Bux

I thought it was Babbo's success that launched Mario Battali's reputation, not the other way around. ← I don't know about that. I don't know when he first established himself on TV, but I thought it was back when Po was his only restaurant. It seems he had a pretty good reputation going with just that one little restaurant.

It's been quite a few years since we've eaten in Rodero. We selected in based on it's star in Michelin with no other information to guide us. It was my first visit to Pamplona in about forty years. I remember running the bulls, but I don't remember much about what I ate, or if I ate on that visit. What I remember, was the indelible taste of the cheapest wine of a much poorer country and even that wasn't improved by drinking it out of a goatskin bota. A few of the back streets near the ring seemed as if they hadn't changed all that much and might be familiar if the barricades used during the running of the bulls were put up. The main plaza, a dusty square than, did not register in my memory. Perhaps it was the paving, or that I was sober for the first time in Pamplona. Rodero was good enough to have earned its star, but at the time, I was most struck by its urbane decor and the creativity of many of the dishes. It took more than a couple of those kinds of places to destroy my prejudices about what to expect when I walked into a restaurant in the Spanish provinces.

At this point, I have to believe your instructor was confusing Point with some other chef and I hope he's good enough to admit that to his pupils. It would be a small mistake to have a lapse of memory like that, and only a slightly larger one to have passed on that tidbit without checking, but his students shouldn't carry and spread around what appears to be misinformation. He owes that much to the community and it would repay our efforts.

It's fascinating how often "barrista" appears in print, although "barista" seems to beat our "barrista" by a condierable margin on the net. That's hardly any sign of correct spelling, (never use google as a spelling checker) but illy.com uses the single "r" on its World Barista Champion page and illyusa.com also uses the single "r." I'm wondering exactly what's involved in the presentation of the espresso in the competition. Is it something that can really be learned from a world class restaurant, or is it mostly about the appearance of the coffee in the cup. Do they judge the quality of the china cup and the way the sugar is packaged and presented? Is the coffee brought to the judge's table by a server or is it a matter of stepping up to the bar. I wouldn't expect a barista to be judged by more than the appearance of the coffee in the cup and somehow, I'd expect the rules of the contest to specifiy a standard cup and elminate those other factors that are more about the elegance and luxury of the setting. Tell me more.

I passed by L'Asso last week and saw they were advertising slices at lunch. A day or two later I wandered in and had a couple of slices. Pretty good for pizza by the slice that's reheated. I thought I'd go back today and saw they were shuttered. I've only been in there a few times and it's never been crowded. More often it's been near empty. I can't say we were ever really pleased with anything we had except for the pizza, but I hope they've not gone under.

And often listed as "soup du jur" or even "soup de jur" on many American menus. In one restaurant asked the waitress about the soup du jur. I think I said "what's the soup du jour." She went into the kitchen and returned to tell me, with a straight face, it was the soup of the day. I suppose I should have asked which vegetables were left over last night.

It's never simple, and those things are intertwined, but Mort Rosenblum gave some staggering figures about the move away from agriculture in France in his A Goose in Toulouse. Small farms are dying as the sons and daughters of farmers opt for life in the city.

It's the most democratic dining room in the city, in a way. At least as democratic as any place with more than one phone number. The carafe wines are good value, but there's also an interesting and extensive wine list, all French as I recall. ← all very true, & having been there recently, i did notice the wine list WAS all French. another nice little attention to detail by McNally which continues to emphasize his attention to detail, & subtle way of reminding his clientele this is, in fact, a French brasserie!!!!!! ← Just in case they see people eating burgers and fries and forget it's a French brasserie. It is too noisy. I obviously don't hate it, but I'd love it more if I could carry on a conversation with my tablemates.

Back in '65.Mrs. B and I spent quite a bit of time in Paris over a six month period and all of it on a very small budget. A typical lunch in a neighborhood bistro or restaurant would usually start with a simple salad -- maybe cucumbers or tomatoes -- or something like a hard bioled egg and homemade mayonnaise. For dinner, potage was always among the offerings for a first course. Potage was always cheap, filling and nutritious. A friend living in Paris at the time advised us that there was always potage, even when it wasn't on the menu. That's not the case today. The potage isn't there, and the little places we found without looking, aren't there as much either. Aux Lyonnaise reminds me of the high end of those places -- the ones in which we splurged. Machon d'Henri is closer, but still upscale from the places we knew and loved.

Let me start by saying this thread grew so quickly that I kept putting off getting into it, but always with the sense I'd read it before it was over. The concept is too intriguing to let the thread pass. It can be fascinating to read the take on a number of restaurants by a particular individual, especially if that individual has something to say and perhaps more so if there's an original or singular perspective. Justin combines a naiveté and enthusiasm that are both appropriate for his age, but he adds a certain intensity and professionalism, even if it's that of a student in the profession. The posts are often rough, but they make for interesting reading. I'd say that they may offer as much insight about Justin than about the restaurant in question, but I've said that about professional restaurant reviews before. One of the striking things about these reviews and ratings is just how personal they are. I think it would be easy to dismiss some of this with a "who the hell does he think he is?" attitude, but it would be to miss the point. In fact, I think Justin has himself pretty well pegged and doesn't pretend to have more experience and knowledge than he really has. I think he understands he knows more about food and has a more intense interest than many of his fellow classmates, but that he hasn't got the experience that would enable him to offer objective ratings, so we get very subjective ones with no apology needed. I'd have preferred if he had listed the restaurants in order of his personal preference, with maybe a single sentence summing up why a restaurant took it's place on the list. The award of a number suggests an objectivity that his text does not. I'm not a fan of numerical ratings anyway. Ratings are so subjective. The only way I know to reduce the subjectivity, short of having a truly objective professional with no personal taste, is to have them done by a panel. In that case the truly creative chef will often suffer simply because he's too creative to be appreciated by a broad range of people, at least early in his career. My own subjective take on the idea that Per Se has set a new standard of cooking that demands a fifth star is that I don't agree. Meals at this caliber are generally seasonal experiences for us at best, and perhaps biennial when we're not traveling, but we've managed to have two of them within less than three weeks recently. One was an eight course tasting menu at Daniel for dinner and the other was the nine course lunch at Per Se. What Per Se and ADNY have brought to the table, so to speak, is the idea that it's acceptable to have a minimum prix fixe well above $150 and that makes having the $168 tasting menu at Daniel seem less indulgent by comparison and it's quite in the same league of dining experiences as the tasting menu at Per Se. All things are relative. Neither of these restaurants are part of this thread, so I'll move on, having spoken about ratings. This is something I don't quite understand and has bothered me about Bruni's work in the Times. Ratings are an attempt to communicate and are only meaningful when there's an absolute scale applicable to the group. Justin's absolute scale seems to be his personal interest in returning to any particular place. It's not uninteresting thing to know, but it shouldn't have much effect on anyone else. For the most part, I think you're absolutely correct, but when there's a topic of interest stongly related to the discussion of food and where the abstracts are are of interest to others who share an interest in some aspect of food, there's a place for it on the site, if not in this thread.

http://www.surlatable.com/

Across the street from the Museum of Modern Art SoHo store, diagonally across the street from Balthazar and two blocks away from Dean and Delucca.

This is my neighborhood and in spite of the fact that the chef is a good friend of my daughter's, I absolutely refused to eat there for sometime after it opened and I truly resented the limos that lined the streets. It took a bit of time to lure me in, but I have to say it's become an exceptionally enjoyable place for us and I've not made that a secret. I'm amused by the celebrities and I'm amused by the tourists. Even the bridge and tunnel people seem as welcome there as anyone else. I am most charmed by the occasional sleeping baby. It's the most democratic dining room in the city, in a way. At least as democratic as any place with more than one phone number. The food is generally quite good and well priced. The service is of a kind, but it's very good service. There's an occasional poseur, but mostly the waiters are very professional and hard working. They have a good system of runners and it's really well managed. It also serves a wide budget. The carafe wines are good value, but there's also an interesting and extensive wine list, all French as I recall.

This is a whole subthread and I won't dwell on it here, but few of us are immune to this. Few of us who don't eat professionally have the time or money to pursue restaurants that don't charm us in the first place, but once a restaurant has built a line of credit, we can all become most forgiving. So much of it is chance, but first dates and first meals are often the beginning of a long relationship, or not.

Rarely is the word "fusion" used to denote a dish wherein the flavors and tastes blend seamlessly as if the chef had everything under control. "Fusion," in my experience is the word used as a sort of spin control to imply that the chef's juxtaposition of flavors and foods battling for attention on the plate is somehow greater than the sum of it's parts. More often than not, it serves to focus my attention to the fact that a more talented chef wouldn't have tried this at all.

I believe it was Steingarten who said about Arpège, that it took him eight visits to understand it. ← It would be nice to have that luxury. I am imagine that Mr. Steingarten was able to expense those meals. Nevertheless, I do not believe the flaws I experienced were due to a lack of understanding on my part. If a restaurant charges what they do, they should be subject to tighter criticism. ← Part of my criticism of Bruni's review was that I was left, if not exactly knowing he didn't understand the restaurant, wondering if he understood it, from his comments on food as well as service. I believe Passard's simplicity is more elusive than Ducasse's cooking, although, as I mentioned, I've not been to ADNY since Delouvrier has been in the kitchen. Anyway, absolute perfection is a terrible burden to put on any restaurant. The more I am conscious of the price of a meal, the less apt I am to enjoy it. Any expensive restaurant is always at least as much a restaurant for rich people as it is about food. At the four star level I do not believe price should be a factor. No one gets four stars because of value. If ADNY is only as good as the least of the four star restaurants in NY and costs twice as much, it's still worthy of four stars. It's just not a value four star meal. If Daniel were to double its prices tomorrow, it might become a poor value, but it would still be a four star restaurant. Many people seem to have the impression that Bruni felt ADNY could earn four stars by making some improvements or removing some unnecessary luxuries. There are no necessary luxuries. Because of his emphasis on other things, I harbored the sense that Bruni's faults with the food were faults he needed to find. I've repeatedly said I'm generally far more pleased at a two star restaurant than at a three star one in France, but it doesn't lead me to suggest those two star restaurants deserve a third star faster than the those who already have it. I was surprised to read in your post that ADNY was turning tables. That's common however at most of the other four star restaurants. I've always found the freedom of knowing you can arrive much later or earlier than your reserved time to be a great luxury, though I'm not sure it's got a price value to me. At Per Se however, they were quite specfic about the time I was expected in spite of not turning tables. It's not the only thing that affects the pace of a meal. I know Mrs. B has told me to slow down when she feels a meal is progressing too quickly and she feels the staff is picking up the wrong signals from us. Reviews are always subjective in part and no reviewer will please every reader or diner, but I've heard some of the same sort of thing from professionals that I heard when Daniel got three stars, and that's expressions of disbelief. The reaction is not so much a sense of not believing ADNY is failing to meet the standards for the club, but not understanding what standards are being set.

You can get haring (herring) all year, but the season for Hollandse Nieuwe (dutch new) herring starts in june. I'll try to get some more info on this.. ←

I believe it was Steingarten who said about Arpège, that it took him eight visits to understand it.

In Japan, you can eat sushi either way. There are no strict rules to follow anyway. At the counter, we, especially males, tend to eat sushi by hand, for fear of being looked down on by the sushi chef as not being a tsuu (connoisseur). Besides, flipping a piece of sushi upside down, dipping the neta (topping) in the soy sauce, and putting it in your mouth can only be accomplished by hand. Females, on the other hand, tend to hesitate to eat sushi by hand, even at the counter. Note that in the Edo period, when sushi was just fast food sold at a stall, eating it by hand was the norm. People would eat a few pieces, and wipe their fingers on the noren (kind of curtain) as they left. They could tell how popular a stall was by looking at the noren! ← I was aware that both hands and chopsticks are considered proper for eating sushi, but I appreciate learning the other little pieces of information. I've not thought before of why I tended ot eat sushi with my hands at the bar and with chopsticks at the table. I think it's because I see the sushi chef make the sushi with his hands and it seems appropriate to take it with my hands. My wife has always preferred to eat sushi with her hands. Many years ago in Japan, I remember seeing a woman in a sushi bar in Kyoto eat her sushi with her hands. She was very graceful. Usually in the west, we think using utensils is the more refined way to eat our food. It seems that the more educated one is, the more one realizes this thing called etiquette is not a universal set of rules.

There's another thread -- Bruni and Beyond: NYC Reviewing that delves deeper into the issue of how well Bruni describes things and opens up a broader discussion of his credibility as a reviewer of various kinds of restaurants and dining. My point in responding to you was not to question your statement, but to emphasize my hesitation to accept that particular statement of Bruni's at face value. Then again, all reviews should be read with skepticism. Perhaps that's true about everything we read or hear.

When our daughter was at the Ritz-Escoffier, at least in the series that led to a diploma, the instruction was bilingual French/English. Her chef had cooked in New York at Bouley and was prepared to converse in either language and there was a translator on hand to fill in the class. I suspect one day classes are at least as much geared to foreigners, but one should always check if it's a concern.

I can't offer much help on how Paris compares to London, now or then. I have been in London, but for precious few days both now and then. NY I know pretty well and Paris is not unknown to me. I don't spend much time there, but eat far more intently when I'm there than when I'm home. Here, I may really want to eat in a particular restaurant, but I put off making a reservation sensing there's no hurry. A trip to Paris is usually the cause of some concentrated planning, reserving and above all, dining out. There was a time when if was almost impossible to find a bad meal in Paris and almost impossible to find a really good and interesting meal in NY that wasn't expensive, except perhaps in Chinatown. The value of the dollar to the franc made the difference all that much more noticeable. In the last thirty to forty years, French food has declined as France has become a less agricultural nation and food has improved here in the US. In the last couple of years, the dollar has taken a nose dive. For all that, at many price levels, one can eat far better in Paris than in NY. In both cities you do need to do some advace planning to avoid the really bad meal and to find the really interesting places. As a New Yorker, my ear is closer to the ground here and that gives me a good home court advantage. On the other hand, I think Parisian restaurants are more closely watched and reported on than those in NY and an English speaking stranger to both cites should have an easier time finding both good food and good value in Paris than NY. If you speak French and can read French guides with fluency, there's no contest. If you leave it entirely to chance and pick restaurants at random, I won't guarantee you'll ever find value, but your chances of finding it in Paris are better than in NY. When I travel, there are a few benchmark home town restaurants I keep in mind. Frequently a highly touted restaurant abroad falls short in comparison, but it's clear I'm stacking them against a favorite. Most of the restaurants I try on good recommendations in NY don't come near comparing to my favorite Parisian restaurants. That wonderful calves' liver I had at Aux Lyonnais, inspired me to order liver several times in NY. I never had liver that compared, but I have paid more, and when I got back to Aux Lyonnais, I was even more convinced that nothing had come close. I'm still thrilled to visit Paris. My pace quickens as does my pulse when I walk down the street in Paris. The difference between now and thirty or forty years ago, was that I no longer dread coming back to NY. I know where I can eat well and have exciting meals here. In the sixties, I found the return quite depressing.

Fascinating thread most of the time. On manners, I will only say that when I've been a guest, my hosts have generally bent over backwards to make me feel comfortable however I ate and that when I've been a host, my guests have generally bent over backwards to put me at ease. Life can really be a pleasure if you keep good company. The rice on plate issue is interesting. Most Chinese restaurants in NYC these days, will served rice in individual bowls, one to each diner, or as many as are ordered. There was a time when they would serve a large bowl of rice to a table, particularly a table of non-Asians. I would usually ask for small bowls. I've not traveled widely or frequently in the far east, although I've made several visits to Japan and one to Hong Kong and Guanzhou. What I noticed in China, was that locals usually ate fried rice from individual bowls, often using a porcelain spoon, rather than chopsticks. It seemed like an excellent way to eat fried rice. One of the reasons I rarely order fried rice is that it's served communally and small bowls are not routinely offered. I'm not sure I can fully explain why I enjoy Chinese food more when I use chopsticks. Part of it has to do with perceived appropriateness, but I also think much of it has to do with the fact that the food was developed over a long period of time by people who were using chopsticks for people who were going to eat it with chopsticks. It is therefore food that is designed to be eaten with chopsticks. There exists in NYC, a form of meal that's often served only at lunch in certain kinds of Chinese restaurants. The is the "over rice" dish. It's always inexpensive and consists of either some simple meat or vegetablem, or a small portion of the food on the general menu, served on a large portion of white rice on a plate. It's usually ordered by Asian workers at lunch and I don't think I've ever seen one of them use chopsticks, unless it's in conjunction with a spoon. The spoon is always used for the rice unless I've been careless in my observation. I'm not fond of these dishes and don't order them, although I do frequent the restaurants that serve these dishes as the usually also serve large bowls of noodle soup or noodle dishes that are also an inexpensive workman's lunch. If I am sitting at the sushi bar, I am more likely to use my hands than chopsticks. I'm not sure why. I don't know about spaghetti, but all Asian noodles seem best with chopsticks to me.

Our eating is being inexorably altered in much the same ways as our listening, our reading, our travelling and every other aspect of our lives. Carlo Petrini has showed us, in his Slow Food model, how to invent expandable social structures which bring together like-minded people wishing to preserve threatened traditions. They won't change the world, but they can create functioning time/space capsules within which the inexorable can at least be held back for a few moments. In the quasi-optimistic words of Ezra Pound, "two or three about the temples were enough to keep alive the old religions". ← Yes, but Pound was rather narrow minded about which temples and which religions should be kept alive and not unwilling to support a new order of his choice. At any rate, I am not here supporting or mourning the changes in the way the world lives, but I am willing to note the naivety, if not hypocrisy of adopting someone else's lifestyle as youngsters rebelling against the style of their parents. Today, I'm less apt to want to live the way someone lives in some other place or has lived in some other time. I am able to synthesize my own patterns without necessarily feeling out of time or place, but also without suggesting others follow my style.

Let me add my voice to say the same thing. We ate there a few years ago. It was at a time when I was learning just exactly how Spanish food is changing. I was shocked to find such a modern and sophisticated restaurant in this location. Not only was the food among the best I've had, but the level of service across the board was as good as I'd expect in Paris or NY. Still, I don't know if I could single it out as being better than Arpège, Bras or Martin Berasategui. Let's just say that having made our trip to eat there, I didn't find it out of the way. If Girona had nothing else going for it, El Celler de Can Roca would be enough to put it on the map.