Ptipois

Because if there is suspected potential harm, in the light of the Precaution Principle, the matter should normally be settled before the food reaches the consumer. It is not a matter of "letting the consumer decide" but of public health. It is also, secondarily, a matter of profitability. Indeed no one in Europe and certainly not in France will buy beef that bears the label "from animals bred with synthetic hormones". And since that kind of labeling would be mandatory, there you go. It is ironically regrettable that the item that is suffering from this decision is a centuries-old, traditionally-made, often organic, naturally fermented and - apart from being tasty - sane and healthy type of cheese that is obtained at the end of a long and careful process, just because some want to sell meat that has been produced using means based on pure greed.

The demand for scientific evidence seems a bit hypocritical. There is probably no way to submit a valid scientific evidence when it comes to food since the effects of any additive may not be measurable for years, sometimes many years. Scientific testing may yield no significant results in the short run because it would need many years of regular repeated testing to deliver the evidence of a danger. Of course one could find a few counterexamples of what I am saying here, but the ill-effects of some additives in food and drink have most of the time been discovered a posteriori, never a priori, generally when it is too late and people have died or suffered slowly-built harm. And the connection between recently-appeared diseases and the alteration of foods or water is also discovered when it is too late. So the question is not "has the scientific testing been done" but "what has been searched exactly and according to what criteria", and also "was it possible to know everything from the start". That is precisely why we have, in France, a rule which is called "principe de précaution", defined at the 1992 Rio Convention, and legally officialized by a famous law in 1995: "The absence of certainty, taken account of the current scientific and technical knowledge, should not delay the adoption of effective and proportionate measures aiming to prevent, at a reasonable cost, any risk of serious and irreversible damage to public health and environment". I do not know right now if this principle is also present in EU regulations but I would not be surprised if it were. It may even be more acute on EU level than on French level.

I second all that. Hévin rather than Cluizel, and Chaudun of course. Patrick Roger is awesome and a chocolate lover has no excuse not to go there. Again, we're in total agreement. I'll even go further: Ladurée is a tourist trap. I love Christian Constant, and Mulot is always nice.

No, they are located at the same address (though that did not strike me both times I went there), but they are two independent restaurants. Firmin sort of okay, Vin sur Vin not good.

John has this place taken over the space occupied for years by the 1 star "Vin Sur Vin"? The address is the same. ← Yes ← No, they're both at the same address and I had meals at both last Fall (Vin sur Vin was the later).

Doufeu cocottes were first created in the 1930s by Cousances and remained in the company until at least the 1980s, after that I am not sure what happened since Le Creuset commmercializes the Doufeu with little or no modification of the original model, but Cousances still exists as a company. Cousances cocottes (of the Doufeu type or not) may still be found new, or at flea markets and on eBay, and they are outstanding material. I still have one in black cast iron from the early 80s, very slightly enamelled, and it is the best cast iron cooking vessel I ever had. Much better than today's Le Creuset. The ice is not important. Just filling the lid with water as it evaporates does the trick. It keeps the internal basting and moisturizing going throughout the cooking. As long as the water in the lid remains below boiling point (which it does in slow cooking conditions), it will be cooler than the internal steam and help with the condensation. One detail: Nomar is not made by Staub but commercialized by Staub. Nomar is a small company located in Saint-Etienne while Staub, which acquired it, is in Alsace.

It's not that good and a very small place too.

Fooding. Sorry, I thought the discussion on Le Fooding's "Trop bon" category was on this thread, actually it wasn't. If I were working for the Michelin I wouldn't even post here. I would lurk regularly

As crêpes go in Paris, I grant you that Breizh Café is above average. As buckwheat crêpes go in Brittany, Breizh Café is just OK. Sometimes their crêpes are too dry, not buttered enough. Crêperie Le Pot O' Lait on rue Censier has market-based fillings and the crêpes have excellent texture. Much less hyped, therefore less expensive, than Breizh Café.

One word (and two addresses): Foujita.

My affectation for the 2009 guide was the IIIe arrondissement so I travelled the area wide and far throughout the Summer. here's my pick, negative and positive: - Au Bascou: non. It was even removed from the guide. My last meal there was a very bad joke. - Chez Omar: there are much, much better couscous elsewhere. This is, for the most part, a hyped place. You may go there for the nice old café setting, for the lamb kidney brochettes and the short but fairly interesting wine list. - Breizh Café: much too expensive for crêpes but the quality is excellent. So is the cider and poiré list. - 404 : at least the couscous is better than at Chez Omar. Expensive though, and the seating is very close-apart. The setting is gorgeous though. - Chez Nénesse, rue de Saintonge: go there if you want to see what a real traditional Paris bistrot used to look like. Don't expect miracles with the food though. - L'Estaminet des Zouaves, at the Marché des Enfants-Rouges: sit at one of the outside tables and order grilled pig's trotter if you like that. It is probably the best in Paris. - Taeko, at the Marché des Enfants-Rouges: delicious home-style Japanese food. Do not go there on Saturday. - Fulvio: bear in mind that one antipasto plate serves two. No kidding. - Le Progrès, rue de Bretagne: great for snacking (the terrine de campagne is highly recommended). - My best meal was at Le Café des Musées.

Why is it that I am not at all surprised?

That's OK Abra, you may give me my eye back since you recall that piment d'Espelette should be sprinkled just before serving - that is indeed the right use for it. You have done some serious research about it and therefore are in the best position to get the real thing. However the quality, as you say, is so uneven that I think it is nearly impossible to get decent espelette in most cases, i.e. anywhere outside of the production region. For instance I have never come across Biperduna in Paris. There's only the red sawdust. I still think it is not a very interesting chilli, as chillies go.

The hype in the food industry has grown to fairly large proportions in recent years (at least where I'm writing from, here, in France) but I do believe that, due to the shaky economic times we're entering, even the fashionable discourse will cool down a few degrees and adopt a more down-to-earth approach, of the "good products may be found in the most unexpected places" type (i.e. not where foodie magazines and, er, boards says you should seek them), and also bring back this old principle of "économie domestique": in some cases, perfection is inappropriate. The perfect thing is not always the right thing. The perfect ingredient is not always, and actually seldom is, the right thing to add to a composed dish. Which does not mean that one should not seek excellent products, as far as their means allow, even for everyday cooking. I do. But I think the next few years will see the return of a few "get real" principles: like, for instance, even grown in the most optimally organic conditions and baked for hours in a salt crust, a beet remains a beet. And what about 12-year-old balsamic vinegar? Yes, 4-year-old balsamic vinegar is very good too. But I have read, a few years ago, in some press articles aimed at the common consumer that they should not settle for less than the 12-year-old. Going back to cassoulet and beans, I have no experience of using Rancho Gordo beans and I am sure they're good. Be it only for the freshness factor. But cassoulet requires a bit of simplicity, being originally a poor people's dish. All you have to worry about concerning cassoulet is that your beans should be fresh enough to cook right and have the right texture — they should keep their shape and not melt into a purée. Also, and this is a requirement of cassoulet, they should be white-colored. Finally, they shouldn't be too small. French cocos or pea beans are too tiny. Flageolets do the job (as long as they're white flageolets, green ones won't do), as do mojettes, lingots, Great Northern, soissons, tarbais, haricots maïs, gigantes, lima beans, whatever fits the description. As for piment d'Espelette, the matter is simple. It : 1) Is the product of a steady, forceful marketing campaign led the Basque way (steadily and forcefully) during the late 1990s and early 2000s. I sincerely wonder how it ever got the AOC (appellation d'origine contrôlée) when such a wonderful product as the pink onion of Roscoff has tried for decades, to no avail. 2) Has, at best, a mild, slightly fruity flavor and some fire, at worst (and I've seen a lot of the worst) it is as fragrant as orange-dyed sawdust. Besides, it ages badly and gets stale very soon when other chillies keep their flavor longer. 3) Is the chilli pepper of people who don't know anything about chilli peppers (hence its success in France). There is no chilli culture in France (or very little of it). Hence my belief that piment d'Espelette is dear to the heart of the French because it is the only chilli actually grown in France. (To be truthful, there is also Piment des Landes, cheaper but not so chic.) 4) Is the chilli peppper of people who don't like chilli pepper. Similar to point 3. 5) Is likely to get me to have my eyes pulled out by some French foodies or just Southwestern natives if I utter points 1, 2, 3 and 4 publicly. It would be like being in Brittany and saying that Bretons did not invent kouign-amann or something of the sort.

That is precisely what I was trying to say without saying it plainly... Another good example is piment d'Espelette (not on the head please, as a matter of fact the topic is taboo in France).

Tarbais beans are not essential in a cassoulet, far from it. They seem to be a fairly recent trend and I had never heard of them associated to a cassoulet before the early 90s. Traditional recipes mentioned either lingots de Soissons, cocos de Pamiers or lingots de Vendée, all beans that keep their shape while being soft and melting. Good canellini or haricots maïs from Béarn would do the job as well for that reason. The true, unmentioned thing about Tarbais is that they melt too much, they have a good taste but they don't keep their shape and every cassoulet I have tried to make with them was a mess. As for the presence or absence of duck confit, it all has to do with the type of recipe you want to make. Some recipes will include an old partridge, or mutton, or goose instead of duck. The simplest cassoulet is based on pork rinds and beans and it is delicious.

Gigantes beans are very similar to the French Soissons beans, actually they are the same kind but gigantes are a bit thicker-skinned. Some "schools" of cassoulet (especially the Northern ones in Périgord or Quercy) actually recommend using Soissons beans for cassoulet, so I should say gigantes are perfect as long as you cook them long enough. Their chestnuty taste works wonders with the duck and pork. About the liquid level: there are two definite stages in a cassoulet — the cooking of the beans and some of the meats in a big pan and the final browning in the oven. At the end of the first stage, you should have a lot of liquid so that it can turn into a thick, generous sauce at the end of the browning stage. Remember that you have to "drown" the top crust seven times during baking so that the sauce thickens the right way. So at the end of the first stage, the cooking stock should be abundant and the dish almost soupy. Stock should be already slightly thickened from the beans and opaque, by no means clear. I am of the mind that nobody on Earth could ever dislike a properly-made cassoulet.

If you want genuine Yunnan pu-erh I do not recommend La Maison des Trois Thés, especially if it's for a Chinese acquaintance (who could find better pu-erh in China or HK than they could ever find in Paris at the moment). I know about them but I did not mention them above. Buying a little loose pu-erh at Mariage Frères could be OK, it is a tea that needs aging anyway. Not much can happen to it that hasn't happened before and I rather trust Mariage's sourcing for pure origin teas. I would stick to Kawa/L'Empire des Thés (same owners) and cautiously stay away from most of the others. Coffee: there is quite a few good places for roasted coffee beans in Paris, Brûlerie des Gobelins, Brûlerie Maubert, Brûlerie des Ternes, Méo, Malongo, Hédiard, Verlet, etc. The coffee department at La Grande Epicerie is good too.

L'Empire des thés on avenue d'Ivry has some pretty good aged cooked pu-erh. Most tea supposedly older than 10 years or so found elsewhere in Paris is likely to be falsified, as pu-erh often is. L'Empire des thés are reliable. They have a 10-year-old cooked pu-erh that I recommend. Green pu-erh (brick or bing cha) is rather hard to find in Paris. Addresses here.

And chalut is merely a trawl.

It isn't the same thing at all. Filo is raw while brik is cooked. Brik tends to be better for wrapping things and frying crisp, while filo is better for layered pastries. In Turkish grocery stores, you may find yufka, which is similar to brik and is superior quality. I think it is sometimes a little fermented, which gives it a nice taste.

Well it's not exactly a reputation she is blamed for, her approach has nothing in common with that of the infamous Adrien. It is really tongue-in-cheek.

Was the meringue rose-flavored? Nice report, which tends to confirm Les Saveurs de Flora's reputation, which I heard summed up lately as "A girl-only restaurant". Which I doubt of course, I've seen guys go there.

The dishes change as well, because Klein is constantly working on them. You can have two different versions of the same dish at a few weeks' interval and both versions will be mastered.

The fact that it was the restaurant's generic card does not change the bottom line of the story. It all comes clear when you study the Lignac business plan over the years a little bit. And I do know that Paul-Bert was jammed. If I wrote that they must be having fun, it's because they have never needed, and never will need, to give a business card over the counter hoping for positive reviews.