Bux

That's not unlike the arrangement between meat and sauce at BLT Steak, so in that way it's not a surprise. Unfortunately, I had been hoping to hear reports that it might be more like Cello which I liked very much.

The negative effects of poor first reports is obvious and our members will not be immune from the negative effect. On the other hand, we have a broad base of members and it includes those with the sort of curiosity who will risk a bad meal in exchange for first hand knowledge and upon whom we can depend for a second wave of reports.

The distinctions between wine bars and other establishments serving wine by the glass and between types of wine bars are interesting. Just as we all know the difference between a restaurant, bistrot and brasserie (actually we don't, people ask all the time) the distinctions are often blurred. The same with wine bars. There's a cafe near a hotel we like that has wicker chairs (probably really plastic) and tables outside where we've met friends for coffee, beer or even lunch. The have decent salades and better sausages and aligoté. They offer a nice selection, particularly beaujolais, by the glass and en carafe, but I think of it more as a cafe than a restaurant or wine bar. Hanging over the bar however, it a framed certificate naming it "wine bar of the year" sometime in the 1990s.

Does 'indefinate leave to stay' count? I get the impression with British food that like an iceberg it is present and powerful, but the interesting bits are mostly unseen. A good place to start maybe this book. British Food ← I don't know about indefinite leave. In the UK? In Scotland specifically? I know. In Maine, (the northeastern most state in the US, it's something your grandson could use to defend himself against the charge he's not from around here. It is however not so unusual to think of people who weren't born in the same house as their grandfather as "summer people." Scots, I gather, are not so clannish. I know less about icebergs than I do about food. I always thought the part of an iceberg you couldn't see was the scarey part. That might make it analagous to food. All this talk of epiphany is revealing. I suppose a good case could be made for the subjectivity of taste. Perhaps we're blessed by not having members interested in doing so. "Spain" is the answer and all the more strongly so precisely because it's not been mentioned and in spite of the fact that I've forgotten the real point of the topic.

Quote from their entry on OpenTable "Modern French cuisine with Asian influences and an Eastern European flair: Cafe Gray is an upscale cafe with panoramic views of Central Park from Chef Gray Kunz, creator of the acclaimed New York Times 4-star rated Lespinasse." I assume that Cafe Gray's marketing people wrote that. The decor just screams Vienna and art novo. If my memory serves, before it opened, it was always described as an eastern euro cafe. That's why I found the strong Asian spicing odd. The menu gives no indication of Asian spicing and neither does the decor. It tastes good mind you. ← The decor at Lespinasse didn't exactly suggest Asian influences either. By now, the name Gray Kunz should. I don't find anything of art nouveau, which I associate with curvilinear decoration, in the decor of Cafe Gray. Perhaps there is something of Vienna and Europe east of Vienna in the wood and glass. I'm not the one to look for a connection as I find the decor at Cafe Gray rather heavy handed.

Too hard to resist. Even for NY, Babbo isn't particularly a budget place. I think Lombardi's is, at best, very uneven, but I don't have a great convenient pizza place to suggest and I'm far too provincial to cross a bridge for pizza. For good old NY "kosher style" delicatessen, I'd nominate 2nd Avenue Deli or Katz's over the midtown delis. Katz's is about as big a tourist destination as you'll find in NY outside of the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building, but my accountant has his office in the Empire State Building and I'm not above having a pastrami sandwich at Katz's although I have to be in the neigborhood first. It's rarely worth the trip on it's own for me. From MoMA, Katz's is a short walk from an F train station. The F train stops across the street from the museum. From Katz's it's a long walk to SoHo. I don't think of it as an especially interesting walk although it has its socialogical aspects. The Lower East Side has been home to waves of immigrants. The latest wave seems to be college grads from the midwest. In SoHo, Balthazar makes a mean hamburger and great French fries. It's not as imtimidating to a twelve year old as "pseudo Parisien brasserie" might sound. Then again, you'd have to be willing to eat very early or very late to even think of getting a reservation. I don't even know if you are looking for lunch or dinner. MoMA is not exactly in the low rent district.

That was one of the points I tried to make. It's cheaper to ban raw milk than it is to have the controls and inspections that would certify we had a healthy raw product. Of course we, as a society, could allow raw milk but subject it's sale to rigorous testing and controls that would raise the price considerably. There may, or may not be a market at the price necessary, but it's not even that simple. The pasturized milk lobby that represents milk plants that operate far too sloppily to ever produce safe raw milk fears the effect of raw milk on the market. It lobbies the legislators and indoctrinates enough of the consumer market with fear thus reducing the power of those who would pay the price for raw milk cheese. Can raw milk cheese be dangerous to eat? That's a loaded question along the lines of "have you stopped beating your wife." The real question is "can contmainated cheese be unhealthy or even fatal?" The answer is "yes," but I've heard of more problems in that regard with cheese made from pasturized milk in the US than with cheese made from raw milk in France. That proves very little as I hear more US news than French and we're a larger country with a larger population. Nevertheless, I suspect we're taking the easy safeguards but not necessarily the important ones.

Yes, Campbell's dishes looked more creative and I too would have expected him to win those points, but that Mario worked his creativity within a tighter framework and in my opinion within a framework that made creativity that much more difficult to do successfully may well have earned him extra credit. Let me explain my view by taking a dish that has three ingredients, or three flavors that don't quite work successfully together. Would a solution that added one additional ingredient that totally resolved the dish be more or less creative than another solution that improved the dish by adding six more ingredients, but didn't quite achieve the same harmony as the dish with four ingredients? The nine ingredient dish may well appear more creative at first sight, but not at first bite. The proof of the creativity must be in the taste, or the most complex dish will win on points. I realize taste is a separate category, but it must subltly come into play in all categories. As Doc says, "Anyone can throw together disparate ingredients, but if they don't work, how original or creative is that?" I too admire risk, but I think the reward for risk is that when it works it earns extra points. There are different kinds of risks as well. One can risk tossing a number of ingredients together on a hunch and seeing if they work, or one can risk working in a very tight framework where any creativity may be seen as tampering with a classic. I think I can defend the nature of Mario's risk here.

The problem with those guides is not so much that they steer you to the wrong place, but that the year they're published, they tend to ruin the very places they name because of the influx of tourists. You're always much better off with a guide used by a larger cross section of diners, particularly native diners. As for GualtMillau in English, is there still an English language edition being published? I haven't seen one in a while and when I did, they were a translation of the previous year's guide in Frence. Thus not particularly up to date. One of the best guides to budget restaurants in France has always been and still is the Michelin Guide Rouge. Sure it's known for its listing of starred restaurants, but these restaurants are a minority of those listed. Any restaurant listed in the guide is generally a decent value for its price and location. The prices are fairly accurate and the best values at low prices are marked for your attention. France is wonderful in that all restaurants are required to post a menu outside the restaurant, so you always know if you can find something you like and if the price is within your budget. Don't always assume a student in Paris has discovered secret places, but of course ask anyway. Some of the best budget restaurants have been well covered here in these pages. It will take some reading to ferret out the ones most interesting to you and one man's budget may be another's splurge.

I don't think warnings can be too dire, although there's the likelihood that eventually all warning agencies will be seen as crying wolf if they aren't reasonable in their warnings. By extension it is almost impossible for the government to overreact in terms of education. Once more, as long as it doesn't resort to unreasonable scare tactics. What seems unreasonable to me, is prohibiting all of the population from eating something because it's potentially dangerous to half the population, or ten percent of the population or 80% of the population, assuming that percent is forewarned and able to avoid the danger. If one percent of the population were deathly allergic to peanuts and peanuts were allowed to be labeled as "thickening agent," with no other identification on the product label, that would seem immoral to me. By the same token, I would not object to mandated warnings on the labels of food susceptable to listeriosis about the risk and danger to pregnant women and those with impaired immune systems. I'd prefer that to the complete outlawing a raw milk products. I do think the government has some role to play in seeing that potentially dangerous products don't reach food store shelves. France's dairy inspection standards seem reasonable. Our ban on raw milk seems less so, but it's less costly financially. The price we pay is in the quality of cheese available. Get away from the forums and see if any one cares.

There was a great difference in style here. Mario's dishes seemed almost traditional, even staid next to Campbell's. At the same time, most of them spoke to me of their taste. I found them far more appealing. Campbell's dishes may well have been satisfying, but they didn't send that message to me. They reminded my of why I've disliked fusion cooking. I didn't find a sense of structure or discipline. At the same time, there are a number of very creative avant garde chefs whose food I very much enjoy eating. I'm not sure their dishes would have shown up well on TV or seemed appealing from either pictures or descriptions. What's more interesting from the media perspective, is that interest in the show seems to be falling off here. Is it the challenger or just that some members have had enough? It's my very personal and perhaps prejudiced opinion that the most talented chefs to appear on the Iron Chef America are yet to come. Those are Alex Lee who's a friend, and the chef who's assisting him who is even closer to me. Both of these men have cooked dishes not on the menu for me at Daniel and I've seen them in action and know some of the people who have worked with and under them. When I say they are chefs' chefs, some of you will suspect I'm guided by my relationship, while some of the pros will nod accordingly.

I seemed to recall Legrand closing early and neglected to mention that. We stayed in the 1ière a few times and I recall thinking it would have been a nice place to have a late nitecap after dinner, but when enquiring about the closing time, I learned they wouldn't be open. Nevertheless I also believe they run wine dinners from time to time, so I didn't have a clear memory of the closing time. Juveniles is a small bar that wasn't at all crowded when we were there. It was quite casual, pleasantly disheveled in a welcoming manner. I don't recall it having a very varied selection of food, but it was otherwise a nice place to share some wine.

I do the same thing only the places I want to see are the great restaurants and food markets. Any sights convenient to those beget greater interest as a result. ← Doc, you know there are people who consider you and I to be somewhere between obsessive and just plain crazy, but I think we're safe here. Variety is the spice of life and Rouen and Lyon should both be tempting. There are other destinations that would be equally as tempting perhaps, but with the subtopic of Tho' my eyes are bigger than my budget, I'd question the value of spending time or money on travel with Paris at your feet for free and well worth the week's attention. I think a one day rental of a car for a solo traveler would not be a particularly economical thing to do. I've generally found you can rent a car for several days, if you book in advance, for no more than the cost of a one day rental.

Legrand in the Galleries Vivienne (other entrance on rue de la Banque) which is just north of the Palais Royale and consequently across rue rue des Petits-Champs in the 2ième arr. although really almost across the street from Willi's. Willi's was packed the night we tried to find a place at the bar or at a table. Some information and photographs of Legrand here.

We've eaten in Cafe Gray once. Vienna never crossed my mind. I didn't think it was supposed to be a cafe in Vienna. Was Vienna really mentioned at some point as a starting off place for Gray Kunz here? Having had Kunz' cooking at the Penninsula years ago, we didn't expect French cooking at Lespinasse either.

There is so much to see and do, not to mention eat, in Paris that I question the advantage of a day trip outside Paris if you're only got one week. You certainly don't need a car in Paris. I'd say a car would be a disadvantage there. A car is nice for a drive in the country and there are any number of places in the French countryside that deserve at least a few days touring, but again, I don't know about taking time from a first one week trip to Paris.

The date on which reservations would be accepted for 2005 was posted in the forum last October. We'll look forward to a similar announcement towards the fall this year. I'm sure it will be a question most of us who are planning to eat at elBulli this season will ask. We don't know if the process with be the same next year. It seems that those who offered the restaurant a broader choice of dates, were most likely to get a positive answer early for this year.

Of course I didn't used to think that more than two bottles a person at dinner was excessive when I was younger. As for American wines at home, I'm afraid that I seek them out for European guests because I think it's more interesting to drink something thay won't get at home, but we order them less often for ourselves, than we used to and they were never the mainstay of our wine diet. I very much agree that having a choice from a wide selection makes things more enjoyable. From a traveler's point of view, I have noticed how shockingly high the prices for American wines are when one sees them on a list, but that same sticker shock is probably what a European gets here. From my point of view however, I think European wines are still able to complete favoraby here, which makes me believe that American wines can't compete except as a novelty in Europe. My interest in locality decreases with return visits as well. The first time I visit a restaurant in a wine area, especially when I have little or no familiarity with the area, I expect the restaurant to be able to make a good introduction for me to the wines of the area. Later on I'll relax more and look for wines I like from the country. At home, I'll look for the best (I can afford) rather than local.

I recall two tasting menus when were were there some time ago. I don't recall one with quite so many courses. It appears Roca is moving towards that sort of menu, although it's quite possible that on our first visit, we were still being introduced the new cooking if Catalunya and too timid to fully give ourselves up to a chef whose work was unfamiliar to us and thus we neglected the longest menu. It was one of those restaurant visits that left us wanting to return quickly. For better or worse, threre were and are many other restaurants in and out of Spain that also beckon. Those of us whose Spanish is still challenged, thank you for posting both the Spanish menu and the English translation, although based on our first visit and the reports posted on the forum, I suspect I am going to put myself and Roca's hands first and ask what I've eaten later. Once in a restaurant with a chef of the caliber of talent and creativity of Roca, it seems pointless to order shrimp, salmon, veal or lamb because one likes those things, but to allow the chef free range. I don't know how many people agree with me, and I will also admit that I don't always practice that philosophy as well as I preach it. Were those wines offered by the glass or were you not eating alone. My question is really about whether they pair wines with the menu or not. I also have a very provincial side when it comes to wines. Although I have no trouble choosing French wines (or Spanish) when I'm at home in NY, I always try to drink locally, or at least nationally, when I travel and generally go out of my way to choose American wines for foreign visitors.

When Fat guy writes that in the forums, I don't distrust him, I'm just jealous.

Don't be too hard, or easy, on yourself. Are you serving the reader? Probably. Are you serving him as well as he could be served? No. Are you serving him as well as you can under the circumstances? Probably. Would he be better served if your budget were greater? Most likely. Would he be better served if the paper went broke buying the reviewer more meals? An unlikely scenario, but you get my point that the quality is probably lacking, but it's a fact of life that's not going to change when budget restrictions have cut into the quality and believability of the news reports. The only option is not to get too full of yourself (the editorial "yourself") and never pretend the reviews you publish are more than one person's report on an isolated meal. The interesting thing about a site such as ours, is that we may get a lot of reports on isolated meals by members who may or may not be qualified to comment on those meals, but that over the long run, readers get to sort out who to believe and how to weigh reports before taking them into consideration. I often favor the word "report" over "review." My wife is a travel agent. We accept all sorts of comps. It we didn't, we wouldn't have the experience to know about as many places first hand as we do. Being a travel agent is a lot like being a restaurant reviewer to some people, at least to those who want to know should I eat here, or should I sleep there. Comps sometimes backfire even when the agent wants to drive business towards the hotel that was so kind. There's a lot a hotel rep can do to put an agent in good frame of mind, but they can't compensate for the stupid decision of removing the second door to a room and robbing it of it's soundproofing. We've learned that hotels are not up to the standards they exhibited when we were last there and hotels that were recommeded before a visit are no longer recommended after a comped visit. C'est la vie. Credibility is all an agent can really offer. Is it different with a critic? In the end, an agent can't see all the hotels in town, assuming the town is Paris or a city of its size. All you can do is offer a personal recommendation from the ones in which you've stayed and second hand info on the rest. That's the same thinking that was applied to comped meals earlier. Restaurants that comp reviewers stand a better chance of being reviewed and almost all publicity is better than none. It's an odd conundrum, if a newspaper accepts comps, it may be able to afford to report on more restaurants than if it doesn't. On one level that good for the consumer. I'm playing the devil's advocate, but if a reviewer can be absolutely honest, it's a potential gain for the consumer, at least for one who can keep the faith. The downside is that some restaurants unfairly lose the opportunity to be reviewed in some markets and that's a loss to the consumer as well as the industry. This brings me to ask the purpose of a review and how it will be used. Sometimes it's more useful for a review not to rate a restaurant or pretend to tell the consumer if he should eat there or not and to concentrate on telling the prospective diner how to get the most out of the restaurant and where the strengths and weaknesses lie in the kitchen.

That sentence I've highlit speaks more effectively and positively, in my mind, about your attitude towards food than anything else you've said. If nothing else, it acknowledges that great food is not always obvious.

I am tempted just to enjoy and forget about understanding things at times. Nevertheless, I notice that my edition (English language) of the Larousse Gastronomique it is listed as "Clafouti" and described as Limousin home cooking that is a kind of fruit pastry or thick pancake usually made with black cherries. The accompanying recipe calls for stoned cherries. In the class of flan type dishes discussed by Adam, I'd put the Breton far usually (always?) made with prunes.

I think that all you can add to a subject under discussion is worth posting. As far as where a thread should be located, I'd ask members to use their best judgment and have some understanding for our interest and attempts to keep the site organized if we later move or splt threads. Alert us as well, using the "report this post," if you reason to believe a change of venue for the thread would be useful.

Clearly I had good reason to limit my thoughts to Europe. The czars seemed to drink champagne and favor French food. Some, though not all, the finest restaurants in the Netherlands, the UK, etc. are French. That's not the case in Italy or Spain. Although individual chefs and even movements or schools of cuisine may be influenced by France, the best and finest restaurants in Italy are Italian and in Spain they are Spanish. Hungary is to the southeast and most inscrutable in terms of language and cuisine. There is of course, good local cooking all over the world, even in homes where the local cooking is not hightly regarded or refined, but the French have been able to devvelop a court and then a professional cuisine they've been able to export. The Italians and the Spanish, although immediately adjacent to France, have not been takers. Should a French chef want to broaden himself by crossing the border, he'd find his credentials worth more in every country but Italy and Spain, I think.