Bux

Lesley, brilliant, yes, forgot to mention that. Of course fish is very fragile and you want to keep it chilled but yes, it should sit at room temp for about 10 minutes immediately before searing. Same goes for steaks - bring it to room temp. Yeah, I hate it even worse when they leave it out overnight.

The animal or the gagging gesture? I've never had yak cheese. I suppose it's possible to make cheese from the milk of any mammal, but before this becomes a joke fit for preteenagers, the only other cheese I've had is water buffalo or whatever they make that good mozzarella from.

You are the system. hahaha. I think the system is more like Daniel and company; at least they probably have the ability to change it. We'd get laughed out of business, though that's happening anyway :)). For what it's worth I knew someone who opened a house account at Daniel. The first time he used it, he left what he thought was an appropriate tip in cash on the table, only to have a waiter or captain come over to him and tell him that a service charge would be added to his bill and that there was no reason for him to leave a tip. I believe the charge was 20% and I believe it was on the total bill.

Goat, sheep and cow. The next one is a very distant fourth.

Lauren, I'd guess you are already too late to reserve for May, but why waste more time? I don't want to dissuade anyone from having Gagnaire's 85 euro prix fixe menu. I've not had it. However, I would like to support MobyP's position from limited experience elsewhere. I have found that sometimes the least expensive menu at any restaurant is not necessarily the best buy. At times it merely hints at why the chef is famous and gives the barest indication of what the restaurant can do. Only once can I recall having both the least expensive prix fixe and the most expensive gasstronomic menu in the same restaurant. There was no comparison. Both were good meals, but the expensive one was the better value offering more bang per buck--or franc, at the time. Given a choice between two prix fixe and one tasting menu, I'd easily opt for the single tasting menu. I understand that others have had better luck and some gastronomes consider it a good way to learn about food and chefs and a part of their process in deciding when and where to go the whole way.

There are those who abhor present day brasseries, especially those taken over by the Flo group, but for what they do well, choucroute, andouillette and oysters at those brasseries that serve them, I enjoy a good brasserie and find them useful on Sunday nights. Michelin lists those restaurants open on both Saturday and Sunday in a separate list at the beginning of the Paris pages.

Gagnaire is the only one I have eaten in last year, so I can't offer comparison to those in which my experience may no longer valid, or those in which I've not eaten. That said, I don't think Gagnaire is living off a unjustified reputation. The "wow" was still there for us, although I don't know that it was as great as the first time--but mostly because we had some idea of what to expect. It may be subjective food however and I've heard of less than ideal service on a night when neither the chef, nor Mme. Gagnaire were not in the restaurant. There's a very recent thread on Gagnaire you should read and I believe all of the others have been mentioned recently on eGullet and a search on their names might be useful.

ViaMichelin, the online version of the red guide, shows an 85 euro menu served at lunch only. www.viamichelin.com is a great source. The one thing that's missing is a map with the star locations. I find that page of great use when planning an itinerary that's not predicated solely on hitting three star places. Sometimes we are going from point A to point B and willing to make detours for one and two star places. When on the road in France, the actual guide in printed form, is absolutely necessary to know there's a starred place just ten kilometers ahead when I'm thinking of stopping for lunch -- at least until we have some sort of wireless hookup to the net via laptop or PDA.

I believe you. In fact, I'd prefer to accept this on faith than have it proven to me.

I have strong curiosity about food and a desire to eat things I've read about or discover in strange places, but there are foods and nonfoods alike, I neither crave, nor eat. When I've eaten all sorts of small shrimp and such shrimplike creatures with or without their shell, I tell myself they are just like beetles or cockroaches, but I have not yet eaten an insect and told myself they are just like seafood. Whatever I might tell myself upon eating insects is likely to remain moot.

I'm flattered you think of me as a food writer, even if you find my posts pointless.

The naked guy was covered in goose fat, as I recall. Never forget, we're all naked under our clothes.

I've not run across any Spanish coffees in for sale in the US and when we were in Spain, the labeling was confusing and we weren't sure which ones to buy, so we didn't bring any home.

Do you need my credit card number for the refund. I'd return 18% on the belief that the diner intended to leave 25%.

I don't doubt that one can feel persecuted even if the staff takes all the precautions one could hope for. Even if there's no fault on the restaurant's side and no blame to be placed, life just seems unfair at times. I took ill early in the meal at one of the last meals to be served at Robuchon. It was also my first, and obvioulsy my only chance to eat there. As I recall I left the dining room for a few moments, recovered my color and a bit of composure. When I returned, I cancelled the rest of my meal and watched my wife eat for the next few hours. To the best of my recollection we were charged and paid for two tasing menus. Although we cannot afford many of these meals a year, it was the loss of the opportunity more than the cost that bothered me. Were the restaurant still in operation with Robuchon at the helm, we would have been back at our next visit to Paris. It was clear that there was nothing about the food that affected my condition. I had been ill before on the trip that started with Lots of foie gras and goose fat in two meals at Daguin's Hotel de France (it was his final year as well) and more at Michel Guerard. On my return to NY, my doctor scoffed at the idea I needed a major checkup. "Crise de foie" was his quick diagnosis. I've learned to pace myself. I even order vegetables as a first course at times, not that I haven't still been known to follow foie gras with boudin noir and call it a balanced meal if there's fruit in the dessert.

Can anyone confirm or deny that the reddish color we like in pastrami is due to saltpetre (sodium nitrate). that reddish color we like in certain processed meats and sausages usually comes from saltpetre/saltpeter. Bacon processed without nitrates is usually a less appetizing brown.

What a great pity. It's clear you appreciated the food and that the night was ruined. I suspect your wife knows by now when she is having an allergic attack brought on by mushrooms, although there's an outside chance there may be some other food she rarely eats that may also be a problem. It's difficult to know if cross contamination was the problem. Apparently your wife is very susceptable to fungi and is able to trace past attacks directly to mushrooms in a dish. I have two friends that are allergic to fish and seafood. One can pick out the shrimp in a dish in Chinatown and eat the rest, while the other gets sick from the smell of fish fying. One has to wonder if one of the sauces used in a dish might have begun life as a stock into which someone innocently threw a few mushroom parings although the restaurant might not usually put mushrooms in that broth. It's a difficult situation and one has to sympathize with you and your wife even if they find no fault with the restaurant. It sounds as if they were genuinely concerned and I appreciate the degree of fairness with which you present the facts. I do suspect you convinced the waiter of the seriousness of your concerns. Ffault here is hard to find. I have pertty much tended to ignore the room when speaking of my meal at AD/PA, I managed to ignore the room as much as possible while I was dining there. I doubt it was redecorated on the cheap, but the efffect is much as if it were. The premise may be sound, but in practice it was a dour room. As for the two photographs, I'm happy to have it confirmed they were not Cavin Klein advertisements, though truthfully, a large billboard would have enlivened the space, made it more human and allowed the restaurant to lower the price. Fortunately we were able to enjoy the food which was quite exquisite.

I can testify to the fact that smoking in Spain is far mroe prevalent than in France, at least in fine restaurants in Madrid.

Because CDG is further away from an oven than is Cherche-Midi? Because CDG is still 5 hours away from JFK which is an hour away from Fairway? Because I doubt that any loaf in the poilane shop sits around for six hours? In dog years, six hours is a year. In wine terms, it may be last year's beaujolais nouveau.

It means soup of the day NOW, but what did it mean back then? I know what it means now (ba ba bump), of course, but obviously Bux is referring to something that I don't know about. Make sense? What I'm referring to is a staff that is clueless beyond belief. Not just clueless about French terms, but clueless about what kind of information a diner might want before ordering his meal. When I ask the waiter about the "soupe du jour" I expect the ditz to understand that I've come to Joe's diner to eat and not get French lessons. I expect someone prepared to tell me what's cooking.

See, Mario's correct. I guarantee that if if had fewer clams there'd be more complaints.

And Pain Poilane is to die for?

Gagnaire may have been the first restaurant that thrilled me, yet one to which I was unwilling to issue the banket "you've got to eat there" recommendation. Then again that might have been El Bulli, although I think I ate at Gagnaire first, but the same idea applies. I want my food to taste good, but that's not always enough and I'm willing to risk that for a challenging meal. Nevertheless, you should have had the oysters. Actually I love oysters and on second thought maybe I should have second thoughts about your having the oysters. Without checking my menu, the oysters I had at Gagnaire were combined on the plate with something else and I believe it may have been sweetbreads. I love both oysters and sweetbreads and found the dish tasted of neither, but was delicious. For mnay chefs, the cardinal feature of contemporary cooking is that food tastes of the material used. Heavy sauces should not be used and light sauces should reinforce the natural flavors. Gagnaire can be an alchemist creating a new food. Rules are often made to be broken and none more so than the last set replacing all previous ones as if they're meant to be the final rules.

Would it be of interest to hear about the menu and your impressions? Lucky me. I get to answer that question after the fact. I found your impressions made for a very interesting post. If I don't compliment you sufficiently, it's because just as you don't see restaurant cooking as competition, I don't want to see people post competitively here and I don't want to discourage others from posting because they won't match your eloquence. Without reference to posts that have come before yours, nor to those that will follow, I will say I feel honored to have your post on Gagnaire and hope we see other posts from you. This one was beautiful and I hope it starts a new discussion on Gagnaire. It's a post I will want to reread a few times before engaging in that discussion, but it largely echos my feelings about dining at Gagnaire. As Sandra Levine notes, there have been previous threads on Gagnaire and I hope you enjoy reading them.

The point is that the codified dishes, the ones that were served from Escoffier up to nouveau cuisine in France are no longer the norm in France. When they were the norm, there's no reason to believe they weren't learned the way we learn the flavors of ice cream. We're not born understanding vanilla and chocolate, be learn the tastes as we grow up and experience them. Slowly you learned that coq au vin also meant with mushrooms, onions and lardons and so it went. Sometimes an adult would run across a more esoteric preparation -- one not commonly found -- and he would ask about it. The problem was only with the adult plunged into a culture, be it that of a foreign country or that of a French restaurant culture in the US, and being uptight about not appearing as sophisticated as his neighbor at the next table. So what we might be talking about is dumbing down the menu for the entry level diners and many French restaurants provided translations for the French terms with full ingredients. The truth is that French terms entered the English language so many years ago and haven't stopped although they are often bastardized. Calf becomes veal in the kitchen and pig becomes pork all in homage to the French influence in English kitchens. Au gratin becomes o'gratin on the packages of frozen foods and a la mode becomes a code for pie with ice cream. Soupe du jour becomes soup de jur on menus and if you ask the waitress what that is today, she's liable to tell you that it's the soup of the day with a srtaight face. Nevertheless, as I've noted, French menus have changed considerably and are undergoing rapid change now as the Escoffier classics have faded from serious restaurants.