Culinista

Speaking strictly from my own experience living in Paris recently, I would largely agree with Bleudauvergne about the general French attitude towards foreigners and innovation. I don't know the particular regulations, but I have also heard tales about enormous bureaucratic obstacles to immigrants opening restaurants. (One American had to open his soul food restaurant under his French wife's name.) I understand that all ventures face red tape, but is it worse for non-native entrepreneurs? And it appears to me that some people are equating "ethnic" cuisine with "spicy" (and also implying third world). All cuisines, including French, are ethnic--regardless of spiciness. I could never understand why Spanish and Italian food was so generally poor in France, but then, the non-native food situation is just as bad if not worse in Spain and Italy. Anybody who orders pasta in Spain gets what they deserve. French cuisine has traditionally been open to other cultures, and it is my impression that this current defensive posture to "protect" classic French food from foreign influence is a fairly recent phenomenon that is not doing anything to keep French food great. It's not like French cuisine is a static thing that does not change over time. I am Japanese, and I was very disappointed in the level of Japanese restaurants in Paris and the availability of ingredients. Of all foreign cuisines, Japanese seems to have an intrinsic appeal to Parisians, but still they understood remarkably little compared to an average Californian. Why the failure to pursue knowledge? I was also amazed that people with discriminating palates when it comes to French food seemed taste-blind when it came to other cuisines. Hopefully one day, the rest of the world will discover the full glory and artistry of Chinese and Mexican cuisines. The food cultures there are some of the oldest and most sophisticated in the world, and we all have a lot to learn.

Let's see, I live in Helsinki, where it is cold and dark 9 months of the year. I'd probably lose a ton of weight on a steady diet of pickled herring, rye bread, and potatoes. There might be a little ice fishing for pike and whitefish, but no shellfish or even shrimp. Even the reindeer farms would be too far away. But crayfish and wild strawberries in the brief summer season make up for a lot. No arctic cloudberries, however--too far away. We are allowed to forage even on private land, so there might be dried berries and mushrooms. Finns even eat a kind of poisonous morel. Korvasieni must be boiled several times in changes of water before they are edible. I can imagine that extreme hunger led to this discovery. After living in Paris and San Francisco, I find the ingredient availability here very limited, even with several flights a week bringing food from all over the world.

Thanks for the recommendation, Viking. I checked out the restaurant June 1. All in all, an interesting little place, very ambitious with a young team headed by Bjorn Svennson, who looks about 25 or 26. He did a 3-month stage at El Bulli. The food is fashion-forward for Scandinavian standards but I think not really world class, at least not at the moment. Still, I think they are doing a good job with a tiny, new kitchen and limited resources. I had the tasting menu. Amuses were very strong and well executed, quite elegant, if almost overly substantial. There was a thin, 4" square of salmon scattered with enoki mushrooms under transluscent slices of cucumber which would have been very nice if it weren't marred by an ill-conceived lime coconut sorbet and a thick, cloying soy sauce that unfortunately turned out to be homemade. There were also cubes of raw tuna topped with caramelized onion going on. This was followed by an elaborate eggplant ravioli with eggplant puree, summer truffles, and cepes. The cepes tasted fresh, but I have no idea where they could have come from. Then a square of vanilla brandada topped by an olive-crusted skate wing, a scoop of cauliflower couscous, and celery root puree. Once again, I felt like there was too much going on, and the vanilla brandada and other delicate white foods were drowned in "Sauce Navarra" that tasted pretty much like veal jus with truffle oil. Two palate cleansers, and then on to crisp lamb sweetbreads with rosemary with asparagus and morels, chunky potato/truffle puree. Again, drowned in overly salty meat jus, but otherwise a very nice combo. Strongest dish of the evening was an almost puddinglike, probably sous vide chicken breast with a beautiful carrot cylinder filled with orange-carrot puree and capped with a disk of caramelized sugar. The rest of the ensemble on the plate was seared foie gras on a mound of salty cabbage salad with minced veal tongue, little sticks of salsify wrapped in potato with a very El Bullish wrapped potato pillow, and a tiny stick of zucchini in a thin pepper hoop. Desserts were mini popsicles, ice cream cones, sorbets, etc. The signature is a full chessboard of white chocolate mignardises to go with coffee. I'd say Bon Lloc, Bagatelle and Chez Dominique are still better, although I liked Oscarsgate's more casual, less self-conscious atmosphere and it is probably a better value for the money. I had a good time even though I was dining alone. The crowd was fairly young, professional types, and the restaurant was fully booked.

Congratulations on your beautiful new home. I love how smart Japanese kitchen appliances are--my mom's stove monitors the temperature of food inside the pots, maintaining a constant temperature or shutting off when it's done. I love getting to design my own kitchen, although my experience in France was really rough. Rental apartments often come with nothing--no cabinets, not even a sink. People move from place to place with their whole kitchen, even if the old cabinets won't fit the new place. I spent over 10,000 euros and almost 3 months to outfit our place with cheap IKEA stainless and butcher block cabinets and what I consider the bare minimum necessities (ok, a 5-burner stove and an "American" 70 cm refrigerator ). We then found out we were moving to Finland, and I had to sell it all at a huge loss after 6 months. Now, just over a year later, I'm looking for a new kitchen in London. But it was still great fun designing the kitchen. What appliances will you have?

Thanks for the link. Any recommendations for restaurant magazines (as opposed to home cooking)? I have a few old issues of DANCYU. I don't know if you can get a home subscription in the US, but I know Japanese bookstores like Kinokunya in NY and CA carry the magazines. I have a cousin send me magazines out here to Finland. I get them months late

I decided against trying Shunju for the same reasons as Kristin on our recent trip to Japan. The cookbook is beautiful but the recipes do not work at all. When you say wine do you mean Western wines made from grapes (as opposed to sake)? How do you go about the pairing? There was a sushi place in Washington DC that attempts to pair sushi with Bordeaux, but I could never wrap my brain around that.

We had a nice dinner at the Guggenheim Bilbao in November. Being part of the Berasategui group ensures top product and good execution, although maybe not imaginative, creative flights of fancy. Josean is very young and a hard worker. I especially liked the dishes that featured wild plants. He also makes a mean bacalao. When we first visited the museum a few years ago, they had almost nothing in the galleries since they were changing exhibitions. There were also only a few visitors. The building itself, even from the outside, is probably more impressive than most things exhibited in it anyway.

This reminds me of the later screen performances of Marlon Brando or recent DeNiro. Disappointing, but I can't blame them for cashing in. Unlike the silver screen, where great performances can live on after the performer retires from greatness, food is now. I'm not lucky enough to have fond memories of eating at a master's table for 140FF. How I wish I were. I can only imagine what Robuchon was like at his peak, because the food at L'Atelier betrays absolutely no hint as to why highly honed palates like yours hold him in such high esteem. Maybe the principle of cashing is morally defensible in the abstract, but we are talking about 100+ euros per person, not an $8 movie ticket. No wonder I felt like I'd had my pocket picked at that crowded counter. Not that I haven't overpaid for overhyped food before, but somehow it's sadder when it's done in an illustrious name. I'm all for a comfortable retirement, but often the cost of cashing in is to cannibalize your own legend.

I don't think you missed too much at Viridiana, except I will remember it for an excellent grilled jabugo cheek. I would have lamb in Sepulveda any day instead. I'd also venture to recommend the cordero lechal in Casa Ojeda in Burgos. The lamb is excellent, especially for a traditional restaurant instead of a rustic asador dedicated to lamb. (They have a dedicaded asador in the first floor, which might explain it.) The big plus here is they have a respectable wine list as well as other dishes almost as good as the lamb. I dream about the tiny grilled kidneys of cordero lechal that they had at the (now defunct?) Asador Real in Madrid. They had run out of them when we asked for them, but they brought the only one left for us to taste--one beautiful bite each that I have never forgotten, and I normally don't like kidneys. It was less than an inch big and must have come from a tiny lamb.

Thanks for the good news that ADPA is still up to snuff. Did they also get rid of those silly blown-up photos of runway models? I always felt like I was eating in a Gap catalog. I agree on L'Atelier, although I never had the privilege of trying Robuchon in his heydey. We were so down after our experience there that we did not even consider Robuchon-Taillevent in Tokyo. Black pork tonkatsu at Maisen sounded like a much better idea at the time. We'll make a point of going back to L'Ambrosie on our upcoming trip.

My hands-down favorite is Wally Le Saharien. Wally grew up as a nomad in the Algerian desert and was camp cook. His cuisine uses a minimum of water. While most couscous in Paris comes with a stew-like sauce, his is absolutely dry, almost pure white, and the lightest texture imaginable. It takes 2 days to make, and he rakes it to extreme fluffiness. It will be raked one more time as it is served to you, with house merguez and roast lamb. The (obligatory?) set menu is pricy for N. African food but worth it: includes a rich vegetable soup, grilled fish, and an excellent pigeon bisteeya. They serve Algerian wine. A Moroccan friend pointed me to L'Homme Bleu in the 11th, in a very out of the way place near Parmentier (55 bis rue Jean-Pierre Thimbaud). It's a fun place, tiny and does not take reservations last I heard. Excellent vegetarian and lamb tagines, very friendly to a single diner. I did not try their couscous.

I like NY tap. Not surprised Vittel came in last. I can recognize it instantly, even if served blind. If that's the only bottled flat water, I'll order tap unless I'm in Paris. To me, Vittel tastes like spit.

Dehillerin has a catalog as well as a website with prices: http://www.e-dehillerin.fr/ To save time, I'd make a list and bring it in with me. Note that they list only their "big ticket" items and don't have all the little gadgets and a lot of the bakeware. But it's a start. Relationships in France, even commercial ones, are very important and quite different from the "customer is king" American philosophy. Somehow at Dehillerin I ended up with Kim (maybe because he's also Asian?), and even though I go there maybe once a year, he is the one that helps me. Of course, he is not the best salesperson and always looks like he's about to blow a gasket with impatience, but I soon realized I am not allowed to deal with anyone else. I was surprised at first when he remembered me, but that is more normal in French shops than you'd imagine. The easiest way to avoid rude treatment is to say "Bonjour, monsieur/madame" the minute you walk into a store, even if you are just looking. Treat a shop the way you treat someone's home. These little courtesies pay huge dividends, and I've been treated wonderfully in shops where I've browsed a long time and never bought a thing. When I moved to Helsinki without a fabulous music box to remember Paris by, the lady at La Boite de Musique gave me an antique lace handkerchief and a Frenchman's memoirs of Finland.

Have a great time! A friend just treated me to lunch at Sasso, the new Italian restaurant my foodie friend Pertti insists is just like in Italy. (He owns part of an Italian winery, so he should know something about Italian food.) However, I had a less favorable first impression after trying the halibut, which was obviously roused from a long deep freeze and deglazed with salty commercial jus and some kind of purply red wine. This went over cauliflower risotto, which I can't imagine any Italian doing. (17e) My husband is going to Sasso tonight for dinner. Maybe he'll have better luck.

Spanky's got it! Yes, it was Lisa Elmqvist, thank you.

There are a few English language bento books: Bento Boxes: Japanese Meals on the Go -- by Naomi Kijima Cafe Japan -- by Emi Kazuko Fun and Fancy Sushi--by Seiko Ogawa and Ine Mizuno shows how to make those fancy panda bear sushi rolls and more unusual decorative sushi. Will probably get your kids to eat shrimp dyed pink . I also have Ekiben: The Art of the Japanese Box Lunch, but this is a photo book of the packed lunches sold in the bullet train stations, often featuring local specialties in novelty boxes. It is not a cookbook.

Sepulveda is a town dedicated to roast baby lamb, and beautiful quite on its own as well. Vedat, you lucky dog. When we were there, Figón Zute El Mayor “Tinin,” was closed for vacation, as was his cousin’s place, Figón Zute El Menor. However, Figón Ismael, under the arcade in the main square, was doing very brisk business indeed. Along with excellent cordero lechal, I remember one wall was a tiled portrait of Ismael himself, sporting a belt embroidered with “VIVA MI NOVIA” (“Long live my girlfriend!”). He said women make these belts for their intended when they get engaged. A very useful sort of announcement, I think. I walked the Camino de Santiago from St. Jean Pied-de-Port and wrote about it for TIME Europe last year. This is a great route for history, architecture, and a little soul-searching. (Article is at http://www.time.com/time/europe/pilgrim/compostela.html I'm too HTML-retarded to figure out how to make an elegant lazy link. It is not really restaurant-focused, however.) I can second Casa Ojeda and Meson del Cid, especially the sopa castellana. I always have pochas at Hartza in Pamplona. One of my all-time favorite meals was in Villalcazar de Sirga, a town in the middle of nowhere. Next to the huge ruined Templar monastery fortress are two restaurants, both run by the same guy. He opens one or the other each night, but patrons wait in the square to see which one it's going to be. This was worth the 350+km walk to get there. The cecina was a revelation. Other highlights were pulpo a la gallega at Casa Ezekiel in Melide, a pilgrim must. The bakery down the main street has some terrific almond cookies. Buen camino!

I might add that I saw a scrumptious-looking jambonneau caramelisee special at 'T Kelderke. Too bad we had already ordered! We left our menu at La Creche up to Enzo, the owner's son. That was a good call.

Sea Horse is at Kapteeninkatu 11, in a quiet area. (+358 9 628 169). It dates from 1934. Saslik, the romantic Russian restaurant, is in the same neighborhood. I'll warn you that most Finns would be appalled that I mention it, because they think it's too unrefined for foreigners. Frankly, I think a lot of our sophisticated Finnish friends are kind of embarrassed by it and concerned you might see Finns drinking and having a good time. I was there over Easter weekend, and it was very homey and completely untouched by modern food trends, with a very classic 1930s modern feel to the interior. Portions are very hearty, honestly prepared, and unapologetically traditional without romanticism. Of course, this sort of food hardly ever has the angels singing in the clouds, but you probably will not see a single tourist there. We had the herring platter to share, the Finnish meatballs in gravy, 2 pepper steaks, and a kind of sailor's hash. (4 people in our group.) Definitely a place for beer as opposed to wine. Maybe because of the holiday, it was quiet. Prices are very low compared to the "nice" restaurants. I hear it can get smoky sometimes, but it was no problem when we went. Alcoholism in Finland is a big issue. The state Alko monopoly controls all alcohol sales, and beer and wine is quite expensive. (I once saw a Turning Leaf chardonnay for 25 euros!!) However, so is everything else, so you'll hardly notice. I'd recommend picking up a copy of "Helsinki This Week" by Helsinki Expert, available at the tourist info center. It has everything you need to know about events, shopping, and restaurants. The website is www.helsinkithisweek.fi Tervetuola!

Her first book, "Tender at the Bone," was my favorite. I reviewed her second memoir, "Comfort Me With Apples," about her pre-NYT years. I remember when it came out, no one at IACP was talking to each other because they were too busy reading about her affair with Colman Andrews

Nice to be asked. Thank you. The whole dish, main and sides, should make sense as a complete unit as the chef envisions it. If the client doesn't like part of it, they should be free to leave it. If something is always coming back uneaten, that should tell you volumes. In the particular example you mentioned, you're combining scallops, chicken, lemon, wild mushrooms, rosemary and demiglace on one plate. I can't imagine how all this would go with ratatouille, although rice would be OK. I'm a light eater and usually find the typical sides boring, so I'd probably leave it anyway. I'd prefer a salad or pay less for less food. (I'd also pay more for higher quality food.) With the popularity of low-carb diets today, more people are likely to leave the starch. That said, I believe mentioning buttermilk mashed potatoes is still a sure way to make a plate sell in America. It all depends on the quality of the sides. Portion sizes in American restaurants have gotten out of control. The faster we get rid of the knee-jerk formula that a main course must be accompanied by a random starch and side veg, the better. That kind of service makes me feel like I'm eating in a school cafeteria.

And to get in the Finnish mood, I suggest seeing Aki Kaurismaki's "Drifting Clouds" before coming. It's about a married couple, a tram driver and a headwaiter, who fall on hard times during the 1990s depression and find new hope by opening a restaurant. I'd love to figure out which restaurants were used as the sets. Kaurismaki used to run restaurants and a B&B in the country, but I think most of them have changed ownership.

Food at Kappeli is bad. Just drink there. Unfortunately, you can say this for too many places in Helsinki. For nicer Finnish dining, try Nokka or Sundman's Krog (the informal restaurant beneath the one-star Sundman's). The Helsinki Menu at restaurants around town usually showcase Finnish food at good prices. If you are here during crayfish season, I HIGHLY recommend getting a reservation for a crayfish dinner at one of the summer restaurants on the islands. This alone is worth the trip to the far far North. (The season goes from mid-July to sometime mid-September. Expect about 6-8 euros per crayfish, exact number must be ordered in advance. 6-8 crayfish is about normal per person, followed by a light main course. Reservations essential during the season.) NJK, the old yacht club, is my first choice, followed by Saarkanlinna (in an old fortress) and Saari. You have to find the restaurant's private dock and signal the launch to get picked up. Prepare to see a lot of partying Finns. It's traditional to accompany each crayfish with a shot of schnapps, but you could end up like my husband, arm in arm with a stranger named Ollie, singing John Denver songs. Personally, I'd stick to champagne. Lappi is looks like a Disney theme restaurant, but you should go there to try Lappish specialties like air-dried reindeer, glow fried whitefish, reindeer stew, snow grouse, etc. Most of the top-rated restaurants are too expensive to be a good value for visitors (George, Chez Dominique, etc). Palace Grill is just bad. The only exception would be Savoy, which has only OK food at exorbitant prices, but it's a must for architecture buffs. The Aalto designed interior is classic and hasn't changed much since the 30s. It also has a great terrace view over the esplanade. Noora, the young but gifted sommelier, is terrific. If you can't get there, the Aalto-designed (and rather boring) Accademica bookstore next to Stockmann has a second-floor cafe and a good selection of foregn books and press. CK Brasserie in the Kamp Hotel has a decent brunch, but Toolonranta behind the Opera House is better and has a nice view of the lake. I live directly in front of the Temppeliaukio Rock Church-my favorite sightseeing spot. If I'm home, I'll give you a tour of our parking garage, which is in the vast nuclear fallout shelter built under the church. Some of the best restaurants in Helsinki unfortunately do not serve Finnish food. For the record, I like Demo for Italian, Farouge for outstanding Lebanese, Saslik for Russian, and Raku-ya for Japanese. Mecca and Teatteri are good for fashionable grazing. Avoid Tex-Mex, Indian, and any other spicy cuisine in Helsinki unless you want to be severely disappointed. Lunch is often a much better deal than dinner. Kosmos has a 3-course, 20 euro menu. For lunch spots in shopping areas, try Cafe Ekberg on Bulevardi, the terrace deli at Teatteri, Cafe Esplanad across the street from Teatteri, Cafe Strindberg (nice upstairs lounge for drinks or relaxing). The market square has fish and produce vendors in the mornings and afternoons, and you can get open faced sandwiches or grilled fish. The sushi bar in the old covered market hall has Nordic fish sushi sometimes (ahven, pike perch, whitefish, etc). Finns love ice cream and sausages from street kiosks. Some only-in-Finland spots: Zetor, a tractor-filled restaurant run by the singer from the Leningrad Cowboys; Sea Horse, a Finnish pub restaurant with old-fashioned food; and the Arctic Bar, permanently -5C. The bar on top of the Torni Hotel is an interesting place for evening drinks, but it's an old hotel and hard to figure out which elevator to take to get there. Havis Amanda, the premiere seafood restaurant, has closed and reincarnated in another location as the more informal Havis. I haven't tried it yet. There is also Sasso and Fishmarket, both new. I'll try them soon, along with the bohemian classic, Elite.

Just reporting back from Belgium: We enjoyed Comme Chez Soi's famously charming and intimate Art Nouveau interior. The food was very good but does not quite measure up to the raves I hear, possibly from overly patriotic Belgian friends. I do like the fact that Chef Wynant has resisted all of the Adria-inspired fads and gone his own way. In fact, his classic nouvelle Belgian-French cuisine with fusion flirtations looks almost rebellious in a sea of foams and liquid nitrogen. The amuse looked circa 1970s, and the escargot on orzo with tomato sauce tasted more Chef Boy-ar-dee than I imagined possible for snails. At first we were both put off by the first fishy bite of the scallops mi-cuit sandwiched with cream of foie gras, but with each bite, we grew fascinated by the play of flavors of the scallop, foie, radish, cauliflower florets, arugula, sesame and balsamic vinaigrette. The fishy sensation disappeared, and instead of growing tired of it, I wanted more with each bite. This was a gutsy dish of strong, odd flavors. Next came the gros langoustine, which the waiter announced as jets de houblon, probably because the hop shoots outshone even the langoustine crusted with pine nuts in a cream and coral sauce with seaweed. Jets de houblon look like large bean sprouts and remind me of white asparagus and bamboo shoots and other heralds of spring. The two-inch square of turbot was topped with bone marrow and oysters, making each bite quite a contrast. The we had three cubes of almost marbled seared duck breast perched on a round of herb-stuffed rolled duck leg, roquefort souffle in lieu of cheese and a gratin of coconut and mango for dessert. Aux Armes de Bruxelles is probably the only real restaurant on the r. Bouchers, although I thought the celebrated frites tasted somewhat bland and almost commercial, as did the mayonnaise base for their tartar sauce. The outstanding dish was white asparagus a la flamande. I normally hate eggs, but the egg, parsley and butter sauce was lovely, and the perfect texture very difficult to achieve. (We had better frites at 'T Kelderke, but the sauce flamande was far inferior.) The waterzooi of turbot was also excellent, the eels in green sauce quite good for stewed eels, and the calves' brain only OK. They were out of raw mussels, or I would have tried them. I took BON's suggestion and tried Yamato, a tiny but astonishingly authentic ramen bar near Porte de Namur. You can't beat it for a budget lunch, since their most expensive dish is 10 euros. They serve both miso and shoyu ramen as well as katsudon and gyoza in the evening. I found the shoyu soup to have great meaty flavor but almost criminally salty--maybe they had let it get too concentrated, since most people were ordering miso ramen. The noodles were terrific, imported frozen from Japan. Hours were irregular, and they don't take reservations. If you are a Tampopo fan, this is a good place to go. In the same neighborhood, we had our best meal in Brussels at La Creche des Artists, a small gem of an Italian restaurant ar 21 rue de la Creche (02) 511 22 56. This is the holy grail, a modest neighborhood restaurant with a chalkboard menu dictated by the market and fantastic homestyle Italian food, no dish exceeding 20 euros. The restaurant is run by a Tuscan mother, Neapolitan father, with a Congolese treasure of a chef. We started with a sauteed calamari in a piquant tomato sauce tossed at the last minute with fresh tomato and arugula, served straight from the battered skillet. (Since the tiny open kitchen was just steps away, this service optimizes what Grace Young would call the "breath of the wok.") Salami and Parma ham were already on the table, on the house. The penne came with a veal ragu to die for, deglazed with Brunello di Montalcino and served with the same (1998 Brunello de Montalcino Fattoi. We had already polished off a Mezzopane 1999 with a friend who had to leave after antipasti). The sauce was enriched with a little veal liver and celery. Then we had thin slices of tender roast lamb with stewed endive, but we nearly came to blows over the tiny roasted new potatoes. They came out of the oven beautifully crusty all over and creamy on the inside. Then they brought us cheese--a very young pecorino exploding with black truffle, and the best aged Parmigiano I've ever had. We shared a hunk of classic tiramisu and somehow managed to walk to our hotel on the other side of town after being plied with grappa di brunello di verbena and limoncello, respectively. The brief but well selected wine list had only Italian wines at good restaurant prices, starting around 20 euros and going up to the 2001 Solaia at 235 euros. Some people might sniff that 'T Kelderke is touristy, but they have the best frog legs I've ever had, and I've rarely liked them when I've had them. These were pan fried to an addictive crispness that did not make them tough. They were drenched like escargots in garlic and butter. They also had great beers, and I've always hated beer. We tried Blanche de Wittekerke, Chimay Bleue, and Mort Subite Geuze Lambic. As I said, I liked their frites better than Aux Armes de Bruxelles', but not their sauce flamande. We found that mussels steamed in vin blanc retain more of their pleasant mineral flavor, while mussels in beer have a sweet taste. We went to Francois for seafood on Place de Ste. Catherine--very nice place, if somewhat gruff service. We had the bouillabaise du Nord as part of a very reasonable 33 euro menu, starting with a half-dozen oysters on the half shell and ending with chocolate mousse. The grilled turbot was also very good--simple, not overcooked, with fresh vegetables in a light vinaigrette. We did make a side trip to Bruges and de Karmeliet, but that is for another thread.

As I said, you're probably too early for fresh cloudberries. The best I can suggest would be to find a restaurant that serves a good dessert made with frozen cloudberries, maybe over Lappish cheese. Unfortunately, nothing tastes like fresh, but you are welcome to try the cloudberry jams and liquors as well.