WOULD I believe in a perfect dinner? Of course, I do. Because recently my son and I were invited to one, at Le Fouquet’s, the selective hotel that stands at the angle where the avenue George V ends to join up with the avenue des Champs-Elysées.
From its strategic position, the hotel commands a view of the Arc de Triomphe on its left and a long stretch of the Elysées avenue on its right.
The full name in French for this prestigious venue is L’Hotel Fouquet’s Barrière as it is one of the luxury hotels in the Lucien Barrière group of hotels and exclusive casinos.
Relaxed lot: (From right) Ute Benedict with Henri Chapouthier, Chris Le Floch and some others at Diane Restaurant, Le Fouquet’s in Paris. The group is reputed for having set up the well-frequented Hotel Normandie and classy casino in Deauville, and hotels and a casino in Enghien-les Bains, not far from Paris, where the French national football team has stayed to relax and to get fresh energy for confronting World up matches. Currently, the group hopes to extend its chain of luxury hotels to neighbouring Morocco.
Besides its famous café on the ground floor, Le Fouquet’s along the avenue des Champs-Elysées has two spacious restaurants for fine dining on its first floor and it has increasingly become prominent and unique as a hotel that provides plus facilities for holding high key events like the annual “Night of the Cesars”, which is the French duplicate of the Hollywood Oscar evening.
It is known here that, on the evening of May 7, 2007, when the election results confirmed Nicolas Sarkozy as the next President of the French Republic, the President-elect headed for Le Fouquet’s to celebrate his victory in private but with pomp and style.
Le Fouquet’s Paris is now, without doubt, the hub point for “Le Tout-Paris” or the “in” crowd. But Ute Benedikt, the hotel’s blond and attractive sales manager takes pride in reminding us that the special priority of Le Fouquet’s is their clients’ comfort and well-being.
As such, after a tired afternoon of shopping and visiting the sights of Paris, many clients like to try out the hotel’s new Terrakè spa treatments created by Thalgo laboratories that ensures complete relaxation complemented by soothing music and lovely perfumes.
True to her word, Ute Benedikt played the role of the gracious and attentive hostess, who led us to the oval dining hall of the Diane restaurant, where she had gathered a select group of guests with things in common.
My wish was to sell Malaysia, but before I could ask: “Have you ever heard of the blue limestone hills of Ipoh or seen the hornbills in Sarawak?” one of the invited guest, Monsieur Chris Le Floch, the sales manager of KTS tours, the leading company out here for luxury trips, admitted loud and clear and sincerely that he has been to Malaysia and that he loves the place.
I therefore succeeded in my quest without really trying.
Then the perfect dinner started with plate after plate of exquisite nouvelle cuisine concocted by chef Jean Montagnard and chef Jean-Yves Leuranguer. And would I now also believe in The Almost Perfect Dinner? Yes, of course, because right now in France, many television viewers including myself, are following closely a weekly programme named The Almost Perfect Dinner on M6, a television channel.
In the programme, four successful candidates at the end of each elimination round, go to each other’s homes, sit down to a full course dinner from pre-dinner drinks to entrée, to main dish, dessert and coffee that will be prepared respectively and in turn by the same said four candidates, who will then become the jury, with the task of grading their rival’s performance on the following areas of competence:
·ambience of venue (in home of host or hostess who is one of the four candidates)
·dress style of host
·table setting inclusive of choice of colours in table linen, crockery, glassware and cutlery
·choice of menu
·taste, quality, suitability and presentation of dishes that the candidate finally brought to the table
·ability of host to sustain an interesting conversation and to give his/her guests a really good time
·time management and usage of cooking utensils
·general cleanliness.
The television camera swings from living room, to kitchen, to dining room and then to the bathroom where the host is asked to evaluate his own performance and highlight on unforeseen pitfalls and on his or her own initiatives to overcome them.
A full score for each area is 10 points, which, of course, is difficult to attain and, until now, an average score of seven points is a safe assurance of not being eliminated and a jump to the next round.
France, like China, was once a country with a vast agriculture and therefore both countries have varied cuisines, originating from different geographical regions, which contributed to the present day reputation of the cuisine of both countries.
The popular culinary competition therefore tries to present traditional regional dishes as it goes on to select successful candidates from region to region all over France. From each regional round, there are three finalists.
The nine finalists then travel to Paris for the ultimate round where they have to perform under the scrutiny or three notable and experienced French chefs who not only grade strictly with impassive objectivity, but exercised an experienced eye for the most telling of minute details, and who will, without fail, march solemnly down to the kitchen and check on the debris left by the candidate on his working table and at the bottom of his cooking pots and frying pans.
This really reminds me of Mrs. Balasingam, my Domestic Science teacher in M.G.S. Ipoh in 1958 and 1959. She was also strict with an eye for minute details like my unruly hair, which always stuck out from my white head cap.
I remember how I came up with unacceptable burnt rice in one of my early D.Sc. assignments. However, Chong Kheng Mee (now Mrs Megat), the classmate who shared my working table, saved me from failing by pushing the burnt rice down the sink hole, instead of leaving it inside my table bin.
The reward for my ordeal was a pass mark, but in this French competition, it is a cash price of 10,000 Euros (RM50,000) and the possibility of other lucrative offers, plus publicity coverage on M6.
When the competition was first launched, a few months ago, we saw batches of male candidates, who were either young urban professionals, upcoming male artists and would-be male chefs. But lately, more and more French women are responding.
The challenge to be an excellent host and cook was taken so seriously by some candidates that they took great unexpected lengths to be both outstanding and perfect. As a theme for her table setting, one lady candidate used sand and sea shells that she had gathered from the beach of her native Brittany, a coastal region on the west of France. Yet another decorated his table with clumps of hay from the manger of his farm.
Although their enthusiasm was catching, they were still amateurs and so the dinners they prepared could only be qualified as almost perfect and never as perfect.
After all, experience teaches more than new and untried ideas. That means that the gap between amateurs and professional chefs is experience.
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