Word: fusions
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Emmanuel Stroobant, chef of Singaporean popular restaurant Saint Pierre, serves a signature wok-fried foie gras with tetaki of Japanese squid, julienne of Parma ham with warm yogurt jelly and black peppercorn reduction. But ask him if he is a fusion chef, and he balks. "I guess I am," he says, "but I don't like the word fusion...
...Fusion has become a bad word in Singapore," says food-and-beverage consultant Peter Knipp, whose company organizes the city-state's annual World Gourmet Summit. "People use it as an excuse to mix ridiculous ingredients, charge double the prices and upset a lot of people...
...wasn't always this way. Singapore was in the avant-garde of the fusion trend of the early '90s. Knipp, who has lived here for 26 years, can remember a time when every high-end restaurant jumped on the fusion bandwagon, mixing caviar with cumin and foie gras with fennel. Some combinations were daring?such as naturally sweet cod fish and salty miso?but most were mediocre at best. "A lot of chefs don't know how to use Asian ingredients," says Stroobant...
...Nowadays, while restaurants in London and New York are still discovering "exotic" spices and techniques ranging from tamari (a wheat-free soy sauce) to tagines, most of fusion's earliest supporters in Singapore have turned turtle. "It simply doesn't work," says Gunther Hubrechsen, chef at Les Amis, arguably Singapore's best French restaurant. Part of the reason is simple snob value. To class-conscious Singaporeans, fusion cuisine has become down-market. How could it be otherwise, when it's the mundane fodder of food courts? Pandan tuna wraps, Peking duck pizzas and (the horror! The horror!) green-tea frappuccinos...
...ending arrives and drenches the previous two hours of drivel with an appropriate escape from reality. As Stiles is auditioning for Julliard, she stops mid-way, unable to finish, but wait—hot boyfriend enters the scene, provides encouragement, and she moves directly into a hip-hop ballet fusion piece that drops the judges’ collective jaw! In fact, it’s so amazing that the judges tell her right away that she’s accepted, even though they likely have 5,000 more Mary-Kate Olsen-loving ballerinas to test...