balex

But you can't dispute that the standard in food is based on what people like to eat. Hey, I don't dispute this, that's your job, if the what people like to eat of some people doesn't agree with your what people like to eat. Don't be stupid -- it is only the opinions of qualified experts that matter. And the definition of a qualified expert is someone that agrees with Steve. Sorry to steal your punch line. You shouldn't go to bed so early

But you can't dispute that the standard in food is based on what people like to eat. All the empirical evidence does is show why they like to eat it. The standard is always tied to humans and how they function. I think one of the problems in this discussion (and I am not a participant) is that S.P. is not using the word empirical in the way that it is generally used. What people like to eat is a bit of empirical evidence. Empirical does not mean scientific -- it just means to do with experience rather than theory.

I am not addressing the presentation issue here. I am addressing the position struck by Fat Bloke early in the thread, and others later, that presentation can't affect the taste of food, because the taste is determined by what is literally on the plate. No-one said that was the case only for fine dining - on the contrary, it was advanced as a self-evident generalisation. I have demonstrated that the position is unsustainable - and the baby formula example is a good one. This means that people who contend presentation can't affect taste have to find a different and better argument. I think you are being too philosophical here. "Can't" doesn't mean "in all possible worlds this is not the case" -- it just means "doesn't" but emphatically. It is a mistake to try to over-analyse these discussions -- it assumes more precision than is being used. I think we probably all agree that in most cases presentation does affect the taste of the food -- and there is good evidence for this. What is at stake (steak?) is whether there exists an elite group of gourmets who have trained themselves to be immune to these distractions. Perhaps my carefully neutral description reveals what I think of these claims .

They serve it in every restaurant in Mondello (outside Palermo). It is not a very original dish. Is that interesting or not?

I think presentation does influence your perception of food, whether you 'value' it or not. The question is the extent to which one can adjust for that distortion. Why does one taste wine blind? Precisely because extraneous factors such as knowing that a wine costs 100 bucks may influence your judgment. I think some people are quite immune to these distractions -- I am not. I agree that diminishes the value of my opinions.

I work some of the time at the University of Geneva and in the cafeteria there they often have horse meat -- either steack de cheval (ok) or emince de cheval (which is rather disgusting). I think at that price point the horse steak is better than the corresponding beef steak. It's kind of funny to compare the food there with corresponding menus at English academic insitutions.

Actually, there is a small Indian wine industry. The most famous brand is Omar Khayyam-a very acceptable Methode Champenoise, I think partly owned by Moet. Several Muslim countries produce wine-Morroco, Algeria, Tunisia, Turkey, Lebanon. Quality's not great(apart from Chateau Musar) and much was used in the past to "beef up" insipid Burgundy and Claret from poor, thin years. Now that's not done the amount of land under vine in those countries has diminished. Lots of wines go very well with spicy foods. You can either go for contrast-as with Steve's Ausleses-or you can go for spicy reds such as Australian Shiraz, or Riojas and Ribeiras. I find French reds don't work too well-although a chilled Beaujolais Cru can wash down a spicy meal most acceptably-but decent Alsace is always a safe bet if you're stuck. A Thai friend who is a wine-collector recommends very good red wine that is slightly too young. The extra tannins and fruit help the wine stand up to the onslaught of flavour and chilli. It works quite well, but I think it is a bit of a waste of the wine.

Interesting points. But historically, French haute cuisine started with private cooks for aristocrats, rather than restaurants. (Hmm, now I've said it I am not so sure .. I will have to check). I don't buy the argument that food in private houses is necessarily inferior than in restaurants. Lots of people in Europe have professional cooks or are professional cooks. You can make a good argument that private homes are better places -- more financially stable, a single supportive patron, only having to cook one menu at each meal -- for high level cuisine to develop.

In Palermo, have a sandwich of milza. This is very antique street food. It is a stew of milza which is sweetbreads (ris de veau), stewed with other bits of offal, often lung as well. It is served in a sesame seed bun (this predtaes McDo by about 500 years), with two sorts of cheese and a squeeze of lemon. A real experience. Unmissable. Fabulous. Some people say the best example is to be found in the Antica Foccaceria di San Francesco, but it is a bit clean and hygienic. Buy it on the street, eat, repeat.

I second that. I had lunch there a couple of days ago, and I thought it was excellent. I felt slightly stronger on the simpler things. I had some sea urchins, that were maybe the best I have ever had.

I have eaten maybe 10 times at Nobu in London: 8 times at the counter, where I have been quickly served and you can watch the chefs etc, and have had a great time. And twice at a table and both times the service was terrible. So go to the counter: you don't have to book, and it is better. And order omakaze. But it is a counter. My last time was on Sunday night and the food was excellent.

I have to cancel as well, since I have to go to London; sorry for the short notice.

Yes, I'd like to come too. I'm fairly flexible, though away from Paris quite a lot.

Cant be sure on the spelling but that is how it was spelled to the best of my recollection. I had never heard of it, nor had my wife (who is half italian and has spent much time in Northern Italy). I think we will have to assume it means nasty spinach. The funny thing is, when I was in Sorrento, I had a similar experience where I ordered brocolli and the waiter brought me spinach. When I pointed out that I had ordered brocolli and not the spinach, he insisted that what was inf front of me was brocolli. We had a pretty heated argument about it. I was sure he thought that Americans just didnt know the difference between brocolli and spinach. I wonder if brocolli is the word for spinach around Naples. In southern Italy broccoli is used to refer to what is called sprouting broccoli in England -- i.e. lots of leaf, thin stalks and only a few sprouts at the top. So it could end up looking very like spinach -- but with a very different taste -- if you got a spoonful that was mostly leaf and with little or no sprout. In Rome -- there were basically 4 kinds of this family of vegetable -- your basic white cauliflower, your basic green broccoli, the thing that is half way between the two (light green, very geometric pyramidal shape, called 'cimone' or cavolbroccolo or a bunch of other things') and the sprouting broccoli. Then there are the dozen or so forms of spinach and cicoria and so on which are quite distinct. I like them all.

But isn't this really just semantics? The asparagus by itself is not simple tasting at all. It is already complex after a simple boiling or steaming process(sorry to use that word.) And no matter how simple you think it is, pairing it with the starch of the potatoes, and the salty ham, and it isn't really that simple anymore. It's almost like saying a good Aioli is simple. Well it is if you look at it one way, say compared to a bouillabaisse. But it isn't really simple if you look at how complex the flavors are because of the pairings. Let me get this straight. You want to argue that plain steamed asparagus is not simple, because otherwise you feel this would undermine your basic complex = good equation. You even used the word 'simply' in your description. I'm impressed by your dedication to your argument.

So I am not really going out on a limb when I say Arpege is a very good restaurant. I had a very good lunch there on Friday. The star for me was a ravioli of dates, sweet onion and cumin in a shellfish broth. The broth was perfectly clear golden colour, and absolutely delicious; and the ravioli were not Italian stylem but the very thin 'dim sum' style wrappers which were quite transparent. I think they were still wheat flour though. The combination of flavours was really beautiful, and the balance of the dish was exceptional. I had the egg as an amuse; then the ravioli dish, then a mushroom soup (frothy a la Alain Chappel) and then a pigeon coated in almonds, then cheese and a chocolate souffle. All excellent. The pigeon was maybe a weak point. Wines by the glass since I was with a non-drinker. This was my first meal at Arpege, and I liked the room and the service a lot. Very friendly and efficient, and a nice relaxed atmosphere, but still serious. Passard was there and seemed to be working quite hard. Very expensive but very worth it.

Well just when I was about to give up on French food in general and Parisian food in particular, I had two good meals. First, les Olivades, on Avenue Segur in the 7th, which was recommended by a friend, though the chef has changed and is now Bruno Deligne. Very small, not very formal. A short carte, with a very short wine list (5 whites and 7 reds) that they rotate frequently. I had a starter of a terrine of St. Jacques which was very nice. Not one of those nouvelle ones, but a traditional sort with nice chunks of the scallops in a white fish matrix. Served with a beurre blanc with chives, and a rather boring herb salad. Really delicious. My partner had grilled langoustine with a salad, served with an orange juice and olive oil emulsion. This was also good. My main course was a sort of pasta dish with lobster. Actually it was more of a lobster dish with some pasta. Unfortunately the pasta was overcooked. The lobster was very nice though, with a really good texture -- even the claw bits, which are sometimes a bit mushy. This was in a rich well-flavoured sauce a bit like a sauce Nantua but not quite as concentrated and there was a lot of it. The other main was a delicious bit of grilled sea-bass ('bar' on the menu, which the irritating head waiter said was 'codfish'). A nice hot apple tart, an Armagnac. We drank a bottle of delicious Meursault. The bill was 120 Euros for two, which I thought was very reasonable. We'll go back. Since this is eGullet, and thus neurotic pickiness is the order of the day, there were a few flaws. The head waiter was rather annoying; they had one of those bottle cooling machines about 5 feet from our table which was rather noisy, and the tomatoes that the sea-bass was resting on were completely tasteless. And the pasta was over-cooked. I hate that. Only one table of French customers. (Does that count as a flaw?) A really nice meal.

Exactly. This is the major disadvantage of VAT (or sales tax in general): it is basically regressive since the poor spend all their income, while the rich spend only a fraction. The other disadvantage is that it is difficult to collect on services which encourages the growth of the black economy in areas like building, window cleaning and so on. On the plus side it is a tax on consumption not on earning, so it encourages saving. Which could be a good thing in England and America.

Following the principle 'show don't tell' here is a web-site describing a delicious meal I had near Rome. Enjoy! Meal at Santa Severa

Is the baguette still in decline? I thought it reached its nadir some time ago. I often wonder why I ever loved it. Did I not know better or was it much better in the sixties? Was that sort of bread done much worse here in the states back then? I don't know, but I can say that the baguette is not as prized as it used to be in France. The better cafes all seem to charge extra for sandwiches on Pain Poilane and feature its availability prominantly. I think the 'baguette tradition' is what you order at the bakery if you actually want a good baguette. I think this is because it is not regulated like the baguette. It is slightly more expensive (near me it is 95c or 1 euro versus 72 c for a standard baguette). And, I forgot to say, much better. They are much denser, with unbleached flour, and generally very tasty. The normal baguettes are much blander -- good for breakfast, and maybe if you want to cook with them in some way, but otherwise to be avoided.

Is the baguette still in decline? I thought it reached its nadir some time ago. I often wonder why I ever loved it. Did I not know better or was it much better in the sixties? Was that sort of bread done much worse here in the states back then? I don't know, but I can say that the baguette is not as prized as it used to be in France. The better cafes all seem to charge extra for sandwiches on Pain Poilane and feature its availability prominantly. I think the 'baguette tradition' is what you order at the bakery if you actually want a good baguette. I think this is because it is not regulated like the baguette. It is slightly more expensive (near me it is 95c or 1 euro versus 72 c for a standard baguette).

This is just not true. I just had to pay first at both the bar at Peck as well as at the bar of that chic tea salon that is at the corner of via Montenapoleone and via della Spiga. In fact I cannot recall a bar in Italy where you do not have to pay first. I am trying to explain why the habit in Italy that in general you pay first is not such an incredibly bizarre and disfunctional thing as you want to insist. To do this I was explaining that given you have a separation between paying and preparing the coffee, which seems not only reasonable but in many ways preferable, it clearly makes sense to have people pay before they consume rather than after, and to justify that I referred to the situation where in my experience (I lived in Rome for 8 years up until 2 months ago) this rule was most rigorously enforced, and most clearly justified. I will further say that of the 8 or so bars I went to regularly the only one which _enforced_ the rule after they recognised me, was at the airport, and that seemed to be a general rule (i.e. everybody pays first, even daily customers). This together with the fact that one of the characteristics of drinking coffee at a bar in Italy (at the bar itself) is that it is very quick, should suffice to explain the existence of this rule. There are other places where one has to pay before consumption (Starbucks and so on) outside of Italy. I agree it can be slightly inconvenient, but it is really no more strange or unusual than many other rules in England or France or America. I don't think I have anything further to contribute to this discussion.

We had lunch today at Thoumieux, a very old-fashioned brasserie in the 7th. It is famous for its cassoulet, and some other south-western specialities, but without being really over-specialised. The room is very nice, and the atmosphere has a nice slow, serious eating feel to it. I used to eat there quite regularly about 10 years ago; this was my second visit after a long break. The food was only ok; the cassoulet was good -- they do it with a proper crust on the top in a large bowl. Other people: the roast chicken was a bit dry; an entrecote was good, as was an aile de raie with capers. We just had some crudites and some ham to start.. Some nice sorbets and a rather duff tarte tatin finished the meal. But I enjoyed it -- it has a really good feel to it which makes up for the slightly sub-par food. But I can't really recommend it to a food-oriented person. My previous lunch had been rather better (2 months ago) which was a weekday, so that might account for it.

The only circumstances at which bars in Italy really insist on payment first is at places like airports and railway stations where it is clearly impractical to get people to pay afterwards if you are paying at a separate place. Again this is only if you are consuming at the bar; if you are seated you pay afterwards.

How sad. I guess that's how things are all the way over in the 6th. Why didn't you take the Reblochon back to M. Cantin? Actually I am just in the 7th, so we can still talk to each other as equals... Taking it back would have required storing it for a day or two which would have caused rebellion in my household. (Trying to digest a slightly disappointing meal at Thoumieux)