thefoodhunter

The great thing about Lavinia for us Parisians is that notwithstanding obscene prices, at least we can buy foreign wine there. I don't want to sound like a snob, but it is nice to be able to pay 30 to 40 euros for a fine American, Spanish, Italian or other New Worldly wine. Ubtil Lavinia, there were only a few places selling non-French prices at even more exorbitant prices than Lavinia. I especially love taking Califirnia wines to dinner with French people covering the label and saying "Guess where it is from?". They usually love the flavour and deliver the ubiquitous chauvinistic response "I had heard they made pretty good wines in California".

I had a fabulous dinner at Nobu on October 14. It was my first ever Nobu experience, I've never been to the NY or other outposts. I went with a Japanese friend and we ordered the 150 euro tasting menu. I wasn't taking notes, but I remember endless excellent dishes, impeccable service and a totally packed house, upstairs and downstairs on a Monday night. My Japanese friend lives in Paris and thanked me for introducing him to the first Japanese style restaurant he had ever eaten in that reminded him of Japan, at least as far as the food is concerned. Last saturday I bought a huge box of macaroons from Pierre Hermé rue Bonaparte, must have been a few hours after Steve Ps aborted attempt. If you want to skip the lines there is a secret, order by phone and pay in advance. You can walk by all the tourists and snooty French folk give your name pick up your goods and split.

Here is an article I wrote several years ago when Alcazar opened for business. I haven't been back since for obvious reasons, in Paris it is more famous as a nightspot, they have opened a Wag club inside. ALCAZAR For many years the term “British Cuisine” spoken aloud would result in smiles, chuckles or outright laughter. In the 80’s design magnate Terrence Conran opened a string of excellent restaurants in London and British cuisine discovered it had an ambassador. The fare at Bibendum, Quaglino’s, Mezzo etc. were not updated versions of British specialities like spotted dick, steak and kidney pie, or bangers and mash, but delicious inventive dishes drawing on a multitude of influences. I was thrilled to learn that Sir Terrence had decided to open a restaurant in Paris. His furniture shops have already become mainstays of Parisian life providing an albeit costly alternative to Ikea ugliness for home decorating enthusiasts. Alcazar is located on the left bank near St. Germain des Pres. Last November, a few weeks after its opening, I took several New York Thanksgiving refugees there for dinner. A Thanksgiving refugee is someone who is trying to escape the forced family cheer required at America’s favourite holiday. They miss the food though, hence their decision to come to Paris for some serious paunch stuffing. Alcazar is housed in a former cabaret. It is a huge two story building with an unassuming street entrance. Upstairs there is a bar and a glassed-in private dining room which reminded me of a hospital operating room. We were seated in the long downstairs dining area at a great table offering us a view of the entire restaurant. Diners can look into the kitchen which runs the length of the room so the kitchen is always spotless. The attention to design detail is evident, this is a restaurant to see and be seen in. We arrived at 8 PM as per the reservation clerk’s instructions who had made it clear to me that we could not come at 8:30 PM or 7:30 PM. But the rest of our party didn’t make it until 8:30 PM so we had plenty of time to watch the dining room fill with beautiful people. The attitude was thick enough to cut with a dull knife. Famous TV people and fashion designers were seated everywhere. The menu is standard Parisian brasserie fare with only one real UK touch in the form of a hefty fish and chips. From the start we encountered problems. One of my pet peeves is cleanliness and hygiene in a restaurant. On each table there is a rather cute open salt and pepper dispenser from which customers are supposed to take a pinch to season their food. Didn’t Sir Terrence read that terrifying report about the high level of dangerous bacteria in self-service peanut bowls in bars? I don’t care how important someone is, when they leave a public rest room they are toting some scary germs with them and I don’t like my salad à la coliform. As we waited for the rest of our party we ordered cocktails, I ordered mineral water and was offered Conran’s bottled water as an option. Where does Conran’s water come from anyway? I ordered oysters and a pot au feu. The oysters were delightful but served without the salted butter and rye bread usually served in brasseries. When I asked for these I was told there weren’t any. The pot au feu was good but the portion was quite small and tepid. We ordered a nice bottle of Bordeaux and as there were five of us we ordered another one soon thereafter. The waiter began to pour the wine from the second bottle into our half empty glasses from the first bottle. When I tried to stop him from doing this his smart-ass reply was “It is the same wine, what is the difference?”. Even the most inexperienced waiter knows that the quality of wine from one bottle to the next can vary widely. I demurred but remain shocked by this attitude. I didn’t taste any of my friend’s dishes because the portions were so small that they neglected to offer me any. They seemed happy but didn’t talk about the food. This was a clear message of disapproval for me because during the last five meals we shared our conversation was limited to the contents of our plates. The bill for each person came to approximately 40 Euros. Since this meal I did return to eat at the upstairs bar and had the excellent fish and chips. I hope chef Guillaume Lutard will revamp his menu and fill it out with new versions of British classics. How about a toad-in-the hole made with Montbeliard sausage in an herb flavoured batter?

I had breakfast two weeks ago with Mr Poilâne, Chef Terrance Brennan and Daphne Zepos. Chef Brennan and Daphne Zepos were in Paris for the Sial show looking to establish relationships with artisanal cheese producers. We visited the bakery at rue du Cherche Midi with Mr. Poilâne. Whilst there he introduced us to his daughter who was learning to bake the eponymous "miche" loaves, getting up at 4 am to mix dough, knead it and bake several hundred loaves each day. She is a bright young woman who will be going to Harvard next September. It was a pleasure for me to listen to three impassioned food professionals wax philosophical on ingredients, tradtional production techniques and the importance of teaching new generations about focusing on quality rather than quantity. Below is an article I wrote on the Poilâne bread "manufacture" for my web site. POILÂNE MANUFACTURE A friend visiting from America asked me about Poilâne bread. Unless you live in a cave you know that Poilâne bread is a masterpiece of baking. My friend wondered how 2 small bakeries (at 8 rue du Cherche Midi in the 6th arrondissement and 49 Bd de Grenelle in the 15th arrondissement) could supply so many restaurants and stores every day with fresh bread. It is true that Poilâne bread is ubiquitous. It is also true that the quality remains the same whether you buy it in a store in Nice, a gourmet shop in New York or in the Poilâne bakery in London. What is the secret to so much quantity with steady quality? I thought this was a good question and decided to investigate. I called Joan Richardson, Head of International Development at Poilâne and she invited me to tour the Poilâne facility in Bièvres on the outskirts of Paris. The manufacture is a large, white, completely round building that looks like a flour-dusted loaf of bread. It is quite anonymous yet intriguing by its size and shape. Lionel Poilâne showed me around and started by stressing that his facility is a “manufacture” not an “usine” (factory). A manufacture is simply a large place where something is made by hand (main) on a large scale. There are no machines in the manufacture. When Mr. Poilâne asked for an authorization to build, local authorities asked that he choose an industrial zone. He argued that his was not an industry. There is no wastewater, no fuel or chemicals and just enough electricity for his employees to see what they are doing. His logic prevailed and instead of being surrounded by factories, discount stores and fast food restaurants, the manufacture sits on the edge of the woods. I entered through a revolving door and discovered a reception room lined with framed photographs of the Poilâne family and bakeries. One was a photo of a birdcage made of bread as part of an all bread bedroom suite made for Salvador Dali. Senor Dali loved the idea that a bird could eat its way to freedom. Lionel Poilâne is a handsome mid-50’s man with brown hair falling on each side of his face. He is always impeccably dressed and wears a dark grey smock over his town clothes when he is in the manufacture. He has a soft yet impassioned voice, every word measured as carefully as bread dough. A visit starts in the dispatching room that he calls a bread library. Tall racks hold the days baking, about 90 loaves to each rack. The racks bear the names of the “compagnon” (baker) who made the bread. Quality control is simple. Mr. Poilâne looks at the loaves, tastes a few, taps them, squeezes them and notes any observations. At night the loaves are shipped by truck to the many gourmet stores and high-end supermarkets Mr. Poilâne has accepted as clients. Other loaves are double wrapped in paper bags and placed into boxes to be air shipped to the United States, throughout Europe, Mexico, the French Caribbean territories and as far away as Japan. 19 tonnes of bread are shipped each day. We continued the visit and entered a huge round room (the centre of the building), which is the wood storage area. Stacks of split wood (elm, oak, poplar and others) line the walls. A massive steel claw lifts the wood and drops it into huge chutes that lead directly to each one of the 12 “fournils” (groups of two evens). Wood-fired bread ovens are as old as time itself. Using wood as fuel to make a product with international distribution in the 21st century is part of the Poilâne “retro-innovation” philosophy. Mr. Poilâne espouses the use of new and old techniques as long as they are good. So simple yet so rare today. This philosophy motivated him to develop bread for astronauts. The biggest problem with bread and space travel is lack of gravity. A single stray crumb could wreak havoc with sophisticated onboard systems and cause a space station to come crashing down to earth. (Well maybe not, but if any screenwriter uses this idea in a scenario, I want some royalties!). Lionel Poilâne determined that an average bite of bread weighs 6 grams. He then designed tiny bite-size bread balls made with his miche (the miche is the centre of a loaf of bread), raisin and walnut recipes. The result, which is not yet for sale, is amazing. Imagine a loaf of bread the size of a marble. You pop it into your mouth; bite through the crust and the taste of Poilâne bread fills your mouth! Next we visited one of the 12 “fournils”. Each fournil includes two ovens, a kneading table, rising area and wood supply. The temperature in this area is carefully controlled to allow the dough to rise. The ovens weigh 100 tons each and a single oven load or “fournée” equals one hundred miche loaves. The original Poilâne oven was designed by a “fournier” (oven maker) whose claim to fame was drinking at least one bottle of Chambolle-Musigny per day. Considering the cost of this delightful wine, oven design must be a lucrative trade. Each fournil is named after an important figure in bread history such as Saint Roch, the patron saint of bakers; or Squanto, the Native American who taught the pilgrims how to plant corn. After watching all this bread being manufactured we returned to Paris and had lunch at the “Cuisine du Bar” restaurant near the bakery in the 6th arrondissement. Poilâne bread is served toasted with a variety of toppings. The € 11.50 formule includes one open-faced tartine of miche bread, a salad with couscous and raisins and a glass of wine or mineral water. I had a delicious roast chicken tartine with anchovies and capers. A perfectly caramelised tarte tatin and a heady cup of cappuccino capped a wonderful day with a baking legend. La Cuisine du Bar 8 rue du Cherche Midi 75006 Paris 01 45 48 45 69 Open from 9 am to 8 pm Closed on Sundays

Hi David, What is this sleeper in the 7th? I guess you and I and Cabby will be the only ones eating there. Cabrales I can't do dinner at the end of November, I'll be out of town food hunting.

I just had a wonderful dinner with Bux and Mrs. Bux in Paris. We discussed the site and I wondered why there hasn't been an egullet event in Paris. It would certainly raise the awareness of the French culinary world to this excellent site. Are there any other egulleteers living here besides me? I would suggest a meal at a reasonably priced, easy to organize with a month's advance notice establishment. How about first week in December. I would be happy to help organize the meal with input from others living here.

Le Verre Vole 67 rue de lancry in the 10th arrondissement. Jazz and techno soundtrack to a selection of "natural" wines from lesser known regions (i.e. Côtes d'Auvergne) as well as small producers from all over France. real nice guys; the new generation of wine stores.

Food - A culinary history by Jean Louis Flandrin and Massimo Montanari Voyage Gastronomique en Italie by Davide Paolini Food and Healing by Annemarie Colbin Chocolat by Joanne Harris The Great Food Gamble bu John Humphrys

In Asia we plan to go to Bangkok, Hong Kong and Singapore. In Australia we plan to go to Sydney and Melbourne. Re: canada, yes we have considered it but our shoots are driven by client demand from broadcaster countries. If a given broadcaster in a territory wants to buy our show we would be more inclined to shoot in that country. It is after all a business, albeit the most fun one I have ver been involved iwth.

Thanks for your concern about the show and your faithful following. There have been changes at our broadcaster Discovery. 323 Great Chefs shows begin airing September 30th on Discovery's Travel Channel. They'll air four shows per day, Monday through Friday, and two shows each on Saturday and Sunday, including 20 new episodes. These changes are common practice in the world of cable TV. Re the look that many viewers criticise as being old. The show has been around for 18 years so many of the older episodes are mixed in with new ones. If you're lucky you may even catch Emeril in the early days when he started his culinary career. The onmi present sound of a hood or pots and pans clanking comes from shooting in live kitchens. It gets real hot in the kitchen if we turn the hoods off. I can't tell you how many times when we are shooting that I have to hand a pair of tongs, a plate or a pan past the camera to the other chefs in the kitchen so that they can serve their customers. Most chefs are not TV personalities. Today many chefs go to media training schools to learn how to pander to the camera. That is not what great chefs aspires to. We try not to shoot with chefs once they have embarked on a TV career. Up coming shoots include more Paris, Australia and Asia. We were supposed to go to Asia for 3 weeks last September 14. We didn't for obvious reasons. It takes close to six months to a year between shooting and post production to get the shows on the air. Unfortunately our director and editor John Beyer passed away last spring but we are reorganizing and had a wonderful opportunity to launch a magazine this year. It may not be to everyone's taste but really, what is?

Chef Del Burgo is 40. When we filmed with him in May 2000 his son had died one week before. He wanted to do the shoot anyway as he needed to stay focused rather than dwell on his tragedy. He showed amazing grace under pressure, one of the most important traits for any chef in any condition. His move could be the belated consequences of his loss.

Check out the restaurant in the square at Vernazza, I forget the name but it is the one with outside tables under large umbrellas and some tables inside. The waiter told me they make pesto with baby basil plants that are less than 10 cm tall.

Thanks for your comments about the magazine. I will forward them to the publisher. Great Chefs magazine is meant to be a paper version of the show with recipes from the archives and chef profiles too. My column is meant to discuss products that have been used by some of the chefs. My next one will be about an olive oil from Nice that is made almost by hand and was used by Michel Troisgros.

Make sure you taste some "lardo di colonnata".

Le Quartier Latin is overrun with tourists year round. I live in Paris and have lived in the 7th, 12th, 14th, 15th, 17th, 18th and now live in the 10th. It doesn't matter where you live for going out to eat or shopping for food. I cross town at least twice a week to get special items at LA Grande Epicerie and organic food at the Raspail market. The big difference between US cities and Parisian eating habits is time. We allow ourselves (and our system encourages us) to spend a long time buying and preparing food. Once you leave the cities, most people shop in giant hypermarkets. To me the nest english language guide to Paris dining is Zagats Paris. You can also check out my web site thefoodhunter.com (unabashed plug) and read my restaurant reviews.

Bux, If you are stuck in Barcelona check out Chef Sanchez Romera at L'Esguard in Sant Andreu de Llavaneres, its worth the trip!!!

Excellent book on this topic is "Food - A culinary history from antiquity to the present" English edition by Albert Sonnenfeld published by Penguin books in 1999. Everything you always wanted to know about rotten fish sauce (garum) but didn't know where to look.

Bux: Where do you get Zurban in New York? I love the magazine and will try the Jean-Paul Hevin tatin. We filmed there two years ago and I believe he is the best chocolatier in Paris, maybe even France. His cheese chocolates are astounding and he has a line of "energy" chocolate (ie aphrodisiac) with kola nut, ginger and yohimbine bark that are great.

I once went on a tarte tatin rampage. Went to all the usual places like Mulot, Peltier et al. to try to find the best one. It helps if they are served warm and I bought whole ones to reheat at home to serve with crème fraiche or vanilla bean ice cream. They were all very nice but none blew my mind until by chance I was walking home one wintry afternoon and looked through the window of Tholoniat in the decidely off the beaten path 10th arrondissement on the rue du Château d'Eau (mostly African hair parlors) and I spotted a nice tarte tatin, bought a slice and was swept off my feet by the perfect tart/caramel contrast. Amazing!!!!!!!!!

In Italy you can buy great 8 packs of already mixed mini-Campari and soda bottles in any supermaket. I like to throw a few in the pool and dive for aperitifs when I am there. Decadent yes, fun, very....

Food Arts is cool because of the gossip section "Chef so and so has left establishment A and is going to be the new exec chef at Establishment B" etc. Our Steve Klc, Suvir Saran and Antoine Bourdain are featured contributors. It even has a monthly nearly nude chef centerfold feature courtesy of vitamix. The tableware section is kind of boring and advertorial but it is a fun glossy read with recipes, product articles, cocktail news and F and B articles.

In the interest of male and female parity and to avoid simply bashing one Tv chef/personality or another I think it would be fun to submit lists of sexiest TV chef/personality of each gender. Sexiest male Ainsley Harriot. Sexiest female Nigella Lawson. Ahh, I feel like I'm in high school again!!!

I'd rather watch Nigella nibbling an asparagus tip than Joel Robuchon.

Steve, In response to this post and the one on the cooking board MICRI thread, as far as I know (and I film a lot of chefs) no other chefs use Micri. I will call Juan Solé at the Solegraells company and find out if he can give me some names. Would you like some as a sample? I'm sure if you asked him he'd be glad to send some to you. A letter on PAD stationary would do the trick. Marc

Lizzie, we filmed and ate at l'Esguard last May 13, 2001 and loved it. Here is an article to be published in the upcoming issue of Great Chefs magazine. MICRI - THE MIRACLE SAUCE BASE Marc Cosnard des Closets 2002 The sunny Costa Brava in Spain is best known for its beaches and tapas bars. Lunch is served at 2 pm and is followed by a siesta before returning to work and dining again at 10 pm. This leisurely pace is why millions of tourists flock to Barcelona and the surrounding area. A visit to the Sagrada Familia Cathedral in the Catalan capital, a bullfight, a plate of smoked ham and marinated anchovies with a glass of hearty red wine are among the main attractions. Few go there to find the perfect ingredient for making sauces. Who could imagine that this area is a veritable laboratory of culinary innovation? In the past ten years celebrated chefs and food scientists have been churning out new ways to prepare and serve food. Foam desserts and multi-layered shot glasses of sweet and savory reductions are served in fine dining establishments around the world. These are just a few of the marvels developed by Catalan chefs in their laboratories. Making a sauce can take hours of work and often requires many hard-to-get ingredients just to distill the essence of a particular product. Most sauce bases are made from animal products such as bone gelatin obtained after long hours of cooking. They need to be flavored with various ingredients, fat must be skimmed off and the sauce must be strained again and again before emulsifying with starches or butter to give it a smooth texture. This whole process results in high saturated fat content and reduced vitamins and proteins. The final sauce base is perishable, has one flavor and one color, usually brown. Professional chefs prepare different sauce bases every day: poultry stock, fish stocks, beef stocks, veal stocks, vegetable stocks etc. Restaurant kitchens have lots of room, many hands and a variety of ingredients to make this possible. At home it is a different story, you usually have to prepare your sauce base the day before you are going to use it and spend hours toiling at the stovetop to reduce your sauce to the right quantity and consistency. Then you store the extra sauce base in your freezer until you use it again or, as is usually the case, throw it out a few weeks later. Now there is an alternative. Chef Miguel Sanchez Romera of Restaurant l’Esguard in San Andres de Llavaneres (Sant Andreu de Llavaneres in Catalan) just 1 hour north of Barcelona, Spain, spent five years developing a neutral sauce base that will revolutionize sauce making. Chef Romera studied fine arts as a youth until he entered the medical field. He is a noted neurologist specialized in epilepsy. He began his culinary career at age 45 and opened his restaurant in a former winery. Today he works in a hospital from Monday to Wednesday and helms the stove the rest of the week. His quest for a perfect sauce base that would be healthy, easy to use and able to support different flavors and ingredients resulted in MICRI, a gel derived from Cassava, a starchy root vegetable also known as yucca or manioc. It is originally from South America and was introduced into Africa by Portuguese sailors. Cassava has a very high vitamin C content and must be cooked before being eaten otherwise it is toxic. The formula is secret but MICRI is being sold in Europe by Spanish company Solé Graells (sole@solegraells.com) at a cost of approximately $15 for a 3-pound container. MICRI is odorless, colorless, tasteless and fat-free. It can be used hot or cold as a sauce base or emulsifier. The semi-hard elastic gel texture can be adjusted by adding water and hand whipping or machine blending. It must be stored between 32° and 47° Fahrenheit and stays fresh 3 weeks after opening. Gelatin has two textures: hard and crumbly whereas a MICRI sauce has a smooth texture. Its chameleon-like ability to retain color and flavor without cooking is unique. A lemon sauce tastes like lemon, rather than lemon and cream or lemon and butter. A Béarnaise can be made with shallots, tarragon, white wine, vinegar and MICRI substituted for the butter and egg yolks. Anyone who has made this sauce knows how fragile it is and how frustrating it can be to serve a beautiful piece of meat and put a broken sauce on the table. Chef Romera’s cuisine is as colorful as it is flavorful. MICRI allows him to offer a variety of taste sensations and visual surprises in each dish. His Venison with Sobresada Tatin, spice sauces and currant sauce is an example of this. Spicy sausage filling, called Sobresada in Spain, is placed on sliced and sugared apples in a mold and cooked for about 18 minutes until the sausage is cooked and the apples have caramelized. Venison loin is seasoned, pan seared in pork lard and served with the Sobresada Tatin, currant sauce and 48 dollops of flavored MICRI. Chopped herbs, spices or blanched and pureed vegetables are mixed with MICRI to preserve their fundamental essence and color. Each bite of venison and Sobresada Tatin varies with the chosen sauce. Like many doctors Chef Romera is modest about his accomplishments. Like many chefs Dr. Romera lets his food speak for itself. He has earned one star in the Michelin guide and his notoriety is growing beyond Spain. A meal at l’Esguard is a pleasure for the palate and a salve for the soul.