Ptipois

It's quite funny how French "critiques gastronomiques", these days, make a show of themselves and write books of so-called "advice" (how to do the job we do and still manage to, bla bla bla), as though they really wanted to breed a large hatch of little critiques gastronomiques amongst their readers... Which they certainly don't. When you think of the mysterious process through which they are recruited and how few of them are picked, and — speaking of glamour jobs — when you add to the picture that there are many more top models out there than food critics (I'm not talking about the sometimes large teams that work under the critics, only the stars who write the books), indeed, this literary trend ne manque pas de sel. No offence to this respectable trade intended. But to me, "comment être un critique gastronomique et... etc., etc." sounds a bit like "How to be an archbishop and yet survive".

Hello naf ! (To other e-gulleters: naf is the kind person who introduced me to this place, so I'm bowing to her!) I also like Mirama. I think their duck is tops. Someday we should go to Li Ka Fo together, if you've never been there yet, I'm curious to know your opinion of it. I was introduced to it by a friend from Fujian who likes it a lot.

It could also be that some "amuse-bouche" come with certain kinds of menus, and different amuse-bouche with other menus, as you hint. I never experienced this consciously but who knows, this is quite possible depending on the composition of the menus. As for the "fuorilistino" and the today's specials as experienced in Piedmont, the same practice exists in all of rural Europe, but special dishes and amuse-bouche are two completely different things. The principle of the amuse-bouche is that you don't actually know that you're going to get it and what exactly you'll get. Thus there is room for change and imagination. Sometimes, perhaps not everybody gets the same. A "special" client may even get a special amuse-bouche.

Tanya, I had great Cantonese food in London but that was a long time ago and I forgot where it was (in Chinatown, of course, but where?).

Could it be the one on avenue de Choisy, at the corner of a street that leads to the avenue d'Ivry, last street before the Porte de Choisy? If so, I wanted to add it to my list but I didn't remember the name. It is really good indeed. I'm sure there are some more good Chinese restaurants in the Belleville-XIIIe maze of streets, big food markets and small, unenticing shop fronts. These areas do need a lot of individual exploring, word-of-mouth, entering restaurants at random, etc. I must say it is less frequent to find bad food than good food there. But this is especially true for Vietnamese and Laotian restaurants.

Some Chinese restaurants in Paris are quite decent, though as a rule not to the level of some Cantonese places in London. By all means stick to the Paris "Chinatowns", i.e. the XIIIth in a triangle between rue Nationale, the Boulevards extérieurs and avenue d'Italie, and the Asian part of Belleville. As is often the case with Asian restaurants, looks can be misleading. Go for the cheap and medium-priced places preferrably. Avoid expensive places in the XVIe or VIIe. However, Mandarin Elysées on rue de Berri is pretty good, a Chinese friend of mine even organized his wedding dinner there a few years ago and it was delicious. In the XIIIth (which is THE place anyway for Vietnamese, Thai, Laotian food), there is a few good Cantonese places. Li Ka Fo on the lower part of avenue de Choisy is one of my favorites, with most of the interesting items not on the menu but taped to the walls in Chinese. Go with someone Chinese if you can. Nouveau Village Tao Tao on boulevard Vincent-Auriol is also nice and has a good choice of dishes. Some fried dim sum like the shrimp toast are delicious. Tricotin on avenue de Choisy (still lower South than Li Ka Fo) looks like a low-grade eating factory but the food is actually quite good (and the place is always full). Some friends of mine hold Sinorama and Chinatown Olympiades highly, but I have a less complete experience of those restaurants. I am less familiar with the Belleville restaurants but everyone I know is very enthusiastic about the Nioulaville (sorry, I don't have the address). All those places are good. But it's true that, generallly speaking, Paris is better at Southeast Asian restaurants than Chinese.

It is indeed not common practice and considered bad manners when it happens, which is why I would have asked, with all due gentleness, why I was the only diner to be served foie gras as an amuse-bouche.

I think you should have asked. This is odd indeed.

A restaurant where you can actually see head waiters scold subordinates right by your table is a restaurant with the worst possible service. I've seen this once or twice and found this to be the most perfect dinner-pooper I could imagine. And if it's for show, that's even worse: strategic use of humiliation to make the client feel important. The sooner restaurants (French and other) get rid of that kind of folklore, the better. To me, it's a sure sign of hystery and tackiness in the restaurant service policy. Fortunately, it is very rarely seen.

Ugh, what kind of a place was this? Sounds like pretty bad service to me. I've never been yet to a 2-star or 3-star or even 0-star place where the wine waiter isn't likely to tell me: "Shall we keep the white on the table if you're not finished with it? Meanwhile do you want to taste the red now?" And if I want several glasses to remain on the table with wines of all colors in them, that's fine too. I thought that the formality you describe had totally disappeared. I'm curious to know where you had that experience. However, I've often smiled at the waiters' cavalcade instantly provoked by my mere touching of the bottle with fingertips. Never fails. On the other hand, the constant refilling of my glass even when there's a good amount of wine left in it has a way of getting on my nerves. The most dreadful situation of the sort happened to me at the hôtel Lancaster in Paris a long time ago. It was not about wine. I was dining in the patio, on a very heavy cast-iron garden table, sitting on an even heavier cast-iron armchair. I had ordered turbot with béarnaise sauce and the béarnaise arrived in a small sauceboat. It was poured onto my plate in a minute quantity, then the sauceboat was placed several yards away, on a service table. It was horrifying: I couldn't reach it, the waiters were very far away in the restaurant hall taking care of other business, and if I wanted to get it back I had to pull back my heavy iron chair that made a racket scraping the brick floor. When I finally managed to get my sauceboat back, the sauce was cold. To me, this remained the perfect example of stiff, schizophrenic chic French service.

I'm not sure about the triangle, I think I used to know the name (could it be a sacristain ?) but the oval-shaped pastry half-glazed in green with the other half dipped in chocolate sawdust is called a "gland" (acorn) and it is supposed to contain custard. Apart from kouign-amann and gâteau breton nothing here is typically local. Everything else looks like a very fine version classical French pâtisserie items. The lemon-meringue pies look particularly yummy and I'm curious about the small tartes with a half-Granny Smith apple on top. I suppose the apple must inflate like a soufflé in the oven. Very interesting. Nice camera you've got... What is it?

Place d'Aligre is the place to go when you want good lamb (the halal butchers ; those in the lower part of rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis are also good), fresh herbs, North African spices, harissa, barley couscous, unripe cucumbers, bitter turnips (a must in couscous), preserved lemons and the like. If you want real fresh and beautiful fruit and vegetables, go someplace else. You may also find nice junk at the flea market nearby if you like rummaging (I still find cheap fun stuff, even nowadays). Each shopping area or market in Paris is often very helpful if you're looking for a special type of food. For instance I get my dry-smoked fish and manioc meal at Château-Rouge/rue Dejean, another "shopping area" commonly called a market. Aligre is special because it's both a true market (though I think it takes place everyday) and a very active shopping neighborhood. Some of the best bread in town is to be had at Moisan, right on the square.

Rue Cler and rue Mouffetard are not really markets. They're "rues commerçantes", streets with a large concentration of food shops with outside stalls. What makes them different from street markets is that they are held every day (except Monday generally speaking). The quality of the produce is good but you don't sell or shop at those places the way you do at real markets (rare stuff to be found, small producers selling their produce, bargaining before they pack up).

Not exactly a "caviste" but well worth mentioning. The Bellota-Bellota shops sell very nice Spanish wines, not a very common find in Paris. There is one on rue Jean-Nicot, next to the Poujauran bakery, and another one near avenue George V, perhaps it's rue Clément-Marot. Of course it's difficult to enter those restaurant-boutiques to find interesting wines and remain firm and courageous when confronted to the extraordinary (and pricy) Pata Negra hams.

Lavinia's a good idea (great choice of wines) but their outrageous prices keep me safely away from them. This may sound a little silly but I love the large Nicolas shop on place de la Madeleine, though I haven't been there for some time. I remember being served by helpful and enthusiastic young people freshly out of sommelier school. When you seemed hesitant about one wine or another they wouldn't hesitate to open the bottles and let you have a taste. I wonder if they still do this.

Since you mention it, there is a lot to say about the marché at place d'Aligre. It is a two-part marché, clearly divided into "what's indoors" and "what's outdoors". The indoor market, like all indoor markets in Paris, sells high-quality, expensive food. The outdoor market has a great atmosphere but the produce, often sold at bargain prices, is actually of poor quality in general. I think it is one of the worst markets in Paris for the quality of fruit, vegetables, etc. However, the atmosphere is great, the best stalls are the North African ones, especially herb stalls where people buy herbs for their thé à la menthe or charmoula (coriander, mint, wormwood, etc.), and I especially like the North African groceries in the neighborhood. There is also on place d'Aligre a flea market held on Tuesdays and Sundays if I remember well ; it is one of the last (if not the last) remaining flea markets in "intra-muros" Paris. It is by no means uninteresting and the prices are not higher than everywhere else.

I'd suggest the long boulevard marchés, like Belleville, Richard-Lenoir, Bastille, avenue de Breteuil, Cours de Vincennes (one of my favorites), and many more. Or smaller markets like place Maubert and place Monge (expensive though), place Jeanne-d'Arc in the 13th. Markets occur regularly at one place, once to three times a week. Vendors pack up when it's done and leave the place clean. By this I mean that streets packed with food shops and outside stalls, commonly called "markets", are not markets strictly speaking (rue Dejean, rue de Lévis and rue Poncelet, rue Mouffetard). It pays to buy fresh food, especially fish, at markets for turnover reasons. By 1 PM everything must be gone and that's when you can have bargains. One last suggestion: you say "within the Périphérique". It does pay to venture outside the Périph' and discover suburban markets. Often covered markets, they can be amazing, and you may find stuff you won't find anywhere else. My favorites: Saint-Germain-en-Laye, and the East suburbs (94) : Nogent, Champigny, Vincennes, Le Perreux. You won't regret the trip.

(from the article) This sounds like great news. If this could mean less satin lampshades on Ming jars (or contemporary art), more research on the food and more consideration for less pretentious places, what could be better? In one three-star restaurant I know, the (designer) cutlery is so heavy that your forearms ache before the cheese course.

It's a universal pecularity of small, nice places (restaurants or not) that suddenly get crowded when the media praise them. Whole Greek islands may become spoiled in a couple of seasons' time once they get praised in guidebooks as a "quiet, small, friendly, heavenly place". Paris is full of small, friendly bistrots.

Oh, don't worry. I was referring to the dubious possibility that Parisian waiters might be "trained" into being artificially smiley. Not to your post precisely.

Well, could you tell more about this terrible dinner? Which restaurant was it? The one in Montpellier or the beach place at Carnon?

Ah, the Paris café waiter! I hope nobody ever changes him. He's not rude, he is brisk. True, he is constantly at work. This attitude - brisk, snappy, sometimes snappish, sometimes gruffly cheerful - is the STYLE of the Paris waiter and I don't believe it ever was any different since the beginning of Paris cafés in the early 19th century. The Paris café waiter's style is more than service, it's a rhythm, it's a sort of dance, it's a special kind of humor, sometimes witty, sometimes coarse, most of the time endearingly terrible or plainly infuriating. Cracking a bad joke in the course of three seconds while slapping a coaster onto a table and banging a glass of beer on top of it, spilling a few drops, is the heart of Paris itself. Don't let anyone destroy this. Sometimes the briskness goes over the top, just like the beer, and the waiter is very rude and unpleasant. This is rare, just as rare as, say, a rude restaurant waiter, a rude pâtissier, a rude shoe vendor (much rarer than a rude taxi driver). Then the Parisian waitee just says so and fights back. That's part of the folklore. Cafés were originally founded by people from the rough mountainous center of France, Auvergne and especially Aveyron. Gruff people, with a long past of poverty, counting every sou, but opening up their hearts once someone treats them like human beings. "L'avarice de l'Auvergnat", Alexandre Vialatte wrote, "n'a d'égale que sa générosité." Which means: the Auvergnat's thriftiness is only equalled by his generosity. I found this to be very true. The severe-looking man brooding behind his zinc counter while making coffee, with the 18-year-old German shepherd dozing on the tiled floor nearby, may hold treasures of generosity if you go to him with the same kindness that you expect from him. The waiter may be just the same if you ask him for information, for a location on a map, for the dates of a flea market. Just like everywhere else in the world. Paris café manners are a style, this should be remembered.

Le Jardin des sens is a very fine restaurant, the kitchen is held firmly by Laurent Pourcel and I've always had wonderful meals there. "Mixed reports" exist, of which I cannot say much, but I should point out that one famous French restaurant critic, during the last couple of years, has repeatedly tried to ruin the Jardin's reputation for personal reasons, without having ever had a meal there (he went there for the first time last Spring). This was not very beneficial to Le Jardin, the critic being quite a star in the medias. Some mixed reports may emanate from him, and some other mixed reports may emanate from friends of his (press solidarity, you know...). On a more modest scale, you have the Pourcels' brasseries at La Compagnie des Comptoirs including the one on the beach at Le Grand Travers. And various nice little restaurants in the old town. My favorite is Le Saleya, on a square close to the post office and the covered market. Booking is necessary.

I think "spatchcock" really means "en crapaudine", but I doubt this has anything to do with the verb "crapauder" which, er, does not exist according to my Larousse. "Crapahuter" or "crapauter" (verbs with toadish origins) sounds more like it: this means creeping with difficulty, on all fours or bent forward, as one who proceeds through a forest under very low branches. Dressing a chicken or any fowl en crapaudine doesn't only mean flattening it, it also means pushing the ends of the drumsticks into slits made in the sides of the bird. This gives the chicken roughly the look of a toad with its elbows sticking up. Butterflying a piece of meat, for instance a leg of lamb may be expressed as "ouvrir en portefeuille" (wallet-like), or "ouvrir à plat" ("retirez-moi l'os s'il vous plaît et ouvrez-moi le gigot à plat, c'est pour griller": that shoud usually do it).

La Librairie des Gourmets (rue Daubenton) was indeed closed one or two years ago. The Librairie Gourmande is on rue Dante, alive and kicking. Though the Librairie des Gourmets was smaller and had less choice, I liked it much better because the owner was very nice and helpful. The good gastronomic bookshop located on rue du Bac is the Librairie Rémi Flachard. This one specializes in antique and rare books. I find it extremely expensive, but judging by the rarity of the items, it may be fairly priced, I don't know.