Steve Plotnicki

I think that multi-culturalism had to be the biggest engine that drove sandwich culture. If you had a factory or office where people were likely to be from a half a dozen different European backgrounds, save for a few people from Asia or South America, what restaurant might it be where they can all eat lunch together? Aside from issues of socialization, which is a different problem in and of itself, the sandwich seems to be a simple solution. People of different backgrounds can sit next to each other and eat totally different meals yet somehow be the same in a funny way. The obtrusiveness of one man's meal, and how it smells alien to another is significantly surpressed once it's tucked away in that bread. As for the long lunch, and this is related to the sandwich as well, commuting to work from long distances is the biggest enemy of a decent time taken for lunch. People who travel 1 hr 15+ minutes each way to work do not want to allocate more time to their lunch break. If anything, they want their day over with more quickly as it is likely that it's close to 7:00pm when they get home from their 9-5 job including stopping to buy something to eat for dinner etc. But someone who lives near where they work can allocate the time they save commuting into shopping for better ingredients. I'd love to see a study down by someone who cares more than I that tracks the decline in the quality of food, i.e., the dominance of the supermarket vs the small purveyor and how the population in urban centers shifted from inner city to the suburbs. Clearly the rise of the sandwich must go arm in arm with that phenomenon. One of the things I like best about Paris is how the shops are open until 7:30pm. That period between 6:00-7:30 when people are out of work shopping for the evening dinner has amazing energy to it. In the provinces where they close a little earlier, it cuts the energy off too soon. Even a place like Cannes which is a bustling town shuts them down by law 7:00pm. All of a sudden the whole town dies and it's like someone sucked the air out of the place.

Beechfan - Tony suggested Veereswamy but I think the place is not in the top tier. I took my crew out to dinner there a few years ago. It was something like 10 of us and the food was wholly unimpressive and bland. Nice atmosphere, and if I'm remembering correctly, the menu read well and is based on Indian street food. But it was one of the most mediocre Indian meals I've ever had in London. For me, I've never had a bad meal at Tamarind on Queen Street in Mayfair (not in Covent Garden.) I also have liked eating at Star of India on Old Brompton Rd. in South Kensington though I haven't done so in a while. But the place is fun and the owner is a character. And if you want old school, Bombay Brasserie on the Gloucester Rd. is a fun place. The infamous low end place is Lahore Kabob House in the East End. Truly a funky place with fiery food. When are you going to be there as I am going to be in London in September as well.

Sandra - But there wouldn't be enough interest among the mass market for that type of information. But there would be for chefs and what they would call "amateurs" in France.

John W. - After I posted that this morning I was standing around grilling up some weiners in the backyard for lunch and I started thinking about why our eating habits in the U.S. are so different from European eating habits. Two thoughts came to mind. One, they wanted people to eat in a 30 minute lunch break and sandwiches (after all, hot dogs and hamburgers are sandwiches) are conducive for that. Shorter lunches equal more productivity. But maybe more importantly is that a sandwich allows for the greatest statement of individuality yet everyone is equal. For example, an Italian worker can have a meatball sandwich, a German a ham sandwich and a Jewish worker tuna. This can all be done on the similar types of bread. This whole notion of different yet equal is a uniquely American concept that flows through many aspects of our culture. Blue Heron - The famous NY style pizza is a thing of the past if you ask me. It used to be when I was younger the thin crust pizza you are describing would exist in many places. There were actually pizzarias that would make pizza worth traveling for. But around the 80's, the places the pizza places could buy their dough, cheese, sauce etc. became limited to certain suppliers and now pizza is virutally the same junky stuff wherever you go in the city. But then a whole style of brick oven pizza cropped up and that was in vogue for awhile but it seems to have died down somewhat. But then again, there is DiFara's in Bkkln but I've never been. Steve Klc and Soba - There's a reason that most food magazines are travelogues. What's to write about ingredients? The thrust of American food publications is not to write about terroir. For example those Peconic Bay Scallops I wrote about in B Edulis's corn thread, that's the exact type of thing a food mag would profile. But calling them sweet and unusual is about as far as one of those mags would go. Nobody really writes about the characteristics of why they are unique in relation to other scallops. An editor of a food magazine would publish an article on them, but most probably on L.I. Sound shellfish in general and it would in reality be a travelogue for going to the North or South Fork of Long Island in the autumn. The food rags do not get into things like why a Peconic Bay Scallop is different than a Taylor Bay Scallop, and so, how you would use each of them for cooking, or what they go well with. Last week at Della Femina out here, I had a risotto appetizer with Ruby Red Shrimp. Well had it not been for Fat Guy's article from Gulf Shores, Alabama, I wouldn't know what RR's were. But since I had read it, I ordered the dish. Well they were stupendous. Someone needs to write an article on them, not to promote the Redneck Riviera, but to educate consumers so that they know the difference between Ruby Red's and other types of shrimp that are available.

"It is a quick, easy thing to prepare, so it's convenient--Americans love their convenience." Aurora - White Castle burgers are an amazing bit of American ingenuity. Showing up at WC at 2:30 in the morning and watching them make a new batch can be mezmerizing! I hate to say it but, it's the walk and chew gum syndrome. Americans like anything that frees up their time. Especially something that makes the lunch break shorter so people have time to make more money, or take care of their househould errands. Why waste time eating? I guess there's an aspect of this that says that burgers, hot dogs and slices of pizza proliferated our culinary culture at a time when the food we ate for serious meals wasn't particularly good. But nowadays since the food revolution occured, they have assumed a different place in our culinary culture. In fact now that I write this, the habit of eating and watching is distinctly American. That is why hot dogs and ballgames are such a good fit. Snacks at movies is another one. One of the problems the movie industry has in Europe is the fact that the culture there doesn't run to people spending lots of money on popcorn etc. In the U.S., a typical deal for a movie studio/theater is to split the box office 90/10 in favor of the studio. The studio provides the advertisement and that drives traffic. But where the theater makes their money is on popcorn. I forget the average spent per person but it is something in excess of $2-$3 per person. In France the average is something like $.50 so there hasn't been the same capital investment into building new screens all over France like there has been in the U.S.

Blondie - I've been to the Scobee more times than I can count. Loads of my friends from high school lived near there. Where did you live, inside Patrick's Pub? That stretch of Northern Blvd between Little Neck Road and the city line always had good restaurants. It always had a couple of old school Italians etc. And these days it has La Baraka, that Turkish kabab place that's pretty good, a couple of Japanese and Korean places etc. They get a crowd of diners who live in Great Neck or who are passing by on their way home to the Island. I was actually in that neighborhood recently (as opposed to just pasing through.) Someone I know held a wine tasting at a place called Il Toscano which is at the Douglaston train station on the LIRR. I took the train out there from the city. It made me feel like a commuter which was strange considering it was a neighborhood I hung out in for my entire adolescence.

Hey Blondie. That was my proprietary White Castle, just about a 2 mile walk from where I grew up. What office did your dad have and did you grow up in that neighborhood? There used to be a place on Bell Blvd. right across the street from WC that was a luncheonette with a sign in the window that said "Creamy Egg Creams" and we used to go there all the time as well. But I paid many a visit to that WC in the wee hours of the morning. I remember going there at around 4:00am once in a state that, well you could imagine. So I decide I'm going to ask them for my burgers medium rare and when I go up to the lady with the hairnet on who wants to take my order, I start laughing so hard that I can't speak. My friend online behind me had to bail me out and he pushed me aside and gave her the order. Ah, the fun things you get to do when you're young.

Lesley C - You never had a White Castle burger? They are a testament to fast food creativity. They are square in shape, possibly 2 1/2 square and very thin like 1/4 of an inch and a frozen patty has diced onion spread on top. There are small holes punched throughout the burger. Since they are square, they are able to be placed side by side on a griddle, with one burger smack up against the other. They are mostly cooked by being steamed, and since the burger has holes in it, the steam comes through the holes and cooks both sides of the burger at the same time. The person manning the cook station will lay out enough burgers to fill a small griddle. Maybe they will be 12 across and 12 deep. I guess that's a good question. How many burgers fit on one of those griddles? After the griddle is full, they place a bun on top of each burger. The bottom of the bun goes face down, and then the top of the burger is face down as well. After the cook finishes laying the buns on top of the burgers, they are done. The cook spatulas the top bun into their free hand while flipping the bun top over so the soft portion of the bun is face up. They then take the burger with the bottom of the bun off the grill, lay it right on the top of the top of the bun, and then stuff it into a small box with an open top. They then take a slice of a dill pickle and insert it, and then squirt ketchup onto the top of the burger. Voila. Junk food greatness. If you want cheese, after they take it off the griddle they place a slice of cheese that is the same exact size as the burger (I mean exact) and they have a steamer that they use to melt the cheese. It's sort of a press type of thing that is reminiscent of what they would use to make a Cuban sandwich. The taste of all of this is sort of oniony, and meaty. The bun is sort of mushy, but not to the point where it disintegrates. But it is soft the way something would be from steaming. Same with the meat. I think they must be particular in the way they grind the meat for the burgers and it is somewhat coarse but I think that is isn't too chewey because the steaming softens it and the holes in the burger cut down on density. Whoever invented the thing, tweaked every aspect of the invention to make it perfect for a fast food franchise. I'm certain that every aspect of the preparation was measured so a person working the griddle would be able to produce X number of bugers in Y minutes. And unlike McDonald's which is a more recent invention, WC is from the 30's I believe so the engineering here is a cornerstone of fast food. From memory (and remember this is all written from my youth and they might have changed some of this process)it would take someone about 2 minutes to cover a griddle with burgers and another 2-3 to cover the burgers with buns. Then they would have to wait for a minute or so and then they were ready. The big allure about the White Castle burger is they were almost bite size. I don't think that the meekest of eaters would take more than 3-4 bites to finish one. And it's possible to stuff a whole one in your mouth if you had the kind of neck a defensive tackle would have. But 2-3 bites for normal eaters. Considering their size, you could eat tons of them. It's not unusual for someone to order 6+. Also, WC is open 24 hours. So when you're a teenager and you're finished doing whatever teeneagers do at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning, you could head over there and get yourself a bag full.

Jaymes - I'm not saying to make them flat, I'm talking about flattening it into a patty shape. What do you think that in NYC we eat flat hamburgers? Only at White Castle. It doesn't force much of the juices out. You might get a little rise in the flame when you flatten it out. If you pack the burgers with enough meat, you get the perfect burger shape when flattening.

Sandra - No I shape them by hand into a quasi ballish shape. I do my kosher salt and garlic thing (pretty much coating them) and the trick is to put them on a very hot fire where the coals haven't completely cooked down to grey ash, but not so hot that the fire will constantly be flaming up. Then when the burgers are ready on that side, flip them and then flatten with a spatula. Since they were in a ball, you have lots of nice rare center that hasn't even come close to cooking, but the outside is completey charred. Then when you flatten it, all you have to do is to cook it to a slight char on that side and they are done. They are perfect, medium rare but warm in the middle and have a great garlic/salty flavor to them. The trick is to get the fire when it is hot, but not too hot or the outside of the burger burns and dries out. Char is good. Burnt is not. Okay I have to sign off. I have a fire going and we are making the Patricia Wells Lemon Thyme Lambchops and my wife made the infamous gratin and it looks pro. More later.

"I learned a lot about eating by reading about restaurants I couldn't afford at the time." Bux - You have put your finger on something that is as Fat Guy would say, worthy of its own thread. I can't tell you how true your statement is for me as well. When I started to read about the top restaurants in France, not only 3 star palaces but where you could find the best salade frisee, all I wanted to learn was where you could get the best things. Money, of which I did not have very much of at the time was only an obstacle to doing it. It never was an obstacle to learning about it. I recall the days when I would sit around with a few friends of mine and we would dream about eating at Lutece. "Maybe if we go to lunch we could afford it" I distinctly remember someone saying. But that Lutece was a pipedream didn't stop us from wanting to know all about it.

"My severest criticism of the Times would be that I see them reaching for younger writers who they feel would communicate with the younger reader. As others have said this is about selling newspapers" Bux - You know I am never one to deny someone his business model. The truth is that I too made my lot in life by identifying a certain group of people. But that's wholly different from my wanting to be a part of that group, or feel that the media who speaks to and for them can do so for me. This point is embodied in my little side discussion with Lesley C about the purpose of restaurant reviewing. Lesley's definition, which is the basic newspaper definition is in reality a moving target. The level of criticism she gives is dependant on her readership. If her readership is a little older, more affluent and has a bunch of top level meals under their belt, she can spread her wings so to speak. But if they are mainly young with no experience, they need some handholding. In fact Robert Brown makes the point that the popularity of places like Gramercy Tavern is that they have "Amercanized" the experience so people who have never been to places like Arpege feel comfortable going there. But what about restaurant criticism that is interested in the zenith of the dining experience and not the average. Who speaks to and for those people? Jaynes - Miles Davis both of them. Kind of Blue and Miles Ahead. When I hear them perfectly I will let you know. I'm getting closer.

Oh gee I just read this for the first time. How terrific for you Robert.

Lesley C - And my point is not to deny the Homme de la Poste who is an amateur de cuisine of his Soupe de Truffe at Bocuse. The issue is, isn't that person entitled to the knowledge of what a restaurant is capable of, in addition to knowing what the average Jean is usually served? Why does he have to wait until he is "insider with a food fetish" to get that info? I have yet to meet Michelle but I have some friends who were friends with her deceased husband (a sad story in itself) and they say he was one of the greatest guys in all of France. Did it smell like violets at her house? The wines smell from violets. Their must be a field of violets nearby. Lavender too. If you're nice and call me "Sweetie" more often, if and when you come down to NYC, I have magnums of 1995 Gramenon Cuvee Pascal that I will open. That was the top cuvee at the time (replaced with "La Meme".) The wine is awesome. Robert S. - I will never tire of reading articles on cheap eats/simple food. Nor will I ever stop collecting books on the topic. But the last thing that interests me is what the recipe for the doner kebab is that they serve at Yatagan (my favorite doner) on McDougal Street. Or what they stuff Boar's Head hot dogs with. John W. - I guess we value anything the most when it's in short supply. Including information. I can't say that my being jaded to information about hamburgers is a bad thing. It's quite different than not wanting to eat them. At least our sensory overload hasn't diminished our ability to appreciate things. As for music, having been exposed to an unlimited amount of music over the years, I have settled listening to basically two recordings over and over again. I'm trying to hear them perfectly.

Oh. You meant someone who writes like you. Not someone who might possibly write about some of the same things you write about Ohhhhhhhhhhhh.

Lesley C - Did you actually go to Gramenon? What was it like? I love that area of Provence. It's sort of, I don't want to say unknown as much as I want to say untravelled compared to the more popular regions like St. Remy etc. As for the masses, well I wonder exactly what the real deal on restaurants are. At a place like Daniel, how much of their customer base are regulars? And when you talk about people who spend a half weeks pay on a meal like that, just how much of their business is made up of those people? I don't want to upset you by saying this (and this might prompt you to "go to town") but, I would bet that the "masses" never go to Daniel. And the level of most restaurant reviews are directed at a group of people who either don't really exist, or are a small percentage of Daniel's business. But I'm just guessing. Maybe someone with real knowledge can add to this. I have to add to this, and this might be what makes food unique, I can't think af another reviewer at a newspaper who would qualify the performance they are reviewing based on whether someone should blow a half a weeks pay on doing it. If you read a newpapers's review of a chamber music concert, the issue isn't cost, it is measuring the performance *against all performances including the best possible performance.* Same with films or theater.

Sandra - I think that Saveur is above the heads of people who are making hamburgers for the first time. If you are at the Saveur level, you have already eaten, and probably made your fair share of burgers. I would feel less of a need to criticize Food and Wine or Bon Apetit than Saveur for an article about burgers. But what bothers me most about the Saveur article is the cover. Had they not focused on hamburgers, but all different types of chopped meat, and the cover was inserts of various types of chopped meat, and it was all tied together by how various ethnic groups in the U.S. grill chopped meat during the summer, it might have had a bit more weight to it. But that still really isn't a cover story up to Saveur standards in my book. I think one of Fat Guys main points was that snooty publications like The Times and Saveur have no business writing about the food habits of the common man. Did I get that right Fat Guy? And it isn't that the snooty people who read those papers don't do or like common things, they are just not interesting in the way that the usual topics they write about are. And when they do so, it seems like they are reaching below their ordinary readership to make a point that they're not snooty. Or,. they are doing it to redefine who their readership is.

"someone like Fat Guy" Hmm let's see. That would include, Sietsema Leff Asimov (less so than the others but possibly) The Stern's Irene Sax Sylvia Carter and a few others. In fact I am of the school that believes that any recommendation from a credible source needs to be verified. Like Mrs. P was telling me over our sushi last night that last weeks Long Island section made the claim that some Japanese in Masapequa was "the best on Long Island." To me a claim like that deserves at least one meal.

I think there's a huge difference between an article about where you can find a good hamburger or who makes a special one (which is invaluable), than an article on how to make one which is boring. Everyone theoretically knows how to make a good burger. Get good quality meat of the right cut, with the right proportion of fat, shape the patty well, light the coals and wait until they burn down to a decent ash and then blast off. That people have their own little tricks (mine is to vitually coat the patty with kosher salt and garlic powder which burns off in the fire but the char retains their essence) is anecdotal info at best. The nuances of what one puts in their burger (like Coleman Andrews put tamari in which I think is sacreligious) pale next to the nuances of how you get those potatoes perfect in a gratin or how one gets the essence of garlic onto the potatoes. I skimmed through the Saveur article this morning and at least they tried to make it interesting by including recipes for other types of chopped meat like Boeuf Hache etc. In reality it's unfortunate that they made the article about hamburgers and not just chopped meat in general. That's the typical type of gear-shifting that I find publications do to their readers and it's a disservice. John - First I have to say that in the 40's I was a good minus 10 years old. Are you saying that the type of obsession we have as young men (or women) about things like finding the best pizza etc. is a useful phase for an eater, but one we grow out of because ultimately we gain so much experience, both anecdotal and otherwise that it is uneccessary to be that immerssed in it? If that is your point (among others), I can say that it is true for me. For example, I am happy knowing that Katz's has the best pastrami. And I enjoy eating it when I have the jonses for it. But I don't really have the obsession to determine if another one is better and I would never set off on a a mission to find the best one. But that is something I would have done when I was younger. There isn't enough diversity in a pastrami sandwich for me to start really comparing them. I'm just happy having someone like Fat Guy telling me where the best one is and going to eat it. But I must say that my attitude about more complex foods and dishes is not as casual. It is meaningful to me that a chef like Passard might have figured out how to squeeze the most flavor out of carrots and I'm interested in trekking across the globe to try them. Same with going to Barolo to taste with two winemakers, one old school and one modern to understand how they manage to make the wines so different. That level of subtlety just doesn't exist on the hamburger/pastrami/hot dog level. But if your were making a different point, go ahead and expound. Lesley C - Hey watch the class warfare there . But the point I made is a good one (even though I say so myself.) The restaurants in NYC that William Grimes's readers are most interested in like Le Cirque, Jean-Georges, Bouley etc. are the ones that are most likely to serve special meals that an anonymous reviewer isn't offered. I know this to be the case from being a regular at Bouley Bakery for about a six month period. Each time I went they prepared a special menu for me. They never served the same dish twice. Quite often my dining companions would be eating dishes that I ate two to three weeks prior, and I was on the newer preparation. But almost none of the dishes were on the menu. Now although this would happen for me without asking, in reality, anyone could have asked for it. You just had to know how to do it. So when the NY Times reviewed Bouley Bakery, and they reviewed the dishes on the menu, were they really doing their readers a service? Not that a review of Bouley's Shrimp in the Greek Pastry dough wasn't important to them but, if 60% of the people dining in the restaurant are eating different food, what exactly does a "fair review" of the restaurant mean? Is it the average meal served there or is the meal served to the average diner? And I say that without making any value judgements about which one is preferrable other than to say that journalism should be about getting the whole story out there. Not a story that is viewed through the tinted glasses of only one type of customer.

Articles on those types of foods in those places don't bother me. It's just that there isn't much to write about. I have the Saveur here but haven't read the hamburger article yet. But what can it say? How thick to make the patties? What temperature to set the griddle to? As for it being patronizing, well it's the 4th of July so it makes sense that they ran those articles now. Is there more to it than that? As for their having the moral authority to opine about hot dogs, what's there to opine about? To me this is just one more example that the "Cheap Eats" aspect of dining not being very interesting on an analytical level. Yes information about where you can buy a great hot dog/hamburger (raw or cooked) and maybe a tip or two about how to prepare them might be helpful but, there isn't the same level of subtlety and variance when discussing them as there is when you discuss things like potato gratins or how one uses green tea. As for John Whiting's comment on the purpose of journalism these days, I think the answer is simpler than that. I think in large part we are jaded as eaters. Most people have been to many of the places that come up in the articles when the Times or other publications write about these things. Like when the Times did the story on Cuban restaurants a few months back. So what? I've been to all of those places for years now and everyone else has been to. It was one thing when at least the list of places to go to was a new and interesting bit of information. But now, we've all been and we've all eaten mofungo. It's boring. It used to be when I was a youngin', that New York Magazine had a "Best of" series about food. The famous one was "Best Pizza" article that Goldberg's Pizza (which was on First Avenue around 50th street) won. Goldberg's made a Chicago style pizza. Another famous article was "Best Pastrami" which was won by a place on 23rd Street. Something like the Pastrami Factory or something. In hindsight, both places were bad. But at the time they were published there was a dearth of information about food. Just looking at the lists of pizza places or delis that were part of the article would give you months worth of eating opportunities of going to new places. Now, 30 years later. It's pretty much been there, done that for almost every great Cheap Eats place around. Not only here in NYC, but to a large degree all over the U.S. JSD - You can get the Raymond Sokolow book at Kitchen Arts & Letters in NYC. I'm not sure if it's in print or they have used copies but I know they have it there. Lesley C - You raise a good point about anonymity, but it begs the obvious question. You have decided that just because the restaurant doesn't know who you are, that what an anonymous diner is served can be assumed to be the average meal. But in some restaurants, especially ones that cater to regulars like Le Cirque, the average meal is "special." In fact in most of the top places, much of the cooking is special because the customer base are mainly regulars. So I'm not sure that anonymity gets you the average meal you are looking for. As for owners of bistros wanting to prepare a four star meal, can't that just be avoided by ordering off the menu? And in addition, is it relevent to your readers to know that the place can prepare a four star meal and that they should go in and ask them for it? I just think that newspapers who in the process of wanting to maintain their integrity by assuming that anonymity "does the trick" gloss over the fact that it is a gross generalization that doesn't apply in every situation. And what you end up with are reviews directed to the lowest common denominator of diner. I'm not sure how much value that has anymore. Macrosan - Only someone who likes pie could ask that question.

JD - Historically the famous bouillabaisse on the cote was at La Voile d'Or in St. Jean Cap Ferrat. I can't remember the name of the chef but he was famous for it. But for some reason I recall that Waverly Root speaks of that bouillabaisse in The Foods of France. Maybe I'm wrong. Can't vouch for the soup there today and the chef isn't there anymore either. But Nounou right next door to Tetou offers a BB, and La Bourride in Cros de Cagnes offers one as well I believe. Then there's La Bouillabaisse in St. Tropez. There are loads of them. Unfortunately most of them aren't very good. Robert - The food always tastes better with a little bit with a bit of schmooze, a bit of gossip, a bit of, well, histoire .

Bux - The best Albarino I've had is Martin Codax. About $12 and terrific. And speaking of roots, do you know they can not figure out where the Basque language derives from? They have no clue where the people who settled in the Basque region might have come from before they made their way there. Not unlike there not being a trace of Celtic in Gallicia.

Marty - They charged but I don't remember how much. Dinner was $104 for everything which we thought was cheap for what they were offering. But I guess not too cheap for the way it tasted.

I met her at the Marc DiGrazia 1997 Barolo tasting at Daniel last year. Didn't she write Wine for Dummies or something like that?

"I am still dreaming about Chez Georges and that wine list." Marty - If you behave, I'll invite you the Roumier Bonnes Mares vertical we are organizing. As to the in Paris/outside of Paris controversy that is going on here, I think in general the food outside of Paris is better. Not that there are better chefs in the provinces or anything. I just think that the atmosphere in the countryside is more relaxed and it makes the entire experience more enjoyable, including probably a more easygoing experience for the chef. And when in Paris, so many of the customers are there on business functions etc. You don't get anywhere as much of that in Roanne or Annecy. I also think that the chefs in the provinces have access to better and fresher local ingredients than the Parisian chefs have. I point to the truffle menu dinner that I had in February at Guy Savoy where the quality of the truffles he served (although they weren't poor,) were inferior to the ones we were served at one star restaurants in Provence in the days leading up to that meal. Of course there are general exceptions to these rules. Robert B. raised Robuchon and I concur as to the special nature of his cooking. And there is Arpege and Allain Passard's minimalist cooking which is so ingredient intensive. But when I was at Troisgros last May, the pork he served me came from an artisinal producer in the Loire. And while I won't swear that chefs in Paris do not have access to the same pork, my gut told me they didn't and it was more of a local thing.