Bux

Hey the Fat Duck is not everyone's idea of a worthwhile gamble. Although to be truthful, I loved it with the single exception of finding the main course a bit too sweet for my taste. A problem Heston shares with many chefs these days and I may well end up having to adjust my palate. While I deplore making little adults out of little kids, I am all for including them in more of our life. We did not have the economic option of traveling well on a comfrotable budget when our daughter was four, but she was certainly an eager diner in a fine restaurants before she was a teenager. I found a period at around two and four that were particularly trying, but by four, she was already adept at picking the best places for showdown confrontations and quite an excellent bargainer. With the prices of toys these days, I suspect you won't find your young 'un a cheap date, Wilfrid.

Well, I'm not persuading you. Let me try again in light of your response. I think the arguments being presented against Ducasse are quite personal, yet they are being presented as if they are very subjective. I'm sure Plotnicki will disagree on this, that's SOP on this issue. Most of the people who read this board are English speaking and the center of gravity is probably on this side of the Atlantic. At any rate, the members are likey to have few opportunities to try Parisian restaurants and for those are who both willing and able to spend considerable sums of money on a meal, decisions will have to be made about where to eat on a visit to Paris of limited duration. There are reasons why Ducasse would not be many people's first choice just as there are reasons Gagnaire would not be other people's first choice. The same could probably be said for Arpege and other restaurants. I want to see that casual readers of this board get a fair idea of AD/PA and of the various opinions from those who have dined there from the posts. Should you say you don't like the direction Ducasse's cuisine takes, I'd probably have no response. Should you say you don't think he's an innovative chef, I'd contest the point to offer a balance. However you said "everybody has conceded Ducasse does not meaningfully innovate," and that is just not true and needs to be corrected, not balanced, if only to allow the reader to make some decision on what's actually been said and not on what's been represented as having been said.

When I've spoken of Ducasse and his cuisine, I have focused on AD/PA precisely because this is the France board, the title of this thread includes the words "dining in France," and AD/PA seems a more meaningful comparison to Arpege. The sheer luxury of AD/NY which manifests itself in the food as well as the decor and service, discourages a direct comparison with Blue Hill, in my opinion, although I have an exceptionally high opinion of Blue Hill. I am aware that my opinion is probably higher than that of my peers, though not higher than I believe it deserves. Actually, I though I was well in line with the parameters of your recent posts, but I didn't say you didn't have the right to criticize creative people. I don't recall suspending anyone's rights, nor do I recall anything close to what you said I said. Could you provide the citation and either prove my memory is even shorter term than my daughter says, or allow us to reach an understanding on what I said. Ducasse is not above criticism and there is much that would be legitimate. There are usually two sides and I've tried not to idolize Ducasse, but to explain why I have respect for him. I do not wish to qualify that respect on a point scale with other chefs, nor rate AD/PA on a scale beyond saying I think it probably belongs in the top group. I would accept your criticism far more easily if it were presented as the opinion it is, rather than as the correct view.When you respond to Wilfrid by explaining why Ducasse is a target, I think you asnwer the question of the motivation for the effort expended on denigrating him, perfectly. Unfortuantely you'v explained why he's a target, not why he deserves to be denigrated.

Sorry Plotnicki, those last posts seems to confirm my points all too well. You refute me than go on to support my contentions. The difficulty of reservation business was the most absurd part and yet you defend it's meaningless as support because it proves nothing. Most of what it proves is that you are not making a point about supporting Passard, but that you need to attack Ducasse. If Ducasse was the worst chef in France, I'd find more benefit in a post that explained what little he had to offer than in one that just tried to put him down. Your weakness is that you don't admit to weaknesses and display a need to defend every casual remark you make, rather than accept the possibility that someone else may see somthing you haven't. All of my posts are based on the concept that the "world's greatest" anything, chef included, is a fairly dumb idea. I don't argue that Ducasse is any such thing, only that he is a great chef who needs to be considered when people talk about great, creative, innovative, soulful chefs. His popularity or lack thereof, as well as his prices and the difficulty of getting a reservation are of interest, but they don't prove very much all by themselves. What's appalling about the negative arguments is the need they convey to insist a creative person be seen in a negative light. I have from time to time noted I have been disappointed by a multistarred or popular chef and that I have net understood his critical or popular success, but I have no need to go on and on as if my own self esteem depended on attacking that chef. I am pleased that others have found worth in his cooking and usually quick to note that my own displeasure, although great, was based on a particular experience and leave it at that. I argue for Ducasse for one reason. I don't wish to see people cross him off their list without trying the food. I honestly believe that for people who can afford the five or six hundred dollars it will cost to have a meal at AD/PA, that price will be an insignificant loss when held up to the chance they will miss the experience. Dining out is always a gamble, or like the stock market--Maybe better than the stock market. It's been pointed out that if I bought Budweiser several years back with the money I had in the stock market, there's a good chance the deposit on the empties may be worth more than the stocks. One shouldn't go out to eat with the milk money.

I apologize in advance for the off topic remark, but I can't think of a better way to party than with a really great sit down dinner. Fortunately I had the pleasure of a daughter (and future son-in-law) who agreed.

Whatever Ripert undertakes is worthy of note and a restaurant in which he has a hand should merit a visit. The "fun and freedom" sound interesting, but "I've never been to Japan, so I studied all the best Japanese cookbooks I could find and tasted a lot in good Japanese restaurants. Then I started to experiment, to create my own interpretations in my own personal style," is not what I'd want to know. The name of the restaurant is also less than a positive choice in my mind. It appears as if he's a hired hand. I wonder why he wasn't sent to Japan for an extended stage, or why the owner would saddle his consultant with an unfamiliar theme.

Hmm, I've never said that I prefer Ducasse to Passard. I really don't have enough experience with either to say I definitely prefer one to the other, but I didn't think this was about popularity. There are many reasons why I might prefer Passard and why I might have a greater curiosity about his cooking. Comparisons of my meals are not very fair as they were had years apart and, I suppose, show the two chefs at different points in their careers. I suspect I had also evolved as a diner. Anyway, dinner at AD/PA was certainly the more demanding one in terms of my attention and depth of involvement. I will defend Passard with some passion although I have to admit my interest has been partially piqued by his deft handling of the media and the never quite true rumors that have been spread by the media about his "totally" vegetarian menu. He appears to be far better at using the public press than Ducasse and yet not been charged with "hype." Nevertheless, and this is not to say that I didn't clean my plate and enjoy my food to the last bite at Arpege, I understood my plates within the first few bites. At Ducasse my amazement lasted well into each course and the souful ragout of vegetation that surrounded my medallions of game, kept on surprising me down to the last bite. I don't think I've ever been more surprised at each bite even in a restaurant dedicated to a cuisine quite foreign to me and I know I've never been more surprised in a positively ecstatic way by a dish--especially by a chef who "everybody has conceded ... does not meaningfully innovate." In truth it's far less innovative to put vanilla and lobster in a dish and say "you've never had this before," than it is to put fruits and vegetables on a plate and have the diner say "I've never had anything like this before." Plotnicki, when you say "that Ducasse doesn't cook (either he nor his surrogates) with passion," I'm reminded of another guy who used to argue that my favorite chefs didn't cook with love like the lady on the corner in Queens who sold her whatever-it-was that she sold from her cart. He also surrounded and insulatd himself with those who shared his taste. Fortunately my p.m. is running heavily in favor of Ducasse, or I would have to believe I also ran with a group incabable of appreciating a certain level of finesse and creativity.

Have I failed to express myself on that aspect of the meal I had at AD/PA. There are degrees of innovation and the wildest innovation almost always seems very tame when the final effect seems so obvious. The "why didn't I think of that" is never as impressively innovative than the "what was he thinking" sort of innovation. I found nothing dull about dinner at AD/PA. I thought Ducasse was pushing the envelope of cuisine as we know it. He pushed gently, but forcefully in corners others had stopped looking for innovation. He's creative in a tougher arena. It's no small skill, but it's a reason why he may be a chef's chef, although I've felt the same about Passard. Then again the chef's here seem to hold both in esteem, and I am not surprised. Ducasse is not my favorite chef. He certainly seems more like Wagner than Bach at least on a superficial a gut reaction. To miss his contribution, talent and innovation is to have a blind spot however.

I should hope so. Most exciting and undoubtedly best meal I've had in Paris was at Gagnaire. The worst thing(s) I've ever been served may have been all of the desserts at that same meal. An understatement, although of course I'm not sure about the exact dangers. Trust me, this is where I see the danger as a diner. I've read on and see others have taken issue with your post, but they speak when they might listen. What can I say, but that I'm glad you, and not they, are in the kitchen. I take some comfort from seeing the sensitive views on this thead coming from the kitchen.

Cabrales mentioned that she already had reservations to dine at Blue Hill when she rad the article and that it prompted her to call one of the chefs at the restaurant and ask if that menu could be prepared for her. If you check old posts in old threads, you will see that she is a regular at the restaurant and one of their biggest fans here. All of my meals at Blue Hill have been excellent. It has been very consistently excellent.

A green zebra was the single tomato that best embodied all that I hope to find in a tomato. With my eyes closed, it tasted as if it were the reddest tomato I had ever imagined. It was, in terms of taste, the perfect tomato. In terms of taste, it was the classic academic tomato and thus of limited interest to my friends who want to be moved by a tomato. A yellow orange mango tomato changed the way I see tomatoes. It moved me emotionally and intellectually and not just for a brief period. On the other hand, the yellow beefsteak tomatoes aren't particularly interesting.

This is precisely where I have the greatest problem with your post in this thread as well as with the general tone of the thread. I have paid much great attention to heirloom tomatoes this summer and have been purchasing them for eating at home. I cannot tell you which tomato is the best. I don't necessarily mean which variety is more apt to offer a better tomato. I have had so many tomatoes that vary in taste and texture that it has been impossible for me to prefer one to the other. Each wonderful specimen just makes the next one more special for it's difference. And so it is with chef's and restaurants. Adria's cooking just makes Ducasse's taste that much better and Ducasse makes Passards' food more interesting and appealing, while that in turn sets me up to enjoy Guerard who in his turn sets me up to appreciate Adria. Or they would, had I enough time and money to eat their food in reasonably rapid succession. These attempts to place every restaurant above or below another is what detracts from what one says about any individual meal. Let me go back to what Fat Guy said about journeymen reviewers who seem to work as consumer advocates and their counterpart the professional critic who can teach us to understand what's good, creative, excellent, important, enlightening, etc. about someone's work and let us form our own subjective opinions about it's value. I have no desire to put Ducasse above Passard or Gagnaire or to talk anyone into eating at AD/PA over Arpege or Gagnaire, nor do I care what others think about their relative interest or importance. I have great respect for your ability to appreciate what you like and for your prose in explaining that appreciation, but I have little interest in reading your defense of what you don't appreciate as if taste were not subjective. Each stab at Ducasse is often an illumination of your shortcoming in appreciation and not necessarily of his in delivery.

Nice post. It's always been my understanding that Cantonese food, at it's best, offers a cuisine that is arguable the finest of all Chinese foods in terms of finesse and range. I'd take issue only with what you say about western food, when you said "The Cantonese prefer chicken slightly undercooked to Western tastes, leaving a little blood near the bone." Traditionally the French have liked their roast chicken a little bloddy near the bones. It's Americans who like it well done.

That's why they pay me big money to be a coordinator.

And when you say that, I need to keep repeating that works of culture are held to standards, while works of art inevitably cause those who inderstand them to revise the standards by which we judge. It doesn't mean that the right person wasn't born yet, it means no one has opened his eyes yet.

That's true of consumer advocates and other low-level critics who review stuff for epinions.com and such, but serious critics are on the side of the craft itself. Apart from this thread, I think that's an important point. There's a difference perhaps, between a reviewer and a critic.

My guess is that Noques are not dumplings if only because the word is capitalized. On the other hand I can't find a place called "Noques" in a French gazette. Perhaps it's some sort of humor. (Noques-Noques joke?) I see there are a few spots open according to the web site, and that there's a student discount price of 115 euros (sur présentation de la carte) for card carrying students.

Maggie, I rather suspect any opening will be months away. I am getting mixed feelings about Ottawa and hope, for Stephen's sake, that the climate is ripe for whatever he is planning. I think it's very difficult and therefore very risky to open a restaurant that's far better than whatever an area now supports. I had hoped to hear more about his project before he left New York, but I didn't get back to Eleven Madison Park where he was working, nor did the couple who I had hoped would have pumped him for more information. I also suspect I may be more dependant on you guys to keep me informed than I am able to inform you. I imagine Stephen will have his hands full and should devote his energies to publicizing the place locally rather than informing us in NY.

I associate a low probablility with having a dinner at PA that is as enjoyable as one at L'Arpege, or PG, say 20% This means that at a cost of at least $750 for dinner, probably more, an enjoyable meal at PA is going to cost me around $3750 (not counting opportunity cost, partial travel costs, the emotional cost of a bad meal, etc.). The reason why I may eventually end up dining at ADNY is that the opportunity cost is much lower. So while dismissing (or not dismissing) his food after tasting it makes better philosophical and culinary sense, economics have to be factored in. I was referring to Plotnicki's dismissal of the cepes in olive oil that are pictured in a recent Alain Ducasse mailing aong with the comment A simple and delicate delight: Cepes perfumed with olive oil. I did not mean to imply that Steve had never eaten any of Ducasse's food, or that anyone else had to. We got out from AD/PA for exactly 499 euros on the credit card and I'd guess about 100 FF left in cash last November. That covered dinner for two. We both enjoyed the meal. The only other costs I could ascribe to the meal were a taxi one way and a metro the other. It would have been very unreasonable to consider any other expenses as part of the cost of that meal. We were in Paris for a number of reasons. Once one makes the decision to travel to Paris at any point, the opportunity cost of eating in any particular restaurant is only the cost of dinner. I have dined in less than half the three star restaurants in Paris and may never eat in all of them. I have eaten in most, but not all of the three stars in the provinces, but once again, I wonder if I will ever get to eat in all of them. I don't consider not choosing a restaurant quite the same thing as dismissing it. Economics will play a role in my not eating at a restaurant in which I have an interest and curiosity. An inability to consume multiple three star meals back to back will also play a part. PMs are running higly favorable and supportive in regard to my modesty.

Although you should bear in mind that I find Passard more interesting right now. Then again I've had but one dinner in Arpege, and that was quite some time ago. More recently I've eaten in AD/NY and AD/PA. All in all, the length of time since my Arpege meal contributes as much to my interest in dining at Arpege. Taking that into account, my one visit to Gagnaire was made after my dinner at Arpege, but before either meal at a Ducasse. Gagnaire will be my next three star meal in Paris. Gagnaire has served my most interesting, exciting and successful meal in Paris to date. That doesn't make him the best chef or even the best of those three. I may have hit him on a good day, or more specifically at a good point in his creativity. I will return with great anticipation and more than some trepidation, if only because of the prices I've heard. That's reassuring. I may know a bit about food, but it's based on inexperience at three star restaurants (and I don't know what I don't like). Nevertheless, I can't imagine further experience with the food of any of the these three chefs would lead me to dislike it so much as to compare it to mass produced work clothes while holding the other(s) as haute couturiers. Even when a designer licenses his name to a mass marketer, he rarely runs the risk of it tainting his haute couture line. Whatever one thinks of Spoon, or of the publicity garnered by Ducasse, it's not the subject of the food he serves at AD/NY and not relative to a discussion of the food served at AD/NY.

I would assume that someone who ate only carrots could show discernment in his, or her, choice of carrots. Of course full entitlement would only arrive when itty bitty pickled carrots showed up the shelves of the "gourmet" section of his, or her, supermarket.

This is the intentional fallacy. But certainly there is no one who could better praise the aesthetic value of the product be it in food, art or music than the creator.

I won't argue with that. I suspect the non expert can best be advised to do that and learn what he can about art. The expert should be looking for those artists who break the conventions or commonly held taste in regard to those things. [Of course that's my opinion.] Analogies are always going to get me into trouble and one shouldn't be held to literal interpretations, but as far as you name what it's "about," you are probably on reasonable ground. It's when you accept existing value judgements in those areas, that I fear you (an editorial "you") can miss the rule breaking innovations. The truly revolutionary--that which will in time, cause us to reconsider our judgements--will frequently appear as bad judgement when it first appears. Picasso's initial cubist paintings would be a good example, breaking even perspective, the cardinal standard in western art since the early Renaissance, although Matisse, who used colors as if he were "a wild beast," would be another example in painting. Degas, who's often seen as a painter of lovely ballet dancers, broke conventions of composition by having people walk off the edge of the painting. I can't give an example in cuisine, because it has been tied to nourishment and that break, if it is happening, is seen as perverse and offensive to most eaters. I suspect a larger percentage of our society see recreational dining as a greater offense against nature than recreational sex. Hasty posting before an early bed time, can make me search for explanations the next morning even faster than the use of analogies. That's an embarrassing statement. I should never encourage anyone to ignore what they don't like or understand, but to learn more about those things. I really meant to suggest our best and most interesting information will come from those who expound on what they like or find interesting.

Does that mean you were using the wrong approach or that you're in the wrong business.