Bux

Definitely from the Basque country and entitled to an A.O.C Espelette is a small village in the center of the area of production. I find it has a flavor that is unique and one can certainly taste it if you use enough perhaps. We bought some in the Basque country, but that was sometime ago and in fact, the small jar we are using may have been a gift from someone returning from the region. The heat of the pepper is far milder than that of chili peppers or cayenne which allows some of the fruitiness of ripe pepper to come through, unless that's my imagination. My little 50 gram jar came from Pascal Massonde in Souraïde, tel. 05 59 93 90 30. There's not much left.

Perhaps there's a semantic gap here. A "really" great place may not necessarily be "truly" great. I said, it was my favorite restaurant. She said, the credentialled foodies she sent there thought the food was heavy and greasy. We're on dangerous ground when we assume matched flatware is "better." When Camdeborde and his confreres left a two star environment they decided there was a better way to go than up and they ran the bistros that were wispered about in the three star restaurants. In the early days of la Régalade, if you were eating at Guy Savoy and the sommelier thought you knew something about food, he just might whisper something about La Régalade to you. Another point is that the residents of the outer arrondissements of Paris won't support the prices one needs to charge for better decor or service. A restaurant in the far end of the 14th arr. has to move to get "better." I'd also suggest that at its best, la Régalade could not improve it's food, it could only make if fancier and serve rarer ingredients to justify a price increase. A full restaurant can only experience extra business by turning tables anyway.

Louisa, glad to hear you're ensconced at El Bulli. Hope it's the experience I should think it would be. We were thinking of you last week when we were in Paris. David, I sort of understand your desire to enjoy your wines in Barcelona, but when I travel, I always enjoy drinking the local wines, although it appears that so many restaurants these days are so international in style and cuisine that the effect is somewhat lost. I've recommended Can Majo for simple traditional seafood several times. I suspect Ca L'Isidre also qualifies as traditional. L'Olivé, if I recall correctly, had a menu that bridged both new and traditional cuisine. If you have a car, and I assume that's how you are traveling north and then west, you might consider Hispania in Arenys del Mar. It's considered a preserve of traditional Catalan cooking and I've yet to hear a negative report outside of the fact that they screwed up on our reservations when we changed the date, but they managed to find us a table and feed us well. Their very extensive menu makes it very hard to make up one's mind and order however. There are so many first rate restaurants in Catalunya. The trick is to weed it down to suit the time you have in the region. Eating well north of Barcelona has left us with not enough time or appetite to eat well often in Barcelona. Luck and connections will sometimes get you a table in El Bulli. We had met Alberto Adria in Paris and pulled other strings. It got us a table, but outside the time we planned to be in the area. We changed our entire itinerary to accommodate the offer. We were happy to do so, but had we visited Catalunya and just visited Can Roca and Can Fabes we would have been in no position to be disappointed. I'm not sure when one should write, call, fax or e-mail for a reservation at El Bulli. I don't think they've set a consistent date for opening the books, but I believe they sold out the season the day they opened the reservations this year. It's only recently that they've stopped serving lunch and that coupled with the rise in demand has made it even more difficult to ensure a table. Anyway, I think I'm repeating not only what's been said by others, but what I've said.

Right. Our daughter seems to have grown up with friends whose mothers had similar theories. One believed we had a separate stomach for dessert so it didn't matter how much you ate for dinner, there was always the dessert stomach for the dessert. Another professed the belief that ice cream trickled between bits of food in your stomach and filled in the cracks. I think my daughter picked her friends much as we pick our places to visit. I'm not surprised.

Allow me to start with a smile as this comes hard on the heels of my replying in two threads on the pros and cons of recommending one's favorite restaurants. Menton's reply is quite valid in many ways. Choosing the proper restaurant is a highly specialized task. I vacillate on the subject, but at the moment I'm convinced that the universal recommendations made in the general tourist guide books suit no one in particular and that the restaurants named are usually ruined within months of publication. In a way I'm saying that the most recommended restaurants are the ones often best avoided. I'm also saying that given the love and interest of food I sense in your description of your friends, these are the same restaurants I'd recommend. Among the things I vacillate about are whether or not everyone should eat at a three star restaurant at least once in their life. Oddly enough when I espouse this position, it's generally because I don't want to sound like a snob. Deep down in my core, I suspect I harbor a belief that no one should eat in a three star restaurant unless they know exactly why they picked that one and only after they've got the dining experience to appreciate the schtick of a three star restaurant. I feel the same way about stepping into a professional prize fighting ring. Those who do, generally find it a rewarding experience as long as they're fully prepared. For the rest, it might not be worth the money. Of course the money flows in a different direction, but there's a relationship. According to legend, one very well trained epicure took seven visits to understand and appreciate the food at a particular three star restaurant in Paris. Is your friend prepared to do the research or is he willing to part with the money in order to have just had the experience.? Let me quote from another thread. There is so much literature on eating and dining in Paris and so much of it is written and published in English that there's no excuse for even a first time visitor to approach the subject uninformed unless it's really not a serious concern. When I first visited Paris there as only one way to eat and all one had to do is choose one's price point. Even "ethnic" restaurants generally followed the formal French standards of a meal. Today the range of possibilities has blossomed. There are restaurants of all types. Even the "French" restaurants no longer take a rigid form and there's no reason for anyone to eat in the wrong place. As Menton suggests, we have no way of knowing what will please your friends and all we can offer is our choices. In doing so, we may be sending the wrong person to our places and depriving the right person of a table as well as not really serving your friends. As Menton also suggests, many good suggestions have already been made in these pages and we've probably already answered this question better the first time it was asked than we are likely to again.

I know your machon as well by the way, it's very ordinary and quite special. Now I just hope we don't have some casual reader of this thread looking for a good ardoise and wondering if it's better braised or poached. It was the florid script that was so hard to decipher on those purple menus. In fact, dishes I learned to recognize in the handwritten form were unrecognizable in print to me. You bring back fond memories of old times.

One has to develop priorities in life. I'm fond of telling a story about the time we were taking a night train across Switzerland and had to make a change in some forsaken location at an ungodly hour of the morning. Fearing I'd fall back asleep and miss the stop, I stood in the corridor of the comparmentalized trains the predate TGV like trains. A young Swiss student approached and asked a question in German. I replied that I didn't speak German and she asked if Zug was the next stop in perfect Englilsh. Language has always been my weak suit and I'm impressed by people who are fluently multilingual, as opposed to Mrs. B who I claim is the opposite having the ability to speak French, English, Spanish and Italian in a single sentence if need be to communicate her thoughts. The young woman was changing trains with us and also headed for Zurich. There at the bar counter she overheard my ordering coffees with and without milk, and various breakfast items. She turned to Mrs. B and said that she thought I didn't speak German. My wife replied to the effect that I was very fluent in many languages when I was hungry. Early in our travels, I came to the conclusion that there were no bad travel days if they all ended with a good dinner. I'll miss trains and arrive at importan museums on the day they're closed with fond memories and amusing stories if dinner is rewarding. On the other hand, if we really eat poorly for dinner, Mrs. B will avoid me the next day. The answer to John's question about being tough on those who can't order in Franch is "yes." It's hard to justify my unfairness in attitude on this matter, but I think I've said a few words on that in a parallel thread that we've probably left too long to merge.

When I speak in generalities, of course I'm not talking about 100% of the people in any group and visitors to Paris can be divided into any number of groups with each of the groups large enough to have an effect on local business. At one end we have the first time tourist who never returns, or who visits on their honeymoon and then twenty years later. At the other end, we have the regular visitor who's in Paris at least once a year for a week and maybe more often or for a longer stay. The one in a life time visitor makes up a large enough group to have the effect I speak of at its worst. Although a few of the Americans who sat within ear shot of us in restaurants in Paris last week spoke French to a small degree at least, none gave the appearance of being very familiar with French food and customs outside of perhaps Robuchon, where it seemed diners had done their homework. Not so at Benoit where shockingly to me, who was brought to think of France as the world capital of culture and refinement and who in early adulthood learned to think of as the center of civilised wining and dining, well heeled sexagenarian Americans were as at sea about ordering as I might be in outer Mongolia (if you haven't ever read Ellen Shapiro's account of her trip there, you should.) Most perplexing were the discussions about wine that attempted to show some knowledge, but were really rather meaningless, at least from my view. "Was the Chablis more "sec" than the "Pouilly-Fumé?" I rather preferred the less captain-of-industry approach of younger tourists who just put themselves in the hands of the waiter or sommelier.

Let me go into this a bit further than margaret has. I suspect Chef Shogun is not familiar with eating in Paris. France, I have read, is the number one tourist destination in the world and most of the people who visit France never leave Paris. Paris must have more hotels than any city in the world and the highest density of hotels outside Las Vegas. We're not talking about a couple of extra covers. We're talking about droves of people looking for dinner. On the other hand, Parisians probably eat out much more often than Americans in any of our cities. It's far less common for Parisians to hold a dinner party at home than it is for Americans and far more common to eat out with friends, or alone. A neighborhood restaurant that's a good buy can easily live off the local traffic. There's a limit to the number of people a restaurant can feed well on a given night. A neighborhood bistro will function best when it's full of locals who know and understand the food and the quality will remain high when they're dependent on a clientele who both knows food and is prepared to eat there on a very regular basis.The one common element between all restaurants is that they are a business and profit driven. They go out of business if they don't make a profit and the urge to cut a corner or increase prices is always there even in the best of kitchens. A good review brings tourists. the tourists make reservations in a restaurant that's normally full anyway and the locals start looking for another place to eat because they can't get in. The tourist crowd varies, but at its most damaging, it is not ready to order or eat what's on the menu. Waiters need to explain the dishes and sometimes to translate the menu. Service bogs down or the restaurant needs to hire anther waiter and pay a salary. Diners are disappointed with unfamiliar food and return perfectly cooked dishes because they didn't realize they were ordering raw fish, or blood and guts. Service takes another turn south and the restaurant has to cut more corners or raise prices to compensate. The tourists keep on coming with tear sheets from last season's glossy magazines in their pocket. More locals leave for various reasons. Final a new set of magazine articles appears in a year or two and tourists move on. The restaurant sits half empty and the locals walk by remembering how bad it was when it was full and assume it must be worse today.

This thread is being closed. Please post to the earlier thread Beard Foundation: Cooks Books.

Some sort of chocolate or baked goods after dessert and with the coffee is not uncommon in a better joint. In seriously fine way upscale places, you can get a heart stopping array of goodies. It's a custom I associate with French restaurants but it's spread as American restaurant cooking has become more sophisticated and chefs and restaurateurs show a greater interst in making a fine meal more of an experience, but even in a little family Italian-American restaurant you might get a cookie with coffee. In France it's the custom in many cafes to offer a piece of chocolate with your espresso or cafe au lait. In the US, I suppose this sort of thing may be common in some areas and not seen at all in others. Are you referring to the custom of a treat with coffee or to the "chocolate-covered licorice lentils" in particular.

John, we agree that there are very few secret restaurants. Too many people report on Paris for a living for a restaurant to escape notice. I keep harping on the fact that it must be the best covered restaurant scene in the world. I don't really understand how clueless people can be about French food and I'm always surprised by how many well dressed properous people our age are at sea in a Parisian restaurant and really not on a wave length that makes helping them easy. In Benoit, while we were able to make some suggestions and describe what we were eating to the folks next to us, they soon found a foursome that was more of their social and economic persuasion and had more fun sharing their amusement than in anything else. Maybe I'll get to expound on the Benoit thread. For the record, we did not eat at l'Ami Jean. It was another younger couple who are far more opinionated as well as professionals. They liked it a lot.

The beauty of the English language is in it's poetic application not in the writing of treaties where things are clearly understood. In English, words usually meant whatever their speaker wants them to mean. I think Tony's use of the word in that post implies it's a dish he identifies with the chef because it's unique and because the excecution is unique. The one thing we know is that he finds the stamp of the maker in the dish. While there is no copyright protection for the results of a recipe, there's nothing stopping a chef from claiming a dish is his signature or from others ascribing a dish to a chef and indentifying him with the dish, or the dish with him. Many an amateur chef might well claim his signature dish was one he has learned to cook perfectly, even if it's from some cookbook. If it's one he serves well and often to first time guest or repeated guests, it can said to be his signature. Why not? The interesting thing about a Chef such as Daniel Boulud is that not only is he willing to credit another chef for the inspiration of his signature dish, but that after he left le Cirque, they continued to serve his recipes as their signature dishes. On the other hand, there is the moral indigantion of the public and the press when one chef copies another's early recipe and says he developed it. The question here might be, "do you want to eat the original version of a dish or the best version if another chef has perfected the recipe beyond that of the original chef?"

Chez Philippe in Marseillan recently changed hands. I was pleased, if not excited by my previous visit, but returned last week to the new place and although it was okay value, it was hardly worth the drive from Pezanas at any price. We actually had reservations at Caladoc in Agde, or so our friends said, but it was closed when we arrived and the people at the hotel to which it is attached could offer no more clue than the sign that offered its closing days. The day were there was not one of the posted closing days. Our friends didn't have high hopes for Ches Philippe, but by this time we just wanted to eat somewhere. Beziers might have been a better choice if it had been made earlier.

Thanks Pierre. I was thinking this deserved a separate topic while I was posting in the Régalade thread and my post there was obviously prompted by the conversation we had. It should be clear from what I've already said on the subject, that I have mixed feelings. I feel I can both substantiate and oppose your claims depending on the examples I choose. The food deteriorates not so much because the tourists are not fussy as much as because they're not a repeat customer on an individual basis. A week later they're gone from the scene and can't return no matter who much or how little they enjoyed their meal. Moreover a good enough review in a magazine or guide will assure a steady flow of potential diners for at least a year from the one good meal the reviewer had, no matter how much the quality drops. In a way that's the advantage of an online discussion over a printed review. Regarding Aux Lyonnais, even the online reviews I read spoke of the ex-chef and only eGullet offered an up to date view. Oddly enough we went anyway and were relatively pleased. By and large the ingredients were still first rate and the care in cooking was on par with what we experienced last time with but one exception--the potatoes with my liver were reheated and rubbery. That's unacceptable, but with one element in various savory dishes ordered by five diners at lunch, it's hardly a complete failure especially when we threw the kitchen off by taking the baby out for walks in turn until he went to sleep. My daughter was very uptight about anyone hearing him whimper in a restaurant. The boudin noir was canned I believe, but it was the Iparla brand which I also believe is made by Christian Parra in the Basque region and possibly second to none. The rustic fare left most of my tablemates too full for dessert but my peach Melba and a companion's classic souffle were on the money. I don't believe that all in all, we found better value in Paris. If we did, it was at l'Atelier de Robuchon. La Régalade seems to be returning according to reports here and that's another part of the story. Restaurants have lives and cycles that are shorter today than they used to be. They also go out of fashion with the tourists. I too don't know the answer, but it's obvious that no restaurant in Paris hides under a rock and any restaurant of quality will find itself in a guide or reviewed in a magazine in fairly short order. The odds are that a reference on eGullet will likely bring a better class of tourist anyway. The trick, I think is to bury the good reviews among the more abstract discussions that will not interest the average tourist and discourage them from finding those reviews. The question is how to answer those innocents who post that they are going to Paris and the Riviera for the first time and want to know where to eat. As a host, I'm reluctant to be inhospitable, but I genuinely understand the silence of others and I generally answer a question with a question in such instances trying to draw out their interests while encouraging them to read the site for all they can learn. I will rarely offer up my hidden choices off the bat.

People often rhapsodize with nostalgia for something they only think they've experienced. I love to read about that France Profond which for me means a black and white image from no later than the middle of the 20th century or at least an experience that conjures up a time and place unaffected by the 21st century, but I was stopped dead in my tracks and displaced by the "touching" as if someone described the joy of being in Paris and observing and touching the young women. The look on the vendeuse's face would not, I imagine, be much less aghast were I to touch her inappropriately rather than the bread. To a large degree France is no longer the country of its legends. Small town and village centers have died and been replaced by the hypermarché for better or worse, or perhaps for better and worse. The pace of life outside Paris and other large cities is governed by the car as often as not. I do see people conversing with the bakers when we shop for bread, but I've never seen the bakery, either boulangerie, patisserie, or combination in a small town, as the agora where people converse with their friends and neighbors. We've not had any comments on how to make a sandwich or slice a tarte, although we've had advice on how to cook a chicken at the butcher's. Americans in France may not be the best barometer of success for any endeavor, we tend to have too great a relationship with either the romance of being in France, or with quality. Convenience may rule the day for many natives.

Maybe they'll bake up a big batch before they close and we'll have them forever, which is about half the shelf life of a twinkie. I suspect it's the sugar that keep the preservatives alive.

Why small towns if it comes to that? There is no shortage of really mediocre take out joints offering bad Chinese take out food in parts of New York City. I think he was just trying to extend a range and looking for a place few people would suspect an Ethnic Chinese community and a place distant from NYC in both geography and culture. He could easily have said Kansas, Nebraska or North Dakota.

I'd bet that db bistro would arrange a tasting menu if you called in advance and asked. I'm absolutely sure that Cafe Boulud can arrange a tasting menu. Perhaps I should ask how many courses you're considering before I say absolutely about anything. I'm sure Cafe Boulud could do three savory courses and a couple of desserts without batting an eye. It may not appear on the menu and they may only offer it to regulars, but I'm still willing to wager that if you call in advance they'd accommodate you. I think the five course tasting menu at Daniel is around $120 and Daniel has always offered tasting menus, it's just that they make them up for the table and tailor them to your tastes, so it's never a posted menu. Cafe Boulud was the restaurant that first came to my mind on reading your post and the more I read, the more certain I was it's a good choice and my first suggestion. If you're willing to do fish, I'd offer Oceana as another fine choice. I think the regular three course menu is $72. I don't know the price of the tasting menu, but in general the atmosphere is a bit more relaxed then le Bernardin, not that I find le Bernardin stuffy either. If you're willing to go a bit more downscale and downtown, Blue Hill offers three courses and two desserts for around $65--or at least that's what I recall. They will do wine pairing and I think the food is superbly fine. The downscale is really a matter of tighter seating and less dressy crowd rather than a gastronomic downscale.

Indeed worth the journey from further away than Barcelona, but I wouldn't miss the chance to spend a day in Girona as well. Thus I don't think of it as a lunch trip from Barcelona.

I think we may even find the opposite sometimes wherein the chef wishes he could abandon his "signature dish." To depart just a bit from France, although not from French chefs or French cuisine, I'd use Daniel Boulud's "Crisp Paupiette of Sea Bass in a Barolo Sauce," which has also been featured in a Syrah sauce but that's a minor variation. It's oddly a signature dish because first of all, as Daniel notes, the recipe was inspired by the work of another chef. "Paul Bocuse's Rouget en Écailles de Pomme de Terre inspired this exquisite dish of tender fish fillets wrapped in a crisp crust of sliced potatoes," says Daniel. More interesting in terms of this discussion is that I've read of Daniel complaining in a newspaper article about wanting to take the dish off the menu because he's tired of serving it and his staff is tired of cooking it, but that his customers demand it be available. Of course I would imagine this is a "complaint" most chefs would love to make and he was not so much complaining to the press as he was bragging about his accomplishment, but I think he's correct in that cooking has moved beyond mere craft. Chefs and cusiniers today, look to make their daily work more intellectually stimulating and long to vary what they produce. The dish was originally created for le Cirque and Barolo was used in honor of the Italian owner at le Cirque. That may be why I've also seen it served with Syrah sauce in honor of Daniel's own Lyonnais roots. My guess is that chefs of a certain age don't look to alter their signature dish looking to Escoffier's classic codification of cuisine, while younger chefs look to create new dishes every year, if not more often. Their role models may be the artist in his studio or perhaps the fashion designer. If may seem to a older diner as if we're experiencing the sort of forced obsoletion we see in the manufacture of automobiles and appliances. Patrons don't go back to a three star restaurant for the meal they enjoyed last year, but to taste the new models, although the restrospective Adria gave himself at El Bulli a couple of years ago might point more to the painter or sculptor as role model. A chef has almost no rights to his culinary creations other than to copyright the exact text of his recipe. Alter the wording of the recipe without changing the preparation and you're safe. While you can't legally display a photograph of the original chef's dish to advertise your restaurant, you can serve as indentical a preparation as you can achieve. Troisgros' salmon with sorrel sauce was a classic served in many French restaurants. André Daugain's magret de canard has become a staple of restaurants across Europe and the US. He was the first to serve duck breast cooked rare as a steak, but it's been adopted and adapted by almost every chef in the world. Few chefs even bother to honor the chef who inspired their adaptation.

In my opinion that's an excellent location from which to see Barcelona. There are many who prefer the gothic quarter, but I prefer your location and you're just minutes from the gothic quarter. My preference is to be just a few blocks north of the placa de Catalunya around the rambla de Catalunya and it seems you are right there. You will certainly not need or want a car while you are in Barcelona unless you want to make a day trip outside the city and I'm not sure even that would be better made by public transportation. Lunch at Can Fabes or Sant Pau would be two top shelf dining destinations that I believe are accessible by train. For inexpensive restaurants I've mentioned Can Majo before and I believe L'Olive was inexpensive and not far from where you are staying. Personally, I would not miss Jordi's Cinc Sentits having followed its creation here, but Barcelona has too many good restaurants to cover in a short stay.

Before there were signature dishes about which to wonder if they passed the test of time, there were classic dishes which at one time seemed timeless. Coq au Vin might well be a featured dish in a multistarred restaurant at one time.

Pedro's correct. My reaction was really a knee jerk reaction to eating small dishes at bars in other parts of the world and the sense I carry with me that this can be unexpectedly expensive. For instance the three tapas we had at Aloña Berri together, would have been the equivalent of a decent appetizer at a fine restaurant in France, where they would have cost much more.

As apparently they've been running it almost fifteen years, I'd expect no immediate changes. The Flo web site doesn't distinguish between ownership or management. It's quite a chain. There are 16 brasseries listed in seven cities including one outside of France--in Barcelona. I still maintain they're a decent place to eat a certain kind of food and I'm delighted to learn they offer a 20% discount on a meal if you reserve your table online. I would have eaten there last week if I had known that. Le Vaudeville was on our short list for two occasions. It's not exactly Olive Garden even if it's a chain. I don't really have much to say about the cooking. I think of it in terms of standards, oysters, raw bar, steak frites and andouillette.