Ptipois

Head for type 55 for brioche, pizza, etc, and type 45 for other pastry. (That is the theory, see end of post for more info.) Stay away from "farine tamisée" and other fancy stuff. If you go for "farine à gâteaux" (with leavening inside), remember that it contains less leavening agents than self-raising flour in English-speaking countries. Head for the health food stores (any Naturalia will do) for flours without additives, leavening or texture agents, etc.: there you will find grades from 55 or more frequently 60 (white flour) to 80 and up to 150 (whole flour, "farine intégrale"). Type 60 covers all the uses I need from flour. The "bio" distribution network is by the way your only source for decent bread flour. There is no such thing as bread flour in French mainstream commerce, and even type 55 flour makes poor bread. That has to do with the type of wheats grown in France. From 60 up you'll be better off. Edit: the link provided by Dave is quite interesting. It is true that "type 55" may yield various results depending on the basic quality. Trial and error usually does it.

Well there are plenty of good food stores and markets all over Paris... My advice would be to just browse and discover. Okay, there's the very interesting Turkish halal butchers and grocers on rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis (Southern section), but I'm not sure that's what you're looking for.

Those supermarket penne rigate rolled in grease are indeed an insult to three-star dining. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw them. I too am utterly baffled by what the Pré Catelan seems to get away with (up to and including the ridiculous, terribly-written three-ton book).

I never got to try families. They probably don't make it often.

I do believe Berthillon uses a custard base for their vanilla ice cream.

No, Berthillon is unmatched. Not for all flavors but clearly the best in Paris for some. Nougat au miel is my all-time favorite. Mango, coconut and créole (rum raisin) are good too. Pistachio real good but has been known to fluctuate. Vanilla is, needless to say, a classic. It is almost dark from all the vanilla seeds.

Ah. Then I'd go eat at the Crillon.

Probably L'Empire des Thés on rue du Montparnasse. They are Chinese importers and they have some okay teas, though unfortunately they feel compelled to yield to the silly French craving for flavored teas.

Would you care to tell where that 'antique' shop was? As far as I know, what you're describing sounds like La Maison des Trois Thés (expensive teas, antiques, etc.). The teapots there are not Yixing. They are taiwanese teapots sold with a very high markup. Last time I was there, the owner explained to me that they were not selling Yixing teapots because there was no clay left in Yixing (I instantly imagined the Earth globe with a bottomless hole on the spot of the Yixing region).

Sorry I hadn't read that carefully. I still disagree. There is no reason that a kouign-amann made according to the rules should be less enjoyable in Paris than in Brittany. I find that a very strange idea indeed. It is true to some extent that some dishes taste particularly good and "appropriate" in their original settings but that is by no means a general principle. And when it comes to a sturdy, easy-to-define preparation like kouign-amann I do not see the air and atmosphere and "accordance to the land of Finistère" factor being of much importance. At any rate that factor would be much too evanescent to justify the Conticini pastry being called a kouign-amann. Kouign-amann is not a Japanese haiku or a Zen koan, it is first and foremost a recipe and a distinctive pastry technique applied to optimal ingredients. There is no reason they couldn't be reproduced in Paris. Anyway the Conticini version did not reflect the impossibility to reproduce the "land of Finistère" mystery, maybe it would have if the recipe had been right - but failed. It only reflected the fact that the recipe was wrong.

Kouign-amann was probably perfected by the Douarnenez pâtissier who helped its reputation to overpass the limits of the region. Besides, the early 20th century is not a recent time. But kouign-amann is based on older preparations whose traces may be found as early as the Arthurian epic Saga, where Vivian treats Merlin to a 'butter bread' ('bara amann') which sounds very close to the layered specialty. Which by the way is not based on brioche dough but on bread dough, and was originally a rather coarse, though butter-laden, pastry, which went into the bread oven at the end of the communal weekly baking time and was based on the dough scraps left from breadmaking. Given the scarcity of sugar in pre-19th century days, chances are this bread was high in butter but not very sweet.

Kouign-amann was probably perfected by the Douarnenez pâtissier who helped its reputation to overpass the limits of the region. Besides, the early 20th century is not a recent time. But kouign-amann is based on older preparations whose traces may be found as early as the Arthurian epic Saga, where Vivian treats Merlin to a 'butter bread' ('bara amann') which sounds very close to the layered specialty. Which by the way is not based on brioche dough but on bread dough, and was originally a rather coarse, though butter-laden, pastry, which went into the bread oven at the end of the communal weekly baking time and was based on the dough scraps left from breadmaking. Given the scarcity of sugar in pre-19th century days, chances are this bread was high in butter but not very sweet.

If it were so, I wonder why we should be dealing with food and recipes and commenting products and preparations here in the first place. This board should be devoted to travel and taste experiences in regard to the various settings, not to food itself. Your coffee anecdote is very charming and we've all had experiences of the sort. It is, if I may add, an experience of the extreme since coffee in Paris is so terrible as a rule. But I believe it is off-topic regarding Conticini's kouign-amann version 1.0 (2.0 is out, about which I can say nothing until I taste it), which truly had nothing to do with what a kouign-amann essentially is, and adding seagulls and seamen singing shanties on top of the experience would not have made it a kouign-amann an ounce more. There are such things as the romanticism of seaports and briny winds of Brittany, but I do not believe they would make me accept something that is not a kouign-amann, or gâteau breton, or properly made crêpe de sarrazin, as something that is. It is important in our activities to know whether we're dealing with food or dealing with poetry. The two can perfectly be joined, but when it comes to commenting food, they have to be dissociated. That is precisely what you are doing, in fact, when you are commenting that coffee. Julot's approach was the reverse — claiming that the appeal of an age-old recipe (and not just any recipe, kouign-amann, no less) could be entirely based on the romanticism of the setting. An idea which even he, I am sure, considers absurd deep down. (Adding to that the fact that kouign-amann is not only made in Douarnenez but in all of Brittany, with various results, depending on the products and skills — though the seagulls and brine are always there, all around the long coastline.) For one thing I am interested in how Conticini could structurally change the recipe in such a short time: did he decide to apply the proper multiple-layer treatment to the pastry, with butter and sugar between layers? For those elements were totally absent from the first version. Julot, if you have pictures of the new thing somewhere, would you please share? I can't locate it on your Picasa, there are two pictures of the cake but they look absolutely like the one we've experienced the first time.

I can assure you that properly made kouign-amann tastes good wherever you take it, whereas thinking fondly of the Eiffel Tower when eating Conticini's version in Brittany won't help. Sea and fishermen are a somewhat farfetched way of trying to excuse his failed interpretation, which was structurally not a kouign-amann at all. If it has improved (as you say it has), it can only mean that the recipe has been changed. What — you mean we're not actually the universal food trendsetters of the world?

In Nice you should try plenty of stuff: the home-made ravioli with daube sauce (ravioli originated in Nice) and Parmesan or Sbrinz cheese sprinkled over them, the stockfish stew or estocaficada, the daube de bœuf with gnocchi, the green gnocchi, the fish soup, the soupe au pistou, the ratatouille, the "petits farcis" or larger "farcis" (baked stuffed vegetables), roasted fish like chapon farci, petits rougets or grilled saint-pierre, the salade niçoise (a simple dish with not too many ingredients, for instance: hard-boiled egg, tuna, black olives, raw artichokes, quartered fennel bulb or heart of celery, tomato, anchovy. The dressing should only be olive oil and vinegar, salt and pepper), the grand aïoli with vegetables, the pissaladière or thin onion tart (preferrably from bakers in the Vieille Ville), the socca (from street vendors on cours Saleya or near the other market, facing the bus station in the Vieille Ville), etc. Which is not to say that you won't find other Southern dishes that are sometimes available outside of their native region. Bouillabaisse is indeed from Marseille but there are variants all over the coast (including Martigues which includes squid ink, and Sanary bouillabaisse), and satisfactory versions in restaurants all over the coast (Antibes for instance). Bourride is really from Sète, hence Languedoc not Provence or Comté de Nice, but it has been adopted in many places on the Southern coast. It is best eaten in Sète, that is for sure, but if you find a good-looking bourride elsewhere, go for it. You should bear in mind that the French Southern coast is divided into four regions, each with a distinct culinary culture but also many common dishes and others that have permeated the cultural borders. The Western end of the coast is Roussillon and part of Catalonia, then you have Languedoc — roughly halfway through the Rhône delta —, then Provence, then Comté de Nice which technically is not Provence but closer to the Genoese culture and starts around Cannes and Grasse.

The items are held in place inside the box by small pink plastic skewers. The kouign amann was merely a thick slice of brioche with a thin layer of caramelizing on both sides. Can hardly be called a kouign amann, at best a cute version for Parisians. As a matter of fact kouign amann is a genuinely Breton pastry which should not be sought in Paris, and this one confirms the rule.

Bourride is from Sète, not from Nice.

I did not go any further on that because it was way off the "tea in Paris" topic. But I purchase my Chinese teas here. They have the best quality by far.

The bottom line, I believe, is that it would make no sense to come to Paris from afar and devote some of the precious time of your visit to seeking Chinese teas. On the other hand a stop in a Paris Japanese teahouse could be a lovely, delicate break in the course of a busy shopping or sightseeing, or even eating, day. We're better stocked with them than we are with anything related to Chinese tea culture. Which is why I believe it would make some sense to stop at Jugetsudo or Toraya for a cup of tea and a pastry.

I am afraid Paris is not the best place for serious tea drinkers who care about Chinese teas. Here we're all stuck with the "salon de thé" tradition which can be nice but not exactly satisfactory for those who seek the real thing, and cute tea shops that reek of essence-flavored teas twenty feet away. Whatever good-quality pure origin teas you may find there you can't even sample properly because of the ambient perfumery smell that permeates everything. Flavored teas are the plague of French tea drinking and the trend does not seem to be receding any time soon. Or you have places like Maison des Trois Thés with its impressive setting which imposed it as "authentic", where you'll find very overpriced, badly stored, disappointing stuff served with plenty of attitude. A feng huang dan cong sampled there tasted like old hay and an expensive aged pu-erh was definitely not what it was advertised to be. You may still go to L'Empire des Thés (not Le Palais), with several shops in Paris (Chinatown in the 13e, Opéra, Montparnasse) which sell fairly decent pure origin teas directly imported from China (it was founded by tea importers), and my favorite tea place in Paris, Tch'a (rue du Pont-de-Lodi, 6e), with few teas but good ones, and IMO the only place where you can be served good tea in the gongfu style at your table. But I never buy tea in Paris anymore though I live there, I bring it back from China or I purchase it online from China too. Paris has a better deal with Japanese teas (Toraya, Jugetsudo, Tamayura, etc.) but that is a totally different product whatsoever.

In France, sausage-making is considered a job for professionals. And the commercial products are so good that nobody feels the need to make them from scratch. Hence the relative rarity of available recipes. But you can find some recipes on the Net if you google "saucisse fabrication" or "saucisse toulouse fabrication". I'll let you discover them. You might for instance want to take a look at this page and try the links you'll find in the posts.

Oho, so it may be more than a rumor then.

The opening is on April 1st.

Of course this is top secret and yet to be confirmed, but I've heard he is planning to open a restaurant in association with François Simon. That would be in Paris. Not sure I heard or remember the name right but it should be La Pipe or something like that.

I agree with Le Peche. No need to work there to realize that Briffard hasn't had his "coudées franches", i.e. complete freedom of action and creation, at Le Cinq with the team as he found it. He among other things also needs a much better pastry unit. But it is actually the whole crew that needs to work in unisson to help showcase Eric Briffard's unique talent. He cannot quite appear as the great chef he is if things remain as they have been until recently.