New discoveries in Old town Cairo Café Riche

 Mr Mike, the American lawyer who been living in Cairo for the past 24 years and are my new habibi took me around old down town Cairo last night to show me some of his hidden gems, this guy is remarkable and interesting that people knows his name!! after a tour at the Greek club we went to Café Riche, extremely cool place where you can feel the time stand still and you are moved back to the Egyptian black & white movies, this café opened in 1908 and are a true landmark in Cairo that have witnessed many changes in Egyptian modern history, from Nasser, to King Farouk and Prime ministers to resistance during the 1919 revolution and other important tales that shaped Egypt to what we know of today, search Café Riche on Wikipedia for more interesting info.

UNIC RESTAURANT in Ibiza

 https://www.unicrestaurantibiza.com/en

I am not joking but there is a restaurant in Ibiza that actually took my name for no reason and opened up their restaurant, I dont know what to say about this but it feels strange when people ask me if I'm involved in the operation, obviously is the chef French and arrogant as they can be he probably dont give a shit until my lawyers will contact him to ask why and how, the Unic family might be very small but still proud 

so if anyone are visiting Ibiza go there and let me know what you thing, it looks ok from the photos I have seen. 

The pyramids of Saqqara

 The most known and famous pyramids are of curse the 3 big ones in Giza where many people daily visit and its one of the world wonders and must see, feel and touch, but the even more interesting is the Saqqara burial plains just south of Giza where the pyramid of Djoser is still the biggest, oldest and most impressive step stone pyramid with several graves still discovered daily, the area are full of excavating sites and many graves are open for visiting with less physical problems like other where you need to climb very steep, another advantage to visit here its much less crowded and not all the touristic crap like in Giza witch at times can be terrible, so if you are here you have to pay Djoser and his friends a visit.

 

Taking care of your investment

 As a chef I feel pride in taking very good care of my personal equipment (also others) like knifes, pots and pans even in my home in Sweden or Cairo, I try to keep the same procedures to clean, sharp and maintain my tool box, I payed so much money for my things that it becomes ridiculous at this point but as a chef I love new things !! shiny and sharp >-) 

Its interesting how many times I walk in kitchens and see great quality pans neglected and not cleaned properly, it gives my shivers and also tells me that the management does not care about what they serve or customer care, it all starts in the back of house, If you really want to try the level of restaurant make a visit to the bathrooms, this will tell you al lot about the establishment, only clever owners put attenti0ns to details, here in Cairo I visit many so called fancy restaurants with absolutely no attentions to details, they spend a fortune to look fancy and they dont understand what really makes people coming back, the gold and glitter is not the only thing I promise, here is a photo from my cleaning session at home, 

also a easy cleaning solution, put 1  tsp salt and drop 1 tsp lemon juice or vinegar on top and spread around polishing gently with your fingers and miracle will happen, rinse well and dry off with a cloth to avoid water stains.

If you keep them cleaned they will last you a lifetime and used by future generations 

Singapore daily part 69

 You all know how much I enjoyed my time working in SG and also my family and friends who visit me there, many of my chefs friends around stayed a couple of days before heeding to another Asian destination, all of then came for the food and to experience the hawker culture in SG but also in Malaysia.

To eat here is a cheep adventure and you can find almost everything at the hawker centers around town, sooo many and so little time, you need years just to visit some of them, simply wonderful and not expensive, I was fortune enough to have really good local friends who all the time showed me around to try new and exiting food, some very good and some very strange but exciting of curse, I would say to all chefs out there, visit SG if you want to taste, learn, experience new and totally out of your comfort zone new flavors, here is some of the foods sampled. Majulah Singapura 

The Church of Sveti Sava ( St Sava)

 People who know me also know that I am not really a religious person but I do like the history behind all religions and to visit the for many people holy places and sanctuary's on my travels, some are very cool with great story telling behind and some are only just a place for people to be closer to their god, I don't judge anyone in their believes as long as they not try to convince me on theirs.

The cathedral of Sveti Sava in Belgrade Serbia is one of the nicest places I have ever visited and only beaten by Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, the temple of Sava have been constructed over many years with stops along the way and are now 98 % finished and a must see if you ever visit Belgrade(that you should)

The story tells that the Turks during the Ottoman occupation burned the body Of Sava on top of the hill to crush the resistance from the Serbs, but did the opposite of curse!! that's us Serbs, we always goes our own way, if you visit the temple please book a tour guide to get as much story as possible and also the advantage to visit parts of the temple not open for public, like the roof top where you have a 360 view of Belgrade. super cool indeed 

Neka vas bog sacuva!

Airline food part 2

 I need to add more to the complexity of airline catering on my previous post, to satisfy customers and clients is always a challenge especially if person don't understand how taste and aroma is affected when you fly on different types of aircrafts, what happen is that your taste buds dries out and so does your nostrils whish ultimately change your perception off taste, what taste good on the ground changes after a few hours in the air, little bit depending, for me I know that my taste changes on flights more than 5 hours.

older aircrafts change more and quicker that new aircrafts due to the differences in cabin pressure, modern less, older more as a simple rule and that makes the food even more difficult to cook, remember that as now in my current unit we do roughly 15 000 meals per day and its impossible to create food as for every individual passenger "you" some like it hot and spicy, some less salty, some more sweet and then put religious, cultural perspective on top and you can maybe try to understand the complexity that adds on top, so yes again, food is not only food, its a sense of feeling, taste, smell, texture and we all have different opinion on this.

In my unit we cook fresh always, some other global caterers load frozen food from large factory's for economy class and that to guarantee same same on every flight which is cool for me, I would do the same if I was the owner, cheaper and more standardized, great and no need to worry.

Covid changes a lot in the industry who try to recover financially and many big airlines started to act as budget airlines but now is going back to quality after the last 2 years of super comeback and thank god we are on the right track to give flying passengers well deserved food on board, so please fasten your seat belts and enjoy the service.