Bux

We'll put in a vote for Tupina as well. We were there in the fall and the roast pigeon was excellent. It´s a pity Amat is no longer at the St. James across the river. There are threads on that elsewhere, and it´s spilled milk or water under the bridge.

We're staying north of the Placa de Catalunya and using easyEverthing on Ronda Universitat just off the Placa. Ther also have a branch on the lower Ramblas. However there seem to be quite a few cybercafes around. This is a big student town and a big tourist center. Ca L'Isidre is an old favorite. It was recommended by the restaurant critic from El Mundo. I think Wifrid has eaten there as well. I recall his writing about it. Yesterday was a pretty rotten day. Just about everything was closed, although few bars stayed open off the main streets. A few more tried to stay open but were forced to close by strikers. We witnessed one ugly gang who were bent on destruction--and my guess it was for sport not politics. Mobs are generally very ugly and the cops kept their distance. Police behavior was understandable as direct confrontation would only have resulted in more violence and greater vandalism. I wouldn't have minded the shut down of the city, if I could have appreciated it from a cafe. Many restaurants opened in the evening, and we had a very good meal a few blocks from our hotel. We just picked the closest spots with a Michelin listing and checked menus. L'Olive was a very handsomely decorated restaurant with nice, but casual service. Excellent calamar a la plancha--very tender, an interesting salad with pig's feet wafers, a nice arroz caldoso con mariscos and cod with beans. I don´t know why cod tastes better in Spain than in NY or anywhere in France. All I can say is the mob behavior soured me on Spain a bit--at least until I had the chance to have dinner.

I´m probably repeating what I´ve posted elsewhere, but as I´m pressed for time, El Raco de Can Fabes is wonderful. So is El Bulli, but that may less universal appeal especially to those who have less interest in being a guinea pig or participating in an avant garde experience for dinner. Between the two, El Celler de Can Roca in Girona, L'Esgard in Sant Andreu de Llavaneres and Sant Pau in Sant Pol de Mer offer complelling meals with varying degrees of creativity. Hispanya in Arenys de Mer, offers some very traditional food that will be a contrast and even a relief. One other note. It´s been hot as hell here and humid on the coast. All of these restaurants are airconditioned, forturnately and in none of them did I feel the need to wear a jacket or tie, especially at lunch.

We're in Barcelona at the moment and likely for a few days more than anticipated as there seems to be a European air controller´s strike today and tomorrow a general strike throughout Spain. I love Barcelona, but temperatures are in the nineties and this internet cafe is airconditioned--so I´m here. The interesting thing about the menu at El Bulli was that it is composed of dishes from the past 20 years. Thus we had a dish or two from various years and the meal may in no way represent his future path. There were a few dishes that had limited appeal for me, but with so much creativity and so many courses it´s both expected and acceptable. We had some really great food at Celler de Can Roca in Gerona, L'Esgard in St. Andreu de Llavaneres, and Sant Pau in Sant Pol de Mer. The last is a Relais Gourmand. All three offered exceptional service and food that was both accomplished and creative, if less challenging than what is being done at El Bulli. L'Esgard is only one star--the others are two--but all three are compelling restaurants. We have no plans to visit El Raco de Can Fabes on this trip, but the more I think about it, that´s the most successful gastronomic stop in Catalunya for me. I think these five restaurants represent one of the great clusters of compelling restaurants outside of Paris. El Celler de Can Roca is outside of Girona and we took a cab to have dinner there. The two north of Barcelona we drove to for lunch from our less than central location up the coast. I suspect these restaurants can all be visited though a judicious use of the train and taxis from Barclona, although Girona is worth at least one overnight to see the city´s treasures. We were most aware of the access by public transportation while dining at Sant Pau as the electric commuter train passes júst between the restaurant´s garden and the beach. I assure you it´s not a distraction as it was quiet.

I associate Lyon with tripe in all forms. Of course salad Lyonnaise is a classic and all cafes as well as most inexpensive restaurants will have a salade generally as a first course in a restaurant. In cafes and brasseries one can just take a salad. There´s a renewed interest in vegetables in France, but for the most part they still don´t take center stage. More enlightened restaurants will feature vegetables as a first course or in courses along the way in a multicoursed gastronomic menu.

Exactly! There are certain peasant dishes that have been tarted up with more expensive ingredients to raise them to the luxury level. For instance, lobsters in a bouillabaisse are as unnecessary as foie gras and truffles in a hamburger.Cassoulet is another. (See my "Bouillabaisse, cassoulet..." http://www.whitings-writings.com/essays/bouillebaisse.htm Yes and no. A hamburger certainly doesn´t need foie gras, but db bistro in New York serves a "hamburger" stuffed with braised short ribs and foie gras on a parmesan bun and it´s been getting incredible reviews from most diners. That said, I´m inclined to agree about bouillabaise, not needing lobster. Indeed, neither does cassoulet.

We haven´t been there in a few years. I can tell you that after every other dinner taken at a two star restaurant in Brittany, we´ve regretted not making the effort to get to back to Roellinger. Although we´ve had but one meal there, we are surprised it´s not rated three stars. We had the degustation menu and that´s what I would recommend having. I distinctly recall the service starting with the tiniest of courses, no more than amuse bouches, and slowly building in size. The final savory course for us was baby lamb chops from the region. There´s a report on our meal over on my WorldTable site. Sorry, I´m replying from a cybercafe in Spain and a bit pressed for time--so you´ll have to navigate to find the page if you are interested.

We ate at El Bulli a few days ago and can report that the meal seemed to be the equal of the one we had two years ago. Not every course was eqully pleasing, but the overall meal kep our interest and we eagerly awaited each and every next course. They are celebrating the twentieth anniversary and each course appears on the souvenir menu with a creation date. The idea of a retrospective of the work of a chef is a very appealing idea to me. By the way, the friends who joined us for dinner, had dined at El Bulli just 10 days prior to dining with us and said their menu was completely different each time and they were equally pleased each time. Not only that, but one of them cannot eat fish or seafood, yet there were no repeated dishes on either of their menus. We are in France dealing with a French keyboard, but I will post our complete menu when we return to NY. I should note thqt mostly we are eating at small resturants with friends in France qnd hqve our most anticipated reservations in Catalunya next week when we return via Barcelona.

Sorry to hear that. We had a few very good meals when the restaurant first opened, but have not been back in a long time. I thought the chef made some of the best foie gras terrine in NY. I think Philippe Bertineau is capable of better than you describe, so I wonder what happened. Does anyone make a good bouillabaise in NY? Can you get racasse in NY? It often seems the more upscale the restaurant is the less the bouillabaise tastes like bouillabaise. I wonder why they just don't call it fish stew, although in your case, it appear the problem was that it didn't resemble good fish stew any more than bouillabaise. I've loved Payard's desserts when he was at Daniel, but I've found a lot of the pastries at Payard Patisserie to be too "moussey" for my taste. I've liked the chocolates and the macarons, but haven't had them recently either.

Bux -- I assume your technique is (1) use the tongs to gently lift the targeted soup dumpling off the cabbage leaves on which it is resting, (2) move it using the tongs so it is positioned very close to, but still slightly above, your plastic Chinese soup spoon (which is itself not sitting on anything), and (3) a careful drop onto the spoon. I have found the ginger shreds in the vinegar a bit unrefined. However, I still like the JS soup dumplings a lot. Sorry, I've not been as thorough reading messages for the past few days. I missed your message and question. I can't recall if I've used tongs or chopsticks--tongs if they're provided, otherwise chopsticks--to grab the bun by the "knot" on top. Now, I've not been to Joe's in Chinatown in quite a while, but I remember a few times when the buns were so over cooked that the skins had dissolved to the point that the weight of the filling could not be supported by the skins. That can happen, but when it happens to three or four dumplings twice in a row, it's disappointing. Because this dumplings are literally full of soup, it's very important that the skins don't over cook. I'm explaining this to those who are unfamiliar with the dumplings. Obviously those who have had them understand. I believe Joe's introduced the "soup dumpling" to Manhattan. In any event, it's where I first had them. I had them about a year ago in the midtown Joe's and they were perfect. Chinatown is much closer to where I am and thus the more likely place for me to go. Joe's is the first Shanghai food I recall eating as well. Someone mentioned the brown sauce. It seems to be a feature of Shanghai cooking as are the cold appetizer dishes. The brown sauce and dishes like lion head and braised pork shoulder are very heavy dishes, but when well done quite tasty. In a way, and in my mind with no real serious attempt to make a strong culinary comparison, I've thought of Shanghai food as the equivalent of Lyonnaise food--hearty and flavorful, but not necessarily full of finesse. Obviously that's a generality and not one I'd defend if someone had a more educated view. Another dish we loved was baby bok choy with black mushrooms. It also came with a heavy brown sauce. Most of the cold dishes are ones I first tasted at Joe's and they remain my standard, as do the early buns. I remember the mock duck as having a very unique and smokey taste. I found it very appealing and liked it for the bean curd skin more than the mushrooms.

I'd always coveted one of those expensive stainless steel jobs, but they seemed a bit much for my budget. Along the way I was told that most restaurant cooks use the plastic Benriners and that includes at least one top haute cuisine restaurant where there's a stainless steel one on the shelf, but its the plastic ones that are used. Bought a Benriner and love it. We use it frequently. My wife's been bitten more than I have, but I rarely use the safety guard and she's become comfortable with it as well. I use the cross blades a lot to make matchstick or julienne cuts. Thirty some odd dollars at the Broadway Panhandler. I'm not sure if this model is any better or worse than the "V" slicer.

I think it's worth noting that travelers from different parts of the world will have different needs and interests based solely on their home base. Coming from America or Australia will involve a greater transportation cost just to get to France. Amortizing in this base figure for a short vacation may well make some savings in room, board and local transportation seem trivial at times. On the other hand, visitors from the UK, Belgium and other neighboring countries will have a different perspective. The cost of travel within France may vary for north Americans and EU nationals. Cars can be hired for less if reservations are made from within North America that at the rental agency in France in most cases. However the savings may only be had with rentals of three days or longer. Depending on the number of passengers and the distance involved, travel by car can be less expensive than by rail. (Rail tickets should not be purchased via RailEurope in the US, if economy is at all a concern. Use the SNCF web site and pick the tickets up in France.) It should however be said that seeing the highway from a moving car is quite different from seeing the countryside. In general the TGV will get you from downtown to downtown faster, but once you start chaging trains and using local service, you may be ahead on the clock by driving as well as not tied to a timetable. For me the latter can be quite annoying at times.

With a little luck and some programming talent, the next software upgrade will restore the sophisticated search feature. Information such as this should be of use to many members and lurkers over time. It's very helpful when members post with the understanding that they are adding to a data base that can and should be useful to far more than the original poster on the thread. I've not been to many wineries in France and most of those have small wineries when friends were stocking their cellars in the Languedoc. Steve confirms my impression that the better, and certainly the more well known wineries shoud be contacted in advance for an appointment. In many ways Provence is best enjoyed in the spring and summer. The weather and the length of the daylight hours are two good reasons. They are also reasons that Provence is all but overrun with tourists. In spite of the very short days and long shadows that leave open plazas without direct sun at the chilliest time of year, the smaller number of tourists make Provence a reasonable target in the winter. Steve, you were there in February, do you think the wineries were any more hospitable in the off season than they might be in the summer?

Marc, I don't get the magazine at all. As I noted this was second hand info from someone I know who has apartments here and in Pars. She uses the same e-mail address from both places, so I don't always know where she is when she sends me e-mail, but I assume she's in Paris from the comment. While I'd love to get everyone I know to post regularly, I'll also post second hand stuff if I think it will be of interest. I mentioned Zurban because it seemed to be a useful source and it wasn't one with which I was familiar. It's agreed that Suvir should not leave Hevin without a taste of his chocolates as well as tarte Tatin.

I don't have much to say about specific wineries. Can I ask if you made reservations ahead of time last time. When we were there a few years ago, we made some advance reservations, or rather we had someone with far better connections make them for us. There are wineries that are not open to the public. I wanted to see the building at Dominus because of the archtitecture and there was just no way I could get an appointment. There are other wineries that are not open to the general public, but are open to those who have connections via a distributor, well known retailer or sommelier. If you can get an in, they will be the most hospitable with a private tour. There are wineries that will only receive visitors who have made an appointment. Then there are the wineries that are open to the public, but will treat you differently if you make an advance reservation. Sometimes there are even levels of hospitality within that. You show up at the door and get hustled through with a large group and get a glass of wine, or maybe pay to taste wines. Those with appointments get a better grade of tour and treatment. Those with connections and an appointment might get a very serious tasting session or a range of wines including better ones. Then there are wineries that basically operate bars. There is no tour, but there's a tasting room, often with a fee for each wine. Wine Spectator has from time to time published articles on wineries and on touring the wine country. That's one place to do some research. Should you want some culture and have an interest in contemporary art, Hess Collection has a fine museum gallery on the premises. Hess, is a Swiss art collector with a considerable collection of modern art. It was quite a relief to see part of his collection as a respite from the godawful stuff in the "galleries" in Napa Valley devoted to tourist schlock.

Should you get a room at Regis Marcon's place and spend a night there, by all means ask for a scrambled egg in the morning. With luck, you'll get one with truffles and mushrooms as we did. There's a nice, though not particualrly lavish breakfast buffet and blessedly missing is a tray of scrambled eggs over a burner. You are invited however to order an egg and it will come directly from the kitchen. With a bit of smoked salmon from the buffet and other assorted goodies to round out the meal, it was a memorable breakfast.

The decision was made in mid September. The week they closed, there was very little restaurant business anywhere in the city and the kitchen was being used to prepare food for the rescue workers. Just before the attack it was almost always possible to get a lunch reservation at almost the last minute on a weekday. The economy was already a bit off and the restaurant is just out of the office district, but it got a lot of serious food oriented tourists. As most of the high end restaurants suffered after 9/11, and tourism was down for a while, I suspect that, everything considered, they decided to reopen only for dinner. Daniel has Cafe Boulud near by for "ladies who lunch" and others who want a fine afternoon meal and db bistro in midtown also offers lunch. I really don't have much inside information other than that it was a reasonable economic decision at the time. I really have no idea how Daniel determines whether or not there's enough of a call for lunch. The few dinners we've had this year have always been at a full restaurant.

Here's some more second hand information. In today's Zurban, a what's-up-in-Paris weekly mag, there was a pastry piece and the tarte Tatin at Jean-Paul Hevin was singled out. Hevin is known primarily as a really, really good chocolatier, but his pastries are often wonderful. He has a shop on rue Vavin (near the Luxembourg Gardens) and one, with an upstairs tea salon, on rue Saint-Honore.

and my wife said "if you're going to do that and expect me to sit here with you, I'd prefer that you just get up and get the bottle yourself."

Going second is the key. I noted that I waited for someone to go first to no avail. I have to agree with you about the number of covers and the toll that has to take on a staff, although I believe Ducasse is the only restaurant that has one seating and it seems to affect the price more than the food. I think any market will get the restaurants and food it deserves, or more exactly the kind it will support. It's not just that few New Yorkers are willing to spend more to have the table all night and to eat longer and more luxurious meals, but my guess is that few want that. Too many New Yorkers are happy enough not to spend too long at the dinner table. Nevertheless, I miss lunch at Daniel. When it was served, it was always less rushed and the atmosphere was always more luxurious and perhaps even more gastronomic. Maybe it was also that treating oneself to a meal like that in the middle of the day made the meal seem even more special.

I asked a wine waiter to leave a half bottle of red wine on the table. He told me he was forbidden to do that. The only reason I asked was that I had let my fish dish go cold waiting for my white wine which was sitting in a bucket at the other end of the room. We passed the halfway mark on that bottle only after I finished eating my fish with an empty glass beside me, but left a third or more that was never offered although at one point the other waiter lifted the bottle looked at the wine then at us eating our lamb and drinking our red wine. He sheepishly lowered the bottle into the cooler and left the scene. We managed to finish all of the red wine, but only with considerable hand waving when our glasses were empty. A two star restaurant with excellent food and fine service in every other department. It was an exemplary inn in every other aspect, but the wine service looms so large in my memory.

We were regular diner's a Joe's in Chinatown, but a couple of disappointing meals in a row some time ago have left us unwilling to wait on line without some reassurance of improvement. Maybe it was the best Shanghai restaurant in Manhattan or maybe it was the first. My problem with the buns at our last visits, was that the dough had almost melted away at the bottom of the buns and that there was no way to pick up the buns without their falling apart. The last soup buns we've had have been at Shanghai cuisine. There I found the tops of the buns to be thick, heavy and underdone. Years ago we ate so frequently and so well in Chinatown, yet today I find we are far less thrilled or satisfied with the food. I'm not sure why. Dim Sum GoGo both for dim sum and for dinner has been the best food for us, but even they have a little inconsistent. The last time I was in DSGG, I noticed that Goody's next door had a special on the buns.

Brasseries are wonderful institutions, even when they are not wonderful restaurants. I think they are often suited to lunch as well as supper, but they are special in and of themselves and best enjoyed for what they are. Oysters are the perfect brasserie food. As is choucroute.

Gael Greene doesn't write for the New Yorker, other than that I didn't find the article very provocative. There's little I can put my full support behind more than a well expressed "it's all relative." Nancy Leson very professionally managed to avoid offering an opinion as to whether she thought her sister and friends or the critics were right. About the only thing she left out of caveat to critics is that readers also have some responsibility in choosing what to read and to whom they listen.

Leslie, forgive my literary ignorance. I don't know you or your work. I knew a book was being written by someone who had access to the restaurant and knew it was about to come out. I knew copies were in the restaurant and that people had read them. My children can actually be tight lipped when they don't think things are my business. When I first heard about the book, I assumed the author was someone who already had a good track record. I couldn't imagine Daniel cooperating with someone who was unqualified. I was surprised by the review, wrote my post, and held it for a day on my hard drive. I really wanted to hear more about the book but as the thread sunk into oblivion, I posted my response. I'll admit to being a bit confused about whose emphasis I was responding to and did my best to restrict my comments to what I read and not assume any more. I suppose I found your reply an attack in part because you defended your book against things said about someone else's comments for the most part. That's why I asked that you reread my post rather than go over it point by point. And as I reread your reply, I still feel I'm innocent, but I understand your reply better. I think Steve Klc offered a good explanation of what I said. He posted while I was composing my reply so I didn't see it until my message was already posted. I used the word "distracted" because I didn't think it was a relevant aspect, and I had to wonder if and how I should respond. None of this has ever been a secret and I've tried at times to overplay my connection to Daniel, but without mentioning names, so that when they came up there would be no cries of foul. It's disingenuous, if you see it as such. I didn't and I don't, but you're entitled to see it that way. As long as I stay way from opinion and stick with the facts, my conscience is clear. Should I say that the food is best when Daniel and Alex are both out, I think it would be disingenuous not to note my relationship with the sous chef. At anyrate I was distracted, not dismayed. I'd ask you what you said about them, but you'll tell me to buy the book. That this conversation is being held is a bit of a shame as it appears we have views that are far more similar than the review led me to suspect. These kind of misunderstandings seem almost inherent in the nature of the medium. They rarely inhibit understanding for long. Earlier you said "If you read the Kirkus Review ... you’ll probably have the impression it’s a different book being reviewed." Absolutely. Just for sport I looked for a sentence or phrase I could criticize as implying sensationalism. There's nothing there that doesn't imply an understanding and respect bordering on reverence.