Jonathan Day

I found almost every dish we were served delicious, some extraordinarily so. A few dishes (perhaps two out of the 30 served) were "just good". In many cases, it was small things, garnishes, that created explosions of wonderful flavour -- for example, the tempura lemon peel served with the spiced apple. In others, the main element in the dish was superb: the salmon belly, for instance. My sense of Adria's cooking is that he does try to surprise, deconstruct, reframe, and the like -- but never at the cost of flavour or immediate gustatory pleasure. We laughed our way through this meal: it was a joyous experience, not a solemn one.

Part of the outrage that some experience at imitations of Adria's cooking stems from the fact, as Robert noted, that the real thing is so gripping, in every way (setting, waitstaff, menu composition, execution, etc.) that attempts to borrow some of his techniques seem pale. Having said that, I can point to several examples of over-use or unthoughtful use of techniques like the ISI foamer. The one star Lou Cigalon in Valbonne, for example, serves a foam with virtually every one of the courses in its menu gastronomique; after a few courses, you don't know whether to eat the food or shave with it. Thyme, in South London, uses the foaming technique in a seemingly random and ultimately not very pleasant way.

Robert Brown and I recorded our thoughts on a recent meal at El Bulli in TDG: click here. Please join us in Symposium for a discussion of avant garde cuisine and of the essay: click here.

A central premise of the TDG essay "Eight at El Bulli" (click here) is that the restaurant represents a tradition of its own, a break with existing culinary traditions: neither French, nor Spanish, but in some sense encompassing and going beyond both. Following cues from chefs and writers, we have called this phenomenon "avant garde cooking". Do you agree with our assertion that El Bulli is in the vanguard of a genuinely new culinary tradition? How do Adrià's innovations compare with other recent "revolutions" such as the advent of nouvelle cuisine? How should one define the culinary avant-garde? Notions such as "deconstruction", "displacement", "transformation"and "reconstitution" come to mind. What other practitioners (chefs, restaurants, critics, etc.) would you place in the forefront of this movement? Many observers have noticed perversions or imitations of Adrià's cooking, such as meals with foams in every dish, or counterintuitive pairings of ingredients that, unlike those at El Bulli, have no gastronomic integrity and merely shock rather than creating a refreshing surprise to the eye and palate. Some argue that we are worse off for Adrià and El Bulli, since it has spawned so many vapid or gimmicky imitations. What is your view?

The great advantage of the multi-starred restaurants is that they are easy to find, especially if you have very limited time. For every wonderful little restaurant there are dozens of shoddy, cynically run places that are primarily interested in fleecing tourists. And of course, the small places are subject to the pressures of economic recession, shifts in key personnel, and the like, so today's gems can be tomorrow's disasters. A local (for me) example of this is Le Feu Follet, in Mougins, which was once one of the most popular gastronomic resturants in the area -- it was a favourite of Simone Beck's, for example -- but which has now slipped in quality and service to a point where it isn't worth visiting. So there are still guides in print (and on the web) praising Feu Follet to the skies, even though this data is completely outmoded. The large and well known places change too -- look at the downfall of Vergé's Moulin de Mougins -- but at least problems here tend to get caught quickly by the serious guides.

Continuing the themes of "dining in extremis" and "that old time religion" (click here for a recent entry on Les Arcades) I wanted to outline enjoyable meals at three more restaurants on the Côte d'Azur. La Merenda is a tiny place in old Nice, where Dominique Le Stanc went after leaving Le Chantecler at the Hotel Negresco. He continued its previous owners' traditions of not accepting cheques or credit cards, and having no telephone. Because the place seems to be full at every meal, you have to walk in earlier (or a day before) and reserve. The cheesy tourist story, told in numerous guides, is that, after braving the difficulties getting a reservation, you dine at this humble place, and what a wonderful meal it turns out to be. Hence I have to admit that I was predisposed to dislike this place, both given the back story and that Robert had been disappointed there a few years ago. I was wrong. The food at La Merenda was delicious, and the service was a bit brusque but satisfying. I secured a lunch reservation by walking in at 11.15 am, while the staff were dining. They scribbled my name in their book and went back to their meal. At La Merenda you sit on small but comfortably padded stools at tiny tables; you often have to stand to let your neighbours leave their tables or sit down again. The short menu comes to your table on a blackboard, and then the waiter comes over and says, "So tell me." And he expects you to tell him what you want, quickly. The menu is short, but I hesitated between sardines farcies and "tarte de Menton" as a starter. What kind of tart was that, I wondered. A lemon tart for a starter? "I think it's made with blettes (Swiss chard)" said an elderly lady at the next table. I liked chard, so I ordered that and my wife ordered a dish of tagliatelle with pistou (pesto). For mains we ordered queue de boeuf (oxtail) and a daube. Soon after, the blackboard returned with the queue de boeuf struck off, and I changed my order to a dish of tripes à la Niçoise. While we waited, a man from the neighbouring olive oil shop brought a little degustation to our table: cubes of bread with two flavours of his oil, and a tiny dish of mushrooms preserved in oil. He reminded us that he would be at his shop after 2 pm if we needed any oil. We would be tasting his product in the restaurant's dishes, he told us. Both the tarte de Menton and the pasta were surprising. The tart had no Swiss chard, only onions; it was something like a pissaladière, the onion-and-anchovy tart common to the region, but on a bread rather than a pastry crust, and with no anchovies but beautiful sweet onions, charred to a crisp on the top and soft below. The crust was crisp and tasty, the onion flavours deep and rich, and the whole effect delicious. Pissaladière is almost a staple in our house, because the children like it, and we have tried it from numerous charcutiers, bakeries and pizza houses. But this was pissaladière transformed and transcended. My wife gasped as she took her first taste of the pasta, because the flavours were so intense. Again, we grow basil every year, make a lot of pistou, and have enjoyed this dish in many places. But this had a depth of flavour that neither of us had expected. The spinach noodles were good, their texture just right. The tripes à la Niçoise came with strips of crisp-fried panisses, the chick-pea preparation that appears as socca in Nice and farinata across the border in Italy. The tripe itself was superb, better than the one I had last year at La Cave in Cannes, which itself was very good. The texture of the tripe strips was just perfect: neither too soft nor too firm, and it had not only the treble notes of lemon, but also a deeper underlying bass bespeaking its long cooking and the quality of the stock that had gone into it. The panisses provided both a pleasant crunch and a slightly bitter contrast to the lemony tripes. The intensity of flavour continued with a lemon tart, which had another almost perfect crust. Wine is served by the "drink as much as you want" method; they eyeball what's left in the bottle and charge you for what you've consumed. About half the customers looked to be regulars, the rest were first-time visitors like us. This will not be our last visit. La Merenda 4, rue Terrasse, just off the old flower market. No telephone, payment in cash only. Closed 8-14 April, 27 July to 19 August, 1 to 10 December, 23 February to 2 March, and all day Saturday and Sunday. Lunch and dinner served. The waiter indicated that the last lunch tables tend to be booked by 11:45, and lunch generally begins at noon -- we started at 12:15 and missed one dish as a result. It's easy enough to book mid-morning, then spend the rest of the morning wandering through the old town. * * * The Bistrot de Mougins is in the old village; unlike most of the restaurants in the village, this one is below stairs, in what was once either a stable or a wine cellar, probably the former. There is an arched roof, and the tables are pleasant and comfortable. Once again, the cookery here is simple but flavourful. We have had superb brandade de morue, delicious snails, pieds et paquets, daubes and the like. The wine selections here are a bit more ambitious than at La Merenda, but the Bistrot completely lacks the pretensions of many of the above-ground spots in the village which seem, sadly, to be aping Vergé in some way -- hardly a standard to aspire to these days, but he does have those two stars. The Bistrot, in contrast, just goes on serving the same good dishes, with consistent quality. Le Bistrot de Mougins, in the old village not far from the fountain Tel. (33) 4 93 75 78 34 Closed 1-28 December, Saturday at lunch and all day Wednesday. * * * Finally, following recommendations by trustworthy eGullet friends, we have made regular visits to La Cave in Cannes -- click here for a note from last year. Unfortunately, our most recent dinner there was a disappointment. The assiette Provençale, a sampling of all of the restaurant's starters, was good, but our ris de veau (sweetbreads) were not well prepared and unevenly cooked, and the sauce was thick and gummy. The kitchen extends into the dining area, and I noticed dish after dish being tossed into the microwave oven for reheating, and the cook spooning sauce base into pots on the stove. I am sure both practices are common even in finer restaurants, and would have ignored them had the product been satisfying, but this was not. I hope the owners of La Cave regain their emphasis on fresh products and simple, high quality cooking. The road to perdition is smooth and gentle, but it is not easy to return once you have taken a few steps down it. La Cave 9 boulevard de la République Cannes tel. (33) 4 93 99 79 87

I am a firm believer in the "in extremis" approach, but the true little gems are hard to spot -- you have to go through a lot of dreadful places to track them down. The vast majority of cheap, local restaurants provide neither good food nor good value. I would guess that there are several factors working against the middle, i.e. the lower levels of restaurants that practice "serious gastronomy" as opposed to places like Les Arcades or Le Pigalle in London which appear more as an owner/ family just having a good time. First, the best young cooks must come to these places more to break into the business and move on to more elevated places than to stick around. I remember a friend who was trying to get into advertising; she landed a job at a mid-sized regional firm, stayed there for awhile but swiftly moved on to J. Walter Thompson. You end up with an adverse selection effect: those who can move on, do so and the mediocre perfomers try hard to stay. But the bigger factor against the middle is that restaurants are unquestionably a so-called Winner-Take-All market. These are characterised by two properties. First, relative performance is more important for payoffs to participants than absolute performance. Second, the payoff to the best performers is far higher than to the second best. In many cases, the number 1 in a given field earns or charges twice what the number 2 does. A tennis player will only earn a living playing tennis if he beats other players, regardless of how good he or they are in absolute terms. The obvious examples of Winner-Take-All markets are in sports and the performing arts. But they also appear in the law, in academics and in the market for CEOs. Print and electronic media (e.g. guides) make it easier and easier to find the "top performers" in a field, and falling transportation and communication costs mean that more and more people can access these winners. At the same time that information has increased, our "mental shelf space" and personal time have not, so that we are keeping track of a diminishing fraction of the total information available. You see this on these boards: a member is going to Paris for a week; she doesn't want to waste time checking out the mid-range places, and hence the frantic calls go to L'Astrance, Guy Savoy, and so on. An affluent person who fears he is facing a heart attack will rush to the most renowned surgeon he can find and not argue about her fees. I put "top performers" in inverted commas in the above, because of an important phenomenon in Winner-Take-All markets: there is an enormous random element involved. A few people get the breaks, reach the top situations, and a reinforcing cycle begins, as the noted performers get more opportunities (for chefs, for example, this would include stages or sous-chef positions) than their peers and are hence able to advance their standing . This isn't to say that merit is irrelevant, but that it not the single determining factor. Jamie Oliver was spotted at the River Café while a television programme was being made about that restaurant. He happened to be in the right place at the right time, and parlayed this moment of luck into a lucrative "celebrity chef" situation. The debate in economic circles on Winner-Take-All markets goes back at least to 1981, when Sherwin Rosen published an article in the American Economic Review called "The Economics of Superstars", but the most accessible treatment is Robert H. Frank, Philip J. Cook, The Winner-Take-All Society: Why the Few at the Top Get So Much More Than the Rest of Us (Penguin, 1996), click here to order. Frank and Cook are better on the description of the phenomenon than on the cure. They argue, correctly, that these markets provoke behaviours that are far from socially optimal, as they divert resources into "reaching for the brass ring". Note also that every entrant into a Winner-Take-All market diminishes the chances of all other entrants. The authors' prescriptions, essentially for increased regulation, are more questionable. Winner-Take-All systems tend to provoke irrational entry: more people enter these markets than rational economic calculations would otherwise support. Hence the queues of people trying to break into theatre or television, and the number of wannabe restaurants that open daily. This phenomenon has been proven experimentally, where people play artificially constructed games with high payoffs but high costs of failure -- see this paper for a relatively recent example -- and irrationally large numbers of people enter the game. The authors conclude that excess entry happens because contestants "enjoy the thrill of competition" (since such a market pits each new entrant against all other competitors) or experience "the illusion of control, i.e. they erroneously believe they can influence random processes." With the continuing phenomenon of "celebrity chefs", we can expect to see a continuing Winner-Take-All market in restaurants. Hence the logic for selecting restaurants either at the very top (where the tournament has in some sense ended) or those places that never entered the tournament in the first place but are instead playing a different game, one not about garnering stars or fame but about enjoying themselves and helping their customers do so as well.

Les Terraillers is on my list, as is L'Auberge du Jarrier, the latter in particular because people have told me that the (female) chef did interesting work. I omitted Les Terraillers (1 Michelin star) from my search because it was fancier than we were looking for; and unfortunately the telephone number for the Auberge du Jarrier simply didn't work. I had hoped that this was because I was calling on a Tuesday, the day the restaurant is closed, but as we passed it on the Wednesday the lights were out. Perhaps they are on annual holiday; or, worse, have closed their doors permanently. For me bouillabaisse is something to have once in awhile. It's not all that elegant or delicate a dish because of the heavy doses of garlic and pepper, but it can be a lot of fun. I think Vedat is right about its seasonality: in the last few years I haven't had it later than early June. It just feels too hot in August to drive down to Bacon and eat bouillabaisse. We had small rock langoustines (cigales) at El Bulli, and I have had Tetou's treatment of them (nothing to write home about) with bouillabaisse -- a case of gilding the lily, and a mistake I won't make again in ordering. I regularly order cigales from my fishmonger, and cook them on a grill or the plancha. I haven't had the big rock langoustes though; next time there I will see whether the fishmonger can get them. Claude, what a privilege to have dined at Lulu Peyraud's table. The Domaine Tempier wines seemed relatively hard to find until recently -- I have ordered several cases online at www.vcommevin.com and now spot them in a few more specialised retailers in France. I almost never see them in London. A friend said that Kermit Lynch imported virtually their entire production to California -- is this true?

Check TDG tomorrow for Robert's and my take on El Bulli. I enjoyed Ledoyen enormously, both the atmosphere and the food. It is very expensive (dinner for two with champagne, a decent bottle of wine and calvados totalled €500) but still felt like good value. I wrote a review in the Ledoyen thread, as have others: click here.

We were looking for a nearby place to eat, nothing too fancy. After a week that encompassed two 3-star restaurants, Ledoyen in Paris and El Bulli in Roses, Spain, I was looking for the other extreme of Robert Brown's "dining in extremis" (click here). But we wanted a place we hadn't tried before, and the restaurant in Mougins that fit our criteria was closed on Wednesday. I flipped through neighbouring town descriptions in the Gault-Millau 2002 guide. Something in Biot caught my eye: "It's easy to see why Jacques Maximin brings his friends to this bar-tabac; this isn't the cuisine of a restaurateur, but yesterday's dishes taste good here, and they care about the freshness of the ingredients." I called for a reservation. "Allo!" barked a voice. "Is that the Restaurant Les Arcades?" "Of course it is," said the voice, "What do you want?" "Could you reserve us a table for tomorrow evening, two people at eight?" "Sure, no problem…let's see, is there a pen here? Why isn't there a pen near the phone? What did you say your name was? When are you coming? See you tomorrow!" We arrived almost half an hour late to find a queue at the bar, and wondering whether our table would be there. But it was, and we were quickly ushered through the spotless kitchen to a quieter room and a pleasant table that gave me a view into the kitchen. The menu is short and simple: beignets de fleurs de courgettes farcies, marinated herrings, aubergines farcies, fish of the day steamed, ravioli "tout nu" (naked, i.e. the fillings served without the pasta), gigot d'agneau, and so on. The dish of the day was a daube de boeuf served over pasta. A starter, main dish, salad or cheese and dessert are offered for €30. A waiter, a tall, theatrical character dressed in black jeans and a black T-shirt, dramatically recited each of the dishes, in French, then left the table. And as we were deciding what to order, a small, older man sidled up to our table; he had seen us pondering the menu and had an idea for us. They had some lovely lingue (ling cod) just in, and he could do us a bouillabaisse. He spoke quietly and rapidly, as though telling us a secret. Bouillabaisse for two, plus salad or cheese and dessert, €30 apiece. How would that be? And how about a nice bottle of rosé? Sure, we said, why not? He scribbled on the paper table covering, said, "You won't be disappointed", and scuttled away. A tureen of fish broth arrived, with croutons, garlic cloves, parmesan and rouille, the spicy garlic-saffron mayonnaise traditionally served with bouillabaisse. It was amazingly good: fresh-tasting, with just the right balance of saffron, and a pleasant kick to the rouille. Even the parmesan was of an unexpected freshness and quality. The rosé was young (2002), full of fruit and flowery aromas, nothing serious but just right given the amount of garlic we were eating. I looked up from my first bowl of broth to the kitchen. The chef was over 2 metres tall and almost as broad; he towered over the other staff in the kitchen, shuffling pots and spinning from stove to oven. And then he reached into a pot and gently extracted two enormous pieces of fish, holding them at eye level and delicately removing the last of the bones with his fingertips. Perhaps one of those was for us, I said to my wife. Both of them were. They came on an oval platter, with perfectly cooked potatoes just moistened with a lighter version of the fish broth in our tureen. And they were very good. This bouillabaisse was not quite at the level of Restaurant Bacon, in Antibes, when the kitchen is working at its very best; the fish were not as perfect as some we have had at Loulou in Cros-de-Cagnes. But all in all, it was very good, far better than the bouillabaisse we had at Tetou, a place where this is really the only dish worth ordering. The fish were firm and fresh, properly cooked. We were then offered a choice of goat cheese marinated in olive oil and herbs, or a mesclun salad; after the bouillabaisse, the latter seemed right. It was pleasantly bitter, but the greens were extremely fresh and nicely chosen. Then tarte au citron and tarte aux pommes -- "we make them all," said a waiter. And they were both good. By this time, things were slowing down: the chef had supervised several cleanings of the kitchen, had taken care of a few last dishes, put on a jacket and departed. Different waiters brought different dishes to our table; this seemed to be a family affair, but it worked. At one point a young man came into the kitchen and grazed on what was left on the stove, reaching a hand into different pots to extract bits of food. The man who had whispered the availability of the bouillabaisse to us had retired behind the bar. It was calm and restful, and we really didn't want to leave. Eventually I asked the tall waiter for the bill. "It won't be much," he said, and with a flourish totalled the scribblings on the tablecloth. He was right: aperitif, Badoit, wine, dinner, salad and dessert for two came to €91. It seemed such a pleasant place, such good value, that we immediately booked lunch a few days hence, this time bringing along family and guests. This time, we were seated on the terrace overlooking the arcades for which the restaurant is named. It was Friday, and the dish of the day was an aioli. Once again, a generous portion of the same ling cod, perfectly cooked hardboiled eggs, beans, and some of the most delicious carrots I have ever tasted: sweet, rich-tasting, almost meaty. The aioli, garlic mayonnaise, was surprisingly subtle. We both agreed that we could have enjoyed a meal of those carrots on their own, with a bit of the aioli. The restaurant was pleasantly accomodating to the children and to an Australian guest who wanted her lamb "cooked until it was really dead". All in all, a delightful experience, and a new place on our list of favourite locals. If the true religion of France is gastronomy, and if the 3-star restaurants are its great cathedrals or temples, then a place like Les Arcades is a little country meeting hall, modest but completely true to what it is. As we left, I found myself humming the old evangelical hymn, "Give me that old-time religion", with a slightly adapted last line: "It's good enough for Maximin and it's good enough for me." Les Arcades 16, place des Arcades 06410 Biot Tel. (33) 4 93 65 01 04 Closed Sunday for dinner and Monday all day.

Spinach absorbs a lot of butter, as Nick said. I read (somewhere) of a chef who "fed" butter to a dish of chopped spinach, every day, until it had absorbed its weight in butter. So I tried this, not over several days but over an hour or two. Chopped spinach, sweated in butter, then added butter piece by piece. The spinach easily took more than 50% of its weight -- and it might have taken more, but we gave up and ate it. It was delicious, but then again eating this butter straight (it was very good stuff, beurre echire) would also have been good.

I have dreamed of logical, capacious storage containers for many years. Unfortunately we acquire them as we go, and never have the gumption to throw out the old ones, so the shelves are always lined with odd sizes. My motto when it comes to storage (and everything else in the kitchen, for that matter) is "bigger is better". My wife disagrees: she likes having lots of containers of varying sizes, each just the right size for whatever dab or smidgen of stuff she is trying to store. At the moment, our storage challenge has become much greater. First, my wife drastically increased our stock of staple foods: rice, pasta, flour, tinned beans, etc., against supply problems if London is attacked by terrorists. Second, we have an invasion of mice. Gourmet mice. They like artisanal pasta, but leave the ordinary stuff alone, even though it's Italian. They like some flavours of crisps, not others (the children now keep track). They turn up their little noses at the traps we set with peanut butter, chocolate (I'm going to switch to 70% on the next round) and cheese (next time they get Mrs Montgomery's Cheddar). So we need new, mouseproof containers. Maybe this will be the excuse for tossing out the old ones and starting over. The containers I like best are glass jars with hinged lids, a rubber seal on the tops, and squarish sides. Easy to find in France, in large sizes, and available at some shops in Britain. Thanks, Matthew, for an interesting article!

I remember reading, about a year ago, one of the Ruhlman/Keller columns in the Los Angeles Times (it was then available online without paying, though I think this has changed) -- about soup-making. I don't remember whether there was a specific cauliflower soup recipe or just generic advice, but it led to the following cauliflower soup: - Don't try this unless you have an almost perfect cauliflower: white, firm, unblemished. - Finely chop some shallots and sweat them in a bit of butter - Prepare the cauliflower(s) by stripping away everything but the outermost florets -- the core and all the stuff between the florets get removed - Break the florets down into very small pieces - Add them to the shallots, then add enough milk to barely cover the florets. I used skim milk the first time out, but you could use a richer milk if you prefer (I didn't find it necessary) - Then gently simmer this (scarcely bubbling) for a long time -- at least 60 minutes and maybe a lot longer -- until the florets are perfectly tender. - Then purée in a blender (I used a Bamix stick blender) until it is perfectly smooth -- run the blender a long time -- and strain at least once through a chinois; or strain through a chinois and then through a finer sieve The result at this point was good but it needed salt. And it needed a bit of acid, so I added ordinary yoghurt to taste. And finally, some Dijon mustard, again to taste ... perhaps a couple of teaspoons for a large cauliflower. The yoghurt and mustard were my additions. They work. Thin it with a few drops of milk if necessary. Correct salt. Etc. We often have this just plain, but it can also be garnished with caviar, or, at Christmas last year, with white truffles. But it's very good on its own: creamy and flavourful. We often serve it in espresso cups, at the start of a meal. (Edit: the mustard idea came from one of Julie Sahni's dishes where you add mustard seeds to cauliflower. It make a big difference, even though you shouldn't add more than a small quantity).

How about a third camp: taste is the cognitive apprehension of the perception of those food molecules via the sensory organs. In other words: there are molecules on the plate, the sensory organs (gustatory and olfactory) receive them, and the brain makes sense of those sensory signals. Taste is not just perceived, it is interpreted. And this suggests that expectations matter. For example: knowing that you are in an Italian as opposed to a French restaurant. Knowing that the dish you are about to taste is a stew, not a grilled item. Knowing that you are in a haute cuisine restaurant as opposed to a more casual place. Now he of the perfect palate (something he has now reminded us of several times, and how good it feels to him when he does) says that setting and expectations make no difference at all. Serve him a dish of blue goo, and he will taste it and say, "Before that was puréed and coloured, it was cassoulet, and the duck was a 9 month old white Pekin. The beans came from Soissons and the breadcrumbs were from a loaf baked last Thursday by Mme Dupont next door." This feat of judgement is possible because in his case there is a direct circuit from the tongue that tastes to the mouth that announces what the stuff is. The higher cognitive functions are bypassed. But I would assert that for ordinary mortals (even skilled food critics), setting and context may not affect sensory perception, but they do affect the brain's interpretation of those sensory signals.

Robert, Melissa and I often dine alone, and we frequently go out to eat on our own when we travel with the children. But the dynamic is different: we do talk about the food and enjoy it, but gastronomy isn't the only focus. With more people, the tempo of the conversation is faster, there are more riffs and cross-comparisons of items, and there are often more dishes on the table. OK, this raises another question: suppose you are dining with friends, and the primary object of the meal is gastronomic rather than just having a good time or catching up on news. Perhaps you have travelled to Paris together and snared that elusive table at Astrance. Now: - Do you get nervous if some diners are more food-obsessed than others? What if some are eGullet members and some are not? Do you explicitly try to balance the makeup of the group between foodies and normal people? - Do you relax and let everyone order whatever they want, or do you insist that everyone chooses something different? Or does one member of the table try to direct others' choices? - Do you insist on tasting others' dishes? Do you try to get others to taste your dishes even if they don't want to? - What happens when diner A says "This is really good" and B tastes the same thing and criticises it? -

For me there are a very small number of "vaut le voyage" (worth the trip) restaurants. Fortunately they tend to be in places where there are other natural or artistic attractions. Paris, California, the Costa Brava are all interesting and pleasant places to go. I wouldn't go somewhere unpleasant, even to find a superb restaurant. Robert Schonfeld mentioned business travel. Yes, you have to keep silent about food (sadly, I sometimes end up breaking this rule, and too many colleagues and clients know of my food interests). But it is sometimes possible to break away from an organised dinner and go somewhere more interesting. The recent trip to Ledoyen was an example: a colleague and I needed a private discussion, and we left a much larger group dining at a far less interesting restaurant. I love art, and rarely travel on leisure without visiting museums or galleries. But I will freely admit that I now know more about gastronomy than I do about art (this was not always the case), and my current reading tends to increase that gap. As mentioned at the start of the thread, I have less energy for gastrotourism on my own. It is far more fun with my wife, or even better in groups of 4 to 8.

I am curious to understand just how the "refuse to sell" gambit gets played out. At my meal at Ledoyen, the sommelier simply indicated that a red would not go well with the chicken. And, not knowing how the dish was sauced, I went along with his advice. I assumed that had I insisted on a red, or on a Sauternes for that matter, he would have shrugged and provided it. Or are you saying that sommeliers are literally saying, "That wine is on the list, but I won't sell it to the likes of you!"? How does the conversation go? Is the sommelier recommending against (deconseiller) a wine or refusing to sell it?

Steven, how about the example of Grant Achatz's lobster with rosemary vapour? Recall that boiling water was poured over rosemary branches while the diner ate the lobster. Or a dish we were served at dinner last night in Roses, Spain, where each diner was handed a rose impregnated with an essence of roses, and asked to sniff the rose while sipping from a cup of liquid (the full description to follow). It was the weakest of the 30 dishes at the dinner, but, not surprinsgly, the scent did change our perceptions of the taste of the liquid. The concept was viable, but the execution just a bit flawed. That's an obvious one, since the olfactory and gustatory senses are known to be closely linked. Is it such a leap that auditory or visual sensations, or the diner's cognitive state, should also impact the perceived taste of the food?

Well nobody disagrees with this (I don't think?). I do because it turns out to be wrong. Saliva contains the enzyme alpha-amylase which breaks down starches to maltoses. This process begins in the mouth and will be more rapid in someone who is salivating freely. Since salivation is stimulated by sight, appearance can affect the molecular composition of the food, if not on the plate, then as soon as it touches the tongue. See, Pedersen et al. Saliva and gastrointestinal functions of taste, mastication, swallowing and digestion, Oral Diseases 8, 117 (2002). This process is, of course, entirely independent of the expertise of the taster. OK. That’s that settled. GJ, you seem to have changed the proposition and then disagreed with your changed version. I tried to clarify Plotnicki's comment and wrote "The condition of the taster doesn't change the molecules on the plate". The last three words were deliberate. You wrote that appearance could affect the composition of the food -- if not on the plate, then as as soon as it touches the tongue." That's a different proposition. And I agree with it. There are even names of foods -- e.g. umeboshi, Japanese "pickled plums" -- that make me salivate just hearing them or thinking about the item. I think this is what FG was getting at.

That seems perfectly reasonable. I for one agree with that. The condition of the taster doesn't change the molecules on the plate. Who would disagree?

Clearly. No doubt. I agree. After being away from this thread for a little over 24 hours, I find it amusing (if not, I would find it depressing) that it has gone right back into the old litany of "subjective/objective" and even that perennial favourite, "is the chef or the diner right about how the dish should be cooked?" I was trying to make a very simple point. We have almost no access to taste as physical phenomenon, only to taste as reported perception. In the Muller-Lyer illusion (the two lines with reversed arrowheads on the ends), most viewers unfamiliar with the illusion will report one line as longer than the other -- this is well established experimentally. We can establish that the lines are actually identical in length by measuring them. Please tell me how we can do something similar as far as taste perception is concerned. We can measure visual acuity: whether you are nearsighted, farsighted, astigmatic, colourblind, etc. This is done either by getting people to look at specific patterns and report what they see, or more frequently by actually measuring the physiological characteristics of the eye. As I skimmed this thread, I saw a lot of the usual talk about "good tasters", "bad tasters" and such. Please tell me how (other than by asking Plotnicki) we can distinguish a good taster from a bad taster. I personally don't believe that a dish tastes different in a blue egg cup than a white one, with or without chicks painted on it. And to me it seems a matter of common sense that the colour of an egg cup wouldn't influence the taste of a dish. But all we have access to as far as taste is what people report. And hence, something that influences the taster could influence his or her perception. --- Edit: On re-reading the thread I see Wilfrid said something reasonably similar to this, earlier on. The extreme cases he describes seem nonsensical to me. I am still curious how people would suggest we draw the distinction between expert and less expert tasters. I think there is a distinction, but it is challenging to get agreement about how it plays out in specific cases.

Jonathan, Ah, but now you are talking premier cru, (which should be) a notable step up from most village wines. How did you find the wine? Best regards, Claude Kolm The Fine Wine Review Claude, I am not at all a wine connoisseur. I enjoyed the wine a lot: it seemed balanced ("rounded") and had a subtle quality that I described as "spicy" in my writeup but perhaps wine people would call "mineral". It wasn't quite as fruity as the sommelier had led me to expect; perhaps just a bit of citrus. I've now seen this wine priced at €60 at retail, so €140 doesn't seem like that painful a restaurant price.

The Puligny Montrachet we had at Ledoyen was a J-M Boillot "Clos de la Mouchere" 1998; price was €140.

No, it's in Gerrard Street -- and not at all plush, very spare in its decor. I went back a few weeks ago, and was disappointed by just about every dish. The "thousand ears" lacked flavour, and the crispy eels were overcooked. See the "restaurants always get worse" thread...

Before its incorrect use gets too deeply embedded in this thread let me point out that economic externalities are secondary or unintended consequences of the actions of one person (producer or consumer) on the economic outcomes of another. So if you improve your house and the value of my house is thereby enhanced, that's a positive externality. If you pollute the air and hence reduce my income or the value of my assets, that's a negative externality. Externalities, as economists use the term, have nothing to do with "external" influences on a judgement or "the placement of different components of a plate". I suppose you could take the Suba approach to an extreme: put the diner in a sensory deprivation tank and spoon-feed the items to be judged, changing the names to avoid cognitive biases: "You are now about to taste snerbles with fleegreep sauce", or eliminating the names altogether. Or you could serve the same dish in different settings: elegant, minimalist, cheap, etc. -- or with different noise levels -- and see how perceptions changed. My guess, though, is that it is the quest for "purely objective" taste is futile; even an attempt to get close to it may be time wasted, because contextual effects are everywhere. In the simplest case, the diner may be more or less hungry, or feeling hot or cold, or energised or worn out. The diner might have just consumed a hot chilli pepper or eaten several cloves of raw garlic, and therefore be less able to perceive subtle taste differences. Even if you could stipulate a diner in a certain physical condition, with a carefuly cleansed palate, interpretation is hard to avoid. I sit down in a restaurant and the waiter announces that the next dish to be served is ris de veau financière. That sets up a whole network of expectations: it's a French preparation, the sweetbreads will have a certain texture, the pastry another, offal is involved, it's a savoury dish, and so on. How can the most diligently analytical critic get beyond this?