai in clockwise from my mouth, I top left: Chewy realize that this banh bot loc perfectly sums up dumplings; the ao dai traditional the current global dress originated culinary zeitgeist. in Hue; noodle Of course the time at Dong Ba tourists are eating Market; Angsana it right up.

Lang Co Resort.

The Colosseum.

Opposite:

Mezzemaniche all’amatriciana at Santa Maria Bistrot.

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Can travel turn our children into better people? On an Italian adventure filled with pasta, pizza and an awful lot of naked statues, Taff y Brodesser-Akner and her family consider their place in the world.

Photogr aphed by Andrea W yner

The idea first came when, pregnant with my elder child, I visited Israel with my husband, Claude. We had a stopover in Milan on the way back, and while we were in the airport, we watched an American toddler roll on the floor like an animal, her sweatpanted mother and father barely registering her existence. Next to them, a French child of the same age sat dainty in a dress, contemplating a picture book, while her parents read. I guess stereotypes have to become stereotypes somehow.

“Look at the Americans,” I whisper-spat at Claude.

“They are an embarrassment. We are an embarrassment.”

This wouldn’t do, I told him. We needed a plan.

That was 2007, and since then a lot has changed. We had our first son, and then a second; the boys are now 11 and eight years old. The time somehow came and went, and before we knew it we’d become a family that hadn’t really traveled that much. In the meantime, America has not gotten any less embarrassing. There are the obvious

political reasons for this, though I won’t go into those. But it also feels like the United States has gotten more insular and more comfortable. The danger in raising children here is that they won’t know that America isn’t the world, that it is just another country, that people are basically the same everywhere, except for the language they speak and the food they eat. Without seeing the rest of the planet, how would our kids come to understand that we’re not the only ones on it?

There was also the question of age. In our New Jersey neighborhood, everything is shiny and up-to-date.

There’s nothing to remind the boys that human civilization is old and that age can hold value: that an appreciation of your own insignificance comes from understanding that the world didn’t start with you, and it won’t end with you, either. We looked around for ways to instill this value. Claude talked about his parents’ life in Germany. I spoke about my mother’s upbringing in preIsraeli-statehood Palestine. But to the kids, these were just stories. So this past January, we decided it was time for us all to travel.

We settled on Rome because it leads with its oldness— so much so that there are ancient ruins on the streets. It’s the Eternal City; it is in many ways the distillation of European culture. It seemed like the antidote to the shininess that surrounded us, the screens and the luxury and the postmodernism and the sarcasm.

Also, we really didn’t want to fight over new foods. We wanted to sell this trip to the kids, who did not see its intrinsic value, with a deal: What if you could eat pizza and pasta every day for a week? They looked at us like, Really?, and we made our plans.

“This sounds like torture,” said my sister Tracy.

“Traveling through Europe with children will not be like when you go on one of your work trips and walk around for hours.”

But what choice did we have? It was time to introduce our children to the culture outside their culture, before it was too late.

Which is a long way of explaining how I found myself counting nipples in Rome.

SOMETHING YOU WILL NOT read in a travel guide: if you chase your younger brother with an umbrella, trying

to duel with him, you might twist an ankle on the cobblestones. And then the other ankle.

“Don’t they know about pavement?” asked our 11-yearold, who is the more practical one. I explained to him that the cobblestones were the original cobblestones, that they had been around since the 16th century.

Then we were standing in front of the Altare della Patria, unsure what to do in the face of such extravagance—and so we took selfies. Then we stood on the traffic circle, looking up the giant marble monolith in our guidebook and explaining it to the kids: it was a monument to Vittorio Emanuele II, the first king of Italy and a symbol of Italian patriotism.

“It’s too big for one person,” the eight-year-old said.

Yes, we said, but look at the eternal flame. Look at the columns. Look at the vast expanse of real estate right in the center of the city. “Why don’t they redo it?” he asked.

“It’s too old.”

We tried to explain that the oldness was the point, that the oldness is one of the greatest lessons of Europe. That you could be somewhere with constant reminders of history, where you could gaze upon vast monuments erected to commemorate one person—just one person— and that you would feel small in a way that modern American culture, with its participation trophies and its cup holders and its overnight shipping, never really lets a person feel small.

We trudged toward the Colosseum, which hangs out in the city center as if it’s just a regular building. We passed the Roman Forum and other ruins, but what impressed us most were the statues of emperors, several of them, all in a row, as you walk down the boulevard. Imagine that.

Imagine being surrounded every day by everyone who ever ran your country, imagine never being able to escape the context of time and place into which you were randomly distributed.

In the Colosseum, we climbed immense, uneven stone stairs and stood above the fighting platforms. Look how many people could gather here, we said. Look how many people could watch slaves and prisoners fight each other, or fight animals. Finally the eight-year-old understood: this was the place you would go to fight with your brother, since doing it on the streets was an existential threat to your ankles.

We ran up and down the Spanish Steps in the rain, because when you’re with children you do thing s that you didn’t think you’d ever voluntarily do

The Spanish Steps.

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The Trevi Fountain.

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Another thing we did not read in a travel guide: there would be a lot of statues, mostly of men, lining parks and museums and piazzas, and They. All. Would. Be. Nude.

“That is a lot of penises,” my younger son had said the day before. We’d been wandering toward the Colosseum from our apartment off the Campo de’ Fiori, and got sidetracked at the Capitoline Museum, which had a line of white marble men whose marble faces did not express any shyness about the fact that their nether regions were exposed.

The older one didn’t need a travel guide or an art degree to propose an explanation: “I think it probably cost more to have a sculpture of you done with clothes.”

The younger seemed to think this made sense. So they began to count the penises. Why did some of them have hair around them? Why did some of them not? (“Hair cost more, too.”) Good God, why were some of them broken off? (“That’s how they punished you back then.”) And how many nipples was that? (“Twice as many as penises but exactly as many as testicles.”)

To be honest, I was happy for the distraction. They had just seen, for the first time, truly violent renderings of Jesus, in a church we’d wandered into called St. Ignatius.

My children stood before a crucifix with all the crucifixings, their jaws hanging off their hinges. What can I say? When we go to the Met, I always take them to the Egypt rooms. We’d somehow missed the ultraviolent manifestations of Christ on the cross.

“Why would they do that to his hands? There are nicer ways to kill someone,” said the 11-year-old.

“Oh God oh God, look at the feet. They did it to his feet, too.”

It seemed like there was no art that didn’t include brutality or holy war. There were hanging Christs at the Pantheon. In the entrance hall of the Galleria Borghese, we gazed up at a scene of heaven. “Look,” the older one said. “They’re stabbing each other in the neck!” The younger one loved this but the older one didn’t. He didn’t understand why you couldn’t have a godly picture without having a picture of violence.

It was the same at the Capitoline; it was the same at any church that has a war scene on its frescoes, which is all of them. “These people are being sent off to war because they think they’ll get a monument,” the older one said. But they would, I told him. “Not all of them,” he said.

“Just enough of them to convince the next few.” He was onto something.

In the Galleria Borghese, Claude and I stood peering up until our necks hurt. Gian Lorenzo Bernini was the prodigy who had created half the sculptures and ceiling paintings, which, we learned, weren’t technically frescoes because frescoes have to be painted as the plaster is drying. Our younger son cried because he felt disoriented, and, staring up at Apollo and Daphne, both of them found the idea of a human turning into a tree way too gross. (A disgust reflex at the personification of trees is something of a family trait.)

Claude took the children downstairs to get hot chocolate, but I stayed and stared at Bernini’s David. They

say that it’s a self-portrait of Bernini himself, David right in the throwing position, twisted and sinewy, steely in his determination against Goliath—Goliath! Bernini made it in 1624, when he was only 25 years old. It took about seven months. These sculptures, they weren’t clay made into something. They were figures of incredible specificity ground down from a single block of marble, whittled down to something that I could find myself in. Each one a life’s work. Each one something that would endure long after the artist was gone, and long after the model’s exemplary body had crumbled into dust. Life, then death.

Yes, penises, too, but life and death.

When I looked away it was because the guards told me that our time was up.

WE HAD WAITED TOO LONG to go to Europe. That became clear to us as we wandered through the parks and museums and down the alleys of Rome—that this way of life was so alien to our kids that it was also anathema.

In Rome, we couldn’t do more than one thing a day, reliably, without the kids wanting to go back to the hotel, or get more gelato, or just give up and not walk any more.

It was a lot to ask of a child, to introduce him not just to a new city but to a new city that I wanted to learn about the way I normally learn about cities: by walking it endlessly, from breakfast to bedtime. A child, I immediately realized, needs a goal and a direction.

So we relented and took some cabs. We got on one tram headed for our neighborhood, but I’m pretty sure we stole our fare, since there was no discernible way to pay it. (And what was the fare? And why wasn’t anyone else paying it?)

The result is that I can’t quite picture the layout of the city.

I sit here now, writing this, unable to picture anything about Rome that I didn’t see very close-up.

Which is not to say that this trip wasn’t a beauty. We ran up the Spanish Steps in the rain, then down them, then up again, because when you’re with children you do things that you didn’t think you’d ever voluntarily do. We ate fried artichokes in the Jewish Ghetto. Per the recommendation of everyone, we had dinner at Hotel de Russie, with its barrage of floral arrangements and pink portico and waiters who called the children signore. We discovered that if you get to the place by 7 p.m. you’ll be literally the only customers, since it is beneath Europe’s dignity to eat before 9 p.m.

The food at Hotel de Russie was good. But was it as good as Santa Maria, the cheap place with the TVs near our flat? After not very much deliberation at all, we decided that the restaurant, which you won’t find in any guidebook or Michelin list, had the best cacio e pepe in all the world.

But wandering with the kids wasn’t the same as getting to know a city—not really. I can’t tell you anything about Rome other than how it looks through my children’s eyes, other than how life looks when I am distracted by the internal monologue that usually takes place while I’m parenting: When will we eat and how fast will the food get there and should we sit inside because everyone is smoking outside.

I can’t tell you anything about the topography of Rome because my eyes were trained downward, watching for cars down alleys and making sure we had the asthma inhaler and looking at the time because they are going to get hungry soon, and this ain’t America, sweetheart. The food is going to take a while to get here and we’ll look over and the children—the children will do what they do, which is behave either perfectly or terribly, and it is hell to wait it out and see which.

On our last night in Rome, we went to the Olympic Stadium to watch a soccer game in the rain—Cristiano Ronaldo himself, right there a few feet from us. In front of the stadium was, bafflingly, a Mussolini obelisk and a line

The Roman Forum.

of statues of, yes, naked men, participating in sports.

“These are the most giant statues we’ve seen so far,” the older boy said.

“The penises are also giant,” the younger one agreed.

“Look at the nipples. They are gigantic.” This was before we entered the arena. By the time we left and I was administering asthma treatments for him, I realized he would smell like smoke for weeks.

We had waited too long to go to Europe.

PEOPLE HAD TOLD US that a week in Rome is too much. We agreed at first. We made arrangements to do a day in Pompeii, then stay overnight in Naples. When we

booked, my husband and I told each other stories about the times we had taken day trips from other European cities. “It’s not a big deal,” he said, pretending we were people who ever got to where we were going lightly and efficiently. “We just need a change of underwear and that’s it.” But the day before we were set to leave, we canceled. It wasn’t that traveling with the kids was so hard, though it was. It was more that it seemed unfathomable to leave before we’d gotten our bearings in Rome.

As it turned out, we never did. We walked through neighborhoods that were recommended to us, we ate at restaurants our friends told us to eat at. On every corner I stared at the statues. It is generally true that impressive t r av e l a n d l e i s u r e a s i a .c o m / j u ly 2 0 1 9

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Getting There From Southeast Asia, nonstop flights to Rome originate in Bangkok via Thai Airways, Hong Kong via Cathay Pacific, and Singapore via Singapore Airlines.

Where to Eat You don’t have to stay at the Hotel de Russie to eat at Le Jardin de Russie (mains €35–€45), where chef Fulvio Pierangelini serves Roman classics in a lush courtyard. Santa Maria Bistrot (santa​maria​ bistrot.com; mains €9–€11) is a laid-back spot for pasta near the Campo de’ Fiori; nearby, Antico Forno Roscioli (anticofornoroscioli.it) serves a remarkable pizza al taglio. Head to Trastevere for gelato at Fiordiluna (fiordiluna. com), which has been creating inventive flavors for more than 25 years.

Where to Stay Several of Rome’s grande dame hotels have been recently reimagined, including the iconic Hotel de Russie (rocco​forte​ hotels.com; doubles from €793), near the Piazza del Popolo, and the Hotel Eden (dorchester​ collection.com; doubles from €682), which offers kids’ activities like treasure hunts and a day at gladiator school. The Hotel de la Ville (rocco​ forte​hotels.com; doubles from €468) has recently debuted near the Spanish Steps, while the new Grand House (the​grand​ house.com; doubles from €506) is a family-friendly alternative that's part apartment rental, part hotel suite.

R ome

Tour Operator For a stress-free family itinerary, turn to travel advisor and T+L A-Lister Andrea Grisdale at IC Bellagio. She can organize skip-the-line tours or cooking classes with a master pizza-maker. andrea@icbellagio.com; 39-0319/52059.

— Hannah Walhout

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Spend at least four days exploring the Eternal City; the younger your kids, the more time you’re likely to need.

be

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A Family Trip to Rome

Ti

things become less impressive as the days go on, but for me the statues became more and more.

“Slow down,” the eight-year-old called ahead. “Mommy stopped again.”

“This one looks just like the last one,” he told me. The children couldn’t understand why I had to look at the statues. How could they? How could they understand a life’s work when they couldn’t even understand a life? I don’t know. I guess you have to start at the beginning with them. You have to start with the most basic understanding of what is immense about the thing you see before you. You have to drag them through the streets and feed them what they want. You have to hope that one day they will have a memory of being annoyed and waiting, and maybe I’ll still be here and maybe I’ll be gone, but maybe they will interrogate that memory and know what was happening to me in those moments.

“The oldness is the point,” I said again, but they’d already turned away.

There was a hotel we stopped at to eat when the rain was too much as we walked from the Bioparco (the zoo), where we saw animals more up close than our litigious country would ever allow. We were the only people in the dining room. We all ordered spaghetti. Mine was cacio e pepe; the kids just had red sauce. Claude had one with seafood. He and I drank wine and we all played a card game while waiting for dinner, which was being made just for us. I don’t think I’ve ever been happier in my life.

“I love it here,” my beautiful younger son said. “I just want to eat spaghetti for every meal.” I said that maybe we would. When people ask how our trip to Rome was, this is the first thing I think of.

When we got home, we settled back into our routines.

At night, in bed, I scratch my younger son’s back, according to his demands. I notice how like a statue his musculature and bones are—yes, not that the statues are like him, but that he is like the statues. The statues were, after all, there first. As my son drifted off one evening, I stopped scratching and turned onto my back, and thought, This was why they needed to see the world. You tell them, “The oldness is the point,” in hopes that they will understand that this too shall pass. That their childhoods will pass. So will we, so will they. The ground beneath our feet will remain. These are the lessons we want our children to know.

And we should repeat them as often as we can, so that we remind our kids that this world matters, that it will be here long after we are, that our values will become a monument to us, and our children will carry them, that every inch of this world belongs to us, and we should love it and its people and take care of it. That is what the gladiators knew as they went down screaming. That’s what the soldiers who got stabbed in the neck defending their territory knew. That’s what the kings who are honored in vast swaths of the city knew. They knew that something would outlast them. That we are only here for a little while.

“The oldness is the point,” I repeated to him. He was long asleep, but I whispered it again anyway.

Villa Borghese Park

Vatican City

Centro historico Trastevere

Ancient Rome

Testaccio

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wish you were here

Down a narrow, hidden alley in Bangkok’s Chinatown, a vendor tosses a supersized wok set over sparking coals.

It’s filled with kuaytiaw khua kai, or wide rice noodles with chicken and egg, cooked in lard. Frenetic scenes like this one at Nay Hong are repeated often throughout the city’s older streets, but this outtake from photographing Andy Ricker’s new cookbook Pok Pok Noodles was a personal favorite. For those in search of the best street food, plot a specific course and bring along a great appetite. — austin bush

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HOSPITALITY MORE THAN JUST A WORD True hospitality comes from the hea .

From a genuine desire to make sure our guests always feel totally at home.