guru

Sounds very good! I'm always excited to hear about new projects by serious people and in that case by somebody i admire a lot.Things should be just fine in 6 months.Good luck pal!

I have also viewed the book and it left me speechless for almost an hour. Not only does a document like this shock you but it also puts everything you were doing till now in question.The point to this book (i hope) is not that we change our way of cooking but that we understand that some people are really rethinking our way of eating. People like Ferran Adria don`t exist on every corner.His work should change and affect what we are doing in maybe ten years when we start to understand what he is doing NOW. On the night i read the book, i was cooking rabbit with mustard sauce, i can assure you that many questions passed by my mind while doing this very classic dish. That should the purpose of this book; letting us think twice on how to personnalize our food next time we cook it.

Hi everyone, it's been quite a while since my last time. I'm very impressed at the different opinions concerning that dinner. I also ate there and could say that the weakest things were unfortunately the techniques. I expect squab to be cooked on the carcass whenever i eat 3 stars. I also want more complex things than a carrot samosa and MESCLUN right out of the box with my cheese.Don't get me wrong, i recognize the effort made but i was a little ... maybe i expected too much.

do you know a few of the names that will be in town?

I strongly suggest that you make your reservation that month in advance. I had to call several times in order to have a place.I would have never tought that they would be full on a sunday night a ten so imagine in december.Good luck!

I agree with you that when you serve hot goose foie gras it becomes no different than duck fg. The texture does not hold well. I wonder why. The best way i've had it was "au torchon" and i will make one near xmas(to be sure to sell it).Quince will probably be its partner.

Yes LESLEY, we now have a producer of goose foie gras Near Quebec. It is produced from sept. to dec. and sells for about 110$ the kg. I have not yet tried it but the goose itself is great. I bought one last year for my xmas dinner and the texture was incredible. I ordered one with the liver this year. You can get that from GIBIER CANABEC.

I had lunch a few weeks ago with three of my friends and thought it was fabulous. Since we were from out of town, i made reservations from Montreal and had to explain the situation when they asked for a phone number. The person with who i spoke was very kind and made me feel as if they were waiting for us. When we arrived at the restaurant, everything was very cool and we ordered the 45$ prix fixe. What happened next was unexpected. They started sending food we hadn't ordered and took the liberty of doing things that weren't on the lunch menu. We had all the classics and some wine pairings and so on. But when the bill came, they had charged us 75$ as we would have paid at night. We all jumped and talked about the situation among ourselves and agreed not to make a big scandal out of it since we had been treated like kings and had drank wine we had not ordered but still we couldn't believe it. If you take the liberty of doing such things, you should always do it at your own charge. Note that the food was fantastic and the service efficient but what if we didn't want to pay as much for a lunch. I guess they didn't bother screwing 4 canadians cause we are only one time customers.I'd really like to see what you all think about that.

I was promissing myself a dinner at Babbo ever since i got the book. I finally made a reservation since i was going to be in n.y. for a few days. My three friends and i strongly agree that we were served the best food of our trip( other restaurants included Blue Hill, Bouley and Gramercy,i will tell about later). We started with thinly slices of veal tongue with pickled ramps and salsa verde; Wow! I had rarely seen veal tongue so red and so tasty.We were served a Taburno Falanghina by Cantina del taburno 2001. Then followed the bacala (cod) mezzalune with half dried sungold tomatoes and scallions.Then pasta dough was so thin it almost dissapeared every time i took a bite leaving the garlic and cod taste covered by the scallion butter.Best "raviolis" i ever had. A Tocai Friulano, Russiz Superiore 2001 went beautifully with that. Then pappardelle with chanterelles and thyme surprised us by the simplycity and precision.After all we were just eating pasta but like we had never tasted them before.A Lazio Petit Verdot from Casale del Giglio 1998 impressed us a lot.We would have drank some more. Lamb followed with a caponata and some Brunello from Col d'Orcia 1996.Once again simplicity and precision. We were given some cheese from Coach farm and a magnificent watermelon mostarda.Now that cheese really rocks! We received a glass of Franciacorta brut rose.Unusual but great with the mostarda. Then two desserts; the first one was a spuma of lemon with huckleberries served with a Prosceco di Valdobbiadene by Ruggeri and the other, a chocolate hazelnut cake with an orange sauce. I was given a dense almond cake with some almond ice cream since i'm allergic to hazelnuts.We finally drank a Le Passule, Librandi 1998. Sorry if i sometimes misspelled the wines name. I wasn't familiar with a lot of them. Considering that the menu was only 55$ and that the wine pairing to match it was 45$ we returned to our hotel room extremely happy.The service was very efficient and quite fast. We even had a chat with super Mario who had spent the night at the bar talking to a very nice looking girl. We never expected to see him there on a sunday night specially at ten o'clock.We enjoyed it so much that on our next trip, we are already planning to go back.

I just had lunch on the 22nd of sept. As usual the food was very good but a bit cold. Actually, the room was over-cooled and that made the ustensils very cold. It's the only thing i can complain about. Desserts were as if CLAUDIA had never left and the wait staff was extremely kind (as usual).The daytime maitre d' even offered me to confirm my other reservations for me (since i was from out of town).TALK ABOUT SERVICE.

SAY WHAT!

I just heard that Ghislaine Arabian has been thrown out of her self named restaurant.No other comment was said about the situation but i found it awkward that you get pushed out of a restaurant that has your name on the door.Or should i say how can you name a restaurant after yourself when you're still that at risk of getting banned of it by the other partners.Anyways, she was also fired of Ledoyen in Paris a few years ago after storming on a cook on national television.If anyone has heard something about that news please share.

Thanks yall! I'll be in N.Y. next monday morning .I'll go check at the fish market and at union square.

I recently bought some blowfish and tried serving it different ways close to what i would do with monkfish. My fish supplier couldn't share any information about it. I just know that it came from N.Y. (i'm in Montreal).Does anyone have something for me on that little critter?

If you do want to end up with a crispy skin i suggest you make " Poulet au vinaigre" ; where the chicken is cooked seperately then transfered to a plate while you make the sauce in the cooking pan and return the meat only to reheat and coat it. You end up having a more cripy chicken.

I guess the rent is not so expensive after all!

I worked there for three months in 96. I can say that the only days we were really full where on fryday and saturday nights. Otherwise we would make as much as 10 on weekdays lunch. I still have contact with the chef de cuisine sometimes and i understand that things haven't change. After all Saulieu is a three street village that you really pass through only if you have business in that area. You don't just end up there by accident. At the time it was no secret that he had several millions of francs in debts but he(he's a big mouth) explaned to me that all operations where done under La Societe de La Cote d'Or(book selling,tv appearances etc.) and that all the money his wife and him got served to pay the debdts.His wife was a book author that publised several books for the food industry that are still sold to students in cooking school. They still cash money for that.Loiseau also has 3 restaurants in Paris. Guess where the extra money goes. So Saulieu migth not make tons of money but he has a lot of other things helping him on the side.

Jacques Pepin`s books are really important but i would also suggest books by Madeleine Kamman (she has a few one) and a very important one for me;Paul Bocuse La cuisine du marche.

Cabrales..., i also ran into a copy of that magazine. I thought it lacked serious. All i could understand is that it was a collection of recipes that seemed a little old. Besides the chef's pictures also seemed old. There surely are a few good recipes in that mag but I'TS NOT FOR ME. What do others think of it?

Well, thank you very much. I'll be checking those soon and i'll share my opinions.

Thanks. Have you been to DERRIERE LES FAGOTS?

Hello hello. Since going out to have a good bite was my reason to add this topic, what places can you suggest. I don't go out very often now mainly because i hate to be dissapointed(who likes that anyway). Is Le Lutecia really a "must"?.

Not Gagnaire but somebody else. The rest is correct.

I guess i'm not ready to say who i am since the main subject is on a restaurant in my own town, but a few things i can say is that you reviewed us this year and that you weren't very impressed. Maybe you should give us another try since you really liked what i was doing before. Enough said, BYE NOW!

It's just that i happen to work in Montreal. I think Jean-Paul's food is great. He would probably be the best example of an outside- born chef who has learned to work with the local ingredients. He understands more than a lot of people what TERROIR(the land) means. It's also very cheap for what you are served. It's really worth the drive.