roosterchef21

It's a bit more portable now.... I'd be shattered. I dropped my chef's knife the other day at work and snapped the tip off. Nearly cried...

Most places I wouldn't bother if they didn't have backs... But Merenda is worth it.

I wholeheartedly recommend La Merenda as well. Quite simply a must go if you are in that area...

Go to Les Cocottes in the 7th. It's one of Constant's restaurant's. Very simple and excellent food, good price and a really fun & friendly atmosphere. Great concept for a restaurant too...

I think this industry is very crude & amateurish sometimes. You wouldn't get away with it in most other industries.

Something like this? ← Similar. Wouldn't have a sit down area for meals per se but would definetely sell small items for take away. And it would be a lot cosier I think. Kind of like when you walk in its very personal and up close as though it's it's own small community. People would chat with each other and taste food together etc etc.

It's not reallya restaurant but I would love to have my own deli. A nice little place selling cured meats, olives, olive oils, vinegars, seafood products (smoked & cured products and the like), wines, patisserie/boulangerie section, foie gras, pastas, cous cous, chocolates, spices, tea, books, premade baguettes, sushi etc etc. It would: * Be open 6 days a week (5 days 8-5 & 1 day (saturday) 8-12 * Have one or two staff on each section * Have hams on racks for tastings, free product tastings etc * Our own sommelier for wine tastings * Our own baker & patissiere for the breads & pastries and eventually our own chocolatier for chocolates * cooking classes We would also supply products to restaurants. It's a bit of a dream but I think it is very much possible.

We asked for the bill. They stood around chatting and having a joke. We asked again. And again. It ended up taking 20-30 minutes - in a half empty room!!! I ate it because it tasted great. Why would you eat say, caviar in paris or camembert in the US? Just because it isn't local doesn't mean you can't have it. It just is sexy. Rich, smooth, silky in the mouth. Definetely sensual probably sexual...

Mr Talbott has got it right about Il Bocconcino. Really really good place serving really really good food. It's just far enough off the tourist track to not be too busy and is still inhabited by locals. Entree Bucatini alla Matriciana - Nice dish. Tomatoes had been cooked down enough to give that nice richness you can get while the pancetta still had enough size and texture to still be noticed rather than lost in the background. The pasta was spot on. Good flavour, fresh and cooked perfecctly Mixed antipasti plate - Really good. Highlights were some amazing salame, Grilled bread with Pecorino sauce & grilled bread with an incredible pumpkin puree. It was like having 10 pumpkins in your mouth at once. Mains Pork & Veal Involtino with raisins & Red Wine - Good dish. The pork and veal had been rolled seperately in a piece of savoy cabbage and poached in red wine. Had some raisins served with it. Nice seasoning, and great flavour but thought it needed a little bit of sweetness to it. I think the raisins kind of got lost in the red wine to do that job so I think the red wine could have been reduced with a little sugar to really lift it and bring out the sweetness in the pork... Gnocchi a Ragu The way it should be done. Nice rich tomato based sauce with pieces of chicken liver through it as well as veal & pork mince. Gnocchi was super light but had texture and held up well to the sauce. A nice grating of fresh pecorino over the top and it was foodie heaven. Volpetti Oh shit that was good. At least 150 cheeses at the peak of their perfection, 30-40 legs of various cured meats hanging from the roof, seafood, bread, olives, wine & oil etc. A must visit for anyone in Rome. Highlight was the Cecine de Leon. Definetely the Iberico Jamon of Beef. So lush and so sexy. il Matricianella Really not good. I won't go so much into the food but it was over seasoned, cold and over cooked crap. Had the Carbonanra... The pasta was overcooked and stuck together in a ball. Tasted ok but... Main for me was Lamb Sweetbreads with Artichoke. Nicely cooked sweetbreads, totally undercooked artichoke and a pepper based sauce that had skinned and had been thickened with cornflour. My wife had the Spaghetti Alla Romana... the livers hadn't been cleaned properly. It's a simple thing I thought... For mains she had the Stuffed Eggplants which was actually good. Slices of eggplants baked in a tomato sauce with parmesan. Yum... The service was terrible (20 minutes for the bill in a half empty room) and unprofessional. Just not good. San Crispino Gelato Choc Meringue - Great... Still had pieces of meringue in it and nice chocolate. Valrhona Cocoa - Textbook great ingredient done simply. Rich & Smooth Caramel- Good. A little plain. Thought it could have done with some hard set candy in it... Pear - Great also. Good texture and flavour. Pistachio - Wow.... Amazing flavour. Tiny little pieces of pistachio through it. The second best flavour... Chestnut - Smooth silky & nutty. Lovely Honey - Too much honey for me... A little restraint on the honey would be nice. Almost overpowering Zabaione - Had some kick... Good Apple - The best thing I put in my mouth in Rome. Great apples it even had the colour where the apples had started to oxidize. So much flavour and depth in it while still being light. You just have to have it... So that's Rome.. It was a bit disappointing at times but there is plenty of quality about... Loved it!

Out of italy... Already been to Florence, Venice, Lyon & Nice. Would have typed more but had some twat breathing over my shoulder to use the computer. Problem with free internet.... Expect reviews of Il Bocconcino, Tratorria Alla Madonna, thoughts on Volpetti, Antico Forno, il Matricianella, Nerbone, Trattoria Antellesi and in the France forum Nicholas le Bec, Le Bistrot de Lyon (or Leon), Le Bistrot de St Paul & La Merenda to which I have already been.... In the future we should have a whole heap more because I still have Bordeaux (at least La Tupina & Le St James plus whatever I find worth reviewing) and Paris (at least Les Bouchon des Francois Clerc, Cafe COnstant, Ledoyen, L'Arpege & Gagnaire as well as Berthillon, Laduree, Pierre Herme, Cluizel, La Maison du Chocolat as well as a few Boulangerie's (Poilane, Maison Kayser etc...) Might take a while for me to type it up though!

Hey guys. Here is the start of our trip to Italy and France Rome La Rosetta Amuse Bouche - Pumpkin cream w/ Spinach Pest, Steamed Mussel & Crispy Tuna Pumpkin Cream - Lovely. Nicely seasoned, rich, sliky & smooth. Haven't had a pumpkin that flavour filled in a long time. Pesto was a nice contrast to the pumpkin. Mussel - A touch over. Nice sweet onion dressing was a good foil for the flavour of the mussel. Crispy Tuna - Tuna was rolled in a straw like crust. Pretty sure it was potato. A couple of slices of radish gave a nice contrast to the Tuna. tuna was a little dull & thought could have been left semi raw. Mains Turbot with Clams & Cauliflower Beignet. Amazing clams. Super sweet and only jusst cooked. Turbot was a little over. Beignet was deep fried pieces of cauliflower which I thought wasn't really up to scratch. Wouldn;t be too hard to adjust a recipe to make a better one... Sauce was very very wierd. It's not that it had no flavour because it looked rich & luscious... it was like someone had sucked the flavour right out of it ala Willy Wonka.... Had formed a skin by the time it had got to the table. Ok dish but thought it could have been executed better. Scallops Millefeuille with artichokes Quite a nice dish. Perfectly cooked artichokes but the scallops were a little over. Thinly sliced artichokes & scallops. Thought it needed an acid component to it (capers or lemon juice) and maybe some fresh chopped parsley. Bread Good bread. Hazelnut wholemeal had a great depth of flavour. Caramelly nutty goodness. (8/10) Caper bread was perfect (10/10). Olive bread was ok. Nice olives crap bread.... Service was good but they weren't the friendliess bunch in the world... A little pricey at 95euro... I'll keep going as I eat some more....

So I've finalised my trip. Fly out from Sydney on Monday. Booked the following: Rome: La Rosetta, Il Bocconcino with options on Il Chianti & Matricianella Florence:No where booked but narrowed it down to Camillo & Antellisi. Well I do have one booking but it's not really a booking... Nerbone! Venice: Caffe Quaddri & Alle Testiere booked, Alla Madonna an option Thanks so much for your help guys... I'll definetely make a report when I get back!

I guess it depends on how much a head they are paying... I'd keep it as simple as possible. They are getting older and pretty set in their ways so I wouldn't put weird funky ingredients on that they wouldn't have when they were younger. Cold cuts - Roast Beef, sliced ham, salami etc Simple salads - Potato, Pasta, Garden smoked salmon? basic desserts - mini trifles in a glass, cheesecake, poached fruit (e.g. poached stonefruit in saffron syrup), cheese platter, fruit platter. At least if it's simple it will be easier for you and not as much manhours to prep it.

Maybe it was too embarassing for them to have 2 chef's (Roellinger & Veyrat) to hand back their stars in one year... Bad publicity. I don't think 2 in one year has happened before.

How much was the menu in the end? What did you pay at Arpege? Interested to see if the prices are slowly rising...

A very odd man.... Good luck to him!

When will the 2009 Red Guide be published? In your opinion, what has happened at Le Grand Vefour? ← Simon says March 2nd. ← Not long now then....

Found this site today and it seems to be a booking site for restaurants in Italy. Just wondering if anyone has used it and if it is a reputable site?

Sounds like the Oscars... I was young and foolish and bypassed le Bristol when Frechon was, by all reports, at the top of his game a few years go. I just visited in December (2008) and had a pretty good meal. But I'm not sure I would consider it 3 star quality. And I agree with Bu Pun Su above - I had a very good meal at Ledoyen and would hate to see LeSquer lose his third. ← Any bad acceptance speeches?

By the time it has rested for a couple of minutes, gets plated & to the diner and then start eating it should be around 5 minutes.

I rest my fish. Only needs 1 1/2 - 2 minutes in a warm spot. It's a muscle (well a whole group of muscles), it's flesh and can do with the rest. As long as the plate is hot when the meal goes out it should still be at the right temperature. And I think it's a better product in the end. I suppose it's up to personal opinion though...

I think you get into a very messy area if you start talking about who can or cannot go to certain restaurants. Certainly for myself, I was hopelessly out of my depth the first few times I went to high end restaurants. I suppose the point I was trying to make in my previous post (probably a bit clumsily) is that there are people who feel obliged to enjoy something simply due to price and/or reputation. And then there are those will be happy just as long as they've got a big pile of food in front of them, no matter how good or bad it is. ← I was actually really worried about that. What I'm trying to say is that before eating at a high end complex restaurant such as Gagnaire, an inexperienced restaurant goer should eat at somewhere that is a little simpler like Savoy. Its kind of like drinking wine. You need to start with a lesser, simpler wine to understand it before aiming for the Petrus, Latour or Margaux. At least that way when you finally get to the Gagnaire's of the world you really appreciate how technically brilliant it is. Anyone can eat at a high end restaurant. I'd love for more people to do it i.e everyone. I'd just love them to really appreciate the simple & sublime first before eating at the boundary pushers.

Hey! I was reading an article on Australian restaurants & food recently as well as how the Michelin Guide is now expanding around the world. It got me thinking about how do our restaurants compare to international restaurants. Is a 3 star restaurant in Australia the same standard as a 3 star restaurant in Europe? Or is it more like a 2 or 1 star restaurant. What are the glaring differences that make them a lesser or better restaurant?

Thanks! Is it a priority to reserve at Matricianella? I actually thought about the Met but the usual finance issues are a problem. Most of the higher end restaurants I want to go to are in France. Much prefer peasant Italian food than peasant French food. Too heavy I think. Which is why I have stuck to lower end simpler food in Italy.

In Eric Ripert's book, "On The Line", there's a chapter about developing new recipes. He gave two examples, one of which they put onto the menu with little modifications. In a second, iirc, they were trying to get the balance of flavours and textures right, spent about six months on it, but they couldn't get it to work so they ditched the dish. But the other side of the argument is how and why customer responds to the food? From what I can gather, Tender Trap does pretty well. If Lethlean's review is right, do people who go to the restaurant simply like the quantity of the food, and don't really care about the quality of the cooking or how the components of the dish fit together? Even if you go to the high end of dining (like Melbourne's Vue de Monde), there would be diners who are there because "it's the place to be seen" and/or they're too intimidated to admit, "I don't get this dish" or "I don't like it". It's interesting to read in Heston Blumenthal's "Big Fat Duck" on how he tries to tie in his food to earlier eating experiences that his clients would have had - to give them a point of reference on the dishes they are about to enjoy. ← I think that is a lack of knowledge on the part of the diner to say that it is bad. And I wonder if high end molecular dining should be reserved for people with a knowledge about food. Even high end dining in general. Apart from the really simple places (Savoy, Rockpool Bar & Grill, L'Ambroisie etc & their Eastern equivalents), I think that high end restaurants who begin to push boundaries should be left to the foodies (like most of us on here) and the uber rich (like possibly none of us on here!).