Bux

I though we might be coming to a common ground or at least a little closer together. Your latest response puts Hoffman back into a position where I see arrogance on his part. Let me point out that Simon has posted a side thread to all this called Fusion Food on the India board. It's just as well that it's not here, as he's far more respectful there. His references are not as directly related to our points as are Steve Klc's in that thread. Steve refers directly to Hoffman and Pacaud and to Hoffman's quote. He also refers to Hoffman as an "over-reaching American chef." While I've tried to avoid a similar remark, its the essence of my point that it was arrogant for him to speak of Pacaud in the terms he used and it undercut my sense that Gopnik knew whom to talk to about food when I read the book. Hoffman hasn't got my ear, or that of the gastronomic world the way Pacaud does for good reason and taking lessons from Madhur Jaffrey doesn't confer any status on him. We should avoid musical analogies. You'll certainly beat me on the references, but analogies will only get us in trouble so I have little fear. If we must, I'd say Pacuad wasn't singing an Indian song with a French voice, but stealing a few notes in the way Coltrane could borrow a sappy show tune and make it memorable as well as his. Pacaud also made no pretense of cooking or interpreting Indian food, as your opera singer will no doubt claim to be doing one or the other. Back to the regular program. Pacaud showed curry all the respect it deserves--he used it to make a dish taste good. This is not religion and curry has no inherent theory. That Hoffman thinks it does is why he is guilty of arrogant pretentious behavior. That he bought into this theory is, for me, evidence that he had no strong culinary tradition and talent of his own. More than ever, I feel my original dismissal of his take was correct. And I repeat my belief that Pacaud has enough faith in his abilities not to be threatened or care how any Indian chef uses blood in cooking. In fact, if Pacaud were half the chef I think he is, he'd see if he could learn from the unorthodox technique. Curry can legitimately be nothing more than a blend of spices used for flavoring a western dish. I'm sorry if this offends Indians. I suspect it really doesn't offend those who truly understand world food. Suvir speaks around this issue in the India board thread and generally addresses the more outright concept of "fusion" as expressed by places such as Tabla. To the extent that "curry" is a tradition that requires rigorous training before it can be applied to one's cooking, it is more damning of Indian cuisine as a hidebound tradition unable to adapt and certainly not a reason to see trouble in French cuisine.

I would have written a brilliant response if I had read this thread last night, but since Fat Guy has lowered the bar, I won't bother. There's not a lot to say about my mother's cooking in the fifties, but she never made casseroles and I never ate school cafeteria food. I had some terrible sandwiches from home--the usual bologna, or if you prefer "baloney," and my mother was not beneath calling lettuce and tomato, between slices of bread, a sandwich. The first time I had tuna casserole was in the early sixties in the home of a young American who invited a small group to his apartment in Paris. It was so alien to me that I asked if he learned to cook it in Paris. He was honest and said it was a recipe he brought from home. I haven't had the dish too many times since. I've had it's cold weather equivalent, tuna salad with pasta and mayonnaise, quite often and find that satisfying. Two things struck me about using homemade noodles in this dish. They have a different quality and I wonder if the would be more likely to over cook or if they would taste right. Then I thought why not go creative and make a tuna lasagne with the same ingredients layered. Either way, it's not what I'd spend my time cooking. I enjoy prosciutto and some fruits as a first course and have even enjoyed a melon as a first course, but rarely would I order straight fruit as a first course. Even as a kid, I found fruit cocktail strange as an appetizer. I'm inclined to agree that tinned sardines are excellent on toast with a little olive oil from the can and maybe a spritz of lemon. A little cheese is good, especially if you can put it under the broiler or in a toaster oven. Any leftover stew or some beans are good too. I think it's called bruschetta in Italian. Smoked fish and eggs are classic. My father never cooked but one dish that I can remember. He made scrambled eggs with lox, onions and mushrooms.

In reference to Gramercy Tavern, Danny Meyer has always emphasized that he felt he was in the "hospitality" business. Theoretically, at least, the responsibility for picking the wine rests with the consumer. If you order duck for the first time in a restaurant and decide you just don't like duck after the first bite, it's not the restaurant's responsibility to exchange your dish for chicken or lamb. Likewise, if you're displeased that the Beaujolais you ordered doesn't stand up to the wild boar, the restaurant has no responsibility to take it back. When a sommelier recommends a wine, there may be some responsibility, but generally if the wine is a good example of its type, you shouldn't expect a restaurant to take it back. Nevertheless, some restaurant will take back almost anything you don't like, inlcluding your main course and chalk up the loss to public realtions. No one wants an unhappy diner, but you won't get a lot of respect from the house if you order Sauternes and complain that the wine is too sweet for your fish. On two occasions that I can remember, both with the same friends but at different restaurants, our table has had some unusual wine suggested to us. Both times the wine was not all that much to our taste (we are unlikely to order it again) but we didn't feel any reason to reject the wine as we'd just as soon have the restaurants continue to think of us as diners with a curiosity for new or unusual wines. The chance of discovering a wine was proportionate to the risk we took when we said we'd like to try the wine.

Well of course you choose your invitations carefully, if you can't choose your friends on their culinary interests. You live in NY. Eating in a restaurant is a high risk project if you're not selective. I was particularly thinking of the home of a couple of professional cooks I know.

That's a much better take on a broader issue although the analogy doesn't cut it. I still feel Hoffman's comment was uncalled for and Pacuad's traditional usuage was a poor example if that was Hoffman's point. You're probably correct that Hoffman and I will not agree on the curry. The broader issue has merit and I'd be more likely to join on that side had the point been better made. I was thrilled by Pacuad's perfection, but it left me cold at the same time. I appreciate his food, but am not a fan. You and I share a love of France and French food, but we may also share the sense that there have been some real changes in France and in the world of cooking in the past few decades. It's not all downhill in France either. I think the coutnry hit a gastromomic low some time ago and is on the rise, but I agree that it no longer dominates the way it had. Although I loved my first visit to Barcelona, my later early excursion into Spain left me far from being a fan, especially in therms of it's food. I've matured and Spain has changed. My wife and I have become great fans of Spanish cooking, although we've only explored the north from Catalunya to Galicia. I'm well aware that chefs such as the Adrias and Martin Berasategui have been greater destinations for traveling American cooks that almost anywhere in France. I had a conversation with the manager at El Bulli. When I told him I thought the north of Spain was more vital than most of France, he told me that Ferran Adria was more interested in what's happening in America than in France. France is hardly dead, either figuratively or literally, but it's lost its strangle hold on western gastronomy. I just don't think Hoffman made that point well. American chefs have long been more creative, but in my opinion they've lacked the discipline to prepare great creative food. Of course this kind of broad statment does not hold up across the board, but it's true on the average. As you said, French chefs have not been open to non-French ways and it stiffles creativity. There are always a few on each side of the Atlantic that rise above the national stereotype, but we have no disagreement on at least one French problem. That said, today I have problems finding what I think of as real French food in Paris (outside of La Regalade). Chefs have adopted a world wide palette or flavors and ingredients and are slowly picking up techniques of inventing new ones. L'Astrance is a great example. I suspect it's not a French restaurant at all and could be in Australia, California or New York. Therein lies the future perhaps.

Sorry, that was a joke. I'm usually in NYC. I live in NYC. Maybe one week a year I'm in a Paris hotel. On the other hand, I do have my regrets when I'm not in France. We try to get there twice a year at least. We have relatives, by our daughter's marriage, in Brittany and close friends in the bas Languedoc. Lately Spain has been calling. Now, if anyone is going to be in Lyon on the 30th or 31st of March or the 8th or 9th of April, that's another story.

I suspect Ducasse considers turkey as poultry rather than meat in the application of his general principle. Red meat that is still rare after grilling or roasting, should sit for a while. That much is certain.

As I already said, Pacaud was just using one flavor of the many available on the flavor palette. It's patently absurd to imply one can't take that flavor and use it in French food without understanding the entire technique of how it is used in India. Europe has been importing spices from the middle east, the far east and the new world for centuries. Hoffman's statement is pretentious. It's not impoprtant for one artist, or craftsman, if you prefer, to understand how another uses a tool or material if he can use it well himself. Chocolate has been used all over Europe as a sweet and now as a flavoring for savory meat dishes and none of it seems to have needed an understanding of how the Mayans or Aztecs used it. It's a small and defensive view of cookery. France has never pretended to be a melting pot. That doesn't mean it hasn't borrowed from other cultures, especially in its cuisine. It's just that there's no history of fusion cooking. When it borrows, what comes out of the kitchen is French. There is no hommage to Indian cuisine or culture in a French curry. I don't see it as a strengh or weakness and I suspect the French chef may have little or no interest in what an Indian chef does in respect to French techniques. No, I think Hoffman's little bit of Indian cooking knowledge went to his head. Pacaud's use of curry powder is hardly a reasonable target as he used curry as it's traditionally been used in France for generations and that particular dish could have been successful with any number of other seasonings as room may be comfortable whether it's painted blue or pink. The French don't use potatoes that way native Americans did and you could say the same for peppers and tomatoes, not to mention corn. They're still trying to figure out corn. I find some arrogance, but no insight in Hoffman's statement.

As I already said, Pacaud was just using one flavor of the many available on the flavor palette. It's patently absurd to imply one can't take that flavor and use it in French food without understanding the entire technique of how it is used in India. Europe has been importing spices from the middle east, the far east and the new world for centuries. Hoffman's statement is pretentious. It's not impoprtant for one artist, or craftsman, if you prefer, to understand how another uses a tool or material if he can use it well himself. Chocolate has been used all over Europe as a sweet and now as a flavoring for savory meat dishes and none of it seems to have needed an understanding of how the Mayans or Aztecs used it. It's a small and defensive view of cookery. France has never pretended to be a melting pot. That doesn't mean it hasn't borrowed from other cultures, especially in its cuisine. It's just that there's no history of fusion cooking. When it borrows, what comes out of the kitchen is French. There is no hommage to Indian cuisine or culture in a French curry. I don't see it as a strengh or weakness and I suspect the French chef may have little or no interest in what an Indian chef does in respect to French techniques. No, I think Hoffman's little bit of Indian cooking knowledge went to his head. Pacaud's use of curry powder is hardly a reasonable target as he used curry as it's traditionally been used in France for generations and that particular dish could have been successful with any number of other seasonings as room may be comfortable whether it's painted blue or pink. The French don't use potatoes that way native Americans did and you could say the same for peppers and tomatoes, not to mention corn. They're still trying to figure out corn. I find some arrogance, but no insight in Hoffman's statement.

My regrets. I'll be in NY.

Memory lane indeed. Whatever happened to sizzling rice? I think I've run into it only once outside King Wu. I assume you mean the one that was closer to Ninth Street, rather than the current incarnation. Not so much. Dillon's was less intense, seedier and suited me better at the time. I think I covered my youth on some bar thread here. Nevertheless, I did attend the closing of the Cedar Bar. I recall leaving the crush and my wife, who I believe was not my wife at the time, smelled something burning. It turned out to be her suede jacket which had a large smoldering circle evidently from someone's cigarette. Of such things are the memories of my nights there. bar thread

Let's not forget it's rather rustic and old fashioned food for all the two staf chef technique and input. If you don't like that sort of food, no one is going to cook it to your taste. If you love it to begin with, that's another story. I'd not overlook the wrong person in the right restaurant. Of course that's from my perspective. I truly wish it was around the corner. I'd be willing to check it out.

I woudn't disagree with you there, but that doesn't mean she wasn't important and influential in her time. I have the impression she was also respected by the French as well as a generation of Americans. My understanding is that she wrote restaurant reviews at one time for l'Express. Correct me if I'm wrong. For an American woman to review restaurants for a major French magazine is a feat, I would think. Earlier you questioned her commercial ties to Robuchon. I'm more inclined to think of her in terms of her professionalism. From time to time I mention a small distillery of fabulous eaux-de-vie south of Agen. The proprietor asked how I, an American, found his place. I replied that I read about him in Wells' The Food Lover's Guide to France. He smiled and told me how she arrived, tasted and bought several bottles. Then she wrote about him and his products. He was flabbergasted. He told me that's not how it works in France. There you ask for free samples and the producer hopes he will be mentioned in exchange. He said he was very impressed and thought American journalists and reviewers must be much more professional than the French. So, credit where credit is due, even if I'm not so impressed by her opinions these days.

I supposed the main reason I found the quote annoying is that it really read as disrespectful. Moreover, I had that dish and found it well composed, refined and delicious. Not the most exciting dish I've had a major restaurant, but that's even more to the point. He used "curry" as it has been used in western kitchens for what I expect is the better part of the century. I've had American shrimp curry at least forty years ago and run into French use of curry on and off for almost as long. It's just an accepted part of the western flavor palette. Hoffman came off as weird and pretentious in my mind, by making it an issue and by attempting to criticize Pacaud for not understanding the mystique which I find needn't exist. If Hoffman's own menus were not so eclectic and if Hoffman had Pacaud's training I might have found his comments less offensive. To state that restaurants needed to use curry to keep their cuisine current, and that it was a poor ingredient to apply French cooking technique to, is to ignore it's long usage. Julia Child had two recipes for curry sauces in her first Mastering the art of French Cooking. I see Elizabeth David noted in 1960 that curry crops up in unexpected places in French cookery. I find recipes using curry all over the place in old men's recipes in the sixties. Raymond Oliver has 8 in his La Cuisine © 1967. Louis Diat's French cookbook for Gourmet published in the early sixties lists 6 curry dishes. It's disingenuous to suggest there is anything "current" about curry in the 90s or that it's even foreign. I take no offense from your take on this. Perhaps you can ultimately give me a better understanding. In fact I enjoy the opportunity to discuss this in public. I may well be the odd man, but I'm happy to stand on the side of Pacaud in the meantime, although l'Ambroisie is far from my favorite restaurant.

No, that's not the one, it was just off Pell. That's probably the same one and the name just came back to me. It was King Wu. I sort of remember it having some connection to a second floor place on Pell around the corner that had Shanghai in its name, but I don't recall it having Shanghai food. I remember sizzling rice also as a bed for a shrimp dish called shrimp with sizzling rice. This was probably my first real Chinese food, or Chinese food of any interest to me. Those two places were favorites for years.

I think the point of many of Patricia Wells' books and articles was to have short shelf life. Restaurant reviews and guides to sources that are always in a state of flux will have a short life. Do you think her own cookbooks are bound for shorter lives than other peoples and would you say that about her books on Robuchon's cooking?

With but one exception, I would say many of the best restaurants turn a few tables more than once in an evening. With many American tourists willing if not eager to dine well before seven and not a few Spanish tourists hoping to start after eleven, three sittings should be easy in a small Paris bistro. Esay on the clock that is, not easy on the staff.

I've found Patricia Wells' food sources to be useful destinations over the years. At the moment they're just not up to date. Whether or not they were ever the best possible sources, I couldn't say. The guide to France was valuable just for the list of market days in each area. At one time I found her reviews infallible. That's not the case today. Whether it's a due to my experience or that our tastes have parted, I don't know, but I also question her recommendations too often these days. I have no problem with her allying herself with Robuchon any more than I have a problem with other food writers and journalists openly allying themselves commercially with other talents in the industry. I agree about Gopnik, but more for the culture (small "c") than the food. I enjoyed most of his Paris to the Moon. Was his 1955 New Yorker piece the one that started with the Passard tomato by any chance? It was an article that gripped me until I came to the part where he quoted Hoffman (Savoy, NYC) on Pacaud's use of curry. Everything unraveled for me. The same thing happened when I reread that part in the book. I put down the book I was voraciously reading and couldn't pick it up again seriously. I finally finished it by ignoring the chapter and skipping around until I had finihsed readying everything else. Hoffman is entitled to his opinon, but I couldn't figure out what led Gopnik to quote it. Another recent book that's lighter weight and didn't grab me as fast nor as hard as Gopnik's, but was still a fascinating look at the French and their attitude towards their food, is Mort Rosenblum's A Goose in Toulouse. This is critical and it appeared to be timeless when I first went to France. It's why I was able to regard The Food of France as my central guide book. Today this way of life appears to be fading. The proliferation of McDonalds is the surest sign, and it's a symptom not the cause of this. What's fascinating about Rosenblum's book is that each chapter contridicts the previous one. Alternately, you're convinced it's all over and that it will never change.

Asopao probably varies conisderably from house to house as Latin-Caribbean cooking may be far less codified than French. Than again try and get a definitive version of cassoulet. My wife describes it to newcomers as "soupy rice." The way she serves it, as well as the way I've had it in restaurants in Puerto Rico is in a bowl. You must use a spoon for the soup, but in some preparations you may want a fork or a knife and fork to eat the meaty ingredients. It's far wetter than a paella, but far more rice than chicken soup with rice. Puerto Rican asopao is thick with rice. I don't recall seeing potato, but it wouldn't surprise me to find one with potato in it. The same goes for vegetables, although a garnish of (usually canned) aparagas, peas or roast pepper strips is commonly found on many dishes. Can't say it I recall it on any asopaos As a distinction, I would say it's a Puerto Rican dish and not a Cuban one, although I've seen it in Cuban restaurants. Apparently it's also a Dominican recipe. I'm least familiar with Dominican cooking. Cocina Criolla by Carmen Aboy Valldejuli was the standard reference cookbook for Puerto Rican cooking. We have an old Spanish language edition, but I believe there has been an English one. In our house three asopaos have been standard. asopao de pollo - with chicken and chorizo, asopao de mariscos - with seafood (shrimp, squid and maybe mussels or clams) and chorizo (may also have chicken) and asopao de gandules - with pigeon peas and pork. Not sure if this one has chorizos or not and I'm not sure why the gandules (pigeon peas) get star billing over the pork. If my wife has made a significant improvement on the recipes, it's the use of stocks to replace any water in the cooking. Ours are always a full flavored broth. Canned chicken broth will work in a pinch. Stock made from shrimp heads and shells is good for the seafood asopao. Time will tell if Wilfrid or I get to take notes first. There is no written recipe for asopao in the house. I'm not sure where the name of this dish come from. I suspect from the word for soup. The "ao" ending is I think, the proper and original spelling, but Puerto Ricans have a habit of eating the ends of words and quidado (caution/watchout) is pronounced as "quidao" just as "pescado" is "pescao" when spoken and I once saw a "tony" menu in Puerto Rico on which asopao appeared as "asopado." I don't think there's any literary support for that back formation. That exhausts my information on the subject for the moment, but I think I've replied in the Caribbean forum on restaurants down there. We haven't been there much since my wife's parents passed away. my bother-in-law is an architect down there, but he comes here all the time on buisness.

You left our eating in someone else's home, but I guess that's an option that's not available until you're invited. There are shades of difference in all the options. I enjoy different aspects of eating out in different restaurants. Eating at home is a dfferent option if you're cooking or if your spouse is cooking. Fat Guy, you can eat out buck naked in Cap d'Agde and perhaps other places, but you've already reduced my interest in ever being invited to your house. I suspect I've always enjoyed eating out and at home. I hope I continue to enjoy both, but I can definitely say I enjoy eating out more now than before. I suspect there's some sort of curve in preference change in most people's lives. My guess is that it may even be an asymetrical bell curve. I wonder if it's ever a wave with alternate highs and lows. Maybe I've left out my favorite. That's having someone who really knows how to cook, come over bringing raw materials and talent and cook for me. I don't have to put on a coat, worry about the weather, and not cooking in my own house is a real luxury that I'm conscious of all night long. Cleaning up the next morning seems a small price to pay.

Fat Guy, you know I lurk in every corner and I know you're just trying to provoke me, but you know I knew that too. Leaving aside our discussions of the charm of group dining for the moment, Plotnicki's suggestion of Dim Sum Go Go is an interesting one for many reasons. [i try to avoid referring to restaurants by their initials, at least the first time in every paragraph. I have a hard time figuring out when people are referring to Craft Bar and when they mean Cafe Boulud for instance.] Actually Robert Brown may be more of a fan than I am. Until he suggested it was great at dinner, we had only been there for dim sum. It's quite good for dinner. I suspect you could get the upstairs room. BYOL should not be a problem. There's no reason to suspect you can't arrange a set meal and price before hand. One single advantage would be that you'd get great food for a modertate price. I'm not sure if dim sum would be more or less expensive than eating dinner or if dim sum might not be a good idea. I guess the one problem there is that weekend dim sum is probably their most crowded time. I should note that Plotnicki's mention of Dim Sum Go Go in the same context as Ping's was about to get a response from me anyway. All of my dim sum including a few orders off the regular menu and my one dinner were very well received. maybe one dish that didn't please and a slight inconsistency, but overall high marks and heads above most places in Chinatown. I've had two meals in Ping's. The first was just good enough that I thought we needed to give it another look. That second meal was the worst meal I think I've ever had in Chinatown. I've been eating in Chinatown regularly since the early sixties when Bill Dekooning introduced me to some long gone restaurant in a basement space on Doyers Street. I wooed my wife in cheap Chinese restaurants and we continued to eat in them for years. BoBo's with courses running fifty cents at that time was what we considered upscale. My daughter probably learned how to use chopsticks soon after she could hold a spoon. I believe I've had more more than half my adult restaurant meals in Chinatown and Ping's served me the worst one I can remember. I would bring a bagel if someone took me there for dinner.

No disrespect to Simon and Robin who, I've acknowledged may have had a bad meal, but I never know that someone has had a bad meal from their description of dinner. I only know they didn't enjoy it. I've read reviews in the NY Times of "bad" meals or dishes, that have only convinced me that the writer didn't understand the food or had an agenda of his own in writing. At best and in the most honest of appraisals, there is a great element of subjectivity in all food criticism. The last thing I would ever recommend is averaging disparate reviews when in fact, you're more likely to agree with one of the two extremes than the middle.

Malawry, and you too Rachael, I think the American love/hate relationship with France is almost as great as that of England. The number of Americans who have not been to France, but think or dream about going is legion. Many do go and many of those love it or hate, but not enough bother to prepare for the cultural differences. On the other hand, there are a few that over prepare and end up intimidating themselves. Margaret mentioned Patricia Wells' The Food Lover's Guide to Paris. It's an excellent source not only of addresses and vocabularly, but of insight into the culture, attitudes and ambience. When you do go, you will want the latest edition as things change quickly these days in terms of hot restaurants and shops, but any edition will serve as an abstract learning tool. It's companion The Food Lover's Guide to France has not been revised in too long a time and thus it's been obsolete in terms of addresses and places, but it's still a good commentary on the food of the various provinces. Maybe I feel too great a need for people to start where I did and maybe France and the world have changed to make some of this irrelevant, but I suspect you will enjoy a couple of sources, even if they are dated. I hope you find them relevant. In the sixties, I traveled with Waverly Root's The Food of France as my major guide not only to the food, but to the culture and history of the country. The homogenization of France may make it harder to find the old regional specialties, but traces of the tradtions he describes are clearly in evidence. Root was an American journalist in Paris, as was AJ Liebling. The two were contemproraries and I'd also recommend Liebling's Between Meals, An Appetite for Paris. It documents a bygone era, but I think this is the era from which our current attitude towards France dates. The interest of Jefferson and Franklin was no longer part of the American psyche by the 20th century, but I see a continuous thread starting with the end of the first World War. I've read Liebling more recently and was startled to read mention of a restaurant in which he and Root both ate that was recommmended to me by older and more sophisticated college friends when I first went to Paris. I was touched to learn that my tastes for French food were also formed at a restaurant they credit with forming their tastes generations ago. I'd offer the name as it's still in buisness, but sometime in the seventies or eighties it took a serious nosedive and no longer serves up traditional and honest French food. Two journalists reporting on contemporary food and wine in France and whose articles are well worth reading when they appear in the NY Times are Jacqueline Friedrich and Dorie Greenspan. Dorie has posted a few messages here on the France board. The France board, by the way, is an excellent place to get informed. The topics are quite varied and as with many enthusiastic threads on eGullet.com real nuggets of not quite on-topic information are buried in many threads. I'm sure others will have lots to add.

I thought the 19.5 rating had a brief life span and that GM said they were dropping it. In any event, if we're rating, GM is in second place, or less. There are other guides like this in France and I'm not so sure what percentage of the market each has. I wonder as well which plaques on the front of restaurants affect the average Frenchman on the road in making a choice in a strange town. As number two, GM has to try harder and find ways to distinguish itself. The harder it tries, the more likely it will go out on a limb. I would agree that it's currently not at it's peak in terms of reliability, or respect, but I also agree that it's useful in supplement to Michelin. Certainly the relative numbers are useful, but you can also quote me as saying it's absurd as well as unfair to judge restaurants by the numbers or even the stars. I've noted the usefulness of the Palmarès pages in the front. The blurbs for each restaurant are certainly useful in sizing up aspects of the restaurant, especially if you have to reserve in advance. Bear in mind that it's changed hands over the years and hasn't been the toy of Gault and Millau for some time. I've always tried to match the numbers to Michelin's star ratings. !7, 18 & 19 are not one, two and three stars. There was a time when they awarded toques and had a scale of one to four toques which didn't match the three stars of Michelin either. If I'm not mistaken, 19-20 were four toques, 17-18 - 3 toques, 15-16 - 2 toques and 13-14 were a toque. At that time a rise from 16 to 17 seemed bigger than one from 17 to 18. I still tend to think of 15 as a star, and 19 as three stars with the rest falling in place. One of the reasons they may have been better at the middle rating, as Steve suggests, is that their ratings were absolute across France. Michelin acknolwedges that a single star is warded relative to the restauarants merits in its location and perhaps for its price. It also makes no distinctions below a star and offers almost no clue to the food although the forks and spoons may offer guidlines on how to dress.

That Yves Camdeborde is capable of running a kitchen serving food worthy of mulitple stars is no guarantee that every kitchen under him will serve good food. I've seen great chefs run mediocre kitchens or let others do that in their name. I agree however, that one should question why one thought he was poorly fed by a great chef. Certainly the possibility exists that any restaurant could drastically fade in a matter of months. I'm curious about la Trouvaille and how long it's been around. I had the impression it was rather new, yet Simon says "It has provided excellent meals and got great reviews. There are signs now that it is slipping." I ate at La Regalade four years ago. Prior to that my daughter had it recommended to her while dining with a Breton who has excellent contacts and credentials in the restaurant world. It first came to my attention, years before when Pierre Franey mentioned it in the NY Times. He's been dead for quite some time. Assuming for the sake of argument that La Regalade went down hill in the last few months, how would you use that to justify an attack on food in Paris coming from a city where a restaurant gets good reviews and proceeds to slip rather quickly and that news is easily dismissed as "that happens." The whole tone of your original report is of the "I don't know Paris, but I know what I like" variety. I suspect you can do better if you really cared to discuss the matter Alluding to stereotypes you may, or may not, see is not the sort of comment that invites serious discussion. Having attended several weddings and town dinners in provincial France, I know polyester well and I know who wears it these days.