Bux

I do not believe there are any benefits of a doubt to be distributed. I always have my doubts I will agree with a reviewer, but there's no way I can establish that he's right or wrong. Elsewhere I've already expressed my lack of confidence in Bruni to review Ducasse for me. Whatever we think of the rating, and/or the text of the review, we need to be careful of falling into the trap of pretending the rating sums up no more than what was said in the text, or that the text is a detailed accounting of the rating. In the end, the number of stars is a very subjective rating of all a reviewer has experienced. Debating the rating on the basis of technicalities in the text is is fraught with danger. Furthermore, I'm not at all sure it's possible for one reader of the NY Times to convincingly tell another what is the preferred interpretation of any statement made in a food review. Neither do I think you can subject a review to the requirements of a legal contract. If Bruni is saying that Ducasse has to deliver more than Daniel or le Bernardin to get the same rating, and there is more than a hint of that in his review, I'd reject that outright. Value may contribut slightly to a four star rating, but it's not a reason to deny the rating. I mean if one restaurant serves a meal of a certain quality at a certain price and another serves an almost equal meal at a far lower price, I might be tempted to award the higher rating to both restaurants. If both restaurants serve the same quality meal at vastly different prices, I'd award them both the high rating, but note that one was a better value. Elsewhere I've expressed my dissatisfaction with this particular review. For too long I've felt the Times hasn't felt the need to have someone with either expertise or interest in food and dining hold the position of restaurnat review. Bruni's not the worst I've seen in this regard.

But the value is dependent on the quality, not just the price and the name of the dish, and with the exception of the potatoes one afternoon, I thought the quality and the service both excellent value, even at the higher à la carte price.

Actually, I enjoy watching the chefs not only make a good effort under the circumstances, but I like the idea that they've been able to practice and achieve their best. I just wish there was more honesty up front. I sense they pander to an audience that wants to be entertained far more than it wants to be informed. Which just says that I'm not their target audience, not that it's wrong for them to be doing what they're doing. Socially unethical perhaps, but good business nonetheless.

To put it another way. I've had tree ripened bananas and they're better. Nevertheless, I don't demand tree ripened bananas in New York in winter or in summer. I live with bananas shipped green simply because that's all I can get. However, I can get superb tomatoes in summer that are grown locally. In the winter I can get tomatoes that look better than the ones I eat in the summer, but they don't compare in taste. I don't want them. I'd rather wait for summer. It'll come back. In fact, if I want to cook with tomatoes, I'll use canned tomatoes because the canned tomatoes are really of a higher quality and better taste than the best fresh tomatoes I usually find in the market. Top restaurants do get better tomatoes that you'll see in the supermarket in the winter. I'll bet they pay a premium, but they're still not good enough to feature the way one might feature heirloom tomatoes in August. And I enjoy the summer tomatoes all the more because they are seasonal. Eating seasonally is less a moral issue for me than it is one that improves the quality of what I eat. Marylisa, you asked: The answer is that a restaurant should do what the chef and owner enjoy doing, if they can afford to do so. Hopefully, you'll find the combination that's right for you and hopefully it will involve a chef and an owner who see eye to eye. I know what kind of restaurant I'd like to visit for dinner, but it's not necessarily your job to supply that kind of restaurant, nor mine to tell you how to run your restaurant. And if you really want to know the truth, most of us patronize both kinds of places at different times for different reasons.

My sense is that if you take a large enough cross section of server/diner disputes or complaints, the server is right the majority of the time. I've never believed the customer was always right or deserved to be treated as if he was. I understand that sometimes it's just good business for a restaurant to treat a jerk as if he's right. That said, I still don't understand, or care to tolerate the bitching precisely because I think of the front of the house as professionals. If I came to associate that kind of talk with the folks who serve my table, I'd stop eating out. Therefore, it seems to me that those people are not doing themselves a favor. I also suppose I either pick my restaurants very well or I'm fooling myself. I still suspect that the most bitching is done by the least professional waiters. I have one opinion that's not popular with waiters and that's that they should be paid a professional salary, restaurant prices should be raised by perhaps 20% to cover salaries, and tipping should be outlawed. I can't stiff the salesclerk in a deparment store no matter how incompetent or rude they are, why should I have the power to stiff a waiter.

I believe the current chef at Goumard has only been there for a relatively short time. If your negative experience was two or more years ago, I suspect it was with another chef. In fact we met the current chef briefly because we were with a chef who knew him when he was working in NY. The two ran into each other accidently on the street. We took the opportunity to reseve a table for lunch the day we were leaving Paris. It was the only chance we had to squeeze it in. There's a reasonably priced prix fixe meal, but we opted for the carte, which may have been a mistake because we felt we were in a bit of a hurry. What I recall most was two exceptional, and rather expensive first courses. One of very succulent langoustine and the other of blue lobster with heirloom tomatoes. Main courses were very large and we skipped desserts. The paintings on the walls had no appeal to me, but otherwise it's a particularly lovely restaurant up a flight of stairs on the first floor. There's a small entry room on the ground floor. Service was quite nice as well.

It's nice to know someone thinks I've become the man I've long dreamed to be. Alas it's not true. The secret to making others believe you know more than you do, is to refrain from writing about what you don't know. Admittedly, that's not as easy as it sounds if you become addicted to the eG forums. Aux Lyonnais, a place that recreates the kind of places I found typical in the sixties, is now rather a find. Elizabeth David is dead and times have changed. On the positive side, I actually think the bistro and small Parisian restaurant has had a revival in the past decade or more. There is an inexpensive restaurant I knew from my first visit to Paris in '59 or '60. I was delighted to learn that it had also figured in the education of two legendary American newspaper men and food writers. It was a thrill to share the connection. In the 80's my wife and I had a dreadful meal there. I'm sure my standards have improved, but there's been such an overall decline in food since my first visit to France. I think Aux Lyonnais would be a good choice for you, but it's far from a typical experience these days. It's hard to suggest too many places out of the blue. I don't know your budget, but since you're not coming from very far away, it means your travel expenses are less therefore your food costs represent a greater part of your budget and are therefore part of the consderation. We've had plenty of threads on all levels of budget however and the forum is a good place to start reading. Pay attention to John Talbott who eats out with more regularity in Paris than I ever will. John has lots of experience and obviously does a lot of reading on the subject.

Actually this was something they seemed to do better in the old days, and Aux Lyonais was an old established bistrot. Ducasse and the owner of l'Ami Louis bought it jointly with the intent of preserving it as best they could. It opened to great reviews, but the original chef went to les Ambassadeurs with Piege who had trained him and some people have reported a decline since then. I'm inclined to believe it's come back, if our meal was any indication. The food is not necessarily authenticly Lyonnaisse in style. I'd say the fare is a cross between Paris and Lyon and a cross between 1965 and 2005. It reminds me very much of why I was so struck by French food even on my early budgets. The 28€ prix fixe meal from 2004 was: Planche de charcuterie lyonnaise - ou - Emincé de chou blanc et oeuf mollet, canard confit Quenelle et écrevisses - ou - Foie de veau persillé, copeaux de pomme de terre Fromage frais - ou - Chcoclat Viennois, glace vanille In addition to a wine list strong in beaujolais and inexpensive wines, they had on offer a Mazy-Chambertine Grand cru in 46 cl. carafes at 42€. I remember someone complaining that the carafe wines were expensive. That's not what I'd call a carafe wine and bottles of good beaujolais were considerably less expensive.

What a pity as I recall you had liked your first meal there even more than I had liked mine and we were thoroughly pleased. We returned with a party of five last September for a latish lunch and the service was fine for that sort of bistro. My first meal was so good that I nearly ordered the same the second time. I especially missed that wonderful calves' liver which I've not found the equal of in restaurants in NY at considerably more money. The liver was almost as good and light years ahead of what I'd found in NY between the two meals, but the potatoes were, to put it charitably, inferior. Nevertheless that was the only shortcoming. All of the other dishes were excellent of their kind and the boudin noir is exemplary. The menu said "Iparla" and I am certain it comes from the recipe of Christian Parra in the Basque region. This thread seems to have fallen out of sight. I know I posted on that lunch somewhere in the forum.

If I were to tell people you were rude in your reply to Fat Guy, it wouldn't make your reply rude, but it might leave those to whom I spoke, believing you were rude. The problem is that we're depending on Bruni's interpretation of his observations as well as his observations. I've been in restaurants where others have seen things I haven't seen and taken offense at what they've seen. In some cases seeing things may be more a matter of projection rather than acuity. In NY, a sommelier, especially at an American restaurant at just below the four star class, will often be quick to make recommendations of his favorite wines on a personal basis. In Paris, at a Michelin three star restaurant, the sommelier may be more likely to determine the diner's preferences in wine before attempting to recommend a match with the food. It's quite normal for the sommelier to ask if one prefers Bordeaux or Burgundy. The way in which Bruni describes the interaction with the sommelier following his fumbling with his Martini, doesn't suggest he's the ideal man to report on wine service at the restaurant. To top it off, he couldn't even tell us anything about the wine except that he didn't know what he was drinking with his dinner and only enquired about the wine after he was finished eating. My wife had a decidedly non academic interest in wines and doesn't carry around a mental picture of wine geography, but she's curious enough to know the names of what she's drinking and curious enough to ask to see the bottle and read the label at some point in the service. And she will ask to do that. Bruni was a reporter posted in Europe and one who supposedly made a tour of international restaurants prior to coming to NY to take his position at the Times, but I don't get the sense he's at home in Ducasse's restaurant. "... an intense reduction of red wine, sherry and Xérès vinegars and browned butter," leaves me particularly confused. Is that red wine + sherry + Xérès vinegar, or as the plural form of vinegar suggests, red wine + sherry and Xérès vinegars? In either case, there seems an ignorance of the fact that "sherry" is the English name for the wines of Jerez, Spain and "Xérès" is the French name for the same wines. It's but another indication that Bruni is not the man from whom I want to hear about this restaurant. "This was a fatty paean not merely to gluttony but to all seven deadly sins," may be meant as tongue in cheek, but it's turning me off as a recurrent puritanical theme disguised as a concern for health. I have no idea if Ducasse at the Essex House is currently operating at the four star level. I haven't been back recently. It's far too expensive to be a regular stop for me. My guess is that Ducasse is probably operating at the level of a Michelin three star restaurant. Few of my three star meals in Paris have been absolutely flawless, and when they are, I'm apt to be bothered by a perceived loss of personality in the food. Two star restaurants are more likely to be perfect in my mind. In fact, I may admit to doing what Bruni is accused of doing -- looking too closely when the restaurant has the top rating -- but somehow, I think I can separate out an objective opinion. I'm not sure Bruni is able to do that here. I'm not at all sure it's not the subjective opinion the Times believes is suitable for its readers, most of whom are highly educated, cosmopolitan and sophisticated, but nevertheless not likely to ever eat at Ducasse anyway.

Off course. And I'm not the one clamoring for fois gras in my freakin' grits. ← I don't think grits need fois gras, but I certainly wouldn't turn my nose up at fois gras infused grits were they offered. ← At least not until you've tasted it. Actually, foie gras, confit and polenta (nothing but a form of grits) is an excellent combination and not all that creative at this point. Although the show, in it's attempt to be exciting and entertaining does award points for creativity, taste is still worth twice as much. Thus a chef would be at a disadvantage if he wasn't creative, but at a greater disadvantage if he was creative but his food didn't please the judges' palates. The issue here is the greater one of online discussions and the twisting of what's been said by others. A comment by a professional, that a ten ingredient grits would have been better had it been simpler, that included the suggestion of foie gras and duck confit as a simpler combination, has been turned into "clamoring" for foie gras by another user and allowed to shift the focus by making a constructive suggestion appear to be one that was limiting in a negative way. Unless evidence exists of a clamoring for foie gras, a reaction to such clamoring is not germane to this thread.

Food Network: Cat Cora "Her culinary education continued in Europe with apprenticeships with two of France's three-star Michelin chefs: George Blanc and Roger Verge." Unfortunately few details are given in terms of dates or how long her apprenticeships might have been. She's cooked at the James Beard House, as did Alex Lee. She's published a cook book and seems to be actively pursuing a TV career.

Thanks Don. I might have missed this in DC and it's a pretty universal topic at least for points north of DC. Maybe in the topices local stuff grows all year. There are a lot of issues here. Let me start with this minor one. "General consensus with guests is-- if I can get it in the grocery store, why can't I get it here?" I'd ask the same question. While I don't expect a neighborhood restaurant to be serving out of season stuff and I'd generally opt for seasonal stuff in the best restaurants as well, we have many foods than are not locally grown and not seasonal -- bananas, for one -- and we have foods that have traditionally been seasonal -- tomatoes are a good example. Whatever the food, if the consumer can get it locally, I assume any restaurant can get it locally as well. I assume any neighborhood restaurant can get what I can get at the local greengrocer. The larger question is that while it's unfair to measure a neighborhood restaurant up agains the top places in town, it's also one way to alert a diner as to what he's going to get in relation to what he might get elsewhere at some other price level. Tell me a restaurant is as good as a restaurant in it's class can be and I know nothing until I know its class. Tell me it's ten percent as good as Citronelle and I can begin to judge how good the reviewer thinks it is, or would if I lived in the area and had a working knowledge of DC restaurants. In order for me to understand a review that judges a restaurant by how well it achieves what it's trying to do, I have to know what it's trying to do and that can only be done by comparing it to restaurants I might know, or to a universally applied scale. If the chef is serving an inalata Caprese in the middle of January, because he knows his customers demand that and are happy with the tomatoes he can get, it probably serves my interests to know that. Nevertheless his satisfied diners are not going to stop ordering it because out of season tomatoes were the subject of derision in a magazine. On the other hand, the review may send a wake up signal that with a menu like that, the chef is not going to get business from diners with more serious taste buds. For all that, it's hard to know if the reviewer was being unfair without actually reading the review and seeing its overall balance.

I don't count the proliferation of wines as a bad sign, although it may be said that while the new world is offering new labels, it's not offering more choice. The wineries are often large and if we can talk about enormous effects of few critics, such as Robert Parker, we're seeing more wines, but fewer that are unique. There's something very unappealing about eating on a subway, but I am American to the core in my love of eating on the street. If my wife didn't put her foot down, I don't think I'd pass a patisserie without making a purchase and finishing before we hit another patisserie. I always enjoy being in a culture that supports street food vendors. France is not good in this way, and is getting worse in that there's now a lot you can buy from shop windows and stands, but it's not the quality stuff of yesteryear. I do not put a coat and tie on to eat one or two courses. At the very minimum it's four and it should be five plus canapés and mignardises. Everything else is a snack.

Restricting yourself to a neighborhood and wanting to try the best NYC has to offer is a contradiction in terms and a day is too short a time to try it all.

Julia, as I recall, picked food up off the floor and assured us the guests would never know.

Stereotypical statements about any group, particularly a national group stereotype made by a member of another nation, are bound to offend and examples, even of only token opposition will always be found to prove anyone wrong. This show is heavily edited, or at least appears that way. I'm sure Jeffrey could expound on the food for another hour and many of us would find most of it well worth hearing, but the producers weren't looking for a bunch of Steingartens. Judges seem to be picked for their titles and positions, always with an eye to having one or more who have experience before the camera. It's not that we don't have articulate experts who can talk about food, it's that they weren't the focus of the selection committee because they'd already decided their audience isn't interested in hearing very much that's serious and insightful about the food on the show. It's not that we don't have experts, it's that no one wants to listen to them perhaps. There's a large audience in American with nothing but disdain for expertise. We're a nation of people with great faith in our own opinion. "I don't know much about art, but I know what I like," is a strong recurrent philosophy. Instructional TV is bound to find fewer viewers than one that reinforces the sense that no one knows more than the viewer. Then again, as an American I see this as an American trait because I deal with Americans all the time. When I travel abroad, I seem to run into the same attitude. It's probably a human failing, not an American one specifically. I know a chef who's worked in a Michelin three star restaurant and a NY Times four star restaurant. He's a fanatic about health related conditions in the kitchen. Chefs at this level are well aware of what a single incident of food poisoning or other health related incident could do to business. The interesting thing is that his concerns don't necessarily match those expressed here. Cross contamination, for instance, is prevented by wearing gloves. Washing your hands is probably far more important, but basically you have to be careful and keep track of what you've touched last.

The show is Iron Chef, not Authenticity Chef. Those grits did seem a bit busy, though. ← As I recall, those were "ten ingredient" grits. The reference was made to the way many Chinese dishes are named and Flay counldn't have been more specific about his intent to cross cultural boundaries and adapt a concept perhaps from fried rice. To say it's not southern food is to miss the whole point of what Flay was doing and perhaps what the show, which seems to promote fusion and creative cooking, is all about. This is not a heritage cooking show. To dwell on authentic regional traditions may be like walking around the Museum of Modern Art decrying the absence of perspective in abstrace expressionism.

I've been reading a manuscript that deals largely with the boom in California wine in the last half of the 20th century. Although the intersting story is about the sucessful attempts to make fine wines, the book deals with the things that led a wide variety of people from all walks of life, many of whom did not grow up in a wine drinking atmosphere or family, to pursue an interest in wines. A brief or extended stay in Europe either serving in the armed forces or traveling on business or pleasure, was one of the greater influences. Of course there were others as well. I'm part of a generation that "discovered" Europe in time to be educated in the ways of cooking by Julia Child. Like Columbus, we were fascinated by the natives and their lifestyle. Unlike Columbus, we were seduced and captured by the way of life and sought to convert, not make converts. We came home and drank inexpensive red wine with everymeal. Adopting the lifestyle of a French, Italian or Spanish peasant made us feel so much more sophisticated than our parents who may have had a shot of whisky now and then or nursed cocktails through a restaurant meal. The book in fact, mentions the liesurely dining aspect of European life as a great influence on some to leave city jobs and head for the hills and there is mention of both the camaraderie of these winemakers and the dinners they shared. This seems to becoming a way of life, not of a place, but of a time. The French spend less time at the table, eat lighter and drink far less wine. Wine is for special occasions more and more. Even special meals are had in less liesurely settings. Important chefs such as Robuchon, Savoy and Dutournier have opened restaurants with counter seating in Paris in the past year or so.

La Delicia del Barrio actually sounds familiar and looking at the street on the map, it could well have been the shop we discovered on our strolls.

My guess is that recipes vary from household to household and from pastry chef to pastry chef. Carmen Aboy Valldejuli, who wrote the book on Puerto Rican cooking (Cocina Criolla is the name of the book) offers several recipes for plan. Flan de Leche uses milk and whole eggs. The recipe with evaporated milk also calls for whole eggs. Nevertheless, all of the flans I've ever had in Puerto Rico were far more eggier than any creme caramel in France. I'm sure they all had a surplus of yolks in addition to any whole eggs.

In Sevilla here's a market on the Triana side of the Puente Isabel II. It's on the right as you cross to Triana. There's a larger market on main side of the river, but it didn't seem as active. I also recall some rather fancy food boutiques in Sevilla where we picked up some canned goods, but I don't have any addresses.

Are you kidding me? You obviously have no clue about Southern cooking. Foie gras and duck confit in Southern cooking? Give me a fucking break. ← Here's a clue. There are five points to be gained for originality, and no points for authenticity.

I second Linda's suggestion that you check out the Ritz-Escoffier. Our daughter took a series of one week courses there over a two month period about a decide ago. I seem recall my sister going over to Paris to visit her niece and taking a one day course while she was there. I believe it was a lecture demonstration and not a hands on course. It may even have been an opportunity simply to audit the class our daughter was taking that day. They were a competent organization and I suspect they still are.

Only in New York, is all I can say. It reminds me of the guy who was selling oysters he advertised as "Kosher." These were Gulf oysters. Apparently he had once met someone who defined "kosher" as clean and he felt his oysters were exceptionally fresh and clean. I don't know that he had a clientele who knew what kosher was, or would have been more likely to make a purchase if they knew, but I guess eventually one came by and and he got some pubicity he didn't want as well as a lesson or two in communication. If memory serves, he was a recent immigrant to the US and his English wasn't all that good, possilby not good enough to distinguish between English and Yiddish, but he was working on his vocabulary word by word as he learned each new one. I've always thought salt pork was required for traditional New England clam chowder, but I see the Joy of Cooking allows bacon as a substitute. Perhaps it's replaced salt pork, which is usually fattier, as the preferred choice. I can't say I don't enjoy that smokey taste from time to time.