Bux

A handsome place, but the website is very strange in that it's almost entirely in English with the exception of the menus which are in both French and English. It's particularly strange to see: Lirac (Côtes du Rhône), Domaine Les Garigues 1997 Côtes de Provence, Vieux Château d'Astros 1997 Bandol, Domaine de l'Olivette 1996 Cassis, Clos Ste Magdeleine 1996 Sancerre Pinot Rosé, L. Crochet 1996 listed under BLUSH WINES. Isn't the proper English term, at least in America, "rose" pronounced as if it was written rosé? Apparently the site is one of those that are never updated and it was only intended to be seen by anglophones. Prices are all in francs.

Cold noodles I understand and love. Not day old spaghetti with tomato sauce, but many types of cold Asian noodles. Nothing is more refreshing than cold buckwheat noodles and dipping sauce in Japan in August. Unfortunately, the texture of the dan dan noodles was not one I enjoyed. Knowing that they are meant to be overdooked will probably save me from leaving them over again.

Perhaps that's what you'd like to have people think I mean to say, but it's not what I mean to say. Yes, it's true that the market for really upscale Chinese food is not as great as the market for upscale western food in both NY and Paris. In China you may find a different situation. Nevertheless, what I am saying is that there is a different focus to Chinese cooking and the concept of what's most important is often different. I'm a poor choice of spokesperson to explain Chinese food as I have far less familiarity with it on it's home ground than I do with French food. Nevertheless, I am impressed by the Chinese standard for fresh when it comes to fish. Even in a relatively down scale market here in Chinatown, there are far more live foods for sale than you will find arriving at the kitchens of Lespinasse, Daniel or le Bernardin. I regard the merchants who play a role in bringing these creatures from the lakes, rivers and seas as artisans. Why do you see the guys who fish Ruby Red Shrimp as artisans. My understanding is that they come from Maine. Las Vegas Review-JournalI assume you are unfamiliar with the menu at Kwan's in Salem Oregon which lists You are correct if you assume that I can't verify that these are the very same artisanal shrimp Fat Guy had on the Gulf, or Serrano buys from a supplier in Maine. The ultimate problem with your argument is that you are attemting to define "artisanal" by a single provision that probably stretches the common definintion of an artisanal product, while excluding reasonably accepted definitions. It's a common tactic that, along with telling others what they mean to say, eventually kills the thread anyway.

Do you feel people are judging you when you post as well as when you entertain? Are you less generous online or at home?

Why should you judge others? I love it when a food magazine asks a talented chef, one who rose to the prominence by virtue of his refined cuisine, about his favorite food "vices." Invariably, each and every chef I hold in great regard has a addiction to some food I wouldn't touch. I'm amused and find no reason to reassemble my pantheon.

Why do you say that, especially as you go on to say you have at best very limited experience with European cookery--"I seriously doubt that we in the US have anything that is the equivalent to the peasant fare of Europe you refer to." There's a sort of snobbism, or reverse snobbism in assuming Americans haven't got a lot to learn from French culinary tradition.

I had the Dan Dan noodle once at 50th Street. Truthfully, I just didn't get this dish, but it may have been that the noodles were so over cooked (to my taste) that nothing would have made them palatable to me. Has any one had them al dente?

I think I've posted this elsewhere, but we generally braise a goose. We like stuffing it with ground pork and maybe some veal, along with its liver and some other bird livers as available, and chestnuts. The stuffing goes in raw, at room temperature, before the bird is browned. It then cooks covered in the oven for some time. Either we're stingy or bad cooks, but we can easily feed eight on a ten pound goose. We don't do the typical American Thanksgiving (surprise?) with a dozen sides either. It's usually potatoes or yams, maybe mushrooms and a green such as brussel sprouts or kale. Of course the stuffing is mostly meat. There are usually canapes or hors d'oeuvres and a soup and a good dessert afterwards. Sometimes a salad and or cheese before dessert.

It's not likely you'll find a special Chinese restaurant using Ruby Red shrimp for at least two reasons. To a large extent they seem to operate with a separate supply system and they place great value on using live seafood. So until Ruby Reds are available live, you are less likely to see them attract a top Chinese chef. At the same time, there is a much smaller audience for expensive Chinese food in NY than there is for expensive French food.

Because what they are delivering isn't artisinal. If you want to put it that way, why isn't every delivery man delivering artisinal products? You correctly make the distinction between the guy actually making the delivery and the many who raises the fish, but I suspect we all realize the eleveur was the artisan to whom I was referring. True, if you get to define a narrow list of ingredients as artisanal, you also get to narrow the list of artisans, but I have to stick with any small producer whose product or produce is of heightened quality. An artisan is a skilled worker or craftsman. An Artisan makes artisanal products. True, all artisanal products are not equal, but they don't become artisanal because they're expensive (even using reverse economics) or because they're used in luxury French restaurants. While I tend to support French cuisine as the most refined, it should be obvious to even the most devout francophile that even the French may miss a beat or two. Absurdly pointless question that belies your prejudices. Do you now hold that the best Chinese restaurants are the cheapest ones? It may be that the best Chinese restaurants in NYC are not the match of the best French ones, but it looks mean spirited to match the cheapest of the one sort against the most extravagant of the other. An honest admission, but you wear your ignorance as a badge of authority, which it is not. Even the very modest (in terms of pricing as well as ambience) Grand Sichuan restaurants offer a quality chicken. I'm told it's the Gianone (sp?) chicken from Canada.

Variety might help. I imagine a steady diet of anything for three months will grow tiring. Nevertheless, it does seem a lot easier and more satisfying to eat a piece of protein thrown on the grille or in a pan. Vegetables take more effort or at least more forethought.

If nobody knows it won't hurt, huh. My wife tells me that dsserts don't count if they're eaten off of someone else's plate.

Supermarket? Hey, I'm just kidding. I've been to some of the super markets in the suburbs and the heartland. I'm not a snob and then I thought: Suburbs? Heartland?

If I'm not mistaken, tablier de sapeur is covered with bread crumbs and fried. That would be a no-no for the carb averse. That's a dish I would not have looked for in Paris. Thanks for the recommendation of where to get it. I missed it in Lyon last time. I have a second hand recommendation for lievre a la royale. It's au Dauphin, 167 rue St.-Honore in the first arrondissement. I've had the cassoulet (which is not germane to this thread) here, which was good and my wife had the pork cheeks which she said were incredible. I'd be thinking of some good boudin noir myself as the French tend not to add filler to blood pudding. On the other hand I'd need some apple (of the tree or "of the earth") to cut the richenss when eating a rich French boudin. (That's "pommes" or "pommes de terre" for the slow.) John, I guess we will not be getting a report on Pierre Herme's latest creations from you.

I get miffed at my wife when she makes those disparaging comments about all those people who spend their lives on the internet.

We have started to change things around us, although (and this should answer those who ask about how this site operates without advertising) our ultimate goal is world domination.

I would recommend both restaurants and the choice might depend entirely on your interests. We ate at les Loges this spring. My comments are here in the thread entitled Les Loges. We have eaten at Leon de Lyon three times over a very long period. Neither my last meal at Leon de Lyon, nor my only meal at les Loges made me feel I was having a three star experience, although earlier meals at Leon de Lyon left me feeling it was close to three stars. The dining room at les Loges is a bit precious and the staff sometimes reflected that attitude. Some of the staff were exceptionally caring, others performed their tasks with an air of aloofness that matched my guess that many of the diners were there for the drama of the room, because they were staying at the hotel or because it was the chic new place in town. Watching people at Leon de Lyon, I had the more distinct feeling they were connoiseurs of food. Nevertheless, the food was more interesting and perhaps better at les Loges, although not as satisfying as my first two experiences at Leon de Lyon which was very creative 20 years ago and now rather traditional. My overall memories would draw me to Leon de Lyon, but if I focused on my last meal there, I might favor les Loges. I did not want to speak too early on this topic. I trust you will understand that my thoughts on the meal were colored with issues unrelated to the food when you read my earlier post.

In regard to formal dining, it seems a prerequisite for haute cuisine, but haute, or even good, cooking does not seem necessary for formal dining. I don't think haute cuisine can ever be claimed to offer better food or even more delicious food. It is usually food that's technically difficult to produce and often involves some creativity although classic tour de force will also produce a legitimate haute cuisine dish. I don't know if classic bourgeois cooking can be raised to haute cuisine by the use of long simmered stocks and sauces or not, but I suspect so. Certainly in classic times, one might substitute little puff pastry things for bread croutons and that sort of thing to meet the tecnical requirements. Nevertheless, it would seem possible for haute cuisine to evolve into a form of creative artistry that did not require formality of setting. Perhaps it's already happening in l'Astrance in Paris, Blue Hill in NYC and elsewhere to different degrees.

I would need the ability to learn from other's and change my mind, which undoubtedly leaves me more vulnerable to chagrin, but unfortunately in even the most obviously forward motion there is a reaction that may equal the obvious seeming progress. There's always a price to pay for "progress." I wonder why the men who deliver the live fish to Chinese markets and restaurants are not seen as atrisanal producers by you. Your set of blinders, render suspicious the description of that which you appreciate.

I would expect the top places in Paris to get deliveries six days a week. Is that unreasonable?

It does help to speak some French as well as to have a certain familiarity with the restaurant or at least restaurants of the type in which you want to eat, but you have to start somewhere and you shouldn't let a lack of French stop you if you can understand at least enough to order from the menu. I was going to suggest that some hotel restaurants are more likely to value foreign trade. It's possible to be naive about how non French speaking customers are seen and it's also possible to be paranoid about it. Very often a restaurant will endeavor to see that diners who speak English are served by a waiter prepared to answer their questions in English. That's another reason they may seat English speaking diners near each other. I have also, I'm sorry to say, seen clueless Americans disrupt a restaurant with endless and absurd questions and then send back the food because they didn't understand what they were ordering, so I understand why restaurants get a bit nervous if they have the least reason to suspect the prospective client is unfamiliar with their food, customs or standard dining protocol. It becomes our responsibility, just to ourselves to send the right signal as soon as possible, if we want the best service. Climbing stairs on crutches, or in a foot cast, is absurd, but sometimes we have to pay a small price to learn how to send those signals. Of course if we object to sitting next to an American, what do we expect from the French?

But there are people in NYC who will tell you that there's something acutely out of balance with the price/quality ratio between Daniel and Grand Sichuan. It's in the nature of excellence for it often to be outside the point of diminishing returns. It's also a simple fact of life and business, if you can separate the two, that tourists, vacationers and travelers are far more easily separated from their money than when these same people are at home. Look at all the shit they buy, they never wear or use when they get home and which they wouldn't buy at home. This is why the three star restaurants of France have long depended on tourism for their financial success. In Chinatown I can get a fish in a restaurant that is alive and swimming when I place my order. How can le Bernardin justify its prices? I assure you it can.

Bux, John – Are you suggesting that globalization promotes mediocrity, as in facilitating lowering standards? In fact, it should stimulate raising them. No, I'm being pulled into a discussion of a quote that really doesn't apply well to the restaurant situation, but that doesn't mean we can't discuss your question. Certain standards will be raised, but there will also be a sort of homogenization that tends to lull the palate. This is related to the all year fresh tomato syndrome. Today we get fresh tomatoes that don't taste as good as canned. We get used to it and accept them as what tomatoes taste like and eventually people stop looking for great tomatoes in the summer. Of course eGullet members search out the best local summer tomatoes and some of us just won't buy the inferior winter ones, but we're not typical. I think the same thing happens with regional foods. We get commerical versions and stop supporting the real ones. Between music and restaurants there's only a bad analogy that will just get us further offtrack however.

Patent nonesense. Progress is what everyone thinks they value. Progress is in the mind of the beholder perhaps. Froward motion is dependant on which way you turn your head.

It may just the reverse and I don't think it has that much to do with globalization. Here in the US, we don't prize technique enough and tend to reward creativity. Our criticism of the French not changing fast enough is made in the face of too many chefs in the states who create awful, but clever, food with a lack of basic technical skills and an under developed palate.