Yeah this is what I was thinking as well watching this. I get it's simply culture clash and preferences but I felt like the staff of Forum did a completely fine service. Maybe not michelin 3 star worthy, but still perfectly fine. Most people in china would rather converse with their companions/family rather than the wait staff like in western fine dining. And yeah, I've never been to any chinese restaurant fine dining or not that wasn't a la carte based. And I've been to a few michelin star chinese restaurants before. Was kind of hoping Alex would've ordered more dim sum considering he was at a cantonese restaurant in hong kong. They for sure had that michelin 3 star course menu for foreigners. I even took a quick peek at the other course menus forum has and they were all much more "simple" like one would usually expect at a cantonese restaurant. That being said, the appetizers/cold dishes at forum surprised me with just nuts and sauces. All the fine dining chinese restaurants I've been to had much more variety and actual food involved. At the very least they usually serve some pickled vegetables. And for a 3 star restaurant the service at Forum seemed a bit off, I still remember being at a 2 star restaurant and maybe seeing the server refill my glass of tea like 1-2 times. Considering I drank just about a whole pot and a half of tea during the several hours my family and I were there, it was really impressive how they managed to keep my glass filled to the brim and I almost never noticed them come by.

@@Fen_Fox I totally agree with your comments. My experience in Chinese fine dining is that it is typically a social affair with the food presented on the lazy susan in the middle of the table for all to share the finest dishes. The record number of dishes I have ever experienced was at a dinner for 10 in Shanghai where the hosts ordered 42 different dishes, all wonderful. They included much of what Alex didn't like, such as sea cucumber, abalone, birds nest and sharks fin. The service was impeccable, but not in your face.

@@Fen_Fox the nuts and sauces were not really appetizers -- well I guess the nuts were, but the sauces are actually for people to add to their dim sum dishes

broke boy

@@bawseeeee602well a lot of people in the world cannot afford a 1000 euro bottle of wine

@@Nesot all of that is true and i dont even like Krug CdM! lol

@@bawseeeee602 Usually guys like you calling others poor are actually the poorest people in sight, both metaphorically and literally.

In the old days we would call that a bribe :)

Loving This 😎😎😎

Can i get ur contacts or address? Thank you

It is a handsome suit.

At least he tried em right? I once tried an Avangarde menu at a 3* in Barcalona and one dish was this seaweed that had been freezedried or something as "snow" on something else. It was way too salty and salty like saltwater - Only dish on a Michelin I've had to taste and simply let sit, it was not pleasant, but I would always try anything in such a setting as the "challenge my mind" is part of what I pay for, I feel.

1000 is a good prize for 2004 krug CdM. But yeah Alex is moving in a diffewrent place.

This is just partly right... it heavily depends in whih country you are, cause the cultural differences make a huge impact on the stars... a place like Forum for example would never reach 3 stars in UK, france, Germany or Us but it does in Hong Kong cause the impact this man made was so intense there... same is for places like Paul Bocuses restaurants in France, they have their three stars even when they are way below the modern standard of 3 stars, but the cultural impact is so big. But for example in Europe its impossible as a new restaurant to get stars without an exceptional service

@@davidnau2626 you are probably right, but I'm not happy about it. You could argue that this is part of the Chef knowing their audience. The "cultural impact" however is bs. I don't doubt you that it is like you say, but tradition is not a quality in itself

@@LarsEckert_Molimo I agree with you there... but otherwise 3 Star restaurants like Forum wouldn`t exist... look at his episode with Arpere by Alain Passard, a culinary genius of course but not up to date... compare him with Madame Pic or Epicure in Paris which is all modern french cuisine with a lot more finesse and attention to detail... but Alain Passard,like Bocuse restaurants will hold his 3 stars forever cause of tradition and impact... or look at hill street noodles in Singapore 1 star noodle soup or the 3 star sushi places in Japan, such places would never gain stars in Europe, the food is great but the cultural impact isn`t there. For me thats sad too, cause in my opinion it waters down the worth of stars, cause 3 stars all around the world mean completly different things depending on the country and the culture, so its no fix and solid foundation to rate and compare restaurants on international level, especially this "worth a stop, worth a detour and worth an own journy" I know places like Disfrutar with 2 stars which are way more worth traveling then 3 star restaurants like Bocuse, Passard or Forum.

@@davidnau2626 just to update you, disfrutar is 3 stars and there is only 1 3 star sushi places in japan, and its not because of tradition and impact. its because most top sushi places are so hard to get into they either dont qualify for the michelin star or dont need/want it in the first place.

@@Alsry1 They got the third michelinstar two months ago and I was talking about last year when I went there in September... and yes official there is just Harutaka in Tokyo as a pure 3 star Sushi restaurant but most others classic japanese 3 stars like Kikunoi Honten, Hyotei or Makimura include a lot of sushi into their menus, and also a lot of Sashimi or Kaiseki... which again show the great impact of of tradition on michelin stars... and btw I never said its cause of traditin that sushiplaces don`t have stars... so I don`t understand what your second part means...of course its hard to get places there and yes you can decide not to be part of the whole michelin world... but the fact that restaurants like Forum, Harutaka and Alain Passard get 3 stars because of their traditional value is still there

he didnt have a bottle of brut, imagine a 3 michelin meal without alcohol with every course.. its like a massage without happy ............

Lmfao underrated comment. So true.

chinese grandma yelling is a sign of superiority :)

reminds me of how we got yelled by chinese aunty because we took too long choosing our menu hahaha

It’s an asian thing, I think. They usually put them in small bottle in my country tho.

Bird’s nest is actually really tasty

@@LeMagnifiqueDoubleAgent-cj4zo I've heard it has a... kind of vanilla taste?

@@SeanStrife, I think that’s a fair comparison. The last time I had it was in a soup with ‘dragon eyes’ and goji berries so overall had a bit of a fruity-vanilla taste and I think some of the sugar was coming from the bird’s nest

I think eating bird spit doesn't seem that strange considering most of the people have no problem eating eggs

LOL exactly what I was thinking

you can say "ass" on youtube, you won't get arrested for swearing

@@keras_ I don't want to get f***ed by youtube 😂

The problem with some restaurants is that expensively sourced things to eat (I use the word food with reservation) does not make the ingredients palatable or healthy. They simply are able to charge a lot because of them.

Honestly wish restaurants in the west were like that. Too many restaurants seem to focus more on the service instead of the food

That's a crucial point. If I went to a serious fine dining Cantonese restaurant, where servers were around me like a fine dining French restaurant, part of me would wonder if the restaurant was being watered down to appease Western tastes, and I was paying a markup for that.

Yeah, the bird snot and fish bladder really sounded gross. And I've eaten quite a lot of interesting food in China. About that... avoid "drunken shrimp", the gallbladder of snakes and cold dishes in general (they're sprayed with insecticides to make sure the flies stay away)

On point as always Alexander! I really enjoy all of your interesting bits about the story of the ingredients,wines,dishes and chefs of course that are scattered in the videos. And even if this one is masterfully edited and put together i prefer the one episide one restaurant format. Hope you'll continue gaining subscrivers because honestly this id the best channel of it's kind by a landslide.

For the kind of prices involved, the difficulty in even getting a reservation, the 3-star ranking, those standard and expectations are fair.

Bias is fine tbh, since many viewers and restaurant-goers probably share similar biases and/or preferences. The observations were presented very transparently

What I liked here was his frankness over his bias and blind spots. Also, to be honest, some have complained that Michelin's star assessment of traditional Chinese food can be just very, very off and not aligned with actual gourmands of authentic Chinese food.

Yeah... no like from me due to the shark fin soup. It's not a delicacy, it's just awful.

It is more than likely that they are using ethical sourcing for both ingredients. The poor, unsustainable practices are done as a cost-cutting measure which a fine-dining establishment would not probably not deal with. I would agree with you if it were some random place, though.

If they use the practice of cutting the fin off and then throwing the shark back, I 100% agree with you on that.

You are right about the shark, but bird nests are way more ethical, than any meat you eat.

health reasons too. Large fishes have already been documented to carry higher traces of heavy metals like mercury. Not only that, the shark fin itself does not contribute any flavours and its texture can be easily imitated. It's a pretty worthless ingredient in all honestly, much like gold. This is coming from a Chinese that enjoys Shark Fin Soup (The fake version), I mean from what I've experienced, they both tastes the same lol, it's just that one uses actual shark fins while the other doesnt.