Bux

We are talking about a rise from That's an extra five and a half cents a bottle in US$. Two things pop into my mind. That's still like taxing milk in the US and what's the tax on white wine? That kind of discrimination is illegal here.

Join the crowd. My first trip to Paris was made over forty years ago. I've returned more than a few times. My last visit was just about a year ago and I'm on my way back. Once again, my problem is deciding where to eat. There are just too many choices. There are the ones I missed last time, the ones I forgot about, the ones I tried and want to revisit and the ones that have opened since last year. Where are you staying? Here are some simple places that offer good French food Dauphin, 167 rue St. Honoré, 1st arrondisement good hearty dishes from the southwest of France and grilled foods. Nice cassoulet (beans and meat), excellent pork cheeks in stew. Vaudeville, 29 rue Vivienne, 2nd arr. - nice marble interior, brasserie with simple food--steak frites, oysters, Fontaine de Mars, 129 rue St. Dominique 7th arr. - small charming bistro with traditional food. There are dozens of places equally as good, but these have served us recently. They are not destination restaurants, but are places where you can learn about good honest French food. A good guidebook is very useful. I like the Michelin Guide Rouge. It's relatively reliable. It lists restaurants by arrondisement (district). The prices shown are generally accurate and the quality of the food is usually in line with the prices. Naturally the starred restaurants are special and usually expensive.

I find a Michelin essential if I'm spending any time at all in France and haven't reserved both lunch and dinner. It's as useful for finding an inexpensive lunch spot as a top starred restaurant. Of course personal recommendations are more interesting to have. Unfortunately, I haven't spent much time in Burgundy lately. I have written about my meals in Lyon. Pierre is a sentimental favorite of ours. I"ve had several great meals at Leon de Lyon. The last one was the least convincing, but I'm not at all sure it's past its peak or anything like that. I liked La Cote St. Jacques in Joigny last year, but felt he might have been trying too hard and thinking too much. Two meals at two star restaurants in the Loire overshadowed the meal there in sheer pleasure and taste, and were less expensive to boot. I know we've had some posts on Beaune and the rest of Burgundy including Troisgros and others, but it appears as if members haven't favored Burgundy so much lately. Traditionally, it's been a target for traveling gastronomes.

I'm bringing this up again because it's just dawned on me that Stephen ate there in July 2003 and that Robert Brown reported, at the end of June 2003, that Nicolas Le Bec, the chef who was cooking when I was there, had been fired. I have no idea when he actually left les Loges, but obviously if he was still there when Stephen was there, his heart would no longer have been in the kitchen.

Some people say that the density of great restaurants, compared to the number of inhabitants, is nowhere as good as in... Brussels :-) But perhaps I am prejudiced... That is, of course, another thing. The density of great restaurants compared to the number of inhabitants might be higher in Roses, Spain or maybe Laguiole, France.

This is an issue I raised, at least once, somewhere on these boards. Is it embarrassing for a diner to be overruled by the sommelier? Is it worse, if the diner accepts the bottle and the sommelier comes back and says the wine is off after he's taken a small taste after everyone was served? I've seen that happen.

Fresh, I doubt there are ten three star restaurants in all of Spain or ten worthy of three stars, but those restaurants with a three star rating that I've visited are very much the equal of any in France. The two stars are usually better than those in France and I've eaten in one star restaurants that could give the average French two star a run for its money, which is not to imply that there's an equity in value. The Spanish restaurants are usually much less expensive and offer far better value. Admittedly, I don't have contact with a large cross section of young chefs, but what I hear from chefs, including French chefs, is that the action is in Spain. The difference in stars may be a reflection of Michelin's conservatism or its allegiance to the style of French cuisine as much as it is to outright self conscious protectionism or even chauvinism, but I really have to ask anyone who defends the unchallenged superiority of French cuisine today, how much experience have you had dining in Spain, particularly, but not exclusively, in Catalunya and the Pais Vasco. I am perfectly willing to consider my excitement for Spain may be fueled to some extent by novelty, but too great a defense of French cuisine today may be a sign of inertia. For all that, I don't believe there exists anywhere in the world such a cluster of truly great restaurants as in Paris.

I don't mean to sound negative by saying it's all been done, or pretentious by implying I've already had it, when in fact you're trying to push the envelope just at a time when it's recently been pushed so far that the danger is of not seeing the center as well as at a time when so many others are pushing the same envelope that it's become a very amorphous thing that's hard to find let alone push. In fact, I admire your interest and am excited by your intentions. Animal and especially fish proteins for dessert seem the most untouched in this regard, but one need look no further than dried salmon candy from the northwest for inspiration. Regis Marcon is devoted to mushrooms in his two star restaurant in France. Mushrooms were featured in every course I had including a caramelized mushroom sauce in my dessert. Years ago, I had poached fennel (think licorice) with ice cream in an unstarred restaurant in Paris that lacked a pastry chef. Arpege not only had a tomato for dessert, but an avocado soufflé--hell, that's a fruit, as is a tomato. I've heard before that sugar is an appetite suppressant and if I'm not mistaken if was from no less a trusted expert than Jeffrey Steingarten--I wish I could find the reference. On the other hand, the French, no slouches when it comes to the history of making a meal something that's more art than sustenance, drink some very sweet drinks as aperitifs. Wines Americans relegate to the desesrt table are often considered aperitifs in France. An appetizer of foie gras will often be paired with an intensely sweet wine. An American friend in Paris once served us some blue cheese crisps with a nice medium sweet wine from the Loire before we were off to a very tradtional dinner (Ducasse). It seemed a lovely start that in no way reduced my appetite for the dinner to come, although I drank too much wine and thought it best to skip another aperitif in the restaurant. So I fail to see the evidence that sugar is supressing my appetite. I'd admit that some of the food Adria or Blumenthal is jarring my carefully trained palate, but that's what makes life exciting and dinner more than just stuffing food in my face.

There's nothing in the pan to deglaze if you're using a nonstick pan, is there?

Conceptually, blueberry pie is not all that different from an English muffin and blueberry jam or a croissant and confiture aux myrtilles. I suppose it's sweeter, but it's got more fruit as well as sugar.

I think one has to consider just how much business a restaurant is doing before asking that question. If it's impossible to get a last minute table at the restaurant, we could assume they don't have reason to care if you dine out, or dine there, more often. If the restaurant has empty tables on a regular basis, it needs more business. The argument about a restaurant's overhead being so high, and including tablecloths and lost silverware as reason for high wine markups is not one I completely understand. Perhaps the food prices should rise to cover those costs. Why are the wine drinkers being asked to subsidize the teatotalers? If I may answer my own question, I think it's because people check menu prices more than wine prices when they are planning to eat out. Frequently they'll pick the restaurant with the less expensive menu items, and ignore the fact that they're going to get soaked on the alcohol. In a way the consumer is to blame, although it's probably not the same segment of the consumer market that's complaining. One more point I'd make is that the charges for bottled water are even higher on a percentage basis although that often brings complaints. Fewer complaints are heard about the more excessive charges for hard liquor, which have relatively few costs invovled in storage and handling. I don't understand why wine at 3X retail value is a crime while whiskey at a considerably higher multiple brings few comments. Finally, what do they charge for a Coke at a fine restaurant although I have no idea why anyone would order one in a fine restaurant.

I've come too late to this thread to be as amusing as I'd like to be. Of course you can retin the pot. I suspect you can use the kit I bought twenty, or more, years ago after I priced out what retinning a roaster might cost. I had actually had several pots retinned before, but as this one was a little bigger and retinning seemed to be a dying art, I was a bit taken aback by the estimate. I suspect that today, that price would appear to be a bargain. I've never quite had the time, or psychic calm to at tend to this project and by now I have three or four copper pots of various sizes and qualities that would be decorative objects if I ever polished them. I don't polish copper. It's thankless task. In the meantime I've pretty well replaced most of those pots with All Clad with an exterior finish of exposed aluminum--which I also don't polish. A large part of my decision to go with All Clad or some other stainless interior rather than tin lined copper was less the difference in cost of the new pots, but that retinning didn't seem to be much cheaper than buying All Clad pots and it was clear that the way I used my pots, that retinning was going to happen several times in my life. Besides fear and laziness, there was one other thing that bothered me about retinning my pots for use--as I've never seen the tin go down the drain when I washed the pot, I've assumed it went into the stews I've had from those pots. Perhaps it's as non reactive as gold and has left my body the same way as the gold leaf on some super decadent chocolate desserts, but no one's told me that yet. Okay science guys, where is that tin today, in the sewer or my bones?

There's really no such thing as white chocolate in my opinion. Am I wrong that the correct name for white chocolate is cocoa butter? I think milk chocolate and dark chocolate serve different needs and likely different markets. I love a good milk chocolate bar, but when it comes to fine bon bons and pralines in the French or Belgian manner, I don't understand why the really great chocolatiers bother with milk chocolate most of the time. Avocado, tomatoes, fennel and caramelized mushrooms have figured into great desserts in the hands of a talented chef. That I've had excellent desserts based on cocoa butter, milk chocolate and dark chocolate should be no surprise. Creaminess seems to be an almost universally appreciated quality in candy. For that reason milk chocolate probably outsells dark chocolate and in general it's easier to appreciate fine Belgian chocolates then French chocolates. You almost have to train your palate to like the best French chocolates. I had a half pound of Bernachon's (Lyon's and maybe France's premier chocolatier) Palets d'Or which I didn't share very well. Each bon bon tasted better than the one before. It was a taste that I learned to better appreciate by spacing out the tasting. I though they were also so intense that I couldn't see someone scarfing down a pound at one sitting.

I trust you've already scoured the existing threads here. Most of the pertinent information already posted is not likely to be posted again. Once a regular user of this forum has suggested his favorite restaurant, pastry shop, cafe, museum, etc. he's unlikely to comment further unless there's a specific reference that brings it up again. Paris is full of good places to eat and good things to eat and this forum is full of posts mentioning the food and the places. Without some more specific information about your interests, price range, food knowledge and experience, any attempt to make suggestions is going to prove frustrating to the people who have the widest knowledge.

Oh well, I suppose I will have to go back to la Coupole as well. I have a memory of a meal on a Sunday in the sixties that is such a perfect picture, that I don't want it to change. We had a table in the rear, on a raised platform--I believe. As I recall the room was divided into brasserie and restaurant or cafe and brassrie, i.e. half of the room had tables with white tablecloths--the other half had bare tables. We had a commanding view of the other tables. At one table in clear line of sight, we had a young, very chic, very BCBG couple in elegant but casual dress dining on a plateau de fruits der mer on a night when their favorite places would be closed. In another direct was a elderly couple in their not very chic, but apparenly Sunday best, enjoying what appeared to be a special occasion. This democracy of the brasserie is what I think Baltahzar recreates in New York. Even Balzar, which I thought was overrun with English speaking tourists, still attracted a Parisian clientele of all sorts. I offer recommedations for the Flo brasseries with some hesitency as I find so many deplore the whole range of them. I'm glad to find a few knowledgeable diners who appreciate them for what they are in the context of their competition and not in relation to what they might be or might have been.

It is. I'm also far less upset at how the Flo chain is running its brasseries than some people are. Things are never what they used to be, and these places are not the place to go for great food, but they are reliable for raw seafood platters (no raw oysters, etc at Balzar though) and simple brasserie food. If nothing else, they've preserved some wonderful interiors. Of course as with anything, the more you knew it in the old days, the less you like it now. I suspect that would be true even if these places were independently owned, and I don't return to la Coupole, because it's the brasserie I knew so well in the sixties. I Like Vaudeville in the 2nd arrondisement with it's wonderful marble interior. Les Grandes Marches, is an exception in many ways. Most of all it's not a preservation of anything in either terms of interior or food. Here's what I wrote on my web page about two years ago.

The 2002 Michelin shows a 110 euro menu at dinner and a la carte prices from about 95 euros without wine or coffee. Lunch however, could be had for 49 euros. I've never been there. Balzar is okay for simple brasserie food. It's not so bustling or noisy, but it's certain not quiet either and I don't find it elegant. It's been quite a few years since we've been to Philippe Dutourbe, 8 r. Nicolas Charlet in the 15th arr. It was rather quiet, a little elegant and an incredible bargain. 37 euros for a prix fixe menu as of last year. Even with wine, you won't come near your 100 euro limit. The one problem is that there's but one five course menu with no choices. I've also liked les Grandes Marches, 6 pl. Bastille, in the 12th arr. It's a modern version of a brasserie and rather upscale with a contemporary decor that if not elegant, is at least quite chic and well done, and it offered far more contemporary food than normally found in a brasserie. Three courses without drinks should run about 50-60 euros.

Danube is hardly a traditional Austrian restaurant however. It's elegant and has very good food, neither of which removes it from Austria, but it's also very nouveau and chef driven in a way that would make it seem unAustrian, I think, to an Austrian. I don't know any of the German restaurants. Luchow's was probably never as good as I remember it being, but I miss it now. There used to be some good konditorei as well as German restaurants up on East 86th Street and around in Yorkville in the east 80s, but it seems most are gone as the neighborhood has changed. Heidelberg is one of the few that remain, but I've never eaten there.

I'll object to that, although I may be told to mind my own business.

Sustained.

Just teasing. Our reservations are pretty well made, and as I've said, it looks as if we can't make Martin, in spite of the fact that it was a place I very much looked forward to a return meal, but I'm not convinced it remains an impossibility. On the whole I'd almost be willing to wait for your reviews until I returned because if they don't confirm our choices, they're just going to frustrate us at this point. There's always next year, although I had hopes we'd do Barcelona in some depth in the early spring. On the other hand, Tonyfinch has me eager to try a good fabada before Asturias wakes up to the international style or adopts cosmopolitan tastes and I can no longer find one.

And leave us hanging as to how ...

Surely we don't just eat to ingest nutritionally pointed calories. My main reason for having dessert would be for the art of eating. It just rounds out and ends off a meal for me, although that's far more important in certain types of meals and settings than in others. Nevertheless, I'm not sure a good dessert need be nutritionally pointless calories or even largely nutritionally pointless calories. I've rarely seen meat or seafood incorporated into a dessert with any success, but I don't consider fruit, dairy or chocolate without nutritional value. The strongest claim for that might be the quantity of sugar used. To that I'd respond that desserts need not be ultra sweet and that I've had savory Japanese and Chinese meals without dessert that seemed inordinately sweet and contained more sugar than a three course French meal with dessert. I can't remember when I last had an oreo or supermarket packaged cake and I could go the rest of my life without even a good example, but a fine home made or professionally crafted dessert or pastry is a real gastronomic treat for me. While I rarely have the self control to leave food on my plate, if it's tasty, I almost resent restaurants where the meal is not well paced so that I have room for dessert.

I believe the Czech Budweiser is currently available in the US under the Czechvar label, if I'm not mistaken. You'd have a hard time selling me on the fact the A-B stole their recipe. I've tasted both beers. It can just be the water.

I love a good dessert. I can often skip banal desserts, but nothing pleases me less than a good restaurant where the portions are so large that I don't have the appetite for dessert. A really fine meal is as incomplete without dessert as it is without wine for me.