Bux

1. I don't have any personal experience with any of your hotels and it's too long a list to check locations. As you note, many are not listed in the Michelin, which should not mean they are unworthy of listing, although listing is generally a good sign. 2. There's some difference in opinion as to just how much of a bargain lunches are when compared with dinners. Generally it's cheaper to eat at lunch than dinner, but do not expect the same tasting menu at lunch for the bargain price. When a prix fixe lunch menu is shown at a lower price in the Michelin, it is generally for a lesser meal in terms of specialties and number of courses. You will get the same care in cooking preparation, service and ambience, but not necessarily the same food. Some restaurants are nicer to be in at lunch. I hear Grand Vefour may be one of these. I've not been to Savoy. Reports of cigar smoke have managed to lower it just enough so it doesn't get reserved, although I hear the food is superb and I hear that from the same people who complained about the smoke. Gagnaire is fantastic, but remember that it can be cutting edge and creativity has it's failures. Be prepared to accept an experiment gone wrong. It's also gotten very expensive. This is by no means a suggestion you try someplace safe and maybe boring. If price is of any factor, we've found Carré des Feulliants a buy, although not inexpensive. The most expensive degustation at dinner was more than twice the price of the lunch prix fixe, but we found it a better value, which prompted my earlier comment on lunch values. Without a doubt, l'Astrance has been the best value meal we've had in Paris. This is great food, long on talent, but short on expensive ingredients. A short wine list with very inexpensive and unknown, but well chosen, wines from the southwest also help keep down the price. Hundred dollar wines can be the entry level at some three star restaurants. I've spoken about my meal there this summer often enough not to repeat myself here. I expect prices will be rising quickly. Restaurants like Astrance may be what's most exciting about eating in Paris today, although I admit a weakness for the multistarred temples myself. English, by the way, may not be a problem, but don't expect everyone to be prepared to enter into a discussion of the finer points of cuisine, or anything else, in English all the time. You may also find service in grand Parisian restaurants to be a bit more formal than here. In general, intelligent questions should get intelligent answers and tasting menu courses are usually described as they are presented. My recollection of most meals is that they will ask it you want your information in English or French, but I don't recall most restaurant having a bilingual menu (or carte as it's referred to there. Menu is a set meal.) 3. Patricia Wells remains, in my opinion, a great source of information, but not infallable. A recent source of good information is last May's Bon Appétit, particularly Dorie Greenspan's Going Casual article. Jack, a Belgian friend of mine, has some pretty reliable lists of inexpensive restaurants but his web site, linked on the bottom of my home page--see below--is not as well organized as it could be and will take some following of multiple links. You'll also have to ignore a lot of ads, unfortunately. I'm happy to note that some of the best recommendations I've seen appear in messages here. Yes, I've just printed them out myself for reference while I'm in Paris, although I advise reservations in most worthwhile places.

There are even greater differences between the US and France apparently, as Bertillon, the famous Parisian ice cream parlor, closes for vacation the month of August.

I've yet to find any restaurant, no matter the number of stars or world wide recognition, where I could not find a horror story from someone. I can personally relate food and service errors of seemingly unforgivable magnitude at several of NYC's four star restaurants. Such events usually delay my return visit, but if I were to let them make a permanent impact I'd soon limit myself to very few restaurants, which is probably more than I can afford to visit with any regularity anyway.

There is one degustation listed on the Salon du Chocolat that I find particularly appealing and a propos. That's the beer and chocolate tasting with the Belgian chocolatier Marcolini. The Klc, Conticini and Adria demo is the highlight however. This is our first trip to Brussels since 1964 and my first ever on a budget that would permit sitting down for dinner. I know very little about Belgium. We will meet friends in Atwerp for a drive to Oostkerke where we will dine in an inexpensive country restaurant that specializes in eel and game. We will meet again in Brussels at a one star restaurant they regard very highly. My wife and I will also dine at the three star Comme Chez Soi on the last night of our trip. With luck, I will still have a clean shirt. My guess is that most of my planned meals in Belgium will be very French. Perhaps the first will not. Belgian beer is excellent and I don't know it very well. I would love to have some good beer with Belgian food and not pretend I'm still in France. Ed Behr had a good article on Belgian beers in a recent The Art of Eating, and it was a catalyst in my decision to make this visit now. I have a 2000 Michelin guide to the Benelux countries. I see neither of your mentions. Are they restaurants or chefs?

We've managed to extend our planned visit to Paris and arrive a few days earlier to catch Steve Klc and his illustrious chocolatiers.

We've booked rooms and a meal at Meurin, a Michelin two star restaurant with rooms in Bethune, some 40k from Lille, the night before we arrive in Lille and have dinner reservations in Lille at A l'Huîtetière the next evening. We'll report back when we return. This is a corner of France we don't know at all.

I am jealous of Patrice, but not too jealous. I will be in Paris next week. After Paris we will head off for a short drive in the other direction. That is to say north through Picardie and Lille, before spending a few days with friends in Belgium. Our three star ambitions are a bit lower with one in Paris and one in Brussels. Nevertheless, we intend to eat well at one and two star restaurants as well as those without stars. I look forward to comparing notes on Ducasse and Petrossian.

Welcome to the club. However it's much scarier when you realize your wife has become your mother. Oh well, maybe it's better than her becoming her mother. ;)

Then my real identity is safe., at least for the moment. ;) Felonius, I believe those whose goings on were reported in the society pages in the forties or fifties were referred to cafe society. That's what I meant when I referred to Daniel Boulud's double entendre use of the phrase. I believe the regulars who wear a coat and tie, to drop in for a casual meal with friends, understand and appreciate it as much as you do and share your feelings about having it as a neighborhood place. It is, of course, a much more New York place than Daniel in that it serves a neighborhood. Fat Guy, I doubt it was ever meant to be a place where you had to wear jeans, just a place where you could be comfortable if you were wearing jeans and I think it serves as that for a neighborhood where many never wear jeans.

Tomoe neither deserves its Zagat rating nor the scorn of this group. Yes, it's overrated by those who don't know any better, but it's not to be scorned. Save the scorn for Zagat and his system as well as for his raters who think they are qualified to render an opinion. As Steven says, go ahead and call. If they don't have a table they won't ever remember who you are the next time you call, and if they do have a table, they'll be happy to have someone eating at it. Things have been a bit slow at the top places, but I hear it's picked up considerably and Friday night is alway a tough reservation to get. Any chance of celebrating on Monday or Tuesday? I'm inclined to agree with your four choices, (by the way, there's no "e" at the end of le Bernardin) but just in case let me add a rew more names to the Fat Guy's list. Start with Cello. I really love the food at Blue Hill, but it's not the same ambience as the big French places or even Cello. Then three places on my must eat at list, but at which I have not yet eaten--Craft, Town and Ilo.

Perhaps unwisely, Meigas did not serve paella, hoping instead to introduce real Spanish food. Okay paella is real--sometimes, but it's also become the tritest dish in NY Spanish restaurants. There is some sous vide prepared paella that is being featured in a few Manahattan restaurants and ever advertised by the company that supplies it. The idea is unappealing. I was not a great fan of Meigas, but we returned several times. I am sorry to see it go. They also had a good Spanish wine list. I was far less impressed by Pipa all around, but they had some good wines too. It's interesting that a Galician restaurant is named Meson Asturias as Asturia is the province just east of Galicia. There's a cute little place by the name of Pintxo on Greenwich Street just south of Spring. As one might expect it serves Basque food and features the option of pintxos--the Basque version of tapas. It's cute more than gastronomically noteworthy and every time we've been there (not often) it's sadly been almost empty. There's not enough there to draw me back often, and although small plates sound cheap, it all adds up before you finish eating. Spanish food is unheralded in NY and there may be no stellar examples. A lot of it depends on the ingredients. Perhaps it's not so surprising that it has few fans in the US. I was never able to get into it at all and much preferred France and French food. A few years ago that all changed for me and we've spend some time in the north from Catalunya through to Galicia and I'm eager to go back. There's an interesting mix of really rustic food and a few incredibly creative and fine chefs that seem to be leading a movement.

Aureole is also a Relais Gourmand. This is a fairly prestigious group of restaurants. Certainly elegance and luxury count a lot, but the Relais Gourmands are generally all Michelin starred in France. (The Relais Chateaux need not have award winning food.) This group includes such American restaurants as The French Laundry, Charlie Trotter and in NYC, Jean Georges, Le Bernardin, Daniel and Aureole. Neither The Four Seasons, Cafe des Artistes, One if by Land, Lutece, Felidia, and certainly not Carmine's are Relais Gourmands.

Lexington Avenue (two blocks east of Madison) south of 28th Street is full of inexpensive Indo/Paki restaurants, but my guess is that these don't compare with what's available in London. My understanding is that many restaurants are continuing the ฤ.01 lunch special through the end of the year. I'd think Chinatown is worth a trip. I'm not sure which restaurants I'd recommend there these days. I've had mixed results in my favorites and in the new ones I've tried lately, although I still enjoy Marco Polo on Baxter Street below Canal at lunch for their noodle soups with homemade noodles. I like the noodles with Peking sauce as well.

In my first visit to Paris on a student budget, I think I ate about half my meals in middle eastern and Balkan restaurants in the 5th arrondisement. They seemed very French at the time, perhaps because the French have tended to remake all restaurants in the French image and all those little restaurants served a three course meal, albeit three very simple courses and dessert might have been prepackaged ice cream of yoghurt. These days, you'll find a host of gyro and pita sandwich places in the same area and the French are less successful at molding others into their own image but Tan Dinh still has a great selection of red wines. My instinct is to agree with Fat Guy and stick with local food, but you know the locals eat other things and it's kind of interesting to try them as well. How long you're going to be in an area is always a factor. Hong Kong supposedly has some interesting western restaurants, but I wasn't there long enough to make a dent in the Chinese restaurants. I wouldn't find it unreasonable to choose a Vietnamese restaurant or one serving couscous after a week in Paris.

Fat Guy made a few interesting comments. Maybe no one ever made a point of telling you about the web site, but I wonder if the other restaurants of it's class are any more active in this regard. Daniel made a considerable effort via press releases to publicize his web site when it came online. The URL for the web site has been on almost every piece of printed matter I've seen from any of his restaurants. That includes all the handouts for cookbooks, caviar, etc. on display in the restaurant as well as at CB. I heard comments early on that diners found the web site informative. It was shown by calls from regulars that didn't know he had banquet facilities and a catering service until they saw it on the web. When special wine dinners were first announced on the web and by e-mail from a carefully solicited mailing list, I was told they sold out so much faster than when they were announced by mail. So the web site was pretty much a success early on from that point of view, but what would you do about publicizing a restaurant's web site? I would also point out, that they are careful about not collecting a mailing list from those who e-mail the restaurant with odd questions and only send to those who request the news mailings by filling out a secure form. I was adamant about that in the beginning. It's not that my ideal differs from anyone else's ideal. It's just that if no one uses the web to read menus because they are already convinced the menus will be old, perhaps there's no point in spending all that time and energy keeping them up to date. The other point about journalists is probably one we may have talked about a long time ago. It was a point I stressed to Daniel very early. My scenario was the journalist from Rio, or Tokyo, who's back home working against a deadline and needs a piece of information. Maybe he calls long distance, but the chef, or his secretary are not there, or busy in the kitchen. This leads to around the world phone tag. Every little bit of pertinent information that you are eager or willing to be made public and that might be of interest to a journalist, should be found on the site. That should be the first resource for him. In general my interest was in getting as much information on the site as possible and organizing it as clearly as possible. I hate web sites that hide the information I want. That includes the latest menu. A coherent site map is something I really like to find as well. (Edited by Bux at 4:57 pm on Oct. 25, 2001)

It's clear that I may have a different idea of what a restaurant web site should be than everyone else. I remember being really annoyed when I was out of town and looked up a restaurant's web site and printed up the menu in a cybercafe only to find that when I got to the restaurant, the menu must have been three years out of date to judge by the enormous inflation in prices. It's a time consuming job to keep a site up to day. That's for sure. And maybe I've wasted a lot of time in Daniel Boulud's office as I see they have been pretty good at keeping the menus up to date. Does anyone care that not only are the menus up to date, but that they change the recipes in the recipe section to reflect dishes actually on the current seasonal menu? I've known people who tell me they check the site before they go out to dinner and have pretty well made up their minds as to what to order before they leave home or the office. It would be interesting to discuss this as I had some pretty strong feelings about how a restaurant site serves a restaurant and how it serves the public. I don't think it's like a magazine or newspaper ad. Have web sites become passé that they no longer interest a group of Internet using restaurant buffs? I recall a better discussion about this subject a few years back elsewhere.

David Russell, in his very long list of recommendations noted Tan Dinh (60, rue de Verneuil, 75007 Paris, 01.45.44.04.84). It's the one Vietnamese restaurant I keep hearing about. One of the things people talk about is the excellent wine list. You might not favor wine with Vietnamese food, but this is Paris. Tan Dinh is not far from the Musée d'Orsay. You can read David's comments in the Inexpensive Restuarants in Paris thread. I haven't been there, nor have I eaten in a Vietnamese restaurant in Paris in years. The Michelin Guide has a list of 14 Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese restaurants all lumped together. Sometimes the names are a give away to the cuisine, but not always.

Correct. the loaves are baked at Daniel but served at CB and I believe only at CB. Daniel bakes an olive roll and a garlic focaccia. Only one of the two is available at CB. I'm not sure if it's the same one all the time.

Right. Blanc in Vonnas was my first thought. I mentioned Guérard because that's who we were speaking of at the time and Amat, because he was already mentioned and germane to the subject of the thread. Go ahead, give me another reason to find him a pain. ;) http://www.michelguerard.com/, but a quick glance gave no information about where it is exactly or how much it costs. It's not even mentioned on the Guerard reservation form. It's also curious that I don't recall seeing any literature about it at Guérard. We were there a couple of times. We stayed at La Maison Rose and ate in the main restaurant, but for all the brochures we ran across, I don't remember one from the Domaine de Huchet.We're way off the subject matter. I tend to ramble myself and not pay attention, but I suspect this part of the discussion may be missed by someone interested in Guérard.

Fat Guy - Thanks for redirecting me to the CB History page. That's where I saw the phrase "cafe society" used by Daniel Boulud. My take on this was that Daniel recognized his neighborhood and used "cafe society" with its double entendre. In this neighborhhood, jacket and tie are the local dress as they were in Vonnas 100 years ago. In any event the village locals surely know the prices and willingly pay them. Part of Boulud's definition of CB was as a village gathering spot and that DB gets little regard in guides and the press, if anything keeps it a neighborhood spot and not a destination restaurant.

This may be the sort of thing that puts some people off, but also makes the regular client feel even more at home. I've known people who refuse to eat in a restauant because they've seen other people getting special hors d'oeuvres or desserts. They'll go on to tell me they had a wonderful value for the money, but they can't stand to see others get more. I'm perplexed. Maybe this board will serve to further democratize the best restaurants. I say further because I don't think a restaurant is good, if it's not democratic. This is not to say, you can't improve your service in some way as you become known. In another thread, Felonius asked how to become a regular, which I interpret as meaning how do I join the inner core that gets the better service, treats, exceptions, etc. Ask for a tasting menu and you'll be noticed favorably. Call ahead and request a tasting menu. If the restaurant already had a tasting menu, call ahead and make a special request. If it's a fancy haute cuisine French restaurant, you might ask for a regional specialty from the chef's home region. Whatever you do, don't confuse asking for something special with telling the chef how to cook or alter one of his existing dishes. If you have a friend who asks for sauce on the side, leave that friend home until you have established your credentials. Fat Guy - You've defined your terms well enough, but I wonder if CB hasn't defined itself pretty well. I found Mao's last post interesting. To a great extent, he echos my observations about the clientele, although I think he exaggerates the percentage of 60 year olds in dark suits, white shirts and ties. Nevertheless, if the clintele appears to be homogeneous, it's harder to argue that the restaurant is undefined. That Mao at 20 ;) and I at, my age ;) can walk in without a tie and be treated as well as some socialite in tie or media star in a sweater just adds to the definition. The restaurant is under publicized in the media and in guidebooks. I'm not sure why. That it's Boulud's second restaurant is part of the reason. Danny Meyer doesn't have that problem, nor does Vongerichten. It may be that they don't use different parts of their name in each restaurant and thus each restaurant appears more separate. It may also be that their personal style doesn't carry over so much from restaurant to restaurant. Whether that's a weakness or strength of Boulud may be subjective. Our views on this are also probably too subjective to be resolved, but it's an interesting academic issue.

Michel Guerard seems to own most of Eugénie-les-Bains with at least four different places with different styles and levels of luxury and offering at least three different places to eat as well as a choice of gastronomic or minceur (residents only) menus in his main dining rooms. I'm not aware of the place by the sea. Do you have any more information. You've got me thinking. I wonder how many other chefs own small towns, or at least enclaves besides Guerard in Eugénie and Amat in Bouliac--just to return to bordeaux for sake of the thread.

I don't think I've ever had lunch at Cafe Boulud. In fact, I'm pretty sure I haven't. Why do you think the restaurant is less well defined? Is it just the name or do you think there's some dichotomy between the quality of the food and Daniel Boulud's concept of a casual cafe. I've always had the feeling there was some connection between the use of the word cafe and cafe society as well as society cafe. I also get a sense that most of the diners there know pretty well what sort of place it is, and that many are regulars. This is more a feeling based on observatin than on any inside knowledge. Of course I believe every one visits the web site before they dine at a new restaurant and thus they know the prices and menu very well. ;)

CB opened about three years ago in September with the Daniel staff. Andrew Carmellini was hired as executive chef almost from the beginning as I recall, and Remy Funfrock, the pastry chef, had been Daniel's pastry chef. A new pastry chef was hired for Daniel. I haven't noticed a great change since CB opened. That puts our opinions at odds, but I've had an occasional lousy meal at some of the best restaurants in the world, so I believe it happens to others as well. I've heard a couple of reports that Daniel overbooked and handled reservations poorly when it opened. I chalk it off to the problems of a new restaurant. I only ate lunches there in the beginning. As I mentioned in another thread, it was a good time to meet Daniel Boulud. Lunch was always calmer. I know how your wife feels and I'm the last guy to chide anyone else about cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. Forcing yourself to go back to a restaurant often puts too much pressure on the meal anyway. Gallagher's, of course, is another kind of place and I don't know much about steak houses.

Holly - I don't know how many non-pikers there are in Philadelphia, but certainly enough to pack Le Bec Fin the night we were there. It appears you took offense when I said: Allow me to question why you didn't also credit me for noting: which is what appeared where you placed ellipses.I think the complete sentence speaks for itself. I came, I saw, I was impressed, but not enough to be convinced. It's not so much that I wasn't impressed enough to be convinced, but that in my short visit I did not see enough. On another eGullet board, I've noted that I had wonderful coffee in Philadelphia and that I found out it was from a local roaster, but also served at Daniel and the Waldorf Astoria in NY. I'm not likely to feel I've been engaged in Philly bashing even if I don't find the appeal in a cheesesteak. At any rate they were my comments and I don't know I'm represetative of New Yorkers.