Bux

I've read of talented young chefs who are sent by their restaurants to do an unpaid stage in France. Often enough the restaurant or country club in the states pays the restaurant in France for that privilege. French born chefs with restaurants famous enough to make the newspapers in Paris who have kept their ties to France can often secure such a stage for young cooks loyal to them without having to pay. Of course some plucky young cooks will manage to get those plum payless jobs by sheer determination. You're not implying a French restaurant would be seeking out an American cook to hire for his talent are you?

It may be a matter of taste and expectation. I've certainly enjoyed savory set custards that are no more than vegetable flavored sugarless flans served with all sort of meats and poultry. I know I've had savory sabayons but don't remember having it with other than fish. I posted a link to Gagnaire's Corolle de saint Jacques et saumon d'Ecosse, suc de clémentine, sabayon au champagne in this thread which discussed savory sabayons.

I have heard stories of life in classic French kitchens that lead me to believe your instructors are politically correct pussy cats, in comparison to others. I have also learned the hard way to be careful about ordering tuna in France. I enjoyed this well done account of your experiences and continue to look forward to more. I trust we will get an inside glimpse behind the scenes at one of France's top kitchens. It will obviously be their loss if we don't.

Let me also add for the attention of those venturing south of Madrid, the name of Manolo de la Osa -- Restaurant Las Rejas -- in Las Pedroñeras. The decor is not as chic as Can Roca and it doesn't have El Bulli's view or cachet. He's not creating on the level of El Bulli, but we thought he, like Joan Roca, offered "just the right balance of lucious comfort food and culinary experimentation." It was a knock your socks off meal. Okay, with enthusiasm in check, if Adria knocked out socks off, de la Osa made them roll up and down a few times. You can read my post on Las Rejas here.

2001 was the last year they served lunch at El Bulli. We had lunch there in 2000 and dinner in 2002. In November of 2001, Steve Klc introduced us to Albert Adria and he told us that they were discontinuing lunch and serving dinner at an earlier, more international hour. The kitchen and staff were just working too long each day producing and serving two such meals a day and thus in the year of their 20th anniversary and at probably the height of their fame so far with reservations for the entire season filling up on the day the phone lines opened, they cut their income in half. A good bean counter could have told them they could have shortened the menus and just not raised prices and still filled the restaurant twice a day. I should say that I enjoyed the lunch experience even more than the dinner one. It was a pleasure to sit on the terrace before the meal with aperitifs and after with coffee and mignardises and enjoy the view. Then again we were there in the spring and August might be different. Marina is the author of Tastes of the Pyrenees, Classic and Modern. For those who haven't noticed, she is doing a Q&A and will be answering pertinent questions for the next two days.

It's anyone's guess of course. Speculation can be absurd and lead us off into cloudy areas, but sometimes it's a worth abstract pursuit. I have usually associated deeply colored egg yolks with the tastiest eggs from small producers. There's no doubt in my mind that the color may have been due to the color of the egg yolks. It's not uncommon to use sweet wines in savory courses. Port may be the most frequent example. Sweet white wines may be less commonly used, but there's my example of vin jaune and a "dry" champagne is hardly dry. On the other hand, it may well have been your imagination or the result of the context in which the dish was served.

When unemployment figures are high, a government is likely to be a lot less eager to issue working visas for foreigners.

Joe H, I'm reminded of a conversation on another food group years ago. I'm reminded because you ask if it's good food and because vserna has been posting here lately. Someone asked, and I believe it was on a NY Times forum if they should go to El Bulli. I was evasive in my answer because I thought it was an essential experience for anyone with a certain kind of interest in food, but perhaps an experience others would not find at all rewarding. I noted that it was cutting edge and vserna said, as I recall, something to the effect that one can bleed at the cutting edge. Although the TDG piece seems to indicate there may be a maturity or mellowness moving into the food, it's an intense and challenging experience. For some that would be rewarding even if the food was less successful. Some people enjoy an exquisite production of a time honored operal. Others would much prefer an intellectual drama that made them think in a different way, or even an avant garde performance piece. I don't mean to scare any serious foodie away from El Bulli. You and your palate should not be shocked by what's served, only teased and challenged in a good natured way and I've seen a large table of diners who didn't regularly eat in three star restaurants not because they couldn't afford it, but because it wasn't their major interest and yet they reacted immediately and positively to the food. Perhaps they had the advantage of not having the preconceptions some foodies might have. One should go with the excitement of the unknown, not the aprehension of it.

A lot depends on where you're moving from. Citizens of the EU, or is it EC, can move about pretty freely. If you're coming from the US or most other places, it may not be so easy to find employment without the connections that will overcome visa restrictions. Fresh_a is an American working as a concierge in a top hotel. He may have some advice.

You're welcome to your opinion and you're welcome to post that opinion here. Let me add a few of Patricia Wells' comments from the review Gary Marshall linked to in his message. If you're wrong, at least you're in the neighborhood of some good company.

I was about to say that I doubted the truffle sabayon had any sweetness in it, but then I remembered one of the dishes from our early trips to France, In Arbois, in the Jura, I had a chicken or capon with sauce of vin jaune and morilles that indeed had a sweetness from the wine. It was truly superb. If memory serves, it was only a one star restaurant. Those were the days when there were riches to be found at all levels in the provinces. "The days" were the late sixties and they sealed the fate of my interest in French cooking even through the years we couldn't afford to travel. Do you know what wine they used in the sabayon?

It's my pleasure to get to know you better. It's no secret that I've greatly appreciated your posts on the France board as well as elsewhere on the site and I eagerly look forward to hearing more from you from Paris.

A barkless dog might be an appropriate mascot for a winery that was promoting the use of screwcaps.

I disagree. Because el Bulli avoids repetition of dishes does not make them void of a style. It is impossible to be void of style in cooking. Because Adria seems to to evade a style doens't mean they are devoid of a style. I think the above exchange is getting wrapped up in semantics. What might be Adria's style is probably what Klc focuses on when he notes that Adria does not have a signature dish. Picasso's style was to change his style to stay ahead of his comtemporaries. There is food that may challenge my palate and my preconceptions of what tastes good, it may or may not taste good to me the first time, but at worst it will leave me thinking about my taste. Then there is food that does not taste good, but doesn't leave me questioning my taste. Can it be good food if it doesn't taste right the first time? This is theoretical and not really in reference to anything I've had at El Bulli or anyplace else.

I know little about Spanish wines, but I'm starting to learn. They seem to be marked up highly here in the U.S. and Spain is the place to go to enjoy them. Most of the wines I've had seem to enjoy a Dénominacion de Origen equivalent to the AOC or DOC in France or Italy, except that there seems to be little that's required of a wine except that it be grown in the disignated area. What I mean is that, at least in some regions, it appears one may grow whatever grape one pleases and thus the D.O. offers little insight into how the wine will taste. Am I wrong? P.S. Since I posted that question, Craig Camp has started a thread entitled New Spanish D.O. with a post that includes a link to an article on the Wine Spectator site -- New Appellation Approved for Spain's Hot Heartland

Marina, welcome to eGullet. [For those who aren't already aware, Marina has just published a cookbook on the foods of the Pyrenees and is participating in a Q&A this week.] Yet these very restrictions were what guaranteed one might actually find wine representative of the reason these regions, and in some cases individual plots, had achieved their historical fame. The same situation exists in Tuscany and winemakers managed to produce "super" wines with no legal pedigree beyond table wine. A sommelier I know has referred to a wine he felt was good, but without local character as a "technical" wine. I took that to mean the wine got a high score on technical merit, but no points for artistry. A friend of ours told us of a vineyard in the Languedoc that sought and received permission to grow zinfandel on an experimental basis. Jacqueline Friedrich, in her book on Loire wines, wrote of a group who clandestinely grow Vitis labrusca and prefer the wines make from them. There's no accounting for taste.

Rillieux-la-Pape, home to Larivoire, is about 7 km out of town. Larivoire is a one star restaurant and probably a good place to dine, but I'd question if I leaving the city for dinner unless I had a car at my disposal. I have traveled out of Lyon by taxi for dinner, but it was always to a two or three star restaurant and even then, I questioned the added cost in terms of the value of eating in one of the choices in town.

Well both are in the museum and that cuts two ways. One can say that being in the museum is being in an honored place or one can also say that's the repository of dead culture that was once live and vibrant. Is there not a creative movement that does not at some point run it's course and look old fashioned, until it's re-examined by a later generation and appreciated in a different way? it is true that Spanish genius is often an independant sort, but there is much going on in Spanish kitchens today that assures cross pollination and other chefs who are having a similar influence. I would not be so suprised to find Adria having an influence in the mainstream a decade or two from now.

Early last spring we ate at Bocuse's le Sud. It's certainly not where you will experience the local style of cooking. It's cuisine is sort of a popular amalgum of Mediterranean cooking -- Italian, North African and Provencal -- and the menu seems designed by a corporate mentality as if it was a test run for a chain. The food wasn't bad, just impersonal and not what a visitor to Lyon should search out. The pasta and mozzarella actually seemed more alien to France than the tagines and couscous which have long been a part of the French diet. Brandade wrapped in phyllo and served with an intense tomato sauce and cold tomato (peeled and seeded) and fresh grilled anchovies were other starters. Bistrot de Lyon is not very exciting either, but if you stick to the local specialties -- think tripe -- you can eat well enough here. I had an andouillette that was irregular in shape and evocative of a barnyard in aroma. It was splendid and just what I wanted from Lyon. That whole stretch on rue Merciere seems verty touristy, but in fact, it's just very active on weekend nights with locals and tourists. Two of the things I would order in Lyon at a bistrot are andouillette and tablier de sapeur. If you're not familiar with them, the first is a sausage of tripe or chitlins and the latter is a thin piece of stomach(?) or tripe that is breaded and fried.

El Bulli was 110 or 115 euros last year, so prices areslowly creeping upwards, but there's little doubt in my mind that Spaniards are not willing to pay what Parisians, or the French are willing to pay for dinner. Gastronomic travel in provincial Spain doesn't off the comforts of great restaurants attached to great inns either and this may be reflected in the prices. It has less appeal to those willing to pay for those comforts. The best meal I've had south of a Barcelona-Bilbao axis was in a town without even one hotel listed by Michelin. A fabulous lunch with a bit too much wine and we hit the road in need of a roadside siesta. We stopped for the night in the next town with a choice of accommodations. It wasn't an unpleasant town, but when we had earlier inquired about the town as a potential for an overnight, we were told by travel collegues that there were two things to do in town -- "shit and leave." There is a rustic quality about things in Spain and often a refreshing directness of expression.

I think it's a non question for me. Some of the most banal office buildings in America, if not the world, have been spawned by misunderstanding or at least poorly derived imitations of Mies and and the most god awful housing projects attempt to rely on inept understanding and poor implementation of Corbu's theories. Bad food is more easily avoided and does less harm to the social fabric. I am intrigued with your opening statement "that the restaurant represents a tradition of its own," When I first tasted the food, so much of it seemed without connection to any food I knew and yet it seemed right. I wanted to think I was eating in an experiemental laboratory, but somehow it all worked so well that I felt I was dining on traditional food of a sophisticated society, but one from a far away place whose culture was too different from mine to fully evaluate with my own perspective. With a second meal under my belt and the chance to read more about Ferrran and Alberto, and to meet Alberto in Paris, the more I realize I was eating in a laboratory and the more I have respected El Bulli for making me feel otherwise. I have great respect for, and great fascination with, creative and intellectual work, though I'm not sure if it exceeds my interest in having a good meal. The danger of the succes of El Bulli, and this may address your topic, is that it's fostered an interest in what I may describe as avant garde cooking. One need not equal Adria to produce a dinner that both creative and rewarding, but there's a fine line, that if not crossed, can make for a disaster. There are those who do not understand the fundamental nature of El Bulli's success and who do not understand why a dish works or doesn't work and there will be more of them who will do outlandish and misguided things in the name of El Bulli and there will be those who ape the techniques without understanding how and why they worked when Adria used them. Would they cook any better if inspired by tired old dishes? Probably not, but they'd not come to our attention as quickly via the media.

The idea of a roast pork bun with imitation meat has no appeal to me, but vegetable buns are good. I don't think I've ever run across a baked all vegetable bun, but I'm sure I've had steamed buns with all vegetable fillings. My favorite baked roast pork buns in Manhattan are at Grand Manna on the south side of Grand Street between Mott and Elizabeth.

Nice to hear of your success with La Merenda.The last time I was in Nice, Le Stanc was still at Le Chanteclair in the Negresco. At the time they offered a $40-50 prix fixe lunch. I believe the higher price included wine. It was too big a bargain to resist and excellent. As I recall the wines were Macon Villages and a Rhone appellation, and not shoddy examples either. Refills were quick in coming and I had to stop them from refilling my glass when dessert arrived. I was saddened to read Robert's report and happy to read yours. I'm always torn between the great old traditional food of France and the haute cuisine. I've found we've drifted more to haute cuisine as they years have passed because on one level it's more intellecutually interesting, but also because the cuisine grandmere of tripes and daubes has become harder to find done well. Michelin seems to be favoring creative chefs for the one star rating and most one star creative restaurants just don't hold a candle to the two and three star places nor do they provide a balance to the multistarred places. Of course there are exceptions. L'Astrance in Paris is a one star well worth a place on one's dining card.

The Salt Flats in Guerande, I presume? Should be off topic in the Spain board. We kept seeing Malden salt on our food in Spain. Absolutely must get the fleur de sel at the source. I'm also a fan of the sel gris. I'm absolutely convinced the impurities make it so delicious. I don't think you have to declare it either. The last time I marked "yes" to the question "are you bringing in food," they told me to stop wasting their time if all I had was chocolate. I always thought chocolate was a major buidling block in the food pyramid.

Yes and no. There's probably much you know that might give you some insight that would benefit us. If you're honest and can speak without prejudice, or speak to the facts and not offer an opinion of how many stars it deserves, your contribution may be valuable to us and it may be unfair for you to withhold what you know.