Showing posts with label neal fraser. Show all posts
Showing posts with label neal fraser. Show all posts

Thursday, August 10, 2017

Chef Fest at Four Seasons Resort Hualalai (Big Island, Hawaii): Preview Dinner at LA's Redbird

by guest blogger Bryan Tsunoda (discovering LA)


From Oct 4 - Oct 7, the Four Seasons Resort Hualalai will play host to Chef Fest, a culinary experience featuring high profile dinners paired with wine, food and wine tastings, interactive cooking classes and special cocktail experiences with top mixologists. Attendees will also have the opportunity to get cooking tips from top chefs Neal Fraser, Andy Ricker, Jonathan Waxman and others.

I recently attended an advanced tasting of this year’s Chef Fest at Redbird in LA. Executive Chef Neal Fraser (Redbird) and Executive Chef Thomas Bellec (Four Seasons Resort Hualalai) were on hand to prepare a five-course meal paired with wine that evening.

We were greeted with island cocktails made with Ko Hana Agricole Rum (made by Manulele Distillers in Oahu). During that time, I had an opportunity to speak with both Fraser and Bellec. 
I found them both to be down to earth and personable. Bellec was previously the executive chef at the Beverly Wilshire and is classically French trained. We had a good conversation about food sourcing and I learned that 75% of the ingredients used at the Four Seasons Resort Hualalai are obtained from local farms.

We started with the Oysters Brûlée. Bellec made the preparation entertaining as he used a large butane torch to scorch the fresh oysters. 
They were topped with yuzu curd and finger lime caviar. The taste was unique as it was slightly tart with a mild smoke flavor.

Saturday, May 21, 2016

Fritzi DTLA: A Game Changer in the Arts District

One of the newer restaurants I was excited to try was Neal Fraser's new Fritzi in DTLA's arts district. I've been seeing a lot of instagrams of their rotisserie chicken, and most importantly, waffle tots, aka potato waffles.
Fritzi
Yes, waffled tater tots. Get it with cheese, always.

The potato waffles can be ordered as a side, or you can get them with an order of the rotisserie chicken
Fritzi
You can order the rotisserie chicken as 1/4 chicken for $15 or 1/2 chicken for $19, and it comes with your choice of fries, tots, or potato waffles, and a choice of vegetables of the day. You can also order one of their dipping sauces starting from $0.50 and includes options like green harissa, black garlic aioli, Louisiana aioli, or Vermont beer-cheddar (I love the harissa).
DSC02576
I typically don't order chicken, especially chicken breast, but that's because many times restaurants make them too dry. That won't happen with Fritzi's rotisserie chicken, though, with its perfectly tender and juicy meat.

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Neal Fraser Serves Up Gourmet Hot Dogs at Fritzi Dog (The Original Farmers Market, Los Angeles)

I usually shy away from the processed meat that is hot dog, but Chef Neal Fraser (BLD) changed my perception with his gourmet hot dogs at Fritzi Dog, all made with humanely-raised, organic meat. There's a dog for everyone at this stand inside The Original Farmers Market.

You can build your own by choosing one of the many options: Porker Dog (pork with French spices and curry), Deli Dog (classic Kosher style all beef dog), Bird Dog (turkey and duck with mesquite), Stadium Dog (smoky pork and beef), Cali Dog (beef, pork, spicy Merguez and Chilean Merken), and for the vegetarians there's the Carrot Dog. You can get the original bun or switch it up with the pretzel bun, and they have something for the gluten-free folks, too.
Overwhelmed by the choice of toppings? Try one of the signature creations. Most of the dogs are $6.25 or $8.95 as a combo with fries or tots. There are a couple of special ones that cost more.

The signature dogs include fun flavors like the Tokyo Dog (Porker Dog, wasabi aioli, peas, Sriracha ketchup, nori )
IMG_5429
Finishing touches like the crispy pea crumbles make Neal Fraser's hot dogs extra special. The dogs are all great, with a nice snap to them, but if I have to pick a favorite it might be the Cali Dog!

My favorite signature dog was the Garlic Dog (Cali dog on pretzel bun, garlic aioli, crispy onions)
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One big reason is probably because I love garlic! But I also love the slightly chewier pretzel bun and the flavors of the Cali dog.

Friday, October 29, 2010

In The Kitchen with Neal Fraser: On Ad Hoc Cooking and Searing Scallops

Last month I attended Los Angeles Magazine's "In the Kitchen" event held at the Snyder Diamond showroom with Chef Neal Fraser of Grace and BLD.

As usual the night starts with some appetizers made by a chef from Sub Zero/Wolf, Brian Beaudry, including endive bites, mushroom with truffle oil on toast, and smoked salmon-wrapped asparagus.

apps

After we sat down, chef Fraser walked us through his recipe of making Sautéed Day Boat Scallops with Risotto, midnight moon, English peas. It turns out that Chef Fraser is quite a funny guy, and apparently hates measuring ingredients (thus claims to be a bad pastry chef). He had actually forgotten to bring some basil for the recipe, but when you're an experienced chef you know what to substitute to get the right results.
Chef Neal Fraser

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Recipe: Sautéed Day Boat Scallops, Pea, Risotto (Chef Neal Fraser)

At Los Angeles Magazine's "In the Kitchen" event held at the Snyder Diamond showroom, Chef Neal Fraser of Grace and BLD shared his recipe for sautéed day boat scallops, served with risotto and English pea sauce.
(Save the date for Nov 10, where Loteria Grill's Chef Jimmy Shaw will do a cooking demonstration. Details here.)

Sautéed Day Boat Scallops
Risotto, midnight moon, English peas

by Chef Neal Fraser (Grace, BLD) - serves 4 people
Day Boat Scallop

Friday, September 10, 2010

A Graceful Gathering: La Fenetre Wine Tasting with Chef Neal Fraser

La Fenêtre Wines was started by former sommelier Joshua Klapper, who had previously worked as Wine Director at David Myers' Sona and earned it the Wine Spectator Grand Award (we're all very sorry to see Sona shuttered). With Burgundy wines as his inspiration, Klapper strives to make food friendly wines that are affordable.

In celebration of their fifth vintage, La Fenêtre held a tasting of all their 2008 releases (and some more) at LearnAboutWine's Loft218.
We were greeted with a glass of the 2008 Santa Barbara County Rosé (their anniversary Rosé)
... while LearnAboutWine's Ian Blackburn plays DJ for the day.

The wines were accompanied by small bites prepared by Chef Neal Fraser of Grace and BLD Restaurant.

The first couple bites accompanied the rose and the white wines:
Chilean Shellfish Ceviche (left)

Crab Salad, lemon vinaigrette, mint:

We tasted a lot of wine (thank goodness for the spit bucket). Since I'm no wine connoisseur and your taste preferences may differ from mine, I'll direct you instead to their official tasting notes here. We started with four Chardonnays:

  • 2008 À Côté, Santa Barbara County ($25). Crisp and clean, this was a very smooth wine with only a slight acidity at the end. It paired very well with the caviar blini as it brought the flavors together and balanced the caviar.
Salmon Tartare, chive blini, American caviar

  • 2008 La Fenêtre, Los Alamos (Santa Barbara County). More acidic than the previous. I had this with the Bay Scallops, peas, aged goat cheese, risotto - a great dish and its creaminess cuts the acidity of the wine nicely.
  • 2008 La Fenêtre, Sierra Madre (Santa Maria Valley). Sweeter than the Los Alamos.
  • 2008 La Fenêtre, Bien Nacido (Santa Maria Valley)

We also had the chance to taste the 2004 Bien Nacido Chardonnay (his first vintage). This was easily my favorite Chardonnay of the night: smooth but with much more depth. The new releases should be heading this way too in a few years and it will be well worth the wait.

Moving on to the reds and the red meat dishes, we began with a tasting of the Pinot Noirs:

  • 2008 À Côté, Central Coast ($25). Smooth and subtle, light fruit flavors.
  • 2008 La Fenêtre, Los Alamos ($36)
  • 2008 La Fenêtre, Sierra Madre ($49). This had more body than the previous two.
  • 2008 La Fenêtre, Le Bon Climat ($54). My favorite of the pinot noirs. Smoother, less acidic than the others. The body is still pretty light, naturally, as it's a pinot.

Squab Crostini, liver mousse, rare breast, confit leg, crostini

Grilled NY Steak, farro, red wine gelee
The red wine gelee was a great complement.
  • 2007 La Fenêtre, Alisos ($35). Heavier-bodied than the pinot noir, naturally. A bit tannic.
  • 2008 La Fenêtre, Sierra Madre ($35). Lighter bodied and more tannic than the 2007 Alisos.
  • 2006 Tête Brûlée, Mt Veeder ($60). This is the only wine he makes with a partner (and his only Napa wine).

We also got to taste the Timeless Palate Wines 2004 Syrah, another of Josh's first releases.
The syrah was smooth and surprisingly fruity when compared to the newer releases. It was the fruitiest of his wines yet.

You can now order La Fenêtre wines online and if you order by September 30, get 15% off with code: FALL2010LF.

Full Disclosure: I attended this event as a guest of Joshua Klapper of La Fenêtre Wines. FYI though I did end up buying two bottles of wine for myself so you can see that I liked it!

Monday, September 6, 2010

In The Kitchen with Chef Ray Garcia (Recap, Recipes)

Los Angeles Magazine has been holding cooking demonstrations titled In The Kitchen, featuring a different LA chef each time. The next event will be on Wednesday, September 15 with chef Neal Fraser of Grace and BLD.
The event runs from 7-9pm at the Snyder Diamond showroom in Santa Monica and costs $40 (see LA Mag's webpage for more info).

If you've never read the previous reports and are wondering what to expect from this event, here's a recap on the last In the Kitchen with FIG's chef Ray Garcia.

Some hors d'oeuvres from Snyder Diamond's chef.

FIG's bar concocted this amazing Blood Orange and Beet Bellini
Recipe:

1 oz Solerno (Blood Orange liqueur)
2 oz Sanguinello Puree
1 oz Beetroot juice
3 oz Prosecco

Combine ingredients in a tin or beaker and stir over ice. Strain into a champagne flute. Finish with a tiny flower garnish.

After munching on the appetizers and drinking wine and cocktails, we were seated at black-clothed tables and Chef Ray Garcia began his cooking demonstration.
While watching Chef Garcia cook and our dish to be ready, we snacked on some stuffed dates.


The two dishes were paired with Kunin Wines from Santa Barbara county. The winemaker from Kunin was present and explained his pairing logic.

For the main recipe, Chef Garcia seems to have focused on being healthy, using vegetable stock instead of chicken stock for his Red Beet Risotto (you can see the recipe here).

Dessert:
Chocolate Pot de Creme (this was paired with Kunin Zinfandel, trying to balance the sweet creaminess with some acidity)
Recipe:
7.5 oz semisweet chocolate (64%). Chef Garcia uses Cordierra colombian chocolates.
4 cups heavy cream
1 cup milk
1 egg
9 egg yolks
1/2 cup + 3 tbsp granulated sugar
contents of 1 vanilla vean
pinch of kosher salt

1. Scald milk and cream with vanilla bean, salt, and half of the sugar. (Do not let the milk boil).
2. Add hot liquid to the chocolate and mix until all chocolate is melted and incorporated.
3. Whisk together the remaining sugar with the whole egg and egg yolks.
4. Slowly whisk warm chocolate liquid into eggs and pass through a fine strainer.
5. Pour mixture into ramekins or pots. Remove any air bubbles by gently "burning" containers with a blow torch.
6. Cover with aluminum foil. Bake in water bath at 225' for 25-30 mins.
All attendees left with a goodie bag, which always contains the latest issue of Los Angeles Magazine, and usually some wine and cupcakes!


Full disclosure: I attended this event as a guest of Los Angeles Magazine's PR.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

September: Upcoming Events!

Thursday, September 2-Sunday, September 5, 2010. Taste of Beverly Hills

This Beverly Hills' weekend extravaganza kicks off with a party on Thursday followed "sessions" starting Friday night. Famous chefs from around the country will be doing demos including Art Smith, Michel Nischan, and of course all the famous local chefs you can think of. Mixology? Brunch? Wine? Choose the right session for you by studying their full schedule.
Tickets for each session is pretty expensive starting at $135 and a day pass starts from $185, but luckily you can get 50% off tickets to The Art of Brunch on Sunday via Goldstar. There is also buy-1-get-1 deal for the BBQ on the Hills on Sunday night.
Thursday, September 2, 2010. FREE Turkey Burgers
Jennie-O Turkey is hosting a Turkey Burger pop-up restaurant and is giving away free turkey burgers to remind people of this leaner alternative to beef burgers (turkey burgers have 10 g less fat and 100 fewer calories than typical beef burgers). The eastsiders get the goods this time, as this is happening in El Monte.
11am-3pm. 11655 Valley Blvd, El Monte, CA

Saturday, September 4, 2010-Sunday, October 3, 2010. LA County Fair
The LA County Fair kicks off this weekend also. For this one you should expect things like deep fried Klondike bars and chocolate-covered, bacon-wrapped Oreos, but if those things turn you off you can go for steamed artichoke. Not to leave you dry, you can also sip on the winners of this year's Los Angeles International Wine & Spirits Awards. I'm looking forward to Esmeralda's Traveling Circus myself. Trapeze lessons, anyone?
Wed-Sun (hours vary). Pomona Fairplex, 1101 W. McKinley Ave., Pomona, CA 91768

Sunday, September 5, 2010. LA Times Food & Wine Fest
It's LA Times' first food festival. Not only will there be food from LA's best chefs (including Ludo Lefebvre, Suzanne Goin, Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo, etc) the festival will also feature live performance by She & Him and Angela McCluskey. There will be a VIP-only area with cheese and sake tasting with the Cheese Impresario and a cooking challenge with Michael Voltaggio, but alas, the VIP tickets are sold out.
Thanks to Goldstar, you can now get 50% off non-VIP tickets to this event.
12-8PM. Paramount Studios, Hollywood.

Thursday, September 9, 2010. Taste of FPAC
This is the kickoff reception for the 19th annual Festival of Philippine Arts & Culture.
The event will feature The Manila Machine, SoCal’s first Filipino food truck and more food from Chef Guerrero, owner of The Oinkster. You can read Pleasure Palate's post for the full menu. Tickets are $50 and includes all food. Beer will be available for purchase. Proceeds benefit The Association for the Advancement of Filipino American Arts and Culture, also known as FilAm ARTS. For more information or to purchase tickets, contact Nerissa Silao at nerissa@filamarts.org.
6-10 PM. Oinkster. 2005 Colorado Boulevard, Eagle Rock, CA 90041

Wednesday, September 15, 2010. In the Kitchen with Neal Fraser
Los Angeles Magazine is hosting another culinary demonstration at Snyder Diamond, this time featuring chef Neal Fraser of Grace and BLD. The night will start with some appetizers from the Snyder Diamond's chef. Chef Fraser will show you how to cook two dishes:
Entrée: Sautéed Day Boat Scallop aged goat cheese risotto and peas
Dessert: Vanilla Panna Cotta, market berries, salted caramel
Everything will be paired with wine by LearnAboutWine.
Tickets are $40. Please call Estrellita Dacanay at (323) 801-0034 to purchase.
7-9PM. Snyder Diamond Showroom, 1399 Olympic Blvd, Santa Monica.

Saturday, September 18, 2010. Munch LA - CANCELLED!!
It's time school fundraising graduates from the door-to-door donut sales. Fairfax Highschool is holding a one day festival featuring 30 food trucks, culinary demos, even designer shopping (shopping for Paige Denim or T Bags dresses while munching on kimchi fries?). Tickets are $7 pre-sale and $10 at the door.
11am-5pm. Fairfax High School, 7850 Melrose Ave, LA 90046

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

2009 5x5 Dinners Announced!

Five of Los Angeles top chefs gather together each year and hold five dinners at five restaurants, each of them, along with a guest chef, would prepare their own dish. This 5x5 Chefs Collaborative not only give us foodies a wonderful dining opportunity, it also promotes camaraderie among chefs and also benefit the Southern California Chapter of Special Olympics.

Come on, what more do you want?

This year's participating chefs are: Michael Cimarusti (Providence), Josiah Citrin (Melisse), David Lefevre (Water Grill), Gino Angelini (Angelini Osteria), and Neal Fraser (Grace) -- Fraser a new addition this year, replacing Walter Manzke.

This year's 5x5 dates have also been announced! And it will start with a dinner at Providence featuring Alex Stratta (from Alex, at the Wynn in Las Vegas). Here's the full lineup:

Tuesday, April 28, 2009: PROVIDENCE with Alessandro Stratta of Alex
Sunday, May 17, 2009: MELISSE with Gabriel Kreuther of The Modern
Monday, June 15, 2009: GRACE with Sean McClain of Spring
Sunday, August 23, 2009: WATER GRILL with Curtis Duffy of The Avenues
Monday, September 21, 2009: ANGELINI OSTERIA Guest Chef to be Announced

Prices for the dinners remain the same from last year at $150/year or $215 with wine pairing.


Here are some reviews from last year's 5x5 from around the blogosphere:

my review on the 5x5 at the Water Grill.

From Only Eat What Feeds Your Soul: Providence, Water Grill
From KevinEats: Providence, Water Grill
From Food Destination: La Terza



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Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Grace's OpenTable Appetite Stimulus

Among OpenTable's restaurant lineup for its Appetite Stimulus Plan, Grace is one of the few ones I was excited about and last night I managed to try it out with Mattatouille and his girlfriend.

Besides the 2 choices for each of the three courses, Grace also offered other courses for $6-8 supplemental charge, but we all stuck with the $35 three-course choices.

The first choice for the appetizer was the Fall Squash Soup with duck confit and pistachios.
A delicious and rich soup! The duck confit went very well with the sweetness of the squash soup itself and the pistachios provide a nice crunchy texture along with the smoothness of the soup. Everyone on the table loved it.

The other appetizer choice was House Cured Salmon with roasted beets, heirloom tomatoes, and horseradish creme fraiche.
I thought the presentation was gorgeous - I felt bad destroying it but you gotta do what you gotta do. This again was a hit - the salmon was delicious, and the sweet beets and tomatoes combination worked very well.

Instead of the sand dabs that the website mentioned, the first entree choice was actually Petrole Sole. The preparation and accompaniments are still the same with potato gnocchi, hazelnuts, haricots verts, and sage brown butter.
I only had a bit of this and thought it was solid. The fish wasn't particularly flavorful but Mattatouille seemed to love the brown butter. I loved the potato gnocchi which were very tender.

I had the oven roasted Leg of Colorado Lamb with Byaldi confit and olive infused lamb jus.
The Byaldi confit reminded me of the dish from the movie Ratatouille :) (doesn't it? doesn't it?) (oops, not Rattatouille ... It's all Mattatouille's fault)
The confit may be our favorite part of the dish. The lamb was flavorful but somewhat on the tougher side. Still good, just harder to eat - if only they had given us steak knives.

For dessert the choices were the Apple Upside Down Bread Pudding with buttermilk ice cream, apple cider syrup, cranberries, and brown sugar walnuts
A great dessert. The cranberries didn't add anything for me and I think it even distracted from the rest of the dish, but after putting that aside, I liked everything else.

The other dessert choice was Boca Negra Cake Affogato, which is a dark chocolate cake, vanilla ice cream, brandied orange slice, then soaked in espresso.
Very rich! The cake itself was amazingly dense. Delicious but take small bites, it really gets to you! You'll need some hot tea or black coffee to cut it later.

The other thing I love about this restaurant is the small touches they put into their wares. The container for the honey that comes with their tea is a great example:
What a cute bee-shaped honey container! I want to take it home ...

Just like its DineLA menu, Grace's Open Table Appetite Stimulus was a hit for me. I'm glad they continue to participate in these prix-fixe weeks and continue to deliver a solid, worthwhile menu that people can really appreciate (unlike some other restaurants we talked about last night *cough*).

GRACE
7360 Beverly Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90036-2501
(323) 934-4400
gracerestaurant.com

Monday, October 27, 2008

The Food Event: Food and So Much More

The Food Event, hosted by Los Angeles Magazine, is perhaps my favorite of this type of events so far this year! And it is actually the cheapest at that - $60 admission (disclosure: I was able to obtain a media pass for the event, but you'll see the $60 would be well worth it! Plus it also benefits Concern Foundation and LA Food Bank!). I bumped into LA&OC Foodie there, who already posted his review, and we both agree that this event is definitely going into our calendar next year!

First, there's the venue. The Food Event took place yesterday (Sunday) in the grounds of Saddlerock Ranch in the Malibu Hills. It's a beautiful property with grape vines, llamas, horses, zebras etc.
A bit out of the way but the drive through the hills was similarly beautiful. Going to this event felt like a mini getaway. Albeit a bit hot, the venue definitely beats all other events.

Then, there's the food (of course). A sampling below of some of my faves, clockwise: orechiette with mushrooms and truffles (excellent), octopus carpaccio from Tra di Noi, bison tartare and pheasant mousse from Saddle Peak Lodge, and tuna tartar from Chaya Brasserie.
But those are only what I started out with. There's also lobster bisque (also one of my fave there!) from Darren's, cold poached salmon from Paperfish, and hamachi poke and tomato gazpacho both from the Four Seasons hotel in Westlake Village.
The lobster is creamy with coconut, and has a bit of spicy kick to it.

The beer sponsors served their beverage in their signature beer glasses - which we get to take home. Hmm ... is this a friendly challenge to see how much I can drink? Well, the glasses below are what we ended up taking home :P
Some of the highlights are the "Provence" wine from Peju - a blend of 5 grapes that include both reds and whites. It was meant to introduce red wine to those who normally drink whites. It's a crisp, light wine with a bit of the tannin taste. As for the beer, my favorite was the blond Leffe.

And let's not forget the desserts. We had macaroons from La Provence Patisserie, gelato from Gelato Bar, an assortment of excellent pastries from Rustic Canyon, and some amazing blueberry mint lemonade from Lemonade - loved it (then again mint is my true love :P ).
It's a hot day so the lemonades went fast! And so did all the Fiji water bottles there - my only complaint is perhaps how they ran out of water halfway through the event, although wine and beer were still abound.

So that was the food and drinks. But that's not all! What really brings this event to the top is all the chef cooking demonstrations (well, and of course, eating their food right after)!

The chef cooking demonstration starts off with Chef David Linville from The Shore, who demonstrated how to make mozzarella from scratch.
Simple but always excellent dish - mozzarella with basil leaves and tomatoes!

After managing to grab some seats, Nancy Silverton set up right in front of us. Best seats in the house :) Known for both Osteria and Pizzeria Mozza, she of course brought some burrata with her.
Silverton demo'd making celery pesto sauce from scratch (I got this on video, which I will hopefully post later- waiting for an OK from LA Mag PR people), and served up some celery salad topped with lovely burrata and the pesto sauce!

Then there's Neal Fraser from Grace, cooking up some uni pumpkin risotto!
Everything was in a pot which meant we didn't get to see much. There was fun conversation about the best salt to use. The risotto was excellent. Al dente and creamy, with bits of uni still visible.

The Two Dudes (Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo) from Animal on Fairfax made a quick demo of how to make their awesome BBQ ribs. A quick demo of seasoning and putting in the oven - then another quickie of their BBQ sauce (got this on video too, hopefully will put up later!)
Here too they use Niman ranch meat, just like in their restaurant. Loved it there, loving it here too. The meat was so tender and falling off the bones. One of the most satisfying bites of the day (who can say no to ribs?).

Kerry Simon also demonstrated wheat penne pasta, and brought tubs of his famous junk food desserts - we're talking rice krispies, cookies, and kettle corn! Yum!

The awesome afternoon ended with a Cook-off, Top Chef style! Defending her reign after two consecutive wins is Top Chef's Betty Fraser, exec chef of Grub. The challenger is Makoto Okuwa, of the newly opened Sashi in Manhattan Beach (and former assistant of Morimoto in Iron Chef).
Chef Fraser served up some shrimps poached in butter, kaffir limes etc, with candied pumpkin, which I didn't get to taste because they ran out (personally I'd deduct points for not preparing enough *sob*). The judges all seemed to love it though and said that the shrimp was "perfectly cooked".

Chef Okuwa served up some shrimp-pork-beef Baos with black truffles! Excellent bao, freshly made so the dough is still moist and chewy. The thickness was also just right for me. And let's not forget truffles, which you guys know I love ...

So who do you guys think won? Make a guess and I will let you know later!

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