robert brown

David, My wife and I will be on pins and needles waiting for the results of your inquiry. I'd be surprised, though, if she were still cooking for restaurant-goers. Are you in the wine trade, have a house in Burgundy, or just love it there?

This is a tardy reply for David Russell and anyone who may have the info. my wife and I have been trying to get for several years. In the 1980s, there was a restaurant on the outskirts of Beaune called " Le Petit Truc" whose chef and owner was a very pretty and tempermental woman named Edith Remoissenet (married for a time to the negociant). She was a tad loony, which was obvious to anyone who ate there. She closed the restaurant ca. 1988, after which someone reported a sighting of her in a restaurant in Nuits-St. Georges. She made terrific escargots and jambon persille; also chicken with morilles and pistacio ice cream in a chocolate sauce. It was just a little place in a charming cottage which she ran with an iron fist and a whiplash tongue, but was our favorite little restaurant. Has anyone ever been there or heard anything about her? David, since you're clearly a true Beaune-head, maybe you can help relieve the long-time deprivation of my wife and myself, if such a possibility still exists.

I'm delighted you mentioned Les Terres des Truffes. I was in Nice last week for only four days and ate there twice. It's the first place I bring family and friends to. The best is to share dishes, especially if there are four people eating. We make it a point never to return to Bruno's restaurant in Lorgues. His egomanical antics were a major disruptive intrusion on our meal. Thank God he never shows his face in Nice as the limited number of dishes are all rich and delicious. It's the first place I would mention to anyone who wants a recommendation in Nice. And it's quite inexpensive.

White Piemonte truffles have made a comeback. Because they take only 3-4 weeks to reach maturity, the colder weather that they do better in has improved them from early in the season. Early December is the peak of the season as the son of Cesare Giaccone of the reknown Ristorante Cesare near Monforte d'Alba once told me. (I found last week's truffles over there generally good, but not great unlike two years ago). But that's an aside. I agree with Steven: Don't eat the truffle. I believe that when you go to a great restaurant for the first time, especially one in which the likelihood of return visits is prohibitive, ordering a theme menu usually does not make it possible to take some significant measure of a chef.

You never know what kind of esoteric expertise is lurking inside this site. Thanks for straightening me out, Bux

Bux, once in Buvron-en-Auge I bought Calvados and Pommeau; but as this was in 1989, I forgot the difference. Pommeau seems to be a short-term affair, perhaps more like our fermented cider. I don't think I ever got to drink it. Do you have anything on that? (Edited by robert brown at 12:37 pm on Dec. 4, 2001)

Bux, you really are a veteran! You should know that when I ate at those two three-star restaurants in 1962-63, they were splurges during a year off from college, and that any other decent meals were when my folks came over, or friends of the family took me out. (Chez Albert on Ave. du Maine was a place my folks liked and where we all went. Does it ring a bell?) Between then and 1974, I went dormant as far as eating in France was concerned. At heart I'm a nouvelle cuisiner. It was an amazing period (1968-1990) of implied collegiality, but really, I think, also implied efforts or competition of each chef trying to outdo the others, all to the benefit of folks like us who ate the food and drank the wine. I think it even spilled down to the lower echelons in a kind of "rising tide lifts all boats" phenomenon. P.S. I just saw your post above. How was the place in the Aveyron? You sure get into "La France Profonde". (Edited by robert brown at 12:44 am on Dec. 4, 2001)

Margaret, I was only kidding about there being a Dim Sum a GoGo in your neighb. You sound lucky, though, having the Asians near by. Bux, I can barely vouch for dining in France 30-40 years ago. In 1962 -63 I had eaten at La Tour d'Argent, La Perouse, and a few other places only in Paris. Being just a kid, I had no idea what was going on. My parents actually ate the food of Fernand Point and Raymond Oliver. However, I think you are meaning to say that if you ate in small restaurants in Paris and the provinces in the 1960s and'70s the food;i.e. produce would be better. I can vouch for small restaurants from the mid-70s on when we started renting houses some summers in the Savoie and around Annecy. I just remember monster produce, great variety, and respectable wine lists. I think this persisted until 1990. Do you remember the Gault-Millau guide and magazine hammering away at "rapport prix-qualite" all through the early 1990s and beyond? It still persists today as Margaret sort of says. Now Wilfrid may have a valid point as well. I would like to see research on how palates fade with age. Also, as I (and probably all of us) lose the ability to experience life's stimuli with the acuity or profundity we used to, maybe it does take more to excite our palates. However, there is no denying that the small French restaurant has cut back on choice, wine, and personnel, and it has to come out of our enjoyment. I'm willing to gave Margaret the benefit of the doubt. One or two of the kind of restaurants she mentions has opened in the Provence-Cote d'Azur area, but maybe they are not as interesting as L'Astrance. I feel like kind of the lone wolf doing my gastronomic travel in Northern Italy and have fallen out of the French loop except for the South. I don't think, however, that my general perceptions have suffered as a result.

Bill, my wife has had the branzino the last two times. Obviously she likes it a lot. Now that you mention the difference between the upstairs service and the downstairs, I found it to be true as well, based on two meals on each floor. I also have had good luck getting a table that night by phoning right when the reservationists open the phones at 10 a.m, even on a Saturday.

Margaret, you mean there's a Dim Sum a Go Go in SF? My neighborhood (86 & Lex) has the worst restaurants in the city. Sounds like you got a situation of "vide frigo". Bux, I'm not trying to following you around. I'm sorry to report that there were live shrimps tonight. Funny, the owner told me she ran out of them at lunch. When I asked her how she got some on a Sunday, she said, "This is Chinatown". Have you had the shrimps yet? Tonight's were the best of the three times I have had them. I will have to wait until tomorrow to continue my contribution to the state of small, unrated, everyday,etc. restaurants in France.

Bux, that's the guy I was trying to place. I think it was his only cart. Thanks for solving the mystery of the missing wiener.

Next time, lamb chops (again). Not just the best I ever had in New York (and among the best anywhere), but five of them. These were cooked to perfection with a delicious crust, and some were double-ribbed.

The three of us are writing over each other after the thread has laid dormant all afternoon! I'm heading down to Dim Sum Go Go for more broiled shrimps. (Bux, my wife said the shrimp are most reminiscent of Spain). But I plan on replying when I get back.

I should amend my above post a bit in that I forgot to write how barebones the wine lists have gotten in small restaurants in France. Upon further reflection on the topic, I am really addressing the general kind of restaurant that may still typify the region it's in, or another region in France. Lately I have been patronizing specialty restaurants which, where I hang out, would be seafood restaurants (fruit de mer, boullibaisse,etc.) a purely truffle restaurant in Nice opened by this guy Bruno, who does ventures with Ducasse; and even couscous places, of which there are a couple of good ones in the Alpes-Maritimes. I remember some of my most memorable meals even in touristy kinds of places like Chez Jacky in Belon or Les Vapeurs in Trouville. Sometimes you can go to an otherwise mediocre, even bad, restaurant that does one dish well: L'Autobus in Nice serves a terrific stockfish only on Fridays nights and only from October to April, or thereabouts. While it's getting harder, in my opinion, there's good stuff out there in France, but doing your homework is becoming increasingly crucial. Margaret, you posted while I was writing. I like the G-M annual best of all, though as I wrote while you were away, it has lost some edge. (Where work the chefs you mention?) I think what we both say about assiduously picking your spots holds true. Maybe age has taken a toll on my palate and that I no longer shake the Gault-Millau from its binding, but I remember the chefs that came from Blanc, Troigros, Chapel,etc. opening much more ambitious restaurants in lots of places, and most of them were going back to where they grew up as opposed to the UK, USA, etc. All the more need to share info. I also agree with you on the magazine lists as well. Freebies may have something to do with it; nothing of the kind right here, of course. And yes, I do have to say that I have noticed more new-restaurant formation in France in the past year or two. I am sure your experience is more wide-ranging than mine these days. (Too much Italian food, no doubt). (Edited by robert brown at 6:03 pm on Dec. 2, 2001)

Note: See "Vide Grenier" for preceeding, related post by Bux. I took the liberty of starting a new thread since we seem to have emptied the attic on emptying the attic. Bux, I bet that's what happened with the Lascaux caves. Now I remember it was 1989 that we were in the Dordogne. And my last visit to Troigros was 1982; Jean Troisgros must have died later that year or the following. When did you start food touring in France? Even in 1985 there were great no-star or one-star small local restaurants seemingly everywhere. It seems to me that they are getting harder to find. A lot of them no longer offer any kind of choice and have one or two waiters or waitresses serving the entire room. Do you find that? I don't bop around France like I used to, but in Nice where I know just about any restaurant of significance, that's how it is. Provence is a bit better, however; but I remember superb meals 15-20 years ago in Burgundy, Savoie, Normandie, SW,etc. the level of which I find less often these days. Margaret or anyone else want to chime in? (Edited by robert brown at 12:21 pm on Dec. 2, 2001)

Bux, I could never work up the desire to return to Troisgros after Jean Troisgros died young and suddenly. I keep meaning to go back. We loved it there. I'm sure I will still be happy. I could never figure out which brother, if either, was the guiding light. I always assumed it was Jean only because he was so different from Pierre in a way that you would assume he was the more creative: serious, intellectual-appearing, and a sweet man. I never saw two brothers who looked so different. Have you been back since 1985? I remember a risotto of some kind at Les Centenaires, circa 1991 and perhaps a guinea hen. I liked it a lot, my wife less so. Were you still able to see the original caves in Lascaux (if you visited there)? We could only see the recreation cave.

Bux, I could never work up the desire to return to Troisgros after Jean Troisgros died young and suddenly. I keep meaning to go back. We loved it there. I'm sure I will still be happy. I could never figure out which brother, if either, was the guiding light. I always assumed it was Jean only because he was so different from Pierre in a way that you would assume he was the more creative: serious, intellectual-appearing, and a sweet man. I never saw two brothers who looked so different. Have you been back since 1985? I remember a risotto of some kind at Les Centenaires, circa 1991 and perhaps a guinea hen. I liked it a lot, my wife less so. Were you still able to see the original caves in Lascaux (if you visited there)? We could only see the recreation cave.

I recall the German guy made them on the spot, but I have a recollection he was a bratwurst/weisswurst kind of guy. Has anyone seen him lately? Did anyone see the ugly divorce story involving the Fenway Franks entrepreneur on 20/20 or one of the other magazine shows a few weeks ago? I hope the new Red Sox owners get a new hot dog manager.

But look, Rosie's number 11. Rosie, how do you do it?!! (Edited by robert brown at 10:44 pm on Dec. 1, 2001)

Is the German guy with the cart near Rockefeller Center still around? I haven’t seen or heard about him in a loooooong time. Otherwise the dogs of the Papaya King at 86 and 3 have always been dependable. Do you say “one with” in NJ? You must. That’s how I always get them at the Papaya King. (Edited by robert brown at 4:54 pm on Dec. 1, 2001)

Jason: Can you stuff the ballot box along with your face? I think I got hit again with a virus, but the Norton repair just said I shook it. Thanks. Bob

Bux, when was that? Where did you eat? I used to adapt the old Ernie Banks exhortation, "Let's Play Two", to eating in France by having a lunch and a dinner the same day at a three-star restaurant. But that's when I was around Steven's age. With a late dinner and a moderate lunch I can still do it. However, it falls quite a bit short of the old days. Since we've had a thread about memorable meals, how about one for the biggest? (Edited by robert brown at 12:08 pm on Dec. 1, 2001)

Margaret, Thank you from the bottom of my heart, if not from under the roof of my non-existant chateau. I'm glad I added a new dimension to your buying excursions and hope they yield something good the next time. When, by the way, will that be? How did your eating go this time? Robert

Jason, thanks so much for your insight. Sorry if I gave the wrong impression. The virus can from a guy sending an attachment with some old posters illustrated in it, which we couldn't open.. I meant to say that Bux, Peter W. Rosie and Helena sent me messages saying they got e-mail from me that they couldn't open or that got tagged as infected. But I never sent the girls e-mail in my life and, therefore, Rosie and Helena weren't in my address book. I downloaded Norton today and it deleted three of four infected files (but one-by-one; i.e one each time we ran a scan.)I hope the remaining one can be exorcised. But you really know what you're talking about. All things considered, I'd rather be chatting about tasting menus. (Edited by robert brown at 12:34 am on Nov. 30, 2001)

I think Steven has it right. I don't know if in the next decade or so New York will have the best restaurants of any city in the world, but if it does it will be because of the same kind of American risk-taking, access to capital, and laissez-faire or pioneering spirit that have already accounted for much of the recent restaurant revolution in America. When you factor in how it has manifested itself in cities such as Miami, Dallas, Chicago, Boston, DC, and so forth, it really is amazing, regardless of whether or not you think the food is "world-class" or not. I really feel that Europe (ex-London/UK) and France in particular has never really recovered from the economic hit it took at the dawn of the 1990s, and you can see it in the restaurants. The value-for-money or keep-the-price modest concept is so pervasive over there. I think the way the dollar keeps hovering at its persistently strong levels vis a vis the Euro is telling us that reforms have yet to strongly kick in within Europe, and this is made apparent in the modest restaurant formation in France, at least in terms of luxury dining. As for Spain, I can only hope to get there in the near future. But isn't all the action in the north? Italy is the place, I feel, for consistently-excellent restaurant meals, but it is rare to encounter the overt technical wizardry such as Bux described in his visit to Ducasse in Paris. I have managed to miss some of the recent Italy writings by the American gastronomic press. Perhaps I can better elaborate on Italy after my quick trip there early next month. (Edited by robert brown at 12:18 am on Nov. 30, 2001)