Bux

Although the Michelin has entered the 21st century with a recognition of e-mail addresses right up there with phone and fax, I'm not sure e-mail is a well used by the French as it is in the US, yet. Mrs. B. is a travel agent and while e-mail would certainly cut the cost of communication with Europe, she's found that faxes often get answered much faster than e-mail. You have nothing to lose by trying e-mail however. By all means address the fax or letter to the chef. It will be seen by someone else anyway and they will give it to the chef, or pass it on to the person who will handle your request, if it's not the chef himself.

Some early staff disorganization was unfortunate as were a few personal differences with very minor things, but I found I was distracted a bit at dinner. On the whole, my mood changed as soon as the food was in front of me. It's easy fro the distractions to snowball and a credit to the food that it could reset my focus. It's very fine food. "Fine" with a capital "F" if you will allow my continued references to the Beaux Arts. I tried to be clear that much of the difference in my reaction to Veyrat and Bras was a result of mood and appetite on the days in question. Expectations also play a part in terms of mood. From what I read about Veyrat, I rather expected him to be a bit of a clown and that I'd find his food pretentious, but I found just the opposite. At Bras, I expected just about what I found. No surprise = less excitement. For this reason it's always more fun to discover a little hole in the wall. I have great empathy for the "cheap eats" reviewers who are being discussed in other threads in the NY board and a little envy. I can understand why they want to be the first to discover a place or a food. What do add about a place that's been well covered by professionals and amateurs alike? I'm also in the very odd position of using eGullet.com as an excuse. I spend too much time getting involved in threads here to start new ones or get to whatever else has to be done. I can't get to the forest because the trees are in the way?

Lullyloo, I suppose the "cheap eats" guys are to some extent the ones that appeared in Calvin Trillin's New Yorker article a while aback that had "Grub Street" in the title, although they perhaps ran a broader range of tastes than the criticism here is directed at. Also some of those people clearly made an attempt to distinguish themselves from others. As I recall, one in particular (and not Sietsema) was the butt of some disparaging remarks by most of the others. For the most part the remarks here are directed towards the abstract fringe end and not in any way meant to disparage bargain or economical restaurants, nor ethnic restaurants. I value cheap eats, ethnic or not. I value introduction to strange and exotic foods. I place a very high value on "value" for my money. Nevertheless, as I said earlier there's a dichotomy between cheap and best and the best value may likely be neither the cheapest nor the best and that's why I get excited when I see "cheap and best." I know it's unlikely and I'm curious as to what pretense caused him not to say 100 Best Value Restaurants or something like that. I know some fast food place has a lock on "value meal," but still. Thus we come back to the philosophy that maybe cheap is best and I don't buy that. As I noted earlier my posts here may well be colored by my reaction to the Sugiyama review. As you noted, there was an aspect of "unfair" in singling out what may well have been a unique diner on a unique evening for ridicule in a way that was meant to slander both the restaurant and all those who are foolish enough to patronize it. It's the kind of cheap shot that invites the reactions you found touchy.

Yes, five dumplings for a dollar, but I'd pay another quarter not to have to eat them with a plastic fork.

The Auvergne is a rugged and rustic region of France, although like any large enough area you will find pockets of exceptions that prove the rule. Clermond-Ferrand is very industrial and Michel Bras is atypically refined, although in a way he's pure Auvergne, just distilled. The restaurant is very well known and respected although there's some indication it may not be what it was. What is these days? I've not been there but I'd expect sausages, ham and meat and potatoes French style--steaks, chops and stews. The Auvergne is also mountainous with rivers and a source of several varieties of trout. If they adhered to authenticity, you'd be able to get steamed trout. One thought just occurred to me. Every restaurant in France is required to post a menu in front of the restaurant on the street. It will be possible for you to check out what's on the menu for all of your meals as soon as you arrive in Paris. While there will be daily changes in the menu at some restaurants, you will get a good guide of what will be available. It may be time consuming, but if it's important, it may be worthwhile.

Standing and drinking beats drinking and falling down just about any day.

Mikemkie, regarding your recent Dear Suvir post, did you mean to post this in a public forum, or send it to Suvir privately? It seems clear to me that you're not interested in discussing food, nor do you appear to be interested in offering us any insight into why you like Tamarind. You've expressed the thought that you like the restaurant earlier and now you're expressing disrespect for Suvir, but once again all we know is that you base this on his comments about Tamarind. I'm almost ready to believe you secretly want to hurt Tamarind's reputation. By not answering Suvir's criticism or anyone else's questions, you offer the impression that you can't defend Tamarind. That might be read as an admission he's correct and that will not make you popular at Tamarind if they know of this thread. As you don't seem keen on discussing food, may I ask how you found eGullet.com?

We've only been at l'Astrance. We did the surprise tasting with surprise wines. I'd probably do that again assuming there's been enough change. The courses were small and it wasn't a gargantuan amount of food.

Stranger yet than hearing me say this, is the need I feel to remind you that there is more to France than the food and more to the food than the three star restaurants. I've eaten in four of the nine three star restaurants in Paris, but only in two of them since they've had three stars. I've been going to France for over 40 years, but there have been droughts of a dozen of more years and times when trips were spaced apart by years. Lately I go more frequently. I don't have a real fix on your dining experience, financial circumstances, or age, all of which will contribute to shaping your ideal trip, but I think we can discuss abstracts enough for you to decide what to do. There are many ways to enjoy a week or so in France. I think I've given my opinion on the need to eat a three star meal in Paris. I agree with Robert Brown that French food is perhaps best enjoyed in the provinces for several reasons--the provinces offer food as least as good as you will find in Paris and maybe much better, the mood is far more relaxed and the diners more focused on the food, it's usually a better buy and the ingredients are better unless your idea of great food is caviar. The first suggestion I would make is to consider not driving in or out of Paris unless you change your itinerary. Consider taking a TGV to Lyon or Bordeaux or Toulouse or some place like that and flying back to the US from near your last meal in the provinces. I don't know if you have tickets yet or with which airline you're flying, but I know Air France will charge next to nothing for you to add a continuing flight at either end of a flight to or from Paris. It's only for connecting flights and thus of no use when you stay in Paris, but you can fly USA > CDG and Lyon > CDG > USA for almost the same price as USA to CDG round trip. You should have a car for the rest of the trip. I'd request a diesel for the considerable fuel savings. I don't think any of the rental companies will guaranty a diesel, but it's worth requesting. I haven't found any noticeable loss of pick up in a diesel and my understanding is that they're less polluting overall precisely because they burn less fuel. Diesel fuel is sold in every service station and it's considerably less expensive than gasoline. Robert mentioned alternate places to stay while eating at Veyrat. Verat's rooms at some 400 to 600 euros are pricey. Not exactly a budget place either but less than half that price are the rooms at the Imperial Palace in Annecy, a large resort hotel facing the lake with excellent views from the lakeside rooms. The best rooms may be the ones that open onto the terrace. It's just a few kilometers from Veyrat. I've eaten at all the restaurants you mention except for Pic, but not necessarily recently enough to offer a strong opinion on all. My guess is that my best meal has been at Veyrat. It's not the same thing as saying he is the best chef or that his is the best restaurant. It happened to be a meal that was not surrounded by other fine meals and I had a great appetite that day. Consequently, I ordered a large menu and got to taste a lot of different foods. When we dine in starred restaurants for several days in a row, these days, I find I have to be careful not to suffer a crise de foie and will not order the gastronomic menu or the richest dishes day in and day out. Nevertheless, I think Veyrat is one that I most recommend. The other would be Bras who I found less showy and more subtle. Regis Marcon would easily fit in with the rest of your stops if you wanted to concetrate your trip, but I can't say I'd trade Guerard for Marcon. Tough choices and a lot of eating and perhaps driving for a week. Then again I hate highway driving and try not to be behind the wheel of a car for more then 2 or 3 hours a day and then usually on back country roads. Recently it took us alost a week to get from Lyon to Bras and back, but we had some great food along the way as well, albeit in lesser places, and did a lot of relaxing.

Sorry to post this in the French board, but I think the best markets I have been to are the ones in Barcelona. With the exception of cheeses, they are superb. I also happen to believe the Spanish have the best hams and dried meats in Europe. I know I'll get all sorts of arguments from lovers of prosciutto. There are at least two great covered markets in Barcelona. One is just off the popular Ramblas.

I might not have been too clear about the two different markets in Lyon. The outdoor one on the quai is more charming, but the major one, especially for meats and cheeses is the central one. One of the nice things to do in the covered market is to stop at one of the seafood stalls and have a few few raw oysters with wine available by about the smallest glass imaginable. I think it was a 10cl glass, but filled to the brim. Of course refills and a second dozen of another variety of oyster are an option. The Bayonne market is quite good. For one thing the outdoor market is right next to the covered market. So when the outdoor market is on, you also have direct access to the regular market. I don't think the indoor market in Bayonne is nearly as large as that in Lyon. We saw more cepes on tables in the outdoor market one fall day, that I suspect I may ever see again either in one place or all together unless I am in the market in the fall again. Nevertheless I will cherish that market mostly because the Moulin de Bassilour has a stand where they sell their gateau basque. A rich dense flat cake with black cherry filling. I've not run across a better version.

Anis is, I think, anise. My hunch is that praline would be almonds and sugar, maybe something like almond brittle ground to a powder. Calling Steve Klc for a definition.

Wilfrid, there's always a song, isn't there? Now that sounds like a line from an old movie. I'm not sure if it's a musical or something Bogart would've or should've said. My point being that some of the best peasant food has been cooked by very talented and accomplished chefs, which I suppose for the purposes of this discussion are not real people.

Sorry I wasn't clear and probably responding too quickly. I think the "romanticization" is phony to a great extent, but I also argue with your concept which doesn't take into account the reverse snobbery designed to belittle the more costly haute cusine accomplsihments. The word "bullshit" however, was not directed at you, but at what's written to glorify the cheap at the expense of the fine. We disagree on the "why" this view exists, but agree on most of the rest I think. In any event I didn't find what you said unreasonable even when we disagree. It may be more than the way it's expounded. Food can be politics, but sometimes it's just food. And you may believe the world's resources are not fairly distributed and that economic reform is long over due and even that rich people should all go to jail or worse, but that doesn't make the food they eat bad. You need not be a royalist or take sides in religious wars to lament the destruction of art and miss the heads on the figures in front of most gothic cathedrals in France. One of the wonderful things about Shaw is that he can write as enthusiastically about barbeque as he can about Lespinasse and Gramercy Tavern. I admire that even where I can't espouse the same enthusiasm.

Is it the best of the cheapest, or the cheapest of the best? I suppose it's really a license to make your choices on a subjective basis. Nevertheless, the use of "cheapest" rather than "inexpensive" is interesting. Inexpensive might imply value. Cheap often implies worthless, just the opposite of value. I think not. First, it's bullshit as often as not, and second, it's often reverse snobbery stemming, perhaps, from a lack of expendable income and the need to convice oneself of not missing anything and already having access to the best of everything--the real and true best. Some of this, as Trillin exposed, is also a matter of preaching a gospel and attracting accolytes. Once you're respected in a limited arena, you have the option of staying put, increasing your scope, or attracting a greater audience to the arena. The greater hypocrisy, in my mind, is when you pretend to increase your scope by inviting an audience with a greater range of interest, while using subversive means to direct the focus to your own area of strength. I've seen this on "moderated" web sites and I suspect using "best" and "cheapest" sends a contradictory message of similar intent. It may be a subconscious message and not intentional.Earlier you said: but authentic? Perhaps not authentic, but what often separates the men from the boys on Grub Street. Ambivilent indeed. Nevertheless you're right when you say he seems like a nice guy earlier. I don't mean to get personal here. I probably have more than a little resentment for the whole shtick of Grub Street but plenty of respect for the interest of several of those who devote themselves to what might be called "outsider food" if food arts were taken as seriously as art arts. I suspect the thread on Sietsema's Sugiyama review is also on my mind if I appear to focus on the reverse snobbism aspect.

And one we'll have again.

In it's own way, although the premise is that you can't reproduce restaurant food at home, the article almost echo's what I believe were Shaw's comments that you could. It's mostly a matter of time and scale and the real answer is that you might have to make some concessions, but neither the recipe nor the dish has to be "dumbed-down." Some restaurant dishes are just less practical at home. Harold Moore noted that his wife doesn't want the smoke at home. I've know other chefs who prefer the leave the cooking fumes in their job kitchen. With an inadequate hood and exhaust sytem via a duct that goes as far north and south as it does up, even a high ceiling will not mitigate the fumes. If you don't like going to bed with the aroma of fried fish, you learn to make a concession in what you cook, or what you smell.

My suspicion is that it happens to some extent all over. I think the trend in both the US and France is growing in the direction of better restaurants having special connections and special suppliers. Menus are often less regional, but even where there is "terroir" to be captured on the menu and the plate, a chef may have a special arrangement with a producer--farmer, fisherman, cheese maker or eleveur--to deliver directly to the restaurant, even when that same producer has a stall at the market. Bocuse was known for being seen at the open market on the quai St.-Antoine, but maybe not these days. From the top of the line down to most of the little bouchons and bistrots in Lyon, everyone seems to offer Rene Richard's St.-Marcellins. Does it matter if they're purchased at the stand in the central halles or not? Wandering around the market, I had to wonder how the other cheese shops managed to stay in business with all the publicity Rene Richard gets on every menu in town. I have to suspect there are still chefs who shop for some of their produce, especially where there's an active market open every day. On the other hand, poetic license would allow a restaurant to refer to any seasonally fresh product with the name of the local market attached, especially if that same product was available in the market. You would not hold it against the chef if he had private delivery from the guy with the stall, nor if his ingredients were of better quality than available in the market. For what it's worth, most of the really fine NY restaurants have private sources and suppliers, but you can still spot chefs or underlings from a few fine restaurants at the Union Square Greenmarket picking up things for the restaurant. Sometimes it's preordered and sometimes it's a matter of picking and choosing on the spot. I also know of farmers who show up at the market after making their deliveries to their restaurant customers. That's probably NYC's best greenmarket, but I wouldn't suggest it offered anything like dozens of French town and city markets do in the way of variety.

Current plans have us in the area from about the 7-15th of June and in Catalunya on both sides of that time frame. We'll be with friends--an American couple who have retired to spend much of their year outside of Pezenas. A French couple we know, who call the Languedoc their home, will unfortunately be in NY at the time--or at least she will be here. The husband may return as they are having work done on their house there. Any chance of an overlap in time and interest in getting together? We have not been to L'Ambassade since they've redecorated, nor to Chez Philippe yet, although our friends rave about the latter. As for Fontjoncouse, my suspicion is that the chef is just getting his act together and may have finally discovered his own strengths and weaknesses.

Most of the Soviet Union was in Asia. My guess is that most of Russia is in Asia as well, but most of the population lives in Europe. Anyway, Asia is a big place.

Where else?

I think that kind of prejudicial group disparagement has no place on eGullet. I've known a couple or two to canoodle over a fairly pricey bottle of wine.

Thanks for the follow up. It's nice to get that kind of after the fact feed back.

For those interested, here's where to find out more about this year's race. Click for map and info.

There's a typo in your schedule. It's LODÈVE to MONT-VENTOUX. The question I have is how far in advance does one have to get to the place where you want to see the race? Do you plan on stopping for the night near the finish line of the stage or would it be better to drive on to get nearer to the next vantage point. I guess these are the questions you are asking and those to which I don't have answers. I have some familiarity with the Béziers area and hope to be there in less than a month. I don't know that area south of Toulouse up in the Pyrenees at all. I imagine it's sparsely populated. I've heard there's good hiking and skiing. Lannemezan to Plateau de Beille should provide some great scenery in the Pyrenees but not much chance for great food. I don't know how it will compare to the climb up Mt. Ventoux for viewing.