Bux

Generally speaking, except for breakfast coffee in a hotel, you're going to get an espresso when you order coffee. You can order express (maybe one "ess") or just café. Either way, you're going to get espresso in a cafe and almost always in a restaurant. At the height of my francophilia, I used to love the flavor, simply because it was French, but it's not the best coffee in Europe by a long shot. To my taste the best coffee in Europe is not Italian, although the average espresso in Italy beats what you'll get in France every time. My favorite espresso have been in Spain. Unfortunately I have come to believe that there must be a lot of local coffee roasting going on in Spain as some areas have much better coffee than others. Also cafes generally served a better espresso than restaurants in Spain and Italian suppliers -- Illy for one -- are making great inroads, although I still prefer the best of the Spanish coffees. Back to France which is the topic. Over the years I've seen a lot of ways to make coffee in French restaurants, but lately, I've only seen espresso machines in bars and restaurants. I wonder if anyone uses a presspot commercially. I suspect they're used in homes a lot. I think hotels use drip for breakfast coffee, but I'm not sure about that. I very rarely drink coffee with milk. To depart once again, purely for educational reasons I have tried my wife's coffee (con leche) in Spain where coffee in the afternoon comes with milk unless ordered black (actually cafe solo) as opposed to France and Italy where it's served without milk unless you ask for it. In Galicia, I found the cafe con leche to be exceptionally good. In France, you can specify café au lait or café crème, (with milk or cream) but you will get whatever they normally serve and the milk will be steamed and sometimes frothy. Don't expect it will be milk or cream as ordered. The terms are interchangeable as far as cafes are concerned. For what it's worth, noisette will get you a cup of espresso with just enough milk to stain it nut color -- macchiato(?) in Italian. Of course all of that refers to the run of the mill coffee. I'm sure there are specialty shops, but I haven't checked them out. More often than not, I prefer to have my breakfast at a bar than in my hotel, simply because it takes less time, it gets me out into the streets earlier and I'm not tempted to stuff myself at a buffet table (if it's a swanky hotel). Once I recall preferring the Bar Brazza from all other cafes and bars near our hotel. Later I realized this was a chain. Not the best coffee in the world, but better than average for Paris, in my humble opinion. I love a good espresso, but it's never been central to my Parisian experiences. Other opinions may be more astute in this area and I'd like to hear if anyone has seen presspots in restaurants or other establishments -- not including presspots for sale for home use.

We're lucky that John was able to show us photographs of that too, but as a city boy myself, I have to say that visiting the Mercat de la Boqueria in Barcelona in the fall with all that plummage of the freshly killed feathered game, was a beautiful sight to behold. The same could be said for the fur on the hooks. I don't know that it actually made anything more, or less, appetizing, but it added a dimension to my food experience.

I passed by DeMarco's the other day thinking about stopping in for a slice, but the chairs were up on the tables in the restaurant and there were guys working on the place in the slice and kitchen section. There was also a sign in the window looking for help -- waiters, pizza maker, etc. No pizza for sale. What gives? It almost looks as if it's changing hands.

. . . a government funded group looking into developments in food. ← Inicon thread and link to the government funded group.

Is he older than McGee or does his interest in food and publication on the subject predate that of McGee's?

Sable fish is known as black cod, at least up around British Columbia. I was surprised to see it labled as such in a stall in the market in Vancouver and later we had the opportunity to have fresh black cod in a Hunan Restuarant in Victoria. The fresh black cod was sensational and certainly high on my list of favorite fish dishes and Chinese dishes. Cod actually seems too plebian a name.

The cream cheese at Russ & Daughters has no gum in it and thus has a different and therefore more natural consistency, which I like. Some may prefer the speadability of the more familiar supermarket brand(s). It may be my imagination, but it seems to have different taste to it, but that might also be mouth feel. My favorite at Russ & Daughters is the sable. After that the smoked salmon -- most of them. As a kid in NY, I used to love the smoked carp which was not unlike sable, but not nearly as rich nor as succulent a texture. I like the whitefish as well and the herring in sour cream sauce is also a favorite around this house. Katz's pastrami is a treat. I don't know that the salami or franks are all that special although I'm sure they're good. Russ & Daughters has more of an old time NY feel to it for me than Katz's. I think that it's because it seems as if the guys behind the counter have more of an interest in what they're doing. At Katz's, there's more detatchment, to put it politely. Still, I've not found anyone rude to me.

I wonder how often waiters can be trusted and how far to trust them even when they can be trusted. In a certain kind of restaurant, I have implicit faith in whatever a waiter tells me. In others I regard every word with suspicion. in between there are those places and those waiters like to appear more informed than they really are. Even in the better places, I've had waiters tell me things about what's on the menu that I know to be questionable or just plain untrue. In some cases it's ignorance or pretension. In others it's just that they know a little and have stretched it too far.

Let respond with my fresh opinion, which is not to say I disagree with anything posted so far, except to say I don't believe truffles preserved in a jar are absolutely worthless, although they may not give a convincing picture of what you've been missing and they're probably not well suited to your intended use. I'd also question whether you'll get enough truffle, preserved or fresh, for $14 to shave over pasta.The first issue is quality. I have had fresh truffles that had no taste -- well perhaps the taste of dirty potato or stale bread. It's important to know the provenance, or origin of the raw truffle. When it comes to a jarred truffle, I'd buy only from a very reputable company. Bear in mind that I don't have a hell of a lot of experience eating truffles and even less cooking with them, they are very expensive and even more so this year it seems, but I have enjoyed them from time to time, mostly at the hands of those who know better how to buy and handle them. My one fiasco was ordering an inexpensive truffle menu without reading the find print on the menu. Truffles from the Himalayas or any part of China are known to have little if any flavor. Pungent fresh truffles, both black and white, are a joy. Truffles from jars are perhaps best used in flavoring a sauce. Black truffles in a jar, whether from the Perigord or Provence, are good for making a wonderful sauce perigourdine. Babette, in Babette's Feast made a quail (stuffed with foie gras) in pastry shell with such a sauce. The first time I recall having such a sauce was in a small restaurant or bistro in Paris specializing in for of the Perigord region. I had stuffed goose neck (really just a rich sausage with goose liver using the goose neck skin as a casing) with truffles in the sauce. It was not expensive and not even a big splurge for a young man. Those were the days. If I recall correctly, sauce perigourdine is little more than diced or minced truffles in a reduced demi-glace with Madeira. Starting with a good rich home made stock will do more for the final sauce than the addition of the truffles. I don't know what one might do with preserved white truffles. I don't know if I've even seen them. Fresh is what I'd want over pasta or where they're used as a prime ingredient of a dish.

The perqs, which I thought were rather cheesey, were a turn off. Why would I be thrilled to have my name appear on their web site.

Allow me to add my name to the list of those who find no use for dried basil and therefore no reason to dry it. It's quite flavorless and at best, adds nothing to a dish. Oregano, on the other hand, may be more pungent dried than fresh, but that may be a matter of the variety or quality of the oreganon we grew. That's all pretty much redundent opinion here. I really wanted to comment on how times change all over in regard to the gift of herbs from a merchant. Years ago when we first started shopping in Chinatown in NYC, fish merchants would usually throw in a scallion (green onion) and a slice of ginger with every fish. I can't recall the last time that's happened.

Precisely. And if he's not going to bother to explain why, I'm hardly going to bother to care about his opinions. ← Perhaps, but all we got to read was Steinberger's reaction to what he read. We don't know exactly what Simon said in his original article, which presumably was published in France, in French.

But we all "know" what Chinese food is. Okay, I agree, but what's most interesting about all this to me is that French cooking is hardly a monolith either. In fact the differences between eating in Paris, Lyon and Nice may be greater than between NY, Chicago and LA, and those three French cites have main stream French food. There are strong specialties in each region as well as an almost absolute absence of may foods Americans may think of as French. I recall an American in Provence expressing some surprise that duck wasn't on any of the menus. I'm sorry Simon was disappointed, but we really don't have a lot of insight as to why he was disappointed.

Those are them. Percebes, I mean.

And the potential probably increases the further we get from the article, although I suppose it might prove interesting not so much to back off the article as to read Simon's original work intact.Part of the problem is that we've had parts of the discussion about food in American vs. food in France in various guises and various forums that we may be talked out without a new and strong focus to the conversation.

It's certainly a handsome looking enough place to get by on good quality oysters and bulots. It's interesting, that it seems to offer up a simple enough not earth shaking menu -- one aimed at local and traditional tastes -- yet it's easy to spot the dishes and terms one wouldn't have found in its earlier heyday. Plancha from Spain, seaweed tempura and épinards au wok show the discrete signs of contemporary influence. It's a very comforting sounding menu if the food is well cooked and one that positively reeks of being in Paris. There's not a dish I wouldn't enjoy having right down to the (mostly) old fashioned desserts. One question. Are "pouces-pieds" goose barnacles, or what are known as percebes in Spain? They've gotten outrageously expensive in Spain and can't be any cheaper in Paris.

I think it's possible to reject the whole concept of 2 or 3 star standards along with Parisian pricing and still like food, but unfortunately those are the prices if one is attracted to that kind of meal. I am. It's why I found l'Atelier de Joël Robuchon as attractive as I did. The food is superbly crafted. At least what we tasted was of the highest quality I could expect at a multistarred restaurant. That a full blown tasting menu allowing me even just a taste of the food at less than 100€ seemed, if not a bargain, outside the range of questioning value. The calendar I get from a merchant with it's lovely photographs or reproductions of Norman Rockwell paintings can be hung on the wall and looked at as long as I want. Twenty dollars to enter the new Museum of Modern Art in NY will not allow me to walk away with anything to cover the crack in my wall or provide any tangible good. I found Robuchon's food spiritually satisfying. We were sated when we left, although even if I had been hungry, I'd have still enjoyed the experience. It's not unlike a Kaiseki dinner in Japan, which could have cost far more and which I'm not likely to appreciate fully. I don't fully understand why one stamp collector is willing to pay so much more money for one particularly rare stamp over another that's far more attractive, but I understand that the rarity of the stamp has something to do with it. The food at Robuchon is of a very rare quality. We all have our vices.

No difference, restauarant or retail. If they were hunted, they need to be imported, not shot in the US. ← The question in some people's mind is whether they still have to be hunted an an USDA approved slaughterhouse -- sort of like Iberico ham can only be imported if the pigs were killed in a USDA inspected slaughterhouse.

Absolutely. If you're staying at a hotel, the concierge is available by mail, phone, fax and probably e-mail to make arrangements in advance for the time you will be staying at the hotel.

Just in case anyone is looking for erizos in Madrid, here are nine suggestions from Metropoli as reported in Rogelio's DIGEST this week.

So, let me see if I understand what you're saying... "It's easier to judge the whole country if you don't judge the whole country."? ← Victor's full statement was He didn't claim to be judging the whole country. If you can make a good case that you won't find the best unless you visit Cleveland, Boise and Honolulu, that's another story. Again, he didn't say the best was only to be found in a small number of cities, only that one could monitor the best in those cities. There have been a number of falsely attributed statements in this thread so far. How many are qualified to offer an overview of even the best in this large country? How many of those are European. Possibly very few. As misinformed as you may feel Simon was, or is, I've read far accounts about France and other countries in US publications, that seemed to come from writers no better informed about France. On the whole, it's been my experience that the French tend to denigrate American food and restaurants and that the Spanish tend to overrate our creativity and minimize the lack of attention to detail and technique. Those of course, are generalities and I've posted stories of exceptions. The better French chefs tend to speak well of American tastes, but then again the Americans they meet are the ones who come to their restaurants. A little knowledge is a risky thing on which to base an opinion, but most of us feel the need to have an opinion. The real story here is not whether Simon was right or wrong, but what did he find and why did he miss what he missed. I'm adding this to my original interest in knowing what he expected to find and the nature of his disappointment. The one thing I've found is that when traveling to one country from another, if you're coming from a country where you like the food and especially if it's the food on which you were raised, or at least educated your palate, it sometimes takes a while to acclimate your tastebuds to another esthetic. Edit for spelling the spellchecker missed.

I realize I'm not the "you" who is being addressed here, but you raise an interesting point. While a foreign visitor, or at least an astute one with an educated gastronomic perspective, brings an important point of view we need to hear, he also brings a certain lack of familiarity. There's an asset and a deficit that's going to be apparent and we need to make the best of his points. The visiting critic's judgment should be taken with a grain of salt, but it's far less interesting anyway, than the points he may raise in defending his judgment. Many of us, Europeans and Americans alike, don't deal well with the enormity of this country and its diversity. The industrialization that's that's been more intense and occurred earlier here has had it's effects on the appearances of regional cuisines and on what people eat. Our pioneering of industrial packaged food and packaged restaurants, our food appears indiscriminately bland across the country. Those who speak of the revolution of American cuisine seem to imply we're on an uphill march since the country was founded. It's not true. Most of the twentieth century was probably spent destroying our culinary heritage with the saving grace of immigrant cultures bringing ties to cooking rather than opening cans and boxes. What's happened in France is not so different. It's just that they industrialized food much later. They've imported our McDo, and they have their own franchised restaurants which are getting harder to avoid not only on the highway, but in the centers of their historic towns. Their three star chefs are their heros and get great media coverage. To assume that represents a national interest in eating well, would require a similar assumption that since our basket ball players get that kind of press here, we're a nation of physically fit athletes. Eating well in France is a spectator sport, not an activity universally practiced by the majority. Perhaps it's a poor analogy, but the French public is interesting the news of how their chefs score, but far less so in how they cook. Back to the subject of our size and diversity, even with its gloss of franchised restaurants, my guess is that I doubt I'm all that unique in being a New Yorker who's far more able to speak more knowledgeably about French or Spanish gastronomy than I am about food and dining in New England, the deep south, the southwest or most of California. It may be as easy to make sweeping generalizations about Europe as about the US, but it's hard to paint a narrow knowledgeable view of either.

Daniel's web site lists Scottish Pheasant Terrine as an appetizer and Roasted Scottish Partridge as a main course. Neither says it's wild or hunted, but the venison is listed as Roasted Milbrook Farm Venison Loin. I believe both partridge and pheasant are farm raised as game birds, as well as hunted in the wild. Scottish Partridge at ADNY at the Essex House as well.

I know of two restaurants in NYC that served it, although it might not appear on the menu of either. I've been served Scottish Grouse and told to look out for the shot. Either it was wild or they were pulling my leg about the pellets. I believe the grouse was listed on the menu. The woodcock might not appear even if it was legal as the restaurant might not get enough to meet demand.

I've designed a couple of restaurant web sites in what I now consider the early days, although they were not that long ago. Both are no longer being used for different reasons. To be honest, I wasn't overly concerned about how they looked and spent most of my time and energy trying to get as much information across from the owner to the browser whoever he might be. Information and getting to that information is what I've been intersted in when I use a restaurant site. I used to use them a lot. I use them less now than ever because they take longer to load and I can't find the information I want and when I find it, it's out of date. Some of the worst offenders are the creative Spanish nueva cocina restaurants where address, phone number and menus seem to be an afterthought.