Pork Belly

Terrific sounding restaurant and great posts. I like to get an idea the cost of an average cost of a meal and if it is necessary to reserve at the sushi bar. Thanks.

As suggested by the above posts, I would choose either the Chatelet or the St. Michel stop on the RER. Both offer a wonderful shopping experience. Instead of rushing through a sit down lunch, I would grab something at one of the many bakeries/boulanger and stroll for a couple of hours. Rue Montgorguill just north of the Chatelet station is a very quaint shopping street. Stroher is a wonderful bakery with excellent sweet as well savory pastries. Nearby is the famous kitchenware shop, Dehillerin. R Rambuteau is a great shopping street that will give one a sense of how Parisiens shop. Pain de Sucre, an excellent boulangerie, is on this street. You might have a little time to stoll down to the Pompidou center before heading back to the station. There two good strolling area around the St Michel RER station. As mentioned above, the Maubert market is in the 5th which r. de Mouffetard is nearby. Pick up something to eat at Kayser on r Monge and stroll down to the Seine where one will see all the picture postcard views of Paris. The alternative is the r de Seine/Buci area. in the 6th. Around this area, there are some of the best pastry shops in Paris: Laduree, Mulot, Carton, Pierre Hermes as well as some of the best chocolatiers. There is a excellent fromagerie that offers a cheese tasting for around 10E as well as De Rosa, a terrific shop that specializes in Spanish products, including the best jamon. It also offers simple tasting plates. Both are on the R de Seine, betweeen blvd St. Germaine and the Seine. Stroll down to the Seine and cross the Pont des Art for some great views of Paris. I would not suggest anything more complicate than that. It might be easy to transfer, etc, for someone who is familiar with Paris. But as a first time visitor, there is a good chance of getting lost. It is not worth the anxiety.

La Torre de Can Roca has been their banquet facility for quite a while, and it is indeed bound to become their new restaurant location. ← After my lunch last November, I chatted with Josep Roca and he gave me the impression that La Torre will continue to be their banquet facility and the new location for their restaurant is somewhere in the old part of town.

I've stayed at Grand Hotel des Balcons on r. Casimir Delavigne numerous times. Great location with basic but clean rooms. They have a couple of large doubles but their standard double rooms are very small with two single beds (can be park together). I think these rooms are too small for your husband. The larger doubles are decent size but the beds are still standard size. The bathrooms are also on the small side.

I ate at L'Ami Jean last November. I thought the food was excellent for the price but I've been hesitant to recommend it to any of my friends. I thought the service was friendly and good but too hectic for a comfortable meal. The room is very very cramped and the tables are too small, packed too close together, even by Paris standard. I was a solo diner on a two-top and even then, there was not enough room for the plate, glasses, small casserole that the food was being served in.

You might be thinking of Pinxo, an informal restaurant opened couple years ago by Alain Dutournier of Carre des Feuillants and Au Trou Gascon. It is on 9 r d'Alger.

I would pick the Marais. That area is very centrally located and you'll be close to other areas that has markets, food shops, bistros and kitchen equipments...the Richard Lenoir open market is between the Marais and the Bastille; north of the Marais is the r. Rambuteau and Bretagne which is a nice commercial area; the great kitchen equipment shops are in Les Halles, just east of the Marais. If you decide on this area, there are many recommendations on this forum regarding to restaurants, etc.

It does not matter where you stay, with metro you can go anywhere. Drouant is a good choice, but its not typical.its based on the mezza principle,i.e many small dishes.Choose a bistrot from the non touristy 17th ,11th(astier,repaire de cartouche,etc) for another meal. Welcome to normalcy from hell ←

Ruling out Alain Ducasse and Guy Savoy because they have restaurants in the US, the remaining 7 are all good. Just depends on your dining preference. There is no one best.

Pascal Barbot of L'Astrance worked with Alain Passard at Arpege.

There was an excellent post on bakeries in Berlin on an earlier post. Just scroll down this forum and look for Berlin. It is probably a few threads down.

If you get to Poujauran, stop next door at Bellota Bellota (18, rue Jean Nicot) and buy the smallest qauntity of Pata Negra ham they will sell you. It will be enough, and expensive enough, but something you will always remember. (My husband and I bought 100 grams, and while it was lovely, could have had the same experience with less.) ← I think I read somewhere earlier this year that Jean-Luc Pourjauran no longer owns the bakery. Can anyone confirm this?

A few suggestion that might help: Serve the shanks the following day. Most braises taste better rewarmed. Saute the mirepoix. Pour out the fat and deglaze the pan to get the bits of fond stuck to the pan. Use the wine to deglaze and reduce it before adding stock. I find that using too much liquid makes a bland braise. Most recipes say to cover the meat with stock/wine, etc. For slow braising, I just add about an inch of liquid and add a little more when needed. The meat and mirepoix will also give off some liquid. This makes for a rich sauce. By using less liquid, meat doesn't have that bleached out taste...that all the flavor went out to sauce and nothing left in the meat. Also don't compare braised pork shank to lamb shank. Pork is a blander meat than lamb. Hope the above shed some light.

Another good restaurant is the "Quadriga" in the Hotel "Brandenburger Hof" near Kurfürstendamm. The chef there is Bobby Braeuer who was several years chef in the "Koenigshof" in Munich. Traditional Bakeries ?? All German bakeries offer the same stuff in different qualities. What's the best belongs to the clients taste. Look for this sign "Goldene Brezel 2005/2006" the following bakeries are awarded. Axel Kaczmarzik, Charlottenburg BackWerk Nehringstr. 3 14059 Berlin BackHaus GmbH, Falkensee H.-J. Leib Bahnhofstr. 6-8 14612 Falkensee Bäckerei Hohenschönhausen Jürgen Rauch Sandinostr. 14 13055 Berlin Bäckerei Köpenick Jürgen Buhrmeister Wiebelskircher Weg 39 12589 Berlin Rainer Schwadtke, Köpenick Dresdner Feinbäckerei Bölschestr. 89 12587 Berlin Bäckerei Köpenick Ralf Sommerwerk Borgmannstr. 6 12555 Berlin Feinbäckerei Lichtenberg Uwe Richter Einbecker Str. 46 10315 Berlin Bäckerei Pankow Karsten John Wollankstr. 110 13187 Berlin Bäckerei Prenzlauer Berg Kempe Hufelandstr. 9 10407 Berlin Bäckerei Prenzlauer Berg Manfred Kädtler Danziger Str. 135 10407 Berlin Bäckerei Prenzlauer Berg Lars Siebert Schönfließer Str. 12 10439 Berlin Bäckerei/Konditorei Schöneberg Johann Mayer OHG Kurt und Karsten Berning Ebersstr. 42 10827 Berlin Bäckerei Schöneberg Walter Seitz Brot und Wein Hochkirchstr. 10 10829 Berlin Familienbäckerei Spandau Rösler GmbH Falkenseer Chaussee 194 13589 Berlin Bäckerei Steglitz Walf GmbH Hans-Joachim Blauert Lankwitzer Str. 2 - 3 12209 Berlin Bäckerei Steglitz Alfons Wagner Sachsenwaldstr. 30 12157 Berlin Bäckerei Steglitz Georg Hillmann GmbH & Co. KG Hindenburgdamm 93 a 12203 Berlin Bäckerei Tempelhof Ingo Wüstenhöfer Marienfelder Allee 99 12277 Berlin Bäcker Tempelhof Wiedemann GmbH Wilhelm-v.-Siemens-Str. 26-28 12277 Berlin Café Obergfell GmbH, Tempelhof Lichtenrader Damm 36 12305 Berlin Bäckerei Tempelhof Stefan Obergfell Alt-Lichtenrade 140 12309 Berlin Enjoy hunting ← Thanks for the great post on Berlin bakeries. I'll be in Berlin for a few days at the end of October.

I've always used springform pan to bake cheesecakes because it has a high side and it is easy for unmolding. I use heavy duty foil to wrap it, making sure that I don't puncture it and I've never had water seeped in. The crust remains fairly dry. One problem you have is using parchment. Parchment is only good if you plan to invert a cake for unmolding. For spring form, the parchment it is not necessary and in fact a hindrance. Chilling to firm the cake and crust would make it easier for unmolding. I lightly oil a large spatula and slide it under the crust. Slide a second oiled spatula to help transfer the cake to a platter, etc. I guess if you use a parchment lined springform, you can freeze it as you stated and invert it and remove the parchment, then invert it again. Do they make silicone cake pan with high enough side to make a tall cheese cake? The only ones I've seen are for regular size cakes. I always like a crust for texture and looks. You will not be able to substitute low fat cream cheese for full fat without reformulating the recipe. It will probably need addition of flour to keep it from being too watery.

Thanks for the great report.

All the above are great recipes and advice. First decision is that how do you want the lamb cooked: The 7 hour slow cooking would give you well done but very tender melt in your mouth lamb. If you want lamb that is more medium, you would probably either roast or grill it. The second decision is if you want to roast or grill it. how complicated you want the cooking to be. If you have not work with a leg of lamb and you want it boneless to stuff and roll or butterflied and grilled, you should definitely have your butcher bone it for you. For 10 people, I would get a very large leg. There are many good recipes for marinating a butterflied leg or stuffing/rolling/tying. An easy, simple and impressive way to cook a leg of lamb is to roast it whole with the bone. Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking has a great recipe for this with simple sauce variations. Present it whole and carve it at the table. Her carving method is very easy. Here is a summary of her recipe: Rub the leg with a mixture of melted butter and oil. Season it with salt and pepper. Put the leg on a roasting rack over a roasting pan. Roast in a preheated 450 degree oven for about 20 minutes, basting with the melted fat on the bottom of the pan every 5 minutes. This will sear the meat. Roughly cut 1 carrot and 1 onion into large chunks. Put them in the bottom of the roasting pan with a few cloves of garlic. TURN the oven down to 350 degree and continue roasting until the desired doneness. NO further basting is neccesary. These are approximate TOTAL cooking times: 1 hour for medium rare, 125-130 degree 1 1/4 hour for medium (pink) 135-140 degree another 15 minutes more for well done. Let lamb rest for about 15 minutes before carving. While the lamb is resting, make a sauce by pouring the vegetables, etc. through a sieve into a saucepan; skim off the fat; deglaze the pan with wine and brown stock (I use a good chicken stock or broth with white wine if I am lazy). Add this to the saucepan. Reduce, season and mount sauce with a little butter. Couple of easy sauce variations: add roasted garlic or whisk in mustard (omit the wine). Carve the lamb the French way by holding the shank end, stand the lamb up on a carving board, and carve thin slices downward. Just slice around the hip bone and you will eventually left with just the leg bones. By keeping the lamb simple, you can make the side dishes more elaborate. A gratin of zucchini, eggplants and tomatoes is good. And if you want a starch, smashed potato. Or ratatouille and potato gratin.

I *was* wondering if that is what was meant and so gave the subcategories in the Kaffehause cookbook. Just to be clear, as you can see from the headings, the book has pastry recipes but does not focus on them alone. Thanks for the recommendatin, alanamoana! ← it's ironic, because when i tell people i'm a pastry chef, they don't seem to understand that it means i mostly make plated desserts. but when people talk about pastry (as in this topic) people assume desserts instead of viennoiserie. ah well...it's all in the translation i guess. i think the austrians are probably pretty good at viennoiserie, right? ← Now a days, I thought the term "viennoiserie" means pastries and cakes baked by boulangers such as croissants, pain au raisin, brioche, chaussons au pomme, gatlette des rois, etc. It does not include fancy cakes and tortes which belong to the realm of the patissiers.

The 120E is for the tasting menu for one person. Wine and anything else are extra. Service is included in the price. They will add another 7% I.V.A (tax) to your total bill. The tasting menu (5 or 6 courses) is basically small portions of some of their best dishes from the regular menu. Ordering a 3 course meal would be about the same or slightly less. As with many top restaurants in Spain, one is served an assortment of "snacks" or tapas to begin a meal They are open for lunch (am not sure but probably Tues thru Sunday) but do not have separate lunch menu. As in most restaurants in Spain, lunch usually starts at 2pm and dinner at 9pm. Besides the excellent food, Arzak is a wonderful family restaurant that is becoming so rare these days. Please report back if you decide to dine there.

Perfect. Do they take reservations for the bar (wishful thinking)? ← The Parisians make reservations for everything. Make sure you specify the bar.

Le Bouquiniste has a nice bar for eating. L'Epi Dupin has a very cozy 3 seat bar off the entrance. It is a bit cramp but entertaining if you enjoy interacting with the wait staff.

You state that all your cookies have this same spread problem. That seems to point to your oven. Since you are using a convention oven, is the fan on? Most recipe's baking temperature are for standard oven. The general rule of thumb is to decrease the oven temperature by 25 degree for convention. I am not sure this is a good rule. I would test your oven to make sure the temperature is accurate. I would not use cake flour for cookies. It is a low protein flour that produces cakes with a very soft and delicate crumb.

When i googled it I only found a couple random recipes none of which seemed too satisfactory. ← I've made fig ice cream from Chez Panisse Desserts. My guests thought it was great even though I don't like fig in ice cream.

I've made creme brulle countless times from different recipes and I have never chill the mix. Make the mixture, pour into ramekins and bake in a bain marie. As for ice cream mix, leaving it overnight in the refrigerator is convenient to chill the mixture and nothing more. As long as the ice cream base is well chilled, it is ready for churning. I've made ice cream by chilling the base in a ice bath until very cold and then churn it. Works fine.

Loup: sea bass St. Pierre: John Dory