Bux

That's a bit harsh. Ruch Reichl's famed Le Cirque double-review shows that, at least sometimes, the paper's critic is not recognized, even in a high-end restaurant where they presumably would be on-the-lookout. Are you implying that the time she met her brother and pretended to be an out of towner, she got such devoted treatment because she went unrecognized? I don't think it's essential for a restaurant reviewer to be anonymous, but there are times when it helps and things he might miss if he weren't anonymous. For all that, I wouldn't assume a reviewer was more capable just because he was unknown. At any rate, as long as a reviewer has a name, he will be quickly known in a major market such as New York. If there were no ballot box stuffing on restaurant surveys, I might better see the advantage of anonymity. Right now all I see is the disadvantage of a poll of diners who don't have my taste, nor possibly as much knowledge as most reviewers. Reviewers can write in depth and that should be more important than the numbers or stars. Reviewers can offer me clues about whether a particular restaurant will suit my tastes in general and my needs at the moment. A good reviewer can also help me get the most out of a meal.

My understanding is that a nominee may be renominated year after year, but that a winner may not be nominated for a certain period of time. Thus it's less significant that Chanterelle is the only one to be constantly nominated. It certainly doesn't mean it's more highly regarded than those who are not nominated but have won the award. The nomination, as for any award, is an honor however.

A damning, and poetic, characterization.

Good question. I wonder what it is encourages or doesn't discourage this. I don't see it happening much in New York. I can think of a lot of reasons for this. The first being that good restaurants here are so expensive, few people are going to risk ruining their own meal. Those same restaurants are going to attract a certain clientele. As a matter of fact, there are so many restaurants in Manhattan that there are enough restaurants to cater to very specific groups and to allow people to choose exactly what sort of upscale place suits them. Families in New York City are not restricted to family restaurants with all the ethnic restaurants around.

Yes, we've been there, but it must be over 15 years ago. I'm in no position to say if it's cutting edge. It seemed up to date at the time. Contemporary rather than cutting edge. I don't remember the details of the meal all that well, but I remember enjoying it very much. Indeed, I believe that was the summer the dollar was worth ten francs and we ate a lot of foie gras. My most distinct memory was of a young and inexperience waiter or runner, who up ended an older bottle of Cahors dumping some sludge in my last bit of clear wine. I could see a look of horror in the eyes of the sommelier across the room. The only other person who seemed to notice was our twelve year old daughter. I took delight in her keen observation and understanding of the situation. The meal was too good to let me bother to make a fuss however. Overall I thought it was a lovely place, but we've never managed to get close enough to stay there again.

The other day as we, a party of six adults and one four month old boy, were leaving the restaurant, I overheard the young woman sitting behind me say, "What a wonderful boy." I will agree that my grandson is a wonderful boy, but from the perspective of a fellow diner, it's really nonesense. Her dinner was enjoyable because my daughter had him in the stroller and bundled up at the first silent tell-tale signs of a meltdown and I walked him around the block in freezing weather while my table companions drank up the best wine of the evening. You can be sure I ordered cheaper wine until I was sure he was asleep for the evening, but my point is not so much to pat ourselves on the back, as to say that no kid ever ruined anyone's meal in a restaurant--which is not to say a parent wasn't responsible. It's a heavy burden to take an infant, toddler or kid to a nice restaurant and one shouldn't do it without a willingness to forfeit one's own evening if that's what it takes to save everyone else's. We got compliments from the owner/manager on the way out too. I said they handled the baby situation very well and that we were going to send all our friends with babies there. He appreciated the humor, but also said they were eager to entertain families. As they're still hot and have great word of mouth publicity resulting in a restaurant packed with both young couples and older uptown diners, I'm not naming names as those parents who know their responsibilities and their children can go almost anywhere anyway.

I'd take issue with that. Knowing about a chef's private life is the very essence of amateur information. Know how a chef thinks and what motivates his thinking and cooking is where a professional's interests would lie. And yes, I think insight into the latter would help in understanding the food. Then again I think the least part of a reviewer's job is to tell me if I'd like the food. It's far more important for him to help me appreciate the food and get the most our of my meal should I go there.

Psaltis is no longer chef at Mix. That was reported on the Fat Guy on Mix thread on March 25. Didier Elena is leaving AD/NY and Christian Delouvrier is coming to AD/NY as the new chef. No one has said or implied that Delouvrier will have anything to do with Mix, but some eyebrows have been raised at the idea of Delouvrier working for Ducasse in Ducasse's AD/NY kitchen which is why comments about it being Delouvrier's kitchen and about New Yorkers not being happy with an a chef who's absentee and foreign begin to make sense. But this thread and the news of Delouvrier is all about AD/NY and not at all about Mix.

I don't think it's an attractive place in which to eat. I've been there twice for takeout sandwiches. I enjoyed the sandwiches I've had and those I've tasted very much, but I wouldn't say they were compelling sandwiches or destination sandwiches. I think they're acceptably priced, but certainly not bargain sandwiches. You may be paying a buck or so for the design and, as Marcus noted, some people may find them overdesigned. I'd return in a flash for take out, but only if it was convenient. Pain Quotidien across the street is a far more inviting place in which to sit, although I'm not sure I like their offerings as much.

Sorry to hear that. We would have looked forward to hearing about life at Guy Savoy. I hope you'll reconsider if you get a chance to spend some time online. Congratulations anyway and good luck.

We're were thinking of spending a night between Allicante and Valencia. I know it's a short drive from Alicante to Valencia and I know it might be very nice to spend a week or so basking in the sun on the coast, but we're really interested in absorbing a bit of the local food on our eventual way to Madrid. Moraira really appears to be the nicest place along the way, but it also looks like a place that suggests a nice rest stop to unwind and that perhaps Denia might be better suited for a one night stand for someone who's interested in food and people watching. My fear is that it's tackier and over built. I realize I can get to either one from the other for lunch anyway and perhaps it's a matter of which one I'd most enjoy having some tapas and a drink in the evening.

Here's the URL. http://www.l-essentiel.com/

This is my wife's area of expertise and I don't keep abreast of pricing, but I know that the daily cost of a two day rental has been far more than that of a weekly rental and that reservations made in North America result in considerable savings over those made on the spot in western Europe. Very short term rentals made on the spot can be prohibitively expensive, unless there's some local company with bargain rates.

Because it's not like every other article you've read? Creativity is pretetious to anyone who finds the world good enough as it is. There's no missed opportunity when one tries to do anything. Just because Adria has re-defined the formal conventions of his medium, it doesn't follow that the writers of this article need, or have the talent, to do the same. I'm interested in Adria, not in Day & Pomerance and how they think they can improve the written medium. I don't know that Adria has re-defined anything, but he does have the ability to work outside other people's definitions. I didn't mean to imply that Day or Pomerance had Adria's talent, nor do many of the chefs and cooks who please me at their tables. My culinary, artistic and journalistic stimulation often comes from those whose feats are not quite at the stratospheric level of re-definition. I often suspect there's been more published on Adria in English on this site than anywhere else. Day already had a nice prose report. For what it's worth, I thought this poem was a lovely addition. I'm sorry, you were disappointed by their performance, I trust you don't mind us taking pleasure in it.

Admin: an archive of discussion on ADNY with Didier Elena as chef de cuisine, including the opening of the restaurant and early critical/media response, may be found here. The discussion thread for ADNY under chef de cuisine Tony Esnault may be found here. Rumor has it that Ducasse will announce a new chef for AD/NY tomorrow and that it will be Christian Delouvrier. Didier Elena, may be working on some new project with Ducasse. It doesn't seem that there was any falling out or problem. I had heard earlier than Elena was leaving AD/NY, but the information was just too sketchy to post. This seems reliable, although I have to admit, unexpected. Both of Delouvrier's NY projects have fallen through, so maybe this is not as unexpected as it first seemed to me.

I'm now more convinced than ever that Per Se handled this in the most reasonable manner. I think it's terrific that they're taking care of their diners and communicating with them on a personal basis rather than through a serious of regular press releases.

I read that to mean Per Se wouldn't reopen until May 1 at the earliest. I also wouldn't read anything in the Post, let alone Page 6, as truly reliable information.

Because it's not like every other article you've read? Creativity is pretetious to anyone who finds the world good enough as it is. There's no missed opportunity when one tries to do anything. Were this a failure, I don't think I'd find it disappointing. I'd see it as the chance to think creatively about reporting in general. It is however, a very interesting and successful article. I thought it captured the style of El Bulli in a most abstract manner. If at times it left me confused, unsatisfied or wanting the obvious answer to the obivious question, that was provocative and reminiscent of a meal at El Bulli.

The French seem to have taken well to the dish and it's quite popular north of the Pyrenees where it's referred to as something close to "pie-la." I'm picturing an American tourist ordering paella and "pooly foosy" and being completely misunderstood.

And a notice that the place isn't as inexpensive as it may first appear after you add in the sides. It does seem to aim at being the style for the 21st century where casual elegance is replacing formal elgance. People seem to want to relax and are not only willing to dine well in relaxed clothing and style, but prefer to do it that way.

I have a good friend who's been going to France for about as long as I have. Owns a home there where he spends most of his year and where he has little choice but to shop and socialize in French with the locals. He has a nose for wine, but not an ear for language and "pouilly" still comes out like "pooly."

Actually a torchon is a kitchen towel, or dish towel. The dish gets its name from the towel use to wrap it up in a tube, much the same way as a terrine gets its name from the earthenware in which it was originally cooked.

Wine competition is not unlike horse racing or boxing in that it's easy enough for a panel to posthumously rank dead contestants as long as you're willing to accept disagreement (and maybe fisticuffs) among the panelists, but among living peers, there's no guarantee who's going to win a race or a match on any given day, no matter the odds. There's also no objective finish line or knock out in wine tasting. While some people might appreciate a horse race without caring who comes in first, I would hope that the "scores" would not be the most important thing to anyone involved except for maybe the seller and his banker. That won't stop anyone from ranking wines or devising new scales on which to base the ranking. I have no idea who invented the Grading list for BUXBAUM methode. I can only hope and pray we're not related. I would award less than a half point for opalescent wines and give no credit for a "gloomy" wine, even without bits of skin.

I might suggest you target your questions separately to the France and Italy forums. On the other hand, it's possible you'll only get answers asking "Why would we go there with so many other choices?" I've never been tempted myself. McDonalds is thriving in France, but I generally see a youthful local crowd in most of them. I suppose in the big cities they attract a crowd of tourists, but they're probably largely not the sort of tourists who spend much of their time on a site obsessed with food such as eGullet.

In truth, the food processor doesn't grind meat. It chops the meat or minces it. Liquificiation? I don't think you can liquify meat in a processor. I suppose you can make a fine paste out of it, but I stop way before than. In fact I like the processor, because I have more control over how fine the meat is chopped. I use the steel blade, the normal ordinary blade. I cut the meat in cubes beforehand so the I am more likely to achieve a unified chop quicker and I pulse the machine most of the time. Even when I'm not pulsing, I turn it on and off quickly and make sure it is all getting cut evenly. When I buy ground pork, for sausage or other uses such as meatballs, the butcher I use in Chinatown, tends to grind it rather coarsely. Sometimes I'll give it a few seconds in the Cuisinart to make the grind finer and to mix in seasonings, bread crumbs, eggs, etc. There's some debate about whether it's better to use a grinder or my way. Some say the speed of the processor blades overheat the meat, while others believe the grinder squeezes the juice out of the meat. I doubt either really has much of a negative effect.