Bux

I often wonder how much cross border influence there has traditionally been between regions in Spain. It obviously exists as Basque chefs seem to have a wide reputation as the best cooks in Spain. Am I mistaken? Is that only true in Madrid? Do Basque chefs have a reputation in Portugal? Do French chefs have a reputation in Portugal. If so, what is it worth. I suspect French chefs have a large reputation in Kansas, but I doubt people would flock to a restaurant in a small town in Kansas because it had a French chef.

If the "O" ring is providing the seal, we have to assume some contact between wine and rubber. However small that contact, over time I'd worry about how it might affect the taste of the wine. Does anyone know if that's a problem.

Bux, I just went to Gayot.com to see if I could pick up news for the Paris Digest and it struck me the the news was very old. Do you know how often they post it? Thanks. No, I don't. I'm not a regular user of the site. It doesn't look as if there's anything been posted in June. If there has, I couldn't find it. They have a list of Hot 10 Restaurants. I don't think it coincides with Fresh_a's list.

I've never been to Portugal and I'm loathe to make any judgmental calls about the Portuguese. My first trip to Spain was in 1964, but it wasn't until modern times that we became regular visitors. I know quite a few hispanic Americans, but I daresay, their dining habits are no more indicative of Spanish culture than Brazilian is of Portuguese. The one thing that seems clear, in spite of my focus on creative food, is that the Spanish, by and large, are proud that Adria makes the front page of the NY Times, but have little interest in eating his food. There is a great creative streak in the Spanish culture, but it's a streak and not a pervasive quality. The Spanish people are all individuals and one can't assume anything about any particular individual, but in terms of food, creativity, or even variety, doesn't seem to be valued greatly. There doesn't even seem to be that much curiosity. Of course the Spanish may appear multicutural by comparison with the Portuguese, but they aren't when compared to the chauvinist French. I will admit that times may be changing, but if they are, how far behind will the Portuguese be, I wonder.

No one implied they weren't aware of the practice or that they didn't know it went on all the time. What some people said was that there's a domino effect precisely because it goes on all the time. You may not agree with some of the posts here, but that's no excuse to accuse the posters of being ignorant of common practice. That the restaurants will fill their seats or that last minute diners will find open seats is fine, but there are also others whose wives are having birthdays and who would like to make reliable plans in advance. There are three desireable two tops that are being held for another week or two and when they're released someone else may have settled for second choice. One man's gain may be another's loss, but each action we take has reprecussions. You can defend your ethics without being in denial of other people's educated opinions.

I guess if one doesn't dine out a lot, or at least if one has no intention of becoming a regular at a restaurant there's no harm in using fictitious names or cancelling under your own name. The only loss would be that at some of the best restaurants, there's a degree of VIP treatment that comes as early as the second visit in less than a year.

us new yorkers, as a whole, tend to be a whole lot more flexible.. of the four restaurants listed, at least three either over book knowing there will be cancellations That's as much support as Robyn can hope to get, in my opinion. Just the thought that rich may be responsible for my having to cool my heels at the bar is enough to make me find the practice objectionable. The absurdity of rich's post is that at least one of those restaurants reads eGullet. I don't mean to imply that there's a likelihood that at least one has staff who read eGullet, but that a staff member of one of those restaurants has mentioned comments made here about the restaurant. The likelihood is that they all lurk here. It's also pretty much a fact than many restaurants keep reservations and diner information on a computer and there's a great chance one is building a record of one's cancellations.

Does anyone have any idea if Passard's vegetable dishes are entirely vegetarian. The French do have a habit of cooking or finishing off vegetables in stock or preparing them with animal fats. Potatoes cooked in goose fat are superb, but I digress, and in the wrong direction. I ate there less than a year ago, but my menu included a lot of seafood and some fowl. There was a choice from a very interesting selection of vegetable dishes, ten of them in fact, and all appeared to be strictly vegetarian, but appearances can be deceiving. In addition to the choice from the vegetable collection, there was an egg dish and a preset vegetable dish on the tasting menu that I believe were devoid of meat, stock, etc. I know a friend with a servere allergy to fish and seafood ate there recently. He was uninterested in the poultry offerings and just asked the chef to prepare a vegetable course of his choice to match each of the fish courses his companions had chosen. He said it was one of the best meals of his life. Passard's talents do not come cheap however. A simple vegetable dish more suitable to a appetizer than main course runs some 60 euros. My meal may have been the most expensive one I've had in Paris.

I think we'll continue to see a greater variety of restaurants. I think this is true for Spain, France, and American where I have the most familiarity and probably in many other places, particularly in the English speaking world. We'll not only see a variety of restaurants to suit different people's tastes, but to suit each of our own different tastes and different moods. Just as we read different sorts of books and listen to different kinds of music, we have a desire to eat differently when we go out. This may be more true in urban centers than in the rural areas.

From what I read above, one can get a rare steak in France by ordering it bleu, saignant or even à point. All that matters is that your idea of rare matches the taste of the person posting and that you're in the kind of restaurant in which that person is considering when replying. Perhaps a case can best be made that certain kinds of restaurants apply different standards and perhaps different standards to different cuts. It's also possible that certain kinds of restaurants, especially those with a great tourist trade have learned to cook meat more thoroughly when ordered by a tourist. It's my experience that more Americans like their beefsteak rather well done, although those who like it rare, like it very rare. And if Americans have extreme variations in tastes, I've found that's true for the British as well.

It may be far more beneficial to have international contemproary dining experience, than to know first had what restaurants were like two or three decades ago in NY. If the top grade should be based on an absolute, that absolute has to based on the realm of the possible. What chefs are doing today is far beyond what they might have attempted thirty years ago. Tastes change, technology changes, the "absolute" changes, or at least our perception of it changes. Absolute perfection may be a curve.

About the diversity of opinion, there's no accounting for personal taste, but there did seem to be a diversity of opinion regarding things I thought were less subjective. You may or may not like cold ribs, but I think we can agree when they're not warm or fresh off the coals. I suspect the nature of the operation and need to feed so many people so quickly contributed to a greater inconsistency than one might face from any of these pitmasters under more ideal circumstances. I also wonder how much variation you're going to have with these kinds of preparations. In spite of all the organization and technology, there are lots of variables. I had the 17th Street Memphis ribs twice at different times on Saturday without added sauce. For me, these were the highlight of the event, but I'll note that I didn't get to taste the Blue Smoke ribs. The pig snoot just really didn't interest me when I had it. It was an oddity. I'm glad I tried it. I did not like the sauce. I found it cloying and overwhelming. I don't think the smoke flavor should come from the sauce. It should come from the smoked meat. Someone said they didn't taste fresh. I thought they tasted like some prepackaged snack food. The resemblance to chicharrones or pork rinds was unmistakable to me. I'm not much of fan and rather unknowledgeable about BBQ. Greasy ribs with some sweet and sticky sauce has always turned me off, which is why I was surprised at how much I liked the 17th Street ribs. It was also no surprise that during the sauce tasting, the sauces I liked most were the ones that didn't taste like BBQ sauce or at least what's sold as that in bottles in supermarkets. For me, that may have been what put me in the Ed Mitchell camp for pulled pork. The North Carolina style is just so much more to my subjective taste in meat. A sauce that seemed mostly vinegar and spice was find. The sauce on Big Bob Gibson's pulled pork was too sweet and tomatoey. Nevertheless, I liked the rougher pulled but unchopped texture of Gibson's shoulder. I liked the cracklings that were added to the mix on Sunday at Mitchell's and I liked Mitchell's slaw better than Gibson's beans. The ability to compare apples and oranges is purely subjective. By the way, BBQ beans are not my favorite beans, mostly I suppose because I find it all too sweet, but I liked the 17th Street beans better, perhaps because the variety of beans was interesting. I wasn't all that fond of either of the two sauces presented by the brisket guys at Saturday's panel, but K.C. Baron's sauce was at the far end too cloying and that's what made me try The Salt Lick brisket. As others have already mentioned, their brisket was underdone. Their sausages were good though and I enjoyed their sauce well enough on the sausages and less so on the beef brisket, which was rather dry as well as underdone. I might have passed on the sausages, but they were only serving a combo plate while I was there. I guess it was a blessing in disguise. We did a lot better on Sunday than on Saturday because we organized and sent three people to three different lines while another scouted out a spot on the grass and spread a blanket. While we weren't allowed to bring beer into the grass area at any of the entrances, a pass of beer over the fence was a maneuver that seemed to effect a diplomatic solution.

Americans, at least in my experience, habitually overcook liver and kidneys. Maybe times are changing and youger chefs are better and I'm not keeping up, but invariably when I order either, it comes over done, or I over emphasize that I like it on the rare side and the organ mean comes out raw. I should stop ordering both meats unless I know who's in the kitchen in the states. In Paris at Aux Lyonnaise, I ordered liver and started to explain, in French, how I wanted it cooked using steak terms. The waiter looked at me and said, "rosé." I nodded and got the most fantastic piece of calf's liver I can remember and it was perfectly cooked--very pink in the center and the center was a wide swath.

I suppose Fat Guy's got an inside track to Ed Mitchell's. You would have too if you were there last night helping him load up. It's unlikely that's going to buy anyone else entry. The lines vary. Early and late seem to be best. About four or five they ran out of 'cue-pons or stopped selling them because they don't want people on line at six when it's supposed to close. Lines move very quickly unless you get stuck behind a couple of bimbos who can't decide if they want hot, mild or sweet and tangy sauce and need a special plate so they can taste each one separately and then in combinations of twos until they finally walk away with enough a mixture to sauce a dozen portions. If everyone's cooperating, they can serve a half a dozen people in a minute. The vendors are organized and they've all got remarkable production lines in operation, but you still get people staring at eighteen identical portions of the one thing the booth is selling, while they're trying to decide what to order. Get on line before noon, or show up late, but not without tickets, and hope there's food left. The mistake we made was not buying enough tickets. Although I have some left over, we will have to stand on line to buy more tomorrow. It's all do-able, but only with patience and a willingness to make a day of it listening to music and attending a seminar or two. Eat and run is almost impossible. Fat Guy's strategy of going with a group and splitting up to shop and remeeting to eat is a good idea.

Wannabechef must have gotten there just before it got crowded or after the crowd thinned out a bit. They desperately need a change of venue--either a much larger area with more bbq pits, or one that's a lot harder to get to, so the turn out is less. I guess the latter would provide some of sort of survival of the fittest, or at least service of the most dedicated. The crowds were almost unbearable at the peak times. The one thing that made it bearable was the everyone seemed really relaxed and friendly. Either no one in the crowd was a native New Yorker, or the people who showed up are going to ruin our sour reputation after these pitmasters take home their stories. At least we managed to get a bit to eat early and then I had some more later. I think lines were unpredictable. A lot of that had to do with the fact that they were so long at times that people often didn't really know which line they were on. When I first tried to get some pulled shoulder, the line was by far the longest on the block, but when I went back late in the day, there was hardly any line at all in spite of the fact that the two adjacent places had long lines. No one was going to Bob Gibson's only because there wasn't a line to stand on. The music varied. I didn't hear much because after we had some food and beer (boy, I'm really glad no one told me there was a restricted are for beer drinking) we went over to attend the two seminars. I'll say they were interesting and informative, to a guy who doesn't know much about bbq, but hardly as intense as I might have hoped they'd be. Ed Mitchell, behind that drawl and those overalls, was as erudite as any on the panel, maybe more so. Maybe it's just that he lets everyone else speak and when they run dry, he delivers the less than obvious information. It's not surprising to learn he's highly educated. There's a lot of sophistication behind his operation and especially behind his thinking about his operation. His comment about the importance of "quality of product," referring to the raw product he uses, wouldn't have been out of place in an interview with Ducasse, Keller or any of our four star chefs. He uses Neiman Ranch pigs, by the way. Someone else on the panel, mentioned eating the meat of pigs raised in the mountains fed largely on acorns. I thought that was very interesting as hams in Spain are qualified by the diet of the pig. "Bellota" means "acorn" in Spanish and the top quality hams are called bellota because they are fed a diet of only acorns. Our own Will McKinney was on the panel. I had met him last night and hoped to introduce him to other members, but unfortunately I didn't see any we knew, although I suspect eGullet must have been represented in the audience. Will was born in South Carolina but went to school and lives in North Carolina. The first seminar was on North Carolina BBQ. The second seminar--we had a table in the shade and it was easier to stay than leave although it was hard keeping away from that frozen custard that long--was about BBQ sauces and there were six of them distributed for tasting along with a slice of potato bread for dipping. Calvin Trillin and Jeffrey Steingarten were on the panel to guide us. They're both great talkers and like many great wordsmiths, they can keep you enrapt for hours without really saying anything. Maybe it's just that I was more interested in Amy's comments on the sauces. Amy was with Mike Mills' 17th Street Bar & Grill crew from Murphysboro, Illinois. Will invited her over and I reintroduced myself. I had met her earlier as she and my daughter knew each other professionally. Amy probably wasn't there to learn as I was. She could write the book on Memphis BBQ and, I gather, is doing just that. What I learned from that tasting was that I don't much like BBQ sauce, any BBQ on white bread all that much. On the whole however, I like the thinner ones better than the sweet cloying ones or the ones that were supposed to give the meat the smokey taste. More later.

I've never thought of à point as anything approaching rare. Then again my French chef son-in-law thinks I like my meat raw and not cooked to the point where the meat develops full flavor. Then again he loves tartare de boeuf Does rosé apply to doness of steak as it seems to apply to birds (pigeon and duck) and calf's liver? It seems to be a point slightly less rare than rare.

Is that Georges Blanc's place? I haven't been there.

The lobbies and public spaces of the seemingly most exclusive hotels, are the most publicly accessible places in the world. This is something I learned in college--one of the more useful things I learned. The nearest public rest room was no further away than the best hotel around. The better the hotel, the less likely anyone was to offend anyone in the lobby who just might be a guest. In those days, it helped to wear a coat and tie. That's no longer necessary.

Behemoth's suggestion of going shopping is a good one. Rather than seeing it as a way to economize with the added benefit of getting a great travel experience of another sort, I'd characterize it as a great gastronomic travel opportunity with the side benefit of saving money on food. We tend to browse markets, food shops and supermarkets as we travel even when we're not actually shopping. A picnic is unfortunately not as easy to have in Paris as it is in the country side, or maybe even in urban America. Places to picnic in Paris are rarer, but they are there if you look and especially if you're willing to accept less than a full blown picnic and take your dining in small portions that fit in your lap on a park bench. Paris is not a city where people tend to walk around in the streets eating as they do in NY, but there are stalls selling street foods. One habit I enjoyed a lot in my student days in Paris was to buy a luscious pastry and eat it while walking. That sort of thing was probably more frowned on then than it is now, but I didn't care. Eating well has always seemed more important than appearing as a native. The price of a really fine piece of pastry is probably not going to be that cheap, but it's going to be less than the price of a comparable dessert in a restaurant.

Did you write about boosterism before or after you read Bruni's first Diner's Journal? I'm not sure that neighborhood itself isn't Mothra or some other monster, but I think he handled his very positive upbeat, some might say "boosterish" closing well enough and with credibility. I believe you were the one who also mentioned that one could read a lot about Bruni's thoughts and ideas well beyond his opinion about Babbo in the Babbo review. Here again are his reasons why an award of stars might be antithetical to the purpose of a Diner's Journal column and why new restaurants usually don't make good candidates for full reviews. I like his enthusiasm, as I see it in this column, for restaurants. One senses an enthusiasm for the process of developing a restaurant and perhaps even for the inherent risks of dining out. He makes me want to eat there and yet not hold him responsible if I get a lousy meal. It's kind of the essence of a non consumer's report. I like that. That I like that in a reviewer, may mean he's in for a hard time from the public.

I'm not sure a Japanese four star restaurant is inevitable, but it's certainly not unlikely. I wouldn't bet against it. I don't disagree about your view of the reality either, but I think there's probably more than could be said about why the four star candidates have all been French. Of all the western European countries, France is the one that first developed a restaurant cuisine that departed so far from what was cooked in homes. Russ said that "four-star restaurants are a category of restaurants." I think that's true and it's a category that was developed in France and the best examples have remained French for a long time. Per Se is not a French Restaurant, but in terms of the haute cuisine it serves, it could just as well be one.

But Steve, you qualify the "four star" comment by saying "not to your way of thinking" and therein lies the problem with stars. Bruni was very clear in what he thought a four star restaurant should be, but other NY Times reviewers haven't been as clear. Therefore it's impossible to gauge which way their subjectivety slanted. No critic can ever be expected (nor would it make sense) to explain their subjective "star" system in every review. So why not do away with the stars and just give a text review? Let me go back to what a professional culinary journalist posted here: "implicit in the review was an acknowledgement that babbo chose to be a three-star restaurant and was happy with that and god bless'em." When Fat Guy said "my way of thinking," implicit in that comment was that Fat Guy thought like a professional culinary journalist who was familiar with the way NY Times (and to a great extent Michelin) stars have been awarded by various reviewers over the years and have been seen by chefs, restaurant owners and serious diners, versed in dining in great restaurants as well as reading reviews, over the years. I've heard professionals speak of upcoming restaurants by asking if it's going to be a two, three or four, star restaurant. When they ask that question, they're not asking about the food as much as the ambience and when they get to the food, they ask in terms of style more than quality. How many starts a restaurant earns may be a subjective decision on the part of the reviewer. What it's aiming to be, is--to those who understand the lingo of the star system--far more objectively understood. There may have been a discrepency in the stars awarded by the last half dozen Times reviewers, but they all would have understood what Babbo's aims were almost as soon as they entered the door. The problem with the stars may not be as they're awarded, but as they're seen by an audience that hasn't learned their meaning. The subjectivity is great, but not nearly as great as you make it out to be. As I recall the music was not the reason Babbo's limit was three stars, it was emblematic of the reason. Silence would be the most easily recognized clue a restaurant might be aiming for four stars in New York.

Glad to see this place mentioned from time to time. I don't eat there much, but it's been one of the few Chinese restaurants I've enjoyed uptown and I agree that it's been one of the best places in it's price range in the area.

I suppose a thin layer of clear aspic might have done the trick. Although the mold didn't have that glossy finish it might have had in a multi-starred restaurant or in the window of charcuterie where sales appeal would be a different issue, it certainly appeared to be appealing from the photograph. It looked good enough that, had I seen that plate delivered to an adjoining table in a bistro, I might have enquired about it and ordered it. I also happen to like lentil salads. Was that a lettuce or parsley leaf I see sticking out from the font right edge? On a plain plate, a bit of green around the edge would be a nice addition and it occurred to me that a bit of salade might also complement the taste.

It's always nice to know people respect us enough to pay attention to what's posted here--I assume your friend watches us carefully out of respect and not because we have the fascination of a train wreck. That said, and in the hope he's watching us now, I'd like to invite him to join us. I am an avid menu reader at home and when I'm traveling. I'm told many members have a hard time passing a menu posted in a restaurant window without stopping and reading. Here in the states, it's not compulsary to post the menu outside the way it is in France, but many restaurants do. Fresh_a has been touting Alexander Lobrano's column in Where on another thread. I agree that generally speaking, a tourist guide such as Where us usually the last place I'd go for reliable hot tips. I was already intending to take a more more serious view of the Paris edition the next time I'm in Paris. As a publication whose revenue appears to be derived soley from advertisind, I've not been inclined to look too carefully at their recommendations before or elsewhere. Clearly the knowledge that it's distributed at the most expensive hotels in Paris is going to bring more advertising for the effort than continued distribution in budget hotels. Fresh_a, as concierge at one of Paris' top hotels, has a professional reason to stay on top of the news about restaurant openings and changes although I suspect most of his clients are demanding covers at the three star restaurants more than they are asking for news about new bistros. I guess A would be the one who could tell us what his clients want. I arrive in Paris for too short a stay and with too long a list of places in which I already want to eat. Additional recommendations after I arrive just leads to information overload most of the time, although we tend to leave a day free for a spontaneous meal now and then.