Happy Birthday Frankie
Frank Baroudi is one of life’s gentlemen and a true connoisseur. Whether fine wine, whisky, cognac, food, cigars, travel, art, or just living life well, Frankie has a pretty high-calibre ‘A game’. He is also well-grounded, generous to a fault, adventurous and damned good fun to be around; it is my great honour and privilege to call him a friend.
At his rather exceptional birthday dinner last week, I was definitely very fortunate to be in town and get invited along.
Salle à Manger Privée
The food upstairs at Guy Baldwin’s eponymous restaurant is always superb, on this night it was nothing less than extraordinary. We started with a fresh burrata salad, and an amazing beetroot millefeuille, served with a Beurre Blanc sauce. This was all washed down with the exceptional Deutz rose Champagne.
Alaska, Hokkaido, 吟醸香
The second act commenced with Hokkaido scallops that were no less than perfection on a plate, and then the Alaskan King crab arrived.
There is simply no finer crab on the planet, and this one was expertly prepared and presented. Rich, succulent, with a tantalizing hint of crystalline, deep-sea-salt, this is as good as it gets.
Brilliant Soul
An adept pairing with two extraordinary and most worthy sakes accompanied these dishes. The first, was the Tamanohikari “Brilliant Soul” black label Junmai Dai Ginjo, from Kyoto, breathtaking in its finesse and ginjo-ka. Dry and elegant with white flowers and star anise aromas, it glided over the palate like a whisper and a kiss, before giving up a lingering freshness.
The Missing Link
The second sake was the astonishing: 2024 Link 8, Pernod Ricard’s Godzilla sake, from renowned Toyama Sake house, Masuizumi, the base sake is matured for ten months in Chivas Regal, ten-year-old whisky casks. This is truly an amazing sake with incredible complexity and depth, even power. A dry sake with aromas of vanilla pod, fig, fresh tofu, a whiff of honey and some delicate, fine smoke. There is a real presence on the palate and an array of complex notes faintly reminiscent of cognac and whisky, which are well held in check, so that they are indelible accents more than statements; like an artist’s wash of watercolours across a pristine canvas, or a faint watermark on some fine parchment. This sake was bold, daring and eminently interesting.
Koireng Chin Sei I
The brilliant Belgian artist Christian Develter has his work hanging in several prestigious addresses around the globe, the Mandarin Oriental in Bangkok, the Belmond Copacabana Palace Hotel in Rio de Janeiro, to name a couple; and now the private dining room of Baldwins in Phnom Penh.
His work is striking for his subject matter, composition, and use of colour; this piece lights up the room at Baldwins and brings together the whole space. It is an astonishing lithograph from Develter’s Kaleidoscope series, called ‘Koireng Chin Sei I’.
As I sat in the glow of this remarkable artwork, I knew that I must be in wonderland, but I was also beginning to wonder just how the third act of this celebratory degustation could even hope to somehow elevate the event even further.
Grange
And then, the 1981 Penfolds Grange was served, a wine 44 years young, when it was made it was just the thirtieth vintage of Australia’s most famous wine produced, and still in the lifetime of its legendary founder, the late, great Max Schubert. It is in and of itself a work of fine art, a magnificence; to have the chance to drink one at this stage of its lifetime is a very rare occurrence indeed.
Clay brick red, aromas were complex and with some of the expected tertiary development, there was bone broth, tobacco, prune, cold tea, eucalyptus, mushroom, and earthy notes. On the palate, the wine had softened its resolve somewhat and was drying with age, showing raisin fruits, prunes, panforte, dark chocolate, some carne asada spices and dried herbs. The wine closed out with some bright, minty, savoury tannins on the finish and a flush of dark fruits that lingered, like a majestic robe.
This was always considered a fairly tannic Grange by the winemaker at the time of release, and it was given an above-average dollop of Cabernet Sauvignon (10%) into the Shiraz. This is a regal old bull that -as it approaches the half-century mark- is still king of the paddock, even as it enters the last phase of its lifespan, (and with Grange that could still drag out for several more decades yet, if handled with care). An incredible wine, drink now.
Wagyu & Wakefield
The next course was an exquisite dish of Wagyu Beef, again perfectly presented medium-rare-to-rare with a decent sear on it, the meat was incredible, juicy, full of flavour, loaded up on umami and that melt-in-your-mouth buttery richness.
Paired with this incredible dish was a bottle of Taylor’s Wakefield, ‘The Pioneer’ Shiraz, 2018. At seven years old, the wine was still a relative pup, and incredibly impressive. Taylor’s winery in Australia’s Clare Valley is consistently one of the most decorated wineries in the entire world, they have made a habit of winning gold medals and trophies in most of the world’s major wine shows. This wine, their finest Shiraz -and only made in exceptional vintages- left no doubt as to why.
Ox-Blook, purple and dense in the glass, aromas were of fruit mince spice, dark plums, violets, some mocha notes, and a touch of gingerbread. The palate was juicy, full, and rich with blueberries, plums, and some raspberry candy; there were also earthier tones, tobacco leaf, sage and a touch of mint. In absolute certainly, this was Clare Shiraz at its very finest.
Then it was time for the cake, the prezzies and more good wishes to our wonderful host, the birthday boy. Deserving platitudes and thank you’s were made to Chef Guy Baldwin and his team, and smiles abounded. We were happy, sated and perhaps more than just a little inebriated. All ready to slip into the night, knowing that our friend had enjoyed a fine repast, one worthy of the great man and his appreciation of the finer things in life. Here’s to many, many more to come.
Darren Gall
