A touch of French flair

IF you are planning to dine at Siem Reap's Cuisine Wat Damnak, avoid going on a Tuesday. "Tuesday is not a good day to come," says its owner/chef Joannes Riviere. That's the day when the restaurant, which only opens for dinner from Tuesdays to Saturdays, changes its weekly menu.

"Sometimes we could be changing the presentation or even the ingredients midway during service. The food is good, but it is ugly. Come from Wednesday onwards," he quips.

Chef Riviere was in Singapore recently for a one-night-only four-hands dinner with Bacchanalia's Ivan Brehm. The story goes about how chef Brehm visited Cuisine Wat Damnak one night and the two chefs got to talking about cooking a dinner together.