Four Hands Dinner with Joannès Rivière


Four Hands Dinner

For one very special night, Bacchanalia will welcome Joannès Rivière, patron-chef of the acclaimed Asia’s 50 Best Restaurant, Cuisine Wat Damnak in Siem Reap, for an exclusive “four hands” seven-course menu with host chef Ivan Brehm.

Keeping endemic Asian produce at the heart of the dinner, on 24 February Joannès and Ivan will present a seven course menu with snacks. From Joannès, dishes will include duck soup- the bones marinated in palm sugar and fish sauce then barbecued for broth; the duck breast garnished with green papaya charcoaled and teamed with rice paddy herbs and rocket. Joannès will also serve grouper slowly braised in tomato and caramelized palm sugar and served with Cambodian giant green eggplant, fresh Kampot peppercorn and bilimbi – otherwise known as tree sorrel, an unusual fruit thought to have originated in the Moluccus.

From Ivan, dishes will include a risotto made from braised neck of Dorper lamb and the infamous Buah Keluak, a delicacy used in Peranakan cooking which is poisonous when first picked and needs to be fermented for 30 days before eating. Ivan will also cook a starter using sustainably farmed prawns from Singapore matched with peanut sambal, cured pork back fat, confit of heirloom pineapple and zingy Sichuan buds, a tempestuous yellow flower that delivers a tingly sensation similar to the Sichuan peppercorn.

The two chefs will share-cook the desserts, including a sensational cantaloupe vacuum cured with sauvignon blanc wine, wild orchid honey and vanilla beans and served with coriander sorbet and caramel.

Four Hands with Joannès Rivière is happening on Wednesday, 24 February 2016, 7pm at Bacchanalia. The seven course menu is priced at $190++ per person. For enquiries and reservations, please email to [email protected].

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Deputy Editor

Gary is one of those proverbial jack of all trades… you know the rest. When not writing about lifestyle and culture, he dabbles in photography, graphic design, plays four instruments and is a professional wearer of bowties. His greatest weakness: spending more money on clothes than he probably should. Find him across the social world as @grimlay