Bux

I assume this is helpful and not just petty, so here goes. I won't comment on the design, but it's a classic example of using the web to communicate rather than do handstands and show off. As someone who uses the web mostly to retrieve information rather than for entertaniment, I appreciate that. The opening page picture didn't show up on my browser either. I might opt for a smaller sans serif type face, but tha't subjective. On the About Us page in the last paragraph, last sentence "There" is misspelled as "Ther." There's some unfortunate formatting/line breaks on the Delicatessen page at the bread listing. It may depend on the size of the viewer's window. I assume you are aware that some pages are blank and that it's a matter of getting around to doing the work, rather than an error in code. I'd love to comment on your food as well, but it's just a bit less accessible to me from where I sit.

They're closed from November through March, but otherwise have Monday and lunch closings. Most of the restaurants in France have a day or two off each week, although perhaps not in the peak season.

At Lion d'Or in Romorantin, which is a two star restaurant with a chef of some acclaim if not a household name, we did just that. We ordered a la Carte and by the time we finished four savory courses--granted we split all four and thus had not really consumed more than two courses each, although we believe the three course savory tasting menu probably had less than full a la carte portions--we were quite unable to eat any more. I think we barely made a dent in the petits fours and chocolates that came with the coffee. There were no questions and no looks. This is an inn devoted to making its guests feel at home in any way it can and seems to cater to many who come for the comfort more than the food. It's an old fashioned place in that aspect. The excellence of the food is taken for granted rather than flaunted. I ate as well here as I could ever hope to eat, but in relaxed comfort and without the tension of a more avant garde restaurant. I suspect a majority of diners would find it preferable in every way to most three star restaurants. The same could be said for the Domaine des Hauts de Loire near Onzain where we stayed the next night. The food at both seems contemporary, but more consciously rooted in tradition and designed to please not shock the diner. At the latter we split three dishes and had room for a little cheese and dessert. Actually, I had cheese and dessert, Mrs. B. was content with cheese. I'd trade a savory course for cheese and dessert, especially in a more traditional meal. It just seems so much more of a rounded meal that way. The petits fours almost satisfied my taste for dessert, but the sight of the four wicker trays of cheese was a painful temptation. The possibility of just exploding at the Lion d'Or--a la Grande Bouffe--certainly entered my mind. It would not have been a bad way to go, but then I was curious about the food at the Domaine des Hauts de Loire the next night. I am saved from my gluttony only by the prospect of another meal.

Robert Brown may have made the most reasonable response. It's a start. I'm not sure I fully understand your requirements either. If I do, the others don't. South is a relative term, but for many travelers in France, it means Provence or the Cote d'Azur. There is also the southwest which includes the overlapping Languedoc, Midi, Pyreness and Basque Coast as well as other smaller regions. What are you looking for in the south outside of relative warmer temperatures. Beaches would be dependant on how late in the spring you go. The implication I get is that you want to rent a house or apartment and visit some restaurants from that base, but that you're not eager to drive far to a restaurant. Then again you say "along the way." Would it be your intention to visit a nice inn on the way to your final destination? Where would you start your drive? Might you also consider Spain in either Catalunya or the Spanish Basque coast.

I thought I implied that certain basic skills are useful across the lines that separate different cuisines, but since you've brought up the art of butchering, there's one area in which the nature of the cuts varies considerable from the French to the Americans to the Chinese. Do you not agree? This is not to imply the anatomy of the chicken changes from culture to culture.

Okay, so if there's no off topic, let me ask if you've had a chance to look around this site and into the other message areas. Given your curiosity about food, your expertise in many areas of food and your interest in talking freely and openly about your passion for food and your enthusiasm for sharing your knowledge, I'm interested in your opinions about the rest of this site. I take your invitation to contact you by posting questions to the site as a sign you are going to hang around for a while.

Wilfrid, sometimes I see leaf tripe--or is it book tripe?--that is white, or offwhite and usually served with some hot pepper sauce. Did I ever mention that I've found both duck hearts and gizzards in the butcher of the market that runs between Mott and Elizabeth just north of Hester? Were you the one who asked about a year ago? Ed and others, where can I get a nice dish of shrimp and (pork) kidneys in Chinatown? We used to have this in Chef Ma, a restaurant that was across the street from where Shanghai Joe is now, but many years ago. Since then, everytime I've seen it on a menu, they're out of it that day. I am reminded of it because of a dish Gagnaire served that included kdineys and seafood. This is not to say that Gagnaire's dish itself was in any way reminiscent of the dish I had in Chinatown.

Is it going to take Plotnicki to explain which are better objectively?

Fat Guy, are you asking Ed for a dispensation? Did your fortune cookie say you had to like dessert? For years I've resisted them and now find myself actually opening them and eating half, although I'd rather wish they went away. In my forty odd years of eating in Chinatown, I think I can remember only two restaurants that offered anything other than oranges and cookies. There was a place we frequented that gave us almond dofu and Dim Sum GoGo currently serves a small custard at the end of the meal. In Hong Kong, at a rather espensive and most diappointing restaurant, I had a wonderful mango pudding. It hardly compensated for the tough and over overcooked giant prawns of which we only ate about a half prawn between the two of us. When asked, my wife was quite candid about her dipleasure. So much so, that I expected to see blood seeping out from under the kitchen door when the order was returned almost intact to the kitchen. I was doubly relieved to see no sign of storm in the kitchen and not see the prawns on our bill. But the mango pudding was nice, though not so nice as I would expect of dessert in a French restaurant. Full disclosure: I have from time to time seen a few other desserts listed on a menu, or more often the wall of a Chinese restaurant so my comments really apply to the complimentary desserts. I have to assume dessert is not a big thing in the average Chinese meal. I'd also note the far more sugar is utilized in cooking the savory courses than we'd usually find in the typical western meal.

If I were to focus on anything you're said here so far, I think it would be on your reminder that cooking is a craft. It's not about following a recipe as much as it's about the craft and the philosophy. Knowing how to cook French or American food well can be a help, but sometimes knowing the craft of one cuisine can get in the way of learning another quickly. I suppose it's like learning a language. The first one you learn always seems like the easiest. At some point you have to learn how to think in the second language before you actually become proficient in it. Of course you have to start somewhere and not be afraid if the wrong accent shows up in your early attempts.

Cheese made from raw milk must be aged (think it's 60 or 90 days) before it's legal for importation. Inspectors are interpreting "importation" to mean commercial shipments. Numerous travelers have said they've not been stopped from bringing in small amounts of cheese for their own consumption. It's debatable if unpasturized cheese is truly the health concern the government says it is. Listeriosis is the main concern and we have enough outbreaks of that in pasturized cheese. Post production contamination is, in my opinion, the greater fear. Nevertheless there was a listeriosis problem in Burgundy a while back and it was traced to a shoddy cheese factory and not to an artisanal producer. My understanding, and this is hardly based on official accounts, is that a contaminated cheese is not a public health hazard unless it's offered for sale. It's just plain silly for the government to worry about the single traveler and his family eating another piece of cheese after they've just spent a week in France gorging themselves on raw milk cheese. Thus they don't look to confiscate cheese from pasengers. There's no guaranty they won't change their minds or that some inspector decides to do what he feels is his duty in interpreting the law more rigorously. I have brought in raw milk cheese and friends have brought in the same. The bigger problem is in handling it from the time of purchase to the time you get home.

Meets my definition of "awful places."

Paris has always had it's restaurants that prey on tourists as well as places where the wealthy eat, to eat with others of their economic persuasion, and places where the chic and stylish gather more to play than dine, but the Budda Bar and others seem historically un-Parisian and a fairly recent import in terms of dining. Am I wrong? Was there a precedent for what you describe as--and I have no trouble with that description--"awful places?"

That's standard procedure, especially after the recent BSE and Hoof and Mouth Disease outgreaks in Europe. We've been waved over to the Department of Agriculture guys (I don't believe they have any connection to INS) when all we've had is chocolates and caramels. I was specifically told that candy was not food. The implication was clearly that I was wasting their time. We've brought very little back with us on recent trips and have concentrated on jams and alcohol. Bottles and jars get very heavy bery quickly. In the past we've declared terrines, pates and mi-cuit foie gras in mason jars (all artisanal to be sure ) and been waved through, but I've heard of some people having trouble with meats that weren't canned so we didn't bother trying this year.

Probably. Whatever tariff you might have to pay would be on the least taxable items that brought you over the limit. While the agents at the airport have to work their shift no matter how fast or slow the line moves and regardless of the number of forms they fill out, the whole process of collecting the tax and filing the necessary paperwork is likely to cause more work for the government than the revenue is worth. Declare some ten thousand dollar diamond and they'll probably collect no matter how busy they are. The first time I was ever waved by was when there was a one liter limit on alcohol. (That may still be the limit, I haven't checked in a while.) We had three 750 cl bottles of spirits. The guy just laughed when I pointed this out.

One spring we ate in la Regalade, la Verriere d'Eric Frechon and Restaurant Phillipe Detourbe taking it easy on our stomcachs and wallets before heading out to Burgundy, Bresse and the Savoie. We left Paris so content, that I was ready to give up dining in starred restaurants--at least until we got to Vezelay. These restaurant averaged less than 200 FF for very nice three course meals (actually Dutourbe offered a set menu of five courses). More recent forays into inexpensive restaurants and bistros have not been as successful on a consistent basis, but the highlights every now and then leave me convinced I'm missing something if I try and eliminate any part of the mix that makes eating out in Paris a treat. There is a real problem with need, Marc pointed out, of Americans to get and distribute information. One journalist told me of his regrets after uncovering some real Parisian finds in the US media. Restaurateurs were inundated with transient diners who required far more service and attention and who elbowed out the regulars by making advance reservations. It was much more work for the staff and after six months or so, the transient trade brought by a single article dwindled while the old regulars had found new haunts. Foodies burn up restaurants at home and abroad when they travel. It's dilemma. Of course our members are not to blame. I have however met the tourists who go far out of their way to eat in the little neighborhood bistros with little understanding of the customs or the food served there. Their unfamiliarity with the French language extends to words such as poulet and poisson. In the boondocks I am sympathetic to their condition and find their attempts to experience the "real" France quite charming, but it Paris where they are so numerous, I understand the xenophobia of restaurateurs at times, though I may suffer myself as a result.

It may be ten times better, but I doesn't feel quite right for a pastrami sandwich. Another thing, that was my favorite bread for while, but lately I've noticed a change in the flavor. My wife thinks it's sweeter. I'm not sure I can describe the change, but it's less appealing to me lately. My source is Grand Street if there's a difference by location.

M. et Mme. Herme are enthusiastic fans of America, or at least of New York, or should I say of what they perceive to be New York. Or maybe I should say they were portrayed that way some time ago in a magazine article. Of course New York through their eyes, may not be the one you or I see. Their pastrami may not be your pastrami, or their corned beef may just be your beef. Reading Tarkington's post, what I got was that they are no longer fashionable, not that they are mean or offer up room and board that is actually bad as opposed to no longer chic. These are Warholian times and the Costes Brothers exist in a world where good and bad are a question of whimsy more than quality.Traditional "lite" seems to mirror the mood in NYC. Haven't we had that thread in the NYC board. Where is the great and adventuresome cooking of yesterday? Of course the great restaurants are still here--both in Paris and NY, but reservations are easier to get. In Paris they are more dependent on tourism and that's down as well.

While Camdeborde is presented as the central figure in the Gourmet article, I have a feeling that Christian Constant's Violin d'Ingres, when it first opened, may represent the start of all this. Here was a chef from a two star restaurant opening a comparatively less expensive and less luxurious restaurant. Come to think of it, I also have the impression that many of the chefs in the Gourmet article worked at les Ambasadeurs in the Crillon and possibly under Constant. I could be very wrong about that however. Qu'est-ce qu'on mange ce soir? the cookbook mentioned by Graham, was evidently published after the Gourmet article. It would be unlikely that the article prompted the cookbook and possibly more likely that the pending cook book authors had already gathered some attention as a group and that someone at Gourmet, or the author of the article picked up on that as a possible subject of an article.

I'm with Ron on this. I prefer more lamb flavor from my lamb. I would more likely order mutton than lamb in a braised dish if only because it was less commonly found in NY menus. On the other hand, as Yvonne suggests, lamb and mutton are likely to be mislabeled. I haven't been back to Ouest in a while, but I was a big fan of Valenti's when he was on the east side. I've really loved his cooking. It was a French chef working in a top haute cuisine restaurant who first took us to eat at Butterfield 81 when Valenti was there. Although my friend had considerable experience on both sides of the swinging doors at haute cuisine luxury restaurants in both the US and France, his enthusiasm for Valenti's hearty food was unbridled.

Lizzee, thanks for picking up on this and bringing it over here. I started to reply a few moments ago and I thought I was writing too much about Blue Hill--wrong emphasis for this thread. Your question--does this accurately describe the current "Young Turk" culinary scene? is double edged. I can't tell if it's accurately described the scene, or it it's put out a label for others to find the fit. I just don't know Paris that well. I can only say that two or three years ago, I began to sense an renewed interest in smaller and less expensive restaurants. Then again maybe that interest existed all along on the level I just discovered. Does the "bistro moderne" include the offshoots of the starred chefs and if so, do we make a distinction between those that are simple offshoots and those that are run by a young chef supported by a stared chef. Do the restaurants of chefs with restaurants in Saulieu and Montpelier count as one of these bistros without a young Turk. Can Robuchon acquire Turkhood with his new concept at the Hotel Pont-Royale? The chefs in the article run very different sorts of restaurants, although with the exception of Barbot, their menus are very inexpensive--at least the ones I know are. That certainly included Frechon, who Steve mentioned and who I believe was named in that article although he had already committed to heading up the restaurant at the Bristol. His was a real neighborhood restaurant, larger than a bistro and very fine, but not at all fancy. Chez Michel (mention on my web site of a dinner there last year) was far simpler and in an even less auspicious neighborhood. It may be the least self conscious of the lot and didn't strike me as ambitious as Frechon's or as resolutely determined to recreate rustic food in Paris. L'Astrance is far removed from the others and perhaps on the other side of Blue Hill in terms of "ambition" or kitchen philosophy, although it's pricing is probably higher than Blue Hill now and rising or so we hear. (Hard to compare accurately with service and tax included.) I think this is all part of a larger picture that extends beyond Paris and New York. I recall a post of Robert Brown that spoke of midscale restaurants of some ambition and distinction in France, that aimed to provide better food than the decor might lead one to expect. In any event, I suspect Steve had this very article on his mind when he referred to the "bistro moderne" phenomenon. I trust he'll let us know soon.

I'm confused, and I probably disagree with you, but that'a aother story. I'm confused because when we're posting on the board, none of us, at least to my knowledge, are having the sensual experience that we are posting about. Am I wrong, are any of you posting from a PDA while you are eating? So all of this is post dinner talk that is going to be either intellectual or artistic (poetic?) or, at best, a bit of both. It's worth noting that some of us take notes at some of our dinners. This is no secret and has been discussed in other threads, although perhaps more frequently on other boards than the NY board. I gather taking notes would decrease some member's level of enjoyment regarding dinner. That might imply that some of us just don't enjoy eating as much and based on the enthusiasm of the posts from those who I know take notes, that wouldn't seem to be the case. Of course I don't take notes at Blue Hill. For one thing the tables are too close together and someone might copy my notes and give the same answers on the next test.

Define good time. Are we talking subjectively or objectively - as in, "I had a good time," or, "A good time was had by all?" I don't know. You brought "good time" into this intellectual exercise. How can anyone have an intellectual exercise without having a good time?

I haven't been in Avignon in a few years, but in my travels in France this year, one of the things I noticed was Japanese restaurants--outside of Paris. Traditionally the French have not had a lot of foreign restauants particularly outside of Paris. Yes, there is often a Moroccan restaurant and maybe an Indochinese restaurant, but there's a long standing relationship with north African and Indochina. Fashion in Paris fleeting. It comes and goes quickly. I suspect this may on the nose. We're also seeing some of the same return to comfort food here for much the same reasons I suppose.The Japanese restaurant in the provinces were the real anomaly. I wonder if they're just provincially late or has small town France taken to the food.

If I didn't have the best tarte tatin of my life this Thanksgiving, I certainly had one of the best. I'm not sure if it was as good as the pear tarte with hazelnut crust, almond cream and hazelnut streusel topping, but then I'm prone to favoring pears and almonds in dessert. I am told the recipe came from Dorie Greenspan's new Paris Treats or is it Sweets (I'm embarrassed, Dorie is a friend) cookbook. The apples used were Mutsu's from the Greenmarket (Breezy Hill Orchards, I believe).