Gavin Jones
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Posts posted by Gavin Jones
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No Cabrales, please not. The listed menu is strongly indicative (- probably that I should stick to the set lunch...).
That I should even potentially arrest your mythical quest would be distressing.
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Cafe du Marche's been around for a bit.
As an affordable Francofauxne place it attracted the bourgeois bohemian fringes. I suspect that it is therefore slightly less unspoilt than le Pigalle which has an excellent integrity.
It's maybe a year since I ate there as I recall wine better than Pigalle, Food maybe not quite so good - probably reflecting a small place under more pressure from customers.
I'd definitely return to Pigalle in preference to the Cafe du Marche - and indeed did. My companion's Chateaubriand was exceptional.
I had very good scallops for a starter (& then pork chop & frites - the good frites).
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My mother insists on going to St. john for the bone marrow & parsley salad starter.
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Thankyou Cabrales, and my apologies for wasting your time instead of going and finding it for myself.
It was however a great review.
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Have any of you eaten at La Tante Claire recently?
I only ever ate there once at its previous location over 10 years ago.
However it was outstanding.
As I am considering upping my eating out activity (not uncorrelated with my virtual activity) I would be interested to hear of recent experiences here.
In particular, Cabrales, you appear to suggest that in your highly calibrated view you view it as at the 3* level.
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La Trouvaille will do you Bleu d'Auvergne & Honey - odd but good.
Hard cheese can often live with some type of chutney - and this is close to the notion of a savoury.
Soft cheese is best naked (& blue-veined) - in my view.
John reminds me that
'The apple without the squeeze is like the kiss without the cheese'.
Have I got that right?
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Oberst.... For a change, try some Black Bush on the rocks, a smooth Irish from Bushmills.
At a not very upmarket pub (the delightful New Cross Inn) I occasionally used to change gear on my downhill slide with a whiskey.
I used to get some rather odd looks from the women who worked behind the bar when I asked for a Black Bush.
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It is the other way round. Having achieved some limited form of self-consciousness the early modern protestant industrialized nations noticed that they only had terrible food to eat. They then resorted to mass gin based anaesthetization until the 1990's when proper food arrived.
The French, by contrast, suckled on Latour, achieved full gastronomic consciousness and as such were able to create cuisine grandmere.
Because the Spanish & Italians did not have an Appelation Controlle system they sadly languished in the gastronomic shade. Foolishly believing that a diet of risotto, porchetta and lampredotto was adequate they ate what the Pope told them.
Have I got this right?
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Odd though this may sound, SteveP's wine experience accords with my own.
I had drunk a variet of wines and some were red or white, some nice some nasty. Some tasted of fruit & some of paint stripper.
But for a brief period I drank some good wine (bordeaux meauxstly).
This did two things:
1. I noticed how the various structural features (fruit/tannin/oak/body...) interacted as a unified whole. In other words how the wine articulated itself to me.
2. I was able to apply these insights to less fancy wines & gained an insight into what those wines aspire to be.
The consequence is that I have a structure within which to understand wine and make judgements about it whereas despite previously having drunk a fair amount of wine I had no such structure.
It is of course a vile accident that this structuring of my palate was performed by the French - if only the world's palate had been cask onditioned.
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Something is good if SteveP. appreciates it.
Some things SteveP. enjoys but they mightn't be good.
Or you can calculate using your own version of Cabrales' hedonic calculus.
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Sadly Mayle's leaden prose did not optimise motility.
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Clearly the dish is right in this case.
Though the family thought they were ordering a capitalist steak ('how would you like to be done') actually they were ordering an Italian meal.
In that case the bistecca comes as it should be.
Of course people who like insisting can insist away.
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So at some point you weren't a connoisseur?
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I've found my wine hangovers to be by far the worst.
I'm sitting here having taken in a substantial quantity of wine.
I was expecting to feel deplorable but though my body is clearly affected by the central processing time for this I feel ok.
By contrast I find beer (say at 5% by volume) in quantities of over 5 pints to often leave me with little zest for life - in fact it leaves with little save a zest for lard. I think this is a message from my body telling me not to drink too much beer but to stick to wine. I think it is due to dehydration.
I am looking forward to lunch.
Edit: you do not need to know exactly how much I drank - it was excessive but not life-threatening.
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Toby - Well you have juxtaposed semantics and physiology
Surely the point. The palate is the conceptual link between tasting good and good taste.
I presumed women had a 'better' palate as they have a better sense of smell.
Of course all the 'education' in the world doesn't work on some palates - whether the root might be physiological or psychological is another matter.
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I would be extremely sad to see John go.
I will also point out that Munchausen's syndrome by proxy is an extremely serious form of child abuse.
SteveP. has suggested that he used it as a 'joke'.
I hope he will either edit his original post (if he has not done so) or explain why it is appropriate to suggest 'jokingly' that active members of this site suffer from this syndrome.
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First cookbook I bought:
"The autobiography of Alice B. Toklas" - Miss G. Stein
And I read one book by Peter Mayle - I am sorry to say - but I was confined to the loo at the time.
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Outside Halal butcheries the full sheep experience is hard to come by in cities. But I've never went further than discussing the general availability
so maybe it might have been kid - still delish.
I wonder if there are mail order places which would work - since on the odd occasion I've found myself in Lamb country it is sometimes possible to buy hogget (& occasionally mutton) from farms.
"Mutton - dressed as lamb - for you"
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Excellent idea Steve, why don't you produce something.
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Skate on the bone/cartilage is really easy to eat and helps it maintain structure.
I've always found it really bland - sort of fish for people who don't like fish.
Actually I lied on that front i had a lump with a piece of belly pork (at Pied a terre in February) which was great. The unctuous pig cosied up nicely to the skate in an excellent culinary miscegenation. The skate took well to the essentially meaty treatment.
As they're scavengers does anyone know if they're particularly prone to contamination (e.g. heavy metal, plastics by-products)?
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I've looked at it in shops but I would never use it in London or another European city. It is completely oblivious to local atmosphere, it is useless at high end or low end so it represents the nadir of the middlebrow if it represents anything.
I would prefer to have a dreadful meal (with some entertaining lowlights) than a symphony of tedium as accredited by Zagat.
In London I use the Timeout guide - I don't always agree with it but it is possible to calibrate one's taste against the descriptions offered.
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If you remembered to take a painkiller before going to sleep you weren't drunk. Not really.
Irn-bru (foul orange fizzy drink) would be the scottish equiv. of gatorade.
But for bad situations I find ice cream very helpful.
Easy to swallow, emollient on the stomach.
Basically fat & sugar - and doesn't block the sink if you throw up.
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Out of interest what did get blown off?
Personal Taste
in Food Traditions & Culture
Posted
Are you referring to Plotto's monologues?