Bux

English or foreign language skills? I've already got one editor sending me e-mails with spelling corrections.

A suggestion (serious one). If you are going to travel a lot - especially in western Europe - take some language courses. It's not that hard to learn Spanish (it's totally phonetic) - and it's a useful language in the US. Once you know Spanish - it's easy to add some Italian. A little Spanish and Italian both go a long way. People are flattered that you've taken the effort to learn their language. French is a lot harder in my opinion - and I have to say that a little doesn't go a long way. My husband and I both speak Spanish - he better than I (we spent many years in Miami). But whenever we want to pick up a bit of a new language - enough for restaurants - hotels and sightseeing - a semester or two at a local state university will do the trick (with Italian - which isn't offered at our local schools - my husband wound up taking private lessons). Regards, Robyn Perhaps I should have mentioned that Spanish is my wife's first language. Unfortuantely all of my in-laws, cousins included speak English fluently. Thus I've not learned as much as I should have in the past forty years. On the other hand, it's given me the incentive to jump ahead in Catalan and Euskara, at least in terms of menu items. Neither of us are really fluent in French, but our daughter is married to a Frenchman and we get by even when with her in-laws. I could, and have here on eGullet, tell tales related to my ability to communicate what I want when I'm hungry. I've relied on dictionaries and phrase books as well as menu translators and know to take then all with a grain of salt out of experience.

Words have meaning and those meanings change. I suggest you pick up various editions of a dictionary to see how quickly some words change. Nevertheless, dictionaries, at best, confirm how a word has been used up until the time of publication. Both of your definitions are incomplete and they certain aren't in agreement. I have a Spanish/English dictionary that defines "tapas" as "appetizer, free lunch," but it's too heavy from me to carry around and there's the possiblity I can't persuade the guy behind the bar to believe it, even if he can understand English.

Cook's Tour wasn't a series of public service announcements? If nothing else, Tony has very much done something along these lines.

80 grams is about a sixth of a pound, if my arithmetic is valid. My math is generally good, it's my arithmetic that sucks, but 18 pieces would be around three pounds and that's a good amount for a stew. I would think 3 lbs of boneless shoulder butt would be most suitable. Where the hell are the real cooks when we need one?

I don't patronize McDo here or in France and I won't likely give much if any business to Starbucks, but they won't care. McDo is doing fine and untroubled by my international lack of interest. I can think of classic French town squares or plazas where McDo appears to be one of the best looking cafes and most inviting places to sit and watch the day go by. they have thorougly integrated themselves into the daily life of France largely as a place for students to hang out, but they appeal to a large group of people. Coca-cola has long been a popular drink in most of Europe. The world is getting smaller every day. It's hard to remember that Gap is American and Benetton, um ..., Italian?

There's really no end to the variety of things that can go into a quiche although some sense of taste is required if you're getting creative. There's a little place in Bayonne, France by the name of Tarte Julie. They offer both savory tartes and dessert tartes. The savory ones are basically variations of quiche. (By the way, should you get to Paris and discover a miserable imitation of the Bayonne place, please remember I've warned you not to confuse the two and to avoid the one in Paris.) I can't begin to remember the varieties offered and I suspect they change over time. I'm usually a sucker for spinach and mushrooms, or something with leeks and the old standby quiche lorraine is, well, classic. A decline in chavinsim in France now brings us mozzarella, basil and tomato quiche among other new classics. Last night we had a Spanish tortilla/fritatta with kale, pancetta and shallots. It would have worked well in a quiche as well. I would have liked mushrooms, but there were none in the house. This was a raid the refrigerator dinner, but it was also a combination I'd recommend even if I was shopping. In a quiche, I'd add some gruyere cheese as well.

I'm working soley from illustrations in a 1961 English language edition of the Larousse Gastronomic. From these, it appears that the French côtes and filet are the American loin depending on which end of the loin you have and that échine would be shoulder butt and small parts of adjoining cuts. There is some overlap between échine and American loin at the foremost part of the loin, but I think edm's first definition is closer than the second. It's possible members could be more helpful if they had a bried description of the recipes. Is it for the whole échine or for steaks or slices?

I would also argue against any attempt to define what tapas are or should be, in the way I'd argue against anyone who would set limits as to what painting can be. As long as I'm free to rant against any particular bar or presentation, I fully support the chef's right to get creative. There are any number of places in Donostia alone, that double as tapas bar and restaurant. The joy of eating in these places in not diminished by the choice to eat a meal or a snack or to combine your intake from the restaurant menu and the bar menu. There exists in Spain, or at least in parts of Spain, a joy of eating that surpasses formality. I enjoy tapas as bar food and the restless tourist that I am enjoys the practice of hopping from bar to bar for opportunity to sample the different ambiances as much as the different food. At the same time, there were many bars l visited on my last trip that I might have been happy enough to find a table and work my way through the various offerings over a leisurely "meal" that would be very similar in nature to a tasting menu. Miguel would probably prefer to do that, and I have some sympathy for that preference. I have to acknowledge that I returned to certain bars on a second night and that I believe several bars had the potential to offer a complete dinner, bite by bite, that was every bit as satisfying as most meals I have had and as well balanced in spite of the the tendency of bars to specialize in their offerings. I would also noted that there are tapas bars that specialize in hot offerings and many that offer both hot and cold tapas. It's probably true however, that the hot tapas often lend themselves to reheating. Dinner at El Bulli is, as Pedro says, "highly influenced by the concept of tapa." I'd also note that commenting on 25 courses being too much to eat is exactly the sort of thing Russ and Victor seem to have spoken about in their demands that one eat the food before talking about it. I have come out of both American restaurants in the US and French restaurants in France, feeling far more stuffed, than I felt when I left El Bulli.

The problem with cour St. Emilion is that it's a shopping mall that was designed and built at once. It's comepletely removed from the organic city that grew building by buidling and shop by shop.

Your problem is that your butcher speaks English. I gather he's not a French butcher. He cuts his pig up differently than a French butcher does. In America, it looks as if the shoulder butt is closest to échine, but it's not the identical cut.

July and August are the hardest times to get a table precisely because this is when most people manage to take a vacation. If you can get away in April, May or October, I think the odds improve, although they are never favorable.

Miguel, thank you for your elolquent reply. I had forgotten, for the moment, your other post on the importance of restaurant loyalty in Portugal. Everywhere around the world one can improve one's meal by demonstrating one's appreciation even after the meal begins and certainly an introduction by a friend of the house never hurts. But Portugal seems a world apart in the way loyalty is rewarded and in the way it is required. This is a subject we could explore at great length and perhaps in this forum, but it's not particularly germane to this thread. I'll only add that in NY, chefs and restaurants expect you to eat elsewhere. My favorite chefs have even offered to help me get reservations and they'll ask my opinion about other places even in NY. Portugal seems unique.

I didn't mean to over look Miguel's post. It actually had the most meat in it, or food for thought, for me, of the recent posts. Judging food is not the ultimate reason for posting on eGullet. It may, in fact, be one of the very lesser reasons. I rarely post to make judgments and no more often am I looking for other people's judgments on restaurants. Victor's opinion that a restaurant is worthy of my interest is far more important than knowing whether or not he actually likes the food. Though I suppose deeming it worth knowing is also a judgment call. There is no minimum visit requirement for discussing a restaurant and certainly not one for asking questions. I'm more than willing to visit four restaurants and tell you which one I like best, or tell you if I had a good meal at any of them. In no way should this be interpreted as a critical review of the restaurant or the chef. It's a snapshot opinion of a single meal and more often will I rave about what I liked than dismiss a restaurant for a meal I didn't enjoy. I come to eGullet to discuss culinary matters. Particular restaurants are often the least interesting part of what's here and when I'm looking for restaurants to include in my itinerary, I much prefer to hear about meals that excite and inspire diners. I don't even understand why a diner would rant on and on about a meal he didn't like. Gastronomy can be about a whole lot of things and about different things to different people. For my wife and I, it's about travel as much as anything else. Dining out at restaurants is something we do on a daily basis when we travel and not something we do at home with the same regularity. Early in our travels, we found we enjoyed those days and those places where we enjoyed our meals the most. There's something in our collective nature that allowed us to laugh at all the day's problems. The flat tires, the lost luggage, the stolen souvenirs, the rude shopkeeper, the lost money, etc. all became stories for another day and part of the experiences that made us better people when mulled over at a good table. Those same things festered when I didn't enjoy my meal. Our choices were simple. Stop traveling as those things were just part of the package, or learn to choose our restaurants wisely. At any rate, you can't keep on eating well without refining your tastes and without learning a lot about food and restaurants. You also learn how to use them wisely without making it such a chore that one has to bed down with the chef to appreciate a good meal. I arrive at a restaurant determined to have a good meal. I may discuss the food ad infinitum with my wife and some may feel I over intellectualize my meals (Miguel is the first to imply I don't take then seriously enough) but our discussion has but one goal and that's to enjoy ourselves, not to better pass judgment on the meal or the restaurant. It's not my job, no one pays me to do it. I do like to pass on what I learn and thus recommend the places I've enjoyed and recommend the dishes I've liked as well as any observations I've had that will enable others to make the most of there meals. Just this past October we spent several days in Donostia. Each day we had lunch at a different restaurant. I found it rough enough to narrow my choice to four restaurants. Had I felt a need to take four meals in one restaurant, I think I would have just given up choosing and stayed home. I'd have had a much deeper appreciation for that restaurant than I do for the four I patronized, but appreciation doesn't live in a vacuum. I think the sum of my experiences was greater in the four restaurants than it would have been with four meals in one restaurant. I did return to two or three bars on a second night, but I had the luxury of being able to enjoy a number of bars and a number of dishes in a couple of bars on different nights. I tend to move around a lot when I travel, but I don't tend to move very far. It's not a way of traveling I recommend often to other people, but it works for us. There are those who like to stay in one spot, while others tend to want to cover too much ground, but it's all subjective.

Robyn's quote was a bit out of context. Here's the paragraph from which it was taken: Right. I didn't scroll back that far.

Russ, I don't think we're saying things that are so different. My effort was largely to point out that the world is full of grey areas there are few blanket blacks and whites. My comparsion beteen between the Interet and the press is only to point out that voices lacking experience are often published in both. You seemed to be saying it was a problem unique to the Internet. Had you said imagine what would happen to media if people only wrote about the things they actually knew something about, I'd not taken offense. Actually, we don't learn by simply discussing what we don't know, it requires the input of others who do know to correct us. The fault of message boards is perhaps that even posts that are rearead before posting are not reread once more at liesure. It's as if every post has an immediate dealine and suffers for that. My thoughts on this issue woud have been more correctly expressed by a comment about learning from the responses made to comments about what we don't know. The story about seven blind men (actually I thought it was five) and an elephant (we agree on one) is probably even less telling than Roshomon, where I believe the various eye witnesses were not deprived of a sense, but nevertheless had different stories to tell. One might possible draw a picture of an elephant by compiling the different parts, but how does one reconcile several wholes? Although I'm not sure the answer is germane here. What may be lost in all this is that one has to form an opinion before one goes to El Bulli. It's not the kind of restaurant and that comes up and hits you in the face. Even if one chooses to vacation in Roses, and truthfully enough, Roses didn't strike me as the sort of town that would generally appeal to fans of Adria, El Bulli is not likely to come to your attention. People don't go to El Bulli unless they've decided to go there and that requires them to have an opinion. Do I go to El Bulli, or do I not? In fact, one has to decide if that's even worth thinking about. I'm not sure that one of the functions of a place such as eGullet is to serve as a sounding board. People offer opinions in the hope they will be reinforced or shot down. Either way they closer to making the big decision. I think I addressed the issue of qualitative judgements in my earlier post. I am with you and Victor on this. I may find it less upsetting or scary, but no more useful.

Trendy is not usually what I want at home in NY and I suspect it's not what most travelers want in Paris. For some, it's a magnet, but for many others the Paris we either read about in literature or the one we knew ourselves is often the one we want to find (again). In fact, mediocre food is almost always what "trendy" has to offer. The soul of a city is not in its trendiest neighborhoods.

Yes Victor, shame on you. Imagine what would happen to this site--to the Internet in general!--if people only posted about the things they actually knew something about. Cynicism is rampant here as well as in the world at large. Imagine what would happen in the print media if people only wrote about the things they actually knew something about. There's nothing personal in this, neither towards Russ as I rarely read the LA Times, nor to Victor, because while my Spanish may serve me almost well enough in a restaurant, I can't understand as much as the weather forecast in a Spanish language newspaper. I do read an awful lot that I know is misstatement of fact in local newspapers however. More than a few books are written by crackpots as well. Nevertheless, the Internet and newspapers should not be in direct competition nor should I make such a comparison perhaps. The simple fact is that by discussing what we don't know, we also educate ourselves. There are moments when I find Victor's insistence that one go eat at a restaurant before discussion the food, to be right on target. There have been on this thread alone, repetitions of hearsay that have offered no contribution. The opinions of ten people who like or dislike the meal they had, offer a kind of information. The opinion of one person repeated ten times by others offers no reinforcement of the first opinion. Then there are posts with suppositions about the food that tend to lead those who have eaten at the restaurant in question to guess that the poster has not eaten there himself. This might not be the thought that first occurs to those who themselves have only hearsay knowledge and thus we should be careful about what we say without firsthand knowledge. None of that should imply that there is no room in the thread for those whose knowledge is purely from books and hearsay. I firmly believe we all form opinions and make decisions on what we read. I would hope that every newspaper writer understands that. While the most highly respected journalist has reason to report first hand, he's got to be aware that his first hand report will help form opinions by those who read what he writes and that the readers will synthesize their own opinion after reading many sources. While reports from those who have eaten at El Bulli will take on a greater significance than posts from those who haven't, it's no less reasonable for those who haven't been there to discuss the restaurant as it is for then to discuss food in ancient Rome. What doesn't change is the relative kind and amout of knowledge one can gather about any subject before offering an opinion in any group discussion. None of us needs to told we had no reason to enjoy the food we've enjoyed. What's interesting is to hear why others didn't enjoy that food, not that it there's some abstract reason the food is not worthy of enjoyment.

Robyn, there are people who read far more into artistic expression than may be deserved, and there are people who will always ascribe the the Emperor's New Clothes to that which they don't understand or that which doesn't meet their expectations. Art and all we know in the world, changes on the acceptance of ideas that were once thought revolutionary as well as evolutionary. Those who break the rules successfully are the new leaders and the new sages. Those very impressionist paintings whose progeny now grace popular magazine covers and the walls of doctor's offices were, in their day, thought quite ugly and provocatively so. Dismissing trends because they don't meet the standards of the older tradition is not a valid argument, and it's always time for cynics. In every movement there's something to be found that one can be cynical about. Cynicism is not a vital path to truth it is merely a personal trait. The reason it's too late to dismiss Adria, is that he's already the focus of too many chefs, not only in Spain, but in France and the US. If he were to die tomorrow and all that was written about him and by him were to disappear from the face of the earth, he'd remain a historical influence because he's in the minds of too many cooks of all ages and persuasions. One can play to the ultraconservative masses with a dismissal of El Bulli, but in enlightened circles, complete dismissal of an interest in what is being done at El Bulli displays little more than an intellectual dismissal of the culinary world. We are all entitled to know what we like without knowing anything about food. Nevertheless, there's nothing Michelin has ever published that implies bedrooms are part of the Michelin three star experience. My experience with fine and multi-starred restaurants in the US and France indicates that a trend towards smaller and many more courses has been going on for decades. Moreover the art of small bites--as in tapas--has long been part of the Spanish culinary heritage. There's nothing shocking about El Bulli's multi-coursed menus by now. In fact, several years ago, he offered old fashioned a la carte menus, but even then, few ordered from them as they were not the best possible experience even for a repeat diner. By the way, in a thread that runs over 280 posts and started over a year and a half ago, I'm not sure whose meal you are referring to in your post.

Glad to see someone who's kept a sense of humor about this. Best post since Tony's solicitation for favors.

Jeffrey Steingarten gave their steaks an excellent review. I think it was in the November or December Vogue.

I trust none of you will be making complaints about not being able to get a reservation in a restaurant next summer or about the streets being crowded.

I have relatives in the Midwest and when they come to New York City eat a heck of a lot better and more intelligently than most New Yorkers who call themselves foodies, but they often don't do it by choice.

This has all the makings of a second rate thriller. Wait, I think I've already seen the movie.