John Whiting

There's a classic French tale about a famous chef who entertained the King and amazed him with a very simple dish perfectly cooked. Can someone fill in the gaps in my memory?

I'm relieved to read one of the few echoes of my own less than ecstatic reaction.

How's that again? My own experience only goes back half a century.

I was about to post this and find it already up. Articles like this keep getting longer and longer; who will come out with the first full-length book?

Much the same report comes from Karen Fawcett in Bonjour Paris. EDIT: There's a massive discussion of this topic over on the UK forum, but here in the French forum no one seems to be interested.

Adieu Paris

The details may be over-dramatized, but the Telegraph didn't invent the world bank collapse and the credit crunch. If the Paris restaurant scene miraculously escapes the consequences, it will only be by divine intervention.

Part way through my review you'll find the following: Subsequent reports to me have bourne this out, including a recommendation in the last Pudlo, which prices lunch at only a euro more.

The Guardian was equally enthusiastic last November.

This from today's [London] Daily Telegraph goes well beyond the informal bistro next door, serving food from the same up-market kitchen. What next? Ferran Adria's Bulli-Burgers, side order of foam?

Did it comment on their quality? The lamb curry at La Coupole would have disappointed us if it had come from a cheap London Indian takeaway.EDIT: Whoops! I forgot that I'd already commented on this last August.

One Paris restaurateur was quoted last September as saying that his most faithful customers were the English. That was before the pound plummeted by a quarter against the euro. Come the busy tourist season, how many of them will be returning for what used to be, in comparison with London, its gastronomic bargains? For us golden oldies on a pension, it will be a case of Au Revoir Paris.

Close by is Pain, Vin et Fromage, 3, rue Geoffroy-l’Angevin, 4th, Mº Rambuteau.

The mind boggles.

Last week at Chez l’Ami Jean, their lievre travaillé puis roulé farci, cuit du cochon at 35€ was utterly superb. (I’ve forgotten how to post a photo on eGullet, so click here.) Other aspects of the meal, service and ambience were less satisfactory; I’ll be writing it up.

Some of them are very good indeed, but several years' experience as a judge for the World Cheese Awards has revealed that this number is padded out with a large number of processed cheeses with a multitude of artificial and incompatible flavors. The simple arithmetic can be as misleading as, say, the number of TV channels you can pick up with a satelite dish.

In this instance, I ordered La Coupole's famous lamb curry. I should have known better than to order a curry recipe that had been served unaltered in a Paris restaurant for eighty years. In general, if I were visiting an unfamiliar brasserie whose architecture interested me, I'd stay with food that's difficult to spoil, such as seafood (if they have a big turnover) or choucroute garnie.

Our recent experience (see new listings in page below) would suggest that 30€ for dinner and 20€ for lunch are still reasonable ballpark figures. Of course some charge more and are worth more, but these approximate limits still permit a wide selection. In fact, with the world-wide cost of ingredients and energy going through the roof, I wonder how they do it.

As a category, brasseries are much more to be appreciated for their ambience than for their cuisine. If you order intelligently and don’t expect your palate to have a religious experience, it’s possible to dine pleasurably at any of the Flo Group, that much maligned hierarchy which has saved a number of architectural masterpieces from certain debasement or even destruction. Within the month I’ve had positive experiences at Flo and Au Pied de Cochon, not so good at La Coupole (I ordered unwisely), and less recently, very acceptable at Balzar, Bofinger, and Terminus Nord. Bistrots, brasseries & restaurants parisiens (Editions Ereme 2004) is a vademecum to a treasure trove of interiors so breathtakingly splendid that the simplest lager and choucroute would seem like nectar and ambrosia.

She doesn't do food politics, she says. Which means that ultimately politics will do her.

This press release just arrived from Food4Media. Does foam freeze?

As the Western economy goes belly up, to condemn a good bistro because it is too cheap takes on the complexion of a joke.

Having just returned from two weeks of photographing dishes (and menus) in France at all sorts of restaurants (though with a very small camera and without flash), I too can report that there was never a hint of criticism, either verbally or with body language, either from staff or fellow-diners. And occasionally it led to cordial conversation. The fact that so many new cameras have a dedicated "food" mode says something in itself.

Simple traditional dishes have variety built into them by the fact that the ingredients, if locally and artisanally grown, will vary in flavor from season to season and even from farm to farm. It takes industrial food manufacture to ensure that food will always taste exactly (and boringly) the same.

I stay with my definition of an authentic recipe in my paper on Authenticity for the Oxford Food Symposium: