China changing gears towards sophisticated luxury

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Dinner in Shanghai that is about ten hours by direct flight from Sweden.
Text and Photo © PO Larsson and CM Cordeiro 2012

Shanghai’s changing cityscape is reminiscent of the changing skyline of Singapore, where every time I visit I find myself looking at a skyline that is augmented in some manner especially in Lujiazui, which also most reminds me of the Singapore quiet in the Central Business District by Raffles Quay by night.
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Gothenburg Food Capital of Sweden 2012

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Spices such as these that are a staple in Swedish homecooking today, were once brought back to Sweden from the Far East on the Swedish East Indiaman Gotheborg III during the 1700s that sailed from Gothenburg to Canton, China.
Text and Photo © Ted Olsson, JE Nilsson and CM Cordeiro 2012

In the past five years, the height of the food scene in Gothenburg Sweden, apart from the more glamour filled annual prize giving ceremony and gala dinners held by the Western Swedish Academy of Gastronomy (2010, 2008) is the Passion for Food (Passion för Mat) tradefair held in the city at Erikbergshallen, that is right next to the docks of the Swedish East Indiaman Gotheborg III.
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Soon summer along the Swedish west coast

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A little Southeast-Asia in Sweden – Swedish sampans in winter adjourn.
Text and Photo © JE Nilsson and CM Cordeiro 2012

In as many times as I have mentioned that I would love to be in a warmer climate…have I told too, that Sweden can be beautiful?

In this winter’s coda with the high pressure and cold, Scandinavia brings with it, azure skies clear as far as the eye brings you into the horizon. The deep blue-green gem coloured Nordic waters, undulating as music through time are now frosted with ice, broken into beautiful patterns by the hourly ploughing of the hull of the ferries that run to the minute on schedule in rhythm with the waters underneath.
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A magical evening with Ulf Wagner at Sjömagasinet, in Gothenburg 2011

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Cheryl Marie Cordeiro with house elves at jultide, Sjömagasinet 2011

Restaurant decoration at Sjömagasinet. In Swedish folklore well managed farm houses was looked after by their own house elf or elves. They were quiet and mostly invisible but kept themselves informed from the animals if everything was done right and proper. The house cat was their eyes and ears during daytime. If the people were good, the elves would help take care of the house and the family that lived there. Eventually these elves merged in Swedish lore with the later idea of a Juletide Tomte that brings the Christmas gifts.
Text and Photo © CM Cordeiro, JE Nilsson and T Eliasson, 2011

In the past years, we’ve dined enough at Sjömagasinet in Gothenburg (2009a, 2009b, 2008, 2007) to feel quite at home at what was once the old outfitting warehouse for the Swedish East India Company (1731-1813). In the 18th century their ships made round trips from Gothenburg to China and back where each trade voyage took about two years, bringing back immense fortunes for the participants.

During their many voyages these ships would dock at various ports around the world including Cadiz in Spain, to pick up silver and Batavia in Indonesia for spices, before reaching Canton in China. Besides tea, silk and spices they contributed significantly to the cultural exchange of knowledge between Sweden and Asia and brought back many important influences, not the least within the medical and culinary field that is so intriguingly interconnected. In this wharf equipment were stored such as sails, masts, spars and all things you might imagine being needed on a wooden ship about 50 meters long. The spirit of these adventures is still felt in the very walls of this building.
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Christmas Eve morning at Saluhallen in Gothenburg at 09:01 hrs

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Going to the market, is just … going to the market, isn’t it? So mundane a task that it’s hardly a concept to be discussed by most. But come Christmas in Sweden, and come the darkest days of the year, the Swedish Christmas markets that glow a warm orange and red whether they be outdoors or indoors become central gathering nodes for the people of the city.

Christmas Eve morning at Saluhallen 2011, chairs.

And all was apparently still on Christmas Eve morning as the doors to the marketing heart of Gothenburg that is Saluhallen was opened.
Text and Photo © CM Cordeiro and JE Nilsson 2011

Cheryl Marie Cordeiro, in the morning at Saluhallen in Gothenburg, Christmas market 2011

The early morning calm didn’t quite stop me gushing in haste when my eye caught a table decoration I so wanted at home at our Christmas table!

Everyone has a Christmas foodlist for their own Julbord to tend to, making Christmas Eve marketing all the more festive. And amidst waiting in queue for your number to be served, you can hear the hearty exchange of Christmas recipes amongst those waiting in line for baked ham, pickled herring and roasted spare ribs that gives a heartwarming preview of what others are about to have this evening at home.

In my number of years in Sweden, I’ve visited these Christmas markets year after year, with Saluhallen and Haga in 2010; 2009a, 2009b; Kronhuset in 2009; a compilation of Saluhallen and Haga in 2008; Haga in 2007, to which I’ve always found something new in my explorations and visits.

This year’s visit is a slight variation, an authentic visit to a market on Christmas Eve for some Christmas marketing, instead of visiting a ‘Christmas Market’.

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Jultide traditions in Sweden

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GUSEE Julbord 2011 - Sandra Lam-Carlsson, Cheryl Marie Cordeiro and Jenny Yu.

An office Julbord 2011, Sweden.
L-R: Sandra Lam-Carlsson, Cheryl Marie Cordeiro and Jenny Yu.
Text and Photo © PO Larsson, CM Cordeiro, JE Nilsson 2011

In line with the underlying ideals and innovative thoughts in the culinary field from this year’s Prins Bertil Seminar 2011 at the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg, that raised the level of consciousness about food in general, from farm to restaurant table and how the best dishes can be had from simply using the freshest ingredients and not necessarily the most fancy and exclusive of raw produce, we thought we’d put a little bit of rustic into the jultide table traditions at work, in Sweden.
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Lulling hours in Shanghai, where old meets new…

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Cheryl Marie Cordeiro, Yuyuan, Shanghai 2011.

Along the streets at Yuyuan, Shanghai.
Text and Photo © CM Cordeiro 2011

Waking up in China’s largest city that is Shanghai, amongst its more than 24 million inhabitants certainly puts a perspective on how much of an impact you might make during a single day in your life when you finally step out the door and make your way around with your errands.

In just about twenty to thirty years, Shanghai as a city has grown at an amazing speed. The skyscrapers seen today along the Huangpu River, The Bund and Lujiazui were non-existent just a stone’s throw back in time, where it would’ve been difficult for most anyone to recognize the landscape and skyline of the central finance district between these decades if you were not at first shown pictures of the landscape from then till now.

The past decade alone has seen a paradigm shift in Shanghai from a city with Communist ideals to one that is cosmopolitan with a global outlook. Much of this is the fruitful result of the Chinese government’s efforts at economic reforms in China beginning in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

If any organization could trace and reflect an aspect of Shanghai’s modern history in global trade and the resulting impact of the Chinese government’s efforts at bringing China and its state-owned enterprises to the global scene, then Baosteel Group Corporation, the second largest steel producer in the world with approximate annual revenues of around USD $21.5 billion would be a good case study to examine. With 45 wholly owned subsidiaries in markets across the world, in countries with as diverse cultures such as Brazil, France, Germany, Russia and in Asian and Southeast Asian countries such as Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore , Baosteel reflects the speed and tenacity at which Chinese organizations are able to make themselves visibly global whilst simultaneously catering to their very demanding and highly competitive domestic market.

Still, amongst the city’s global ambitions supported and run by its busy inhabitants who seem to maneuver through the city via just as many noisy and exuberant vehicles that never cease their honking, you’ll find in Shanghai that some waking hours beckon a certain lull to the senses, and are in effect… quieter than others. And it is in these hours that you can sit, think and breathe the calmer soul of the city as a mist that invites you to contemplate its living as an artfully drawn landscape, one perhaps seen in Chinese watercolour on silk or paper. It is these brief lulling hours of Shanghai, at dawn or just after dusk, that paints a picture of the place both past and present, juxtaposed in front of your very eyes in material form.
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Yuyuan street eating and daily practicalities, Shanghai

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Cheryl Marie Cordeiro 7 Dec 2011 Shanghai 03aWith the quick glances of distraction observed from tourists and a slight quickening of their pace past the local lunch scene at Yuyuan in Shanghai, where the local people seemed perfectly at east sitting along the roadside with their bowl of rice in one hand and chopsticks in the other, eating whilst waiting for their next customer to walk into the shop, I understood with clearing clarity that for most of Northern Europe, dining was a much more formal affair around a set table.

And the Northern European concept of dining was quite a contrast to this fairly common aspect of people eating on the move or simply eating outdoors in Asia in general. Whether in India or the various equatorial countries of Southeast-Asia such as Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore and Indonesia, or the more temperate regions of China, food sold along the streets in wheel carted food stalls and eating along the streets is as practical and nomadic as having all your goods for sale stacked onto a single bicycle or motorcycle and sold wherever you found a customer along the street.

Yuyuan wholesaler's street, Shanghai 2011.

Yuyuan Market, Shanghai.
Text and Photo © CM Cordeiro 2011

I grew up in the decades of Singapore where people did cart their goods around and sold them from their bicycles, and where food such as bowls of noodles, plates of fried kway teow and even cold food such as ice-shaved desserts called ice-kachang (a Singapore and Malaysian variation of ‘sorbets’ made from just rough shaven ice and sweetened with colourful syrup dripped all around the cone of ice shavings) were sold from wheel-carted trolleys. For warm dishes, burning charcoal was used for fuel in the mid-1900s for cooking and later on, small portable gas units were used.

Still, the scene in China is much more rustic and unaware – people just didn’t think if you stopped and stared at them eating, because for them, it was all part of the natural process of the day, just another practicality that you have to deal with, seamlessly interwoven into their main activity of the day, which is working. Living and working seamlessly – that is what you’ll witness at lunch hour at Yuyuan.

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Late evening at No Menu, Singapore

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Osvaldo Forlino at No Menu, with guests.

Late evening visit at No Menu, 23 Boon Tat Street, Singapore.
Text and Photo © CM Cordeiro 2011

One of the more enjoyable part-time jobs I’ve held as a young student in Singapore some more than fifteen years ago was that of waitressing in a small restaurant. There I was on my feet, running to and from the kitchen with orders, water pitchers, new plates, napkins, most anything and everything that made a restaurant work at rush hour, and I didn’t feel the strain. It was more a constant pulse of a beating heart, that happily kept going.

In my very brief stop-over in Singapore this time around, I considered it an absolute privilege to have been invited to spend a late evening at No Menu with owner and Executive Chef Osvaldo Forlino, with his team and Head Chef Daniele Devillanova.

What struck me more than the food by itself which is the obvious thing to experience in a gourmet restaurant of this magnitude, was the atmosphere that at No Menu is spirited, generous and warm. The air was most often punctuated with bouts of heartfelt laughter and goodwill, where the food, the people and ambiance feels like an orchestrated symphony by light, set against a fabric of seductive fragrances wafting from the kitchen… making the full experience of dining here so much more than just one more dinner however excellent.
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Trattoria Capri, Singapore 2011

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Luca Iannone, Cheryl Marie Cordeiro, Michele Cuozzo

With Luca Iannone and Michele Cuozzo of Trattoria Capri.
Text and Photo © CM Cordeiro 2011

Impromptu. It seems that’s the word these days when it comes to meeting up with family and friends when back in Singapore that is always at full speed. But seeing that there was a glitch in communication on whereabouts and places to meet for various groups of persons on different days, I figured, for impromptu, this day’s lunch at Trattoria Capri at 3 Binjai Park, turned out uncomplicated.

As I’ve experienced countless times in the past both in Singapore and in Italy, the warmth and hospitality of the Italian people is a treasure to hold in this day of fast paced living and dining. A quick phonecall to Luca was all it took for them to keep the kitchen open till after their usual operating lunch hours and upon our arrival that was just a tad later than the expected late, we were greeted with broad and genuine smiles with the question, “What do you want to eat?”

Famished, we all had just a single craving – white truffles. Since we knew it was white truffle season in Europe, white truffle anything would be fun to have right here in the midst of the Singapore tropics. A smile back from Michele and a knowing nod – not a problem! And no, we didn’t so much as browse the menu, but had left the Chef instead, to surprise us with some magic!

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