Bux

Their clothes don't clash at home, or in London? How does a Londoner tell a South Dakotan from a Missourian or a Kansan in London?

I've often found that when a dish lacks salt, it has almost no flavor at all, but when I add sufficient salt, my first taste is not of salt but of the other flavors of the dish. Salt seems to give a depth of flavor or allow the range of other flavors to be tasted and appreciated. I don't know why. Maybe it's the contrast of maybe salt makes our taste buds open up or become more sensitive.

I would have trouble distinguishing them from the folks who operate the wonderful kitchens in Memphis or Kansas City. :confused:

Cabrales, the rue Bonaparte Hermé shop does not have a place to sit, nor do I believe they serve drinks. I'm sure the other location (on Vaugirard?) has opened by now, but I don't know if they have tables. It would be a shame if they didn't, but as I recall, Dorie Greenspan mentioned having Hermé pastries elsewhere rather than at his shop, in her NY times article on le goûter recently and she wrote the book on Hermé -- literally. She's the author of his recent cookbooks in French and English. We were at the Bonaparte boutique early in the day and took away some croissants, a brioche and a kouign-amann. They were all excellent and tasty, but in a very restrained manner. I preferred the more buttery croissants at Poujauran, 20 rue Jean-Nicot, in the 7th arr., although I found the sales woman there a bit unnecessarily and unpleasantly protective of the image rights to the bread and pastries when I raised my camera to take a picture. Had I not already made my purchase, I probably would have left without making one. The unpleasantness of her gestures countered the excellent quality of the croissant and a savory olive oil pastry and left me with very mixed feelings about recommending the shop. It's not a salon du thé anyway. Back to Pierre Hermé's, the kouign-amann was particularly attractive in it's delicate arrangement of the leaves of dough, as well as delicate in its judicious use of butter and sugar, but I'm addicted to the ones that ooze butter and are heavily caramelized as found in Brittany. However, as we failed to visit every shop belonging to the Association des Artisans Fabriquant le Kouign Amann de Douarnenez I should not claim to be an expert. If any of the chocolate desserts taste half as good as they look, it's worth the trip from London. I'm also partial to macarons that are not stuffed with a fat layer of rich butter cream, but we bought one of Pierre Hermé's superb and richly butter creamed Breton salt-butter caramel flavored examples. It was, uh, exemplary.

Horrid behavior. Totally unacceptable on her part. Had she been my guest, I don't know how I would have reacted. Assuming I did not have a shotgun, which I don't have, I would have been torn between trying to ignore her rudeness (for her sake?) and telling her to shut up out of respect for my other guests.

I've thought of the East Village as part of the Lower East Side, but understand that some people think of "lower" as below Houston. Virtually no restaurants there, but what about the strip between the Flat Iron District and Chelsea. Is that Ladies Mile still, or yet? hell's Kitchen is going fast. hell's Hundred Acres has disappeared, no? The Indian restaurants are in Rose Hill, yes?

I thought you said NY City. Wlfrid, that's the same reason they all thought you were kidding about Avenue D. Lot's of people who will go above 96th Street for a fish lunch don't know where Avenue D is. Then again I remember being in a cab in the 70's and telling the driver to pull over and stop on a very dark and deserted Spring Street. As he took his foot off the gas pedal he looked over his shoulder with the certain knowledge that I was going to mug him.

I will only make enemies and offend people if you get me started on the NY Times' food reporting. It's not all irresponsible. No, it's not likley l'Astrance would have run out of herring roe or that they would have substituted Iranian caviar, but I might have a hard time proving that in court so I leave open the possibility for you to decide. Your standard of reporting in the NY Times is based on an abstraction. My expectation of what I will read in the times is based on my past experience. A wise and older lawyer, who became a good friend, gave me some good business and legal advice many years ago. Among the things I learned to understand is that the first time you suffer damage through someone's negligence, it's their fault. After that you assume some of the burden for trusting them. I need only point out, as I did, that the text says hollandaise where the caption notes bearnaise, but I have no reason to believe the photo was not taken on a day when the chef changed his mind about the sauce.

Close to four years ago, the set menu at La Regalade was 170 francs. It's possible that an overwhelming popularity and an invasion of tourists has ruined it, but I rather doubt it, at least to the extent described by Simon. But, you have to love that style of food and you have to love Paris and the idea of Paris. For me, and for my wife as well I believe, this was a revisit to the Paris of our younger days. I have to note that revisits to restaurants we both loved in the sixties has only served to point out the deterioration of French food to us and that La Regalade is the revival. As for London, I shall have to return someday if only to wipe out the memory of eating on a student budget. When I make my plans, I will be sure to ask Simon for a list of the places he avoids.

I think it's safe to assume that much of what appears in the Dining section has inaccuracies. This is dog bites man sort of news. Besides who knows, Barbot may have been out of herring roe on that day. Candied chestnut flavored ice cream before the meal, That's a sweeter aperatif than even most French would take. One of the things you have to love about Berthillion is that they take a long vacation in the middle of the summer. I suppose that's just one of the things Simon hates about Paris. Of course there are differences between the French Laundry and El Raco de Can Fabes and Daniel and Martin Berastaegui, and each and every haute cuisine restaurant in France, but as you acknowledge, the differences between the individual restaurants may be as great within France as outside. That one, with some ease, could make a list of core haute cuisine French restaurants that were in fact more similar to each other than to any restaurant outside the hexagon is not of much validity in this as I suspect it would be a list of the restaurants that interested you the least. I think my point is that if Keller or Santamaria could displace their restaurants and staff to Paris under cover, they would fit in the current mix. I won't argue that there is still a strength and depth in France that is hard to achieve elsewhere, but it's not in style any more. Economics may play a large role in this. I don't think enough people will sit for Veyrat's prices in New York, let alone Aspen or Park City.

Magnolia, even an old atheist such as myself, thanks God that he was born with the gene necessary to appreciate Paris. From what I can tell it is a dominant gene, although from what I read, it seems the gene necessary to appreciate Parisians is recessive. Once again I thank God I have both of those or whatever it is that makes Parisians take such good care of me.

The feature article in today's NY Times Dining section is entitled The New Paris, Where Chefs Come Out to Play. I'm not ecstatic about the article, but it's interesting reading and mabe a topic worthy of a new thread. Among other restaurants, Hiramatsu is mentioned, and quite favorably I might add. There seems to be no overt sense of Asia in the food or service, although I wonder if a contemporary French chef would offer poached oysters and seared foie gras with hollandiase (or Bearnaise--the caption on the photograph is not in synch with the text) on the same plate. Then again you've seen the menu on Hiramatsu's web page. We're all ears, or is it eyes, for the new thread on Hiramatsu here. Your question about French cuisine prepared by chefs from other countries is interesting. Does it any longer exist? French cuisine has long existed on different planes. Haute cuisine was always a separate world even if distinctly French. I don't see all that much French non-haute cuisine outside of France any more. There's little interest in ethnic French cuisine. I'm thinking of coq au vin, frogs legs provencal, etc. You are not likely to find many places serving that kind of food in NY. If you do, they're owned by Frenchmen, although I should really think more carefully before I commit to such a statement. At the haute cuisine level, French food is no longer French. True haute cuisine is still dominated by the French, but outside of a few regional provisions, you won't find so much difference between a chef in Paris and Keller in Napa Valley or Santamaria in Catalunya. That is of course in my humble opinion and spoken without much thought of how I would defend such a statement if challenged. (Just checking to see that the back door is open behind me and post.)

It would appear that your last sentence in your third post to this thread is the most telling of all you've posted. Just as I cannot smell the aroma of fresias, and many people are unable to distinguish between certain colors, you have been cursed with an inablility to appreciate Paris and its charms and glories. You have my pity. The last time we were in Paris (one phrases it this way even if one has only made two visits of a day each because it lends a certain sense of authority), as I was saying, I had a long telephone conversation with an American cookbook author and contributor to various publications on the subject of food in Paris. She spoke of recommending La Regalade to some Americans with a claim to an interest and understanding of good food. At the mention of the name "La Regalade" I said "oh, my favorite restaurant." It's not really my absolute favorite, but the fact is that my one meal there is almost as fondly remembered as any multistarred meal I have had in Paris, or elsewhere. She went on to tell me that they hated the restaurant. I just told her she had recommended the right restaurant to the wrong people. It's possible that La Regalade has changed, or that it's success is now being capitalized upon and that it's only a shell of its former self, but then again, I rather enjoyed Paris as a city, as recently as last November. I don't know any of your other places except Hubert. It has it's pluses and minuses, but overall an interesting place at the price and open on Sunday to boot. I think we all understand your rage. To be offered by a sensual pleasure and not be able to rise to enjoy the occasion is the base fear in all of our hearts and minds.

The "whole Gramercy/Flatiron area" now exists almost exclusively as a as a restaurant neighborhood today. How many people go there just to eat and how many just go there to eat. Chinatown's got to win hands down for cheap and good, although it's grown so large that one could easily debate which part of Chinatown is the best neighborhood for food.

We never made it to that part of France in those years. the restaurant may even have existed during a period in which we didn't travel, but it always sounded interesting. I've checked last year's Michelin and suspect it's one of the two places currently listed for Moëlan-sur-Mer, but neither rings a bell for me.

As I recall the place in Brittany was a Relais & Chateaux inn, the owners were French and the chef, a hired hand, was Japanese. It may not have been a R&C property. It was definitely not Locguéunolé. I think it was in Moëlan-sur-Mer, which I believe is not far from Belon.

Can you discern anything in Savoy's food that might be traced to any ethnicity other than French. I'm waiting to hear cabrales' report on the Japanese chef, Hiroyuki Hiramatsu's new restaurant. I suppose Japanese cuisine has had a great effect on contemporary cuisine in France, but I wonder if there's a strong sense of Hiramatsu's ethnicity in the food. The menu certainly reads like a contemporary French menu. I don't think Hiramatsu's the first Japanese chef to earn a star in France. I believe there was a Japanese chef at a starred inn in Brittany quite some time ago. I guess I'm not all that interested in a chef's ethnicity unless I can sense it in the food, although a foreign chef earning a star in France is always news.

Of course it's the level of tourism that attracts the criminals. I have to suspect that much of the crime is committed by criminals who move with the seasons much like migrant workers in any other trade.

One of my reference points on the value scale is Blue Hill. They gt $65 for a tasting menu. As I recall it's three courses plus dessert and usually an amuse bouche. I don't consider that inexpensive, but the food is very good. So when I read $60 for the food, it takes a postive review to draw me in.

I have had the baby eels, which have a short season, in Amat's restaurant across the river from Bordeaux in Bouliac the first time I ate there. I seem to recall them as being a very Basque food. There is a great reference to them in The Basque History of the World. They are seasonal and I believe it's a rather short season. I had not had them before and recall being lucky to catch them early in the season. They were simply served in a bowl of olive oil that had been seasoned with dried Basque peppers. I have also heard about and seen indirect evidience of petty crime in Bracelona. Although I witnessed no crime itself, unless we consider it a crime that Wilfrid was there and not us. I did, however, notice that the larger cafes, and tapas places in the touristy paseig de Gràcia all seemed to have security guards. I also observed a waiter move someone's purse so it would not be easily grabbed by a passing motorcyclist. I have been fond of Barcelona since my first visit and credit a commercial paella in a touristy restaurant that I would now tend to avoid, with opening my senses to the greater world of food and its opportunites. Barcelona is a major tourist city. Only in Paris do I hear more English. Mediocre food is all over and especially available in tourist areas, but with a little research, you should be able to avoid the mediocre and enjoy eating in Barcelona. I think your evaluation of Ca d'Isidre (l'Isidre?) matches my memory. Good traditional Catalan food with some comtemporary touches, but no attempt to be cutting edge. Barcelona has several fine markets. The one off the Ramblas is the one I most fondly remember, but it was also undergoing renovation during one of our visits and we had the opportunity to pass another large covered market while returning our rental car and made a point of visiting it on the way back to our hotel.

Why would any American chef have a crush on a yong woman in charge of and about to inherit a three star restaurant? One of the criticisms I often hear about Michelin is how conservative they are in recognizing new talent and rewarding it. Perhaps they are making a conscious effort to overcome that image. It's the sort of thing that often backfires if not extremely well thought out. Nevertheless, the red guide has chnaged over the years and food in France and the rest of the western world is changing rapidly.

I hope you'll have lots to report and post after you return. It would be interesting to know what, if any, accommodations come with the standard tuition. Even more interesting might be a description of "family" meals at a three star restaurant.

I can't remember. Was Ms. Wells writing for the Herald Tribune or l'Express in Burgundy Stars? Most of us may know her for her IHT restaurant reviews, but I believe she also wrote for l'Express. In either case as I recall, Loiseau was rather anxiety ridden, at least by Echikson's accounts. I met a winemaker in Cairanne who was hosting truffle weekends in Provence. I'm not sure if he is still doing them. I haven't been in touch in a while. Coincidently, I sent an e-mail to him this morning. He's British and his weekends were geared towards the UK market. It's a bit far for most Americans just for the weekend. I wonder if there are any female Spanish three star chefs. I've heard reports that Arzak has pretty much left his daughter in charge of the kitchen, but I don't know if that's reliable. That would be the only one I know about. In Galica there is a mother and two daughters who are locally famous, but I think only two of them had a star apiece when we were there.

I like my grey salt. I could argue that it's color alone should indicate that it's more than just sodium cloride. I have good reason to suspect all sorts of trace elements and algae, or you could argue the flotsam and jetsam of of a number of tanker collisions. Surely it's as different from the mined salt as its color indicates, but I like it because I bought it from an old lady at makeshift table set up along one of the many paths between the salt ponds at Guerande in Brittany. The grains are irregular and of varying size as well as a dirty grey in color. It apears to be the essence of unrefined. I don't need to know more, it's a poetic addition to the kitchen not a science lesson. It dissolves quite rapidly, but the fact is that I often forget to add salt until the last minute and then I use the fine grain Baleine brand sea salt from the Mediterranean. I also buy the coarser Baleine to put in my salt mill for the table because I'm afraid the impurities in the grey salt will gunk it up. Diamond Crystal Kosher salt goes into the water for pasta by the handful. Fleur de sel is really quite lovely to add at the last minute, although I'm not sure I'd have it in the house if it wasn't a gift, nor do I think I'd pay the outrageous price for the sel grise de Guerande that's charged in a fancy food shop in the states. It wold no longer remind me of the salt pools, but of the pretentious shop. That sums it up. We could have as many as five different salts in the house at one time, assuming size and shape of crystal can be legitimately called different salts. Only one of them is significantly more or less than pure sodium cloride.

Robert, do you really want to get invovled in Shaw's conspiracy theories.