Bux

I'm still more familiar with dining in France and French terms than I am with those of Spain. In France it's not uncommon for a restaurant to present several set menus along with the carte. (To make this even more confusing, in the US, we refer to the carte as a menu.) Only true gastronomic destinations offer a menu degustation (tasting menu). Lesser restaurants may still offer one or more set menus at varying prices and gastronomic menus may offer several menus, including several tasting menus, at different prices. Michelin usually tries to note the prices of the menus offered and then attempts to give a price range for meals ordered à la carte. As tasting menus offer smaller courses and don't always include all the specialties of the house or the most expensive ingredients, they are not always the most expensive way to dine at a restaurant, although usually they are more expensive than ordering a three course meal from the carte. In Paris, at lunch in particular, many famous restaurants offer an enticingly priced menu, although it never compares with the gastronomic tasting menu, sometimes it's a great bargain. At other times it's little more than an opportunity to experience the ambience and service at a bargain price, but the great cooking is less evident as the dishes offered are very simple. I suppose it's not so different in Spain, except that there used to more emphasis on having the tasting menu be relatively economical, and that this practice seems to have continued in many restaurants. This is probably less the case in the really famous multi-starred restaurants and I'm using the term multi-starred rather generically to mean awards of points from any and all major players in the guide game, not just Michelin. I don't find myself in full agreement with Campsa any more than I do with Michelin, but they are at least as useful and maybe better at expressing quality on Spanish terms. Working with personal recommendations on this past trip, I was not always aware of how many stars or suns each restaurant had. I shall have to go back and compare my meals with those ratings.

"Improperly cooked" may well be entirely subjective or a matter of regional, or other, differences. I happen to prefer broiled or roasted chicken a little bit red at the bone. Unfortunately, that's become a rather dangerous taste in terms of health in the US. Salmon is an interesting example. I recall a time when most mid upscale restaurants in NYC would ask the diner how they preferred their salmon. At that time, the waiter might tell the patron that the chef prefers to cook it medium rare, or medium well done, implying it would be rare in the center. These days tastes have changed enough so that it just comes that way unless the diner makes a special request. "Right" is quite subjective. In most places, you can expect no more than cooked the way most people prefer it or how the chef likes to serve it.

Thanks for the that bit of information. I thought I'd read a report that said some of the top places don't necessarily get revisited every year. That rather shocked me and some comments I've made since were based on that misinformation. While I don't always agree with the starred ratings, I've always liked to believe they were made on good information. At the unstarred level, I've always believed the listings are extremely useful, but hardly conclusive and that a local might know better places or better values. If the two and three star places get multiple visits each year, they my faith is somewhat restored. I shall have to depend on other people's readings until a translation is published. I would assume there'd be a good market for an English language edition. Surely, I'm not the only English language travel who's imagined himself living a fictitious life of a Michein inspector. Is there a position more coveted by gastronomes?

As you can see, this sort of choice is very subjective, even among those of us presuming to have the same over riding interest in food. I rather like Toulouse although it's been years since we've stayed there and enjoyed a good dinner. Too long in fact to offer a recommendation for a good restaurant. In terms of touring, and I can't dismiss this if you have a car, I think Toulouse and the Loire are both interesting places to stay for a few days. I don't know Tours at all, but have always loved the countryside of the Loire. Perhaps it's because it was one of the first areas in which we spent time traveling by car. I've also noticed the increase in density of tourism in the forty years since we first traveled in the area, but in late September, it shouldn't be that bad. We spent a few days in the Loire Valley in late October on a a few years back and loved it. We stayed in the countryside each night. I have no idea of your budget or why you seem to prefer the city to the country, but we particularly enjoyed the Domaine des Hauts de Loire in Onzain with both its wonderful food and grounds. The Grand Hôtel du Lion d'Or in Romorantin probably had the better dinner, but setting and grounds of Domaine des Hauts de Loire are quite exceptional and Romorantin, although a nice enough place, really had little to offer besides the hotel. The only place we really ran into heavy tourist traffic was at Chenonceau. What can I say? I have always felt this was one of the most magical of all buildings. If you want to be in a city, Toulouse might be an excellent choice. It may be an industrial center, but the city itself, particularly the heart of the city shows no sign of the industry that that is outside the city. Then again and I'm sorry to add confusion to the thread, Lyon and Strasbourg might be equally interesting places in which to spend a few days and afford far better food. Lyon, in fact, would provide enough interest within the city to eliminate the need for a car. We've spent a few days in Lyon on several occasions and not been bored.

The Campsa guide lists a couple of places with a precio medio of 30 euros. One of them, Arbola-Gaña, has a recommended rating. The Guggenheim restaurant has a menú at 42 euros and a precio medio of 42 euros, but the listing also mentions a menu of the day at 15 euros. What I do not know is whether Roger includes beverages in his 30-35 euro range, or if Campsa includes them in its prices. Moreover, I'm confused by Campsa when it sometimes shows a precio medio that is higher than a menú degustación for several restaurants.

Good food at moderate prices. In Spain it's under 30 euros for a meal or 25 euros for tapas or snacks. Sorry I don't have my France Guide at hand.

The practice that bothers me far more is the one of insisting one order dessert at the start of the meal.

A lot of good stuff has already been said. I think Marcus comes closest to making many points I could support. I think there may be a few things I can try to add from my perspective of losing considerable faith in Michelin in light of recent revelations of just how often (not often, not necessarily every year) all restaurants including top restaurants are visited in France, and from the perspective of someone who's been traveling more in Spain than in France for the past several years and comparing the Michelin guide to the competition in a country mutually foreign to Michelin and me. Michelin has grown over the one hundred some odd years of its existence, but it started out as, and still is, primarily a guide for travelers. That's inherent in its attitude and in its structure. Sure it's used by locals, but that's not the impetus for its being. It has always been as important to me as a place to find a lunch stop or hotel on a road trip on a day between the starred dining rooms, as it was in planning an itinerary of the stars. Many of us forget that and speak of Michelin restaurants as if it meant haute cuisine. Michelin reacted too late to GaultMillau's early championship of nouvelle cuisine, and in my opinion has over reacted. I believe it is far easier for a young creative chef to get Michelin's attention and a star than it is for a highly talented chef working in a more traditional idiom. Someone such as Dufresne should get their attention quickly. Soy sauce, balsamic vinegar and lemon grass are no longer things that leave French inspectors scratching their heads. French food is no longer very French and that's not only at the starred restaurants. I don't really know how the locals regard Michelin in Spain, but Spanish chefs are quick to note their stars in their promotional material and while many of the gastronomes I've met, don't rely on Michelin for their restaurant choices, they all seem to know who has how many stars. I wish I were a regular in most of the four star restaurants in New York to sound totally authoritative, but I have enough experience to express the opinion that a good many tables are always filled with out of towners and plenty of those come from Europe, Asia and South America. My guess is that these people are enough of a target audience for the publisher. Local sales may never account for the bulk of the NYC Red Guide. I often suspect the French guide sells better in the UK, Belgium and Switzerland if the license plates in front of the Relais Gourmands are any indication. I'd love to poll (and get a really honest answer ) the top chefs in NYC and ask if they'd prefer three Michelin stars to four from the NY Times. Michelin has fallen in esteem recently, but somehow it hasn't taken its stars along for the decline (yet?). On the other hand, I think the importance of the NY Times stars has steadily declined since Craig Claiborne. People are all too aware than the currently held ratings come from several different reviewers. I'm loathe to predict financial or editorial success or failure right now for a NYC Red Guide, although give me a drink and a good argument either way and I'll take the other side for sport.

I've been in Sete several times, but don't recall stopping for more than a stroll around town and the harbor, or a drink in a cafe. There were some unused warehouses in a commerical area near the water than we thought would make good studios, but no one ever moved to inquire about the asking price. You will find dishes à la Setoise. Offhand, I can't make a connection but to say that I recall them as either fish soups or seafood dishes that would remind one of Provencal cooking--olive oil, black olives, onions, garlic and tomatoes.

I have often heard it said that there are top suppliers in the US who deal almost entirely with the best chefs, whose produce rarely reaches the domestic market. I was surprised when a young chef in St. Jean de Luz told me he had never seen produce in France the equal to what he had to work with at Daniel in New York when he did an appreticeship there. I always seem to feel the produce is far better in France than it is in New York. Granted, I don't often have the chance to actually cook with much of the produce I see. Most of what I can buy in France has to be limited to what I can eat uncooked on a picnic, but from time to time we cook in a friend's kitchen in the Bas Languedoc and I have shopped with a French chef in Breton marchés ouverts and hypermarchés and eaten the finished food. I won't overlook the "grass is always greener on the other side" aspect of all this, nor will I discount the subjective nature of eating on vacation in a foreign land vs. dealing with the daily grind at home, but there may well be truth in John's comment. I can only regret I have missed this discussion while the chef was in residence. In truth that's only applicable to a degree. We've been traveling in Spain and eating food that just seems better than what Americans have to work with. I don't know why the potatoes are so much better here, but I know that most Americans would blanch at the prices we've seen for seafood in the markets.

The one thing we know about Loiseau and Michelin is that he took his life after it was announced that he retained three stars. He may have been under stress because of rumors about his rating, but Michelin appears not to be the ultimate reason for his action. I am not however the one who had any more information on this than was very public.

For what it's worth, I saw percebes at the Corte Ingles for about 115 euros the other day in Valencia. I was surprised at how large they were. In the central market, we had seen percebes for maybe half the price, but they were quite tiny. Local gambas on the other hand seemed far better in the local market. All in all however, the Valenican Corte Ingles seemed like an exceppent place to shop for food. We'll have to check out a Corte Ingles in Madrid before we leave. For those who are unfamiliar with Spain, Corte Ingles is a, or perhaps the, major department store chain with branches all over Spain. In a large city, there will be branches all over town.

The French smart chip cards allow access to one's bank account. I doubt the AmEx Blue cards can be accessed in the same way. The processor would have to have an arrangement with AmEx while the bank cards require an arrangement with the French equivalent of MC or Visa (Carte Bleu?).

We thought it would be advantageous to have a French bank account, especially when we thought we might have some small income originating in Francs. (It was some time ago.) Ultimately, as a tourists, or visitors, there really didn't appear to be much of reason to have the account unless one were paying taxes or other regular bills such as telephone or utilties. Iif one didn't have a residence in France and would be stocking the account with funds from the US, it didn't seem to make sense. For someone with a residence however, I think it would be almost essential.

Sete is a nice town, but it's never been a restaurant destination. It's well on the other side of Montpellier from Marseille and not a provencal city. It's in the Bas Languedoc.

Is there a difference between what's being reported in the news items and what's said in the book? This also raises the question about the accuracy of the book. One shouldn't believe all one reads, although I'm inclined to suspect the book has many truths. While cigalchanta posts that Michelin denies the accusations, I seem to have read accounts of them heming and hawing. Questions about exactly how often are restaurants visited are responded to not by numbers, but by statements of "as often as necessary." I haven't yet read a claim that every restaurant, or even every starred restaurant is visited at least once a year and I have lived with the assumption that the inspectors most assuredly made several visits a year. Apparently this was a false assumption. An interesting book might be a study of how the myth became as large as it did.

I wasn't thinking it was opinion or geography, I was just sure of what you'd say. I am sure that when I get to Portugal, I will not be able to compare the seafood there to the gambas from Denia any more than I could compare the gambas in Denia to the crab or prawns I had not fresh, but live, in Tokyo.

Unfortunately, well not really, we've been too busy to get online. We've been eating quite well. The good meals just keep on getting better. El Poblet in Denia was excellent and Ca'Sento here in Valencia was exceptional. If Las Rejas is as good as we remember, this is going to be a memorable week. We're at an internet cafe now, but on Sunday we should have access from our hotel and perhaps I can catch up with a full report including paella at the hands of a most hospitable Paco Gandia in Pinosa. I'm sure Miguel may say there's even better seafood in Portugal, but it's hard to image anything better than the gambas rojas from around here. The cigalas come in a close second. The central market in Valencia was gorgeous.

Vserna's admonition doesn't fall on deaf ears. Cafe de Paris was a form of closure for a previous trip. The joy of traveling on our stomach in Spain is a product of the combination of the creative new cooking and the traditional regional cuisine--the sort produced by more anonymous craftsmen chefs--or the cocina de abuelos. In Murcia we dined at our Hotel, the Rincon de Pepe. It appears on no one's star list, but seems to have a good degree of respect. It's the kind of rather upmarket hotel restaurant that used to be creditable and dependable in France, but hardly so in the US where the chef came from some Swiss culinary school of continental banality. In fact one of our worst meals came in a very upmarket hotel in Zurich. At the Rincon de Pepe, our braised kid and rabbit main courses were extrememly succulent. Rabbit can so often be dried out, but here the texture was smooth and the meat redolent of rosemary. It followed my simple, but slightly indulgent selection of fresh seafood as noted above. If rabbit often suffers from poor cooking, seafood--prawns, shrimp, crayfish, etc.--often fare even worse. American chefs have told me it's not always their fault. They don't get the same varieties as Spanish chefs and they don't get them as fresh. I have had some excellent examples in the US, but experience with the rubbery oxidized shrimp found in the ubiquitous hotel restaurant shrimp cocktail always leaves me with some trepidation when ordering shrimp in unknown places--especially hotel dining rooms without famous and starred chefs. There was no need to have had any fear here. Each crustacean was luscious and I hear the red shrimp get even better as we get further on along the coast. Dinner of excellent raw materials handled simply but with great respect was a sort of perfection, absolutely Spanish and destination food. Mrs. B's two red shrimp paired with a couple of cooked artchokes met her expectations as well. Edited to add photograph.

We're in Murcia tonight, not so far from the sea that I couldn't have wonderful ciagalitos, as well as red and white shrimp, but keep those recommendations coming for the record and the benefit of the next eGullet traveler's to Malaga.

The rest of our intake in Malaga was had at a variety of bars and tables and included Sepia (jibia is the local name?) a la plancha, white anchovies with roasted peppers, morcilla with rice, chorizo a la barbecoa, artichokes and ham, jabas and jamon and just some jamon as well as some salads all washed down with manzanilla, cerveza or vino blanco. All of it enjoyable so far, but the anchovies were the real standout. We can get these in NY, but they're from Italy. I don't mean to denigrate the Italian product and what we import may not be their top quality, but the white anchovies I find in NY are skinny and acidic. The ones we had last night were almost sweet by comparison and incredibly meaty. As for fried fish, I'm always reluctant to order that in a strange place until I'm sure they do it well. The fried squid last night looked very good, but by the time we saw some being eaten, we had pretty much had our fill of food. Cafe de Paris was a catch up for us as it was on vacation the last time we passed through Malaga and our only chance to try it was the day we arrived.

After a sleepless flight arriving at 7:15 in the morning, we wondered why we chose to make a reservation for Cafe de Paris at lunch. An early check in got us an hour or two of rest and a taxi to the restaurant in lieu of a what would have been a very pleasant stroll saved some energy, but I'm not sure we were the most attentive and observant diners. When we first looked at the menu, we thought trout roe and pig's feet must be a very unusual combination having both misread patatitas as a diminutive of pig's feet, (patitas) not small potatoes. Nevertheless, we can report that we were quite charmed by the food and service. Cafe de Paris has a star from Michelin and a sol from Campsa. We were not disappointed by the food and our attitude and appreciation for the food was probably nudged a bit more to the positive pole by the wonderful service and treatment we enjoyed. Before we go over board in our descriptions, it should be clear we had a wonderful meal, but Jefe Jose Carlos Garcia Ortiz is not yet competition to the likes of Adria, or Berasategui. There's room for development and that makes it all the more interesting to look forward to a return visit. Ortiz starts with an ability to cook and command of the basics, something more than a few creative chefs seem to overlook. The star of our meal had to be the cochinillo confitado con Chutney de manzana--slow cooked suckling pig. It was rich and flavorful with a crisp skin no thicker than a single sheet of phyllo dough and just about as fragile. If the apple "chutney" was spiced with more than nutmeg and cinnamon it was done very subtly and the accompanying sauce was delicately acidulated, but the attraction was the was the sucklilng pig--the sort of thing I don't find outside of Spain. The lamb chop was again a wonderful piece of meat cooked with expertise, which this time demanded a quicker cooking and a wonderfully rare interior. I was a little less convinced by the garnish which I found a bit heavy, but that may have been subjective.

We stopped for lunch at Chez Bru several years ago on our way to Marseille to meet friends. We stopped on the basis of a GualtMillau selection of the chef as an up and coming chef to be watched. We greatly enjoyed lunch by this young Belgian serving his take on Provencal cooking.

Michelin may never tell when they come, but Michelin is unusual in that respect. I've been told that French reviewers make a great point of announcing their appearance and expecting favors. The professional "ethic," or so I've been told, is not what it is in the US, not that a sense of ethic necessarily trickles down very far from the most respected professionals in the filed here either all the time. A distiller of very fine eaux-de-vie once told me of his great respect for Patricia Wells because she came to his distillerie, bought bottles of eaux-de-vie and then featured his place and products in her Food Lover's Guide to France. In fact, from that experience alone he had great respect for the American ethic. According to him the M.O. for a Frenchman writing a similar guide to good food, would have been to announce he was writing the guide and ask for samples. Sacrificing your first born is always a possibility. It's worked for me to some extent as has having someone make personal contact or introduction for you. My reservation there was procured before it became so difficult and it was made in person by a culinary journalist with, and for, whom my first born had worked, on a day she was dining at l'Astrance. It didn't hurt that we were dining with our first born either. I'm just relieved that I didn't have to use the fact that my first born's spouse met the chef of l'Astrance in a French kitchen in NY. There's always a next time.

Definitely broiled tomato with bread crumbs and probably some garlic and other seasonings in the bread crumbs. I'd guess a edge of some sort of shredded potato gratin myself. Okay, I've got this place pinpointed on pagesjaune, but mums the word unless you want to share the address and phone number.