pim

you poor, misguided baby, you. I do hope he has other redeeming qualities...Just don't let him pick your restaurants from now on and you'll be all set. :)

Make sure you get some of their Gewurztraminer grape juice while you are there. I drink a bit of that juice in sparkling water. Amazing stuff. Way better than those High Fructose Corn Syrup laden poisons we call Soda.

I complain bitterly every time I am there. Plus, I always ask them to search the pile for the lightest one possible for me. Sadly I don't think they care. And it's really sad because the croissants there can be delicious. They've got it mostly right but for the over-baking issue. When I was in Manhattan two weeks ago, I had a wonderful croissant at Fauchon. Light, buttery, and blonde, not brunette.

Bravo Squeat! This is hilarious. Fellow denizens of the cubeland I inhabit are now wondering what could have amused me so on a Monday afternoon. You made my day, my dear Squeat. Back on the subject of Tartine's croissants. The Melkors will remember my usual complaint about how Tartine murders their croissants in the oven. They are almost always over-baked to the point of being burnt, sometimes to a crisp. I will never understand why croissants around here are so overbaked. It's not only Tartine that is guilty, even my favorite, Citizen Cake, more often than not, is guilty of that as well. What is so hard about getting them croissants out of the oven like 3-4 minutes earlier?

my mistake. oops. sorry. anyway, I second (or fifth?) your recommendation.

Depending on what you mean by walking distance--I mean, anything in SF is pretty much walking distance, or hiking distance, rather--, Crustacean and Farallon are hardly walking distance from one another--at least not in heels and a romantic dress. I wouldn't go to Crustacean for the food either, nor would I Farallon. Whoever called Fleur de Lys appropriate for WWII generation was right on. I don't go to Boulevard for the food. Come to think of it, I don't go to Blvd. for anything. I'm with Carlsbad on Slanted Door and Acquarello. The room at the Slanted Door is what I called the cafeteria look. A highly designed cafeteria at a modern art museum, I give you, but cafeteria nonetheless. I go there for lunch, but haven't been for dinner since the move. Acquarello, on the other hand, is what I would call romantic. The room is often sparsely populated, somewhat dimly lit, and the staff is good at being invisible until you need them. And it does serve one of the best Italian in the city, if not the best. But then again I am a snob at French food but clueless at Italian, so what do I know. Squeat, I am surprised you haven't brought up Quince. I think that room is romantic, and the food is lovely too. Delfina is great fun, and one of my favorite casual places in the city. It can also be romantic, in the getting-lost-in-the-crowd kind of way. I haven't tried Masa's after the new chef, has anyone? Never tried the dining room at the Ritz either since Ron S. started there. Anyone?

perhaps you should call yourself "tiède"?

Remains a mystery to me why people buy half and half. You should just make up your mind, don't you think, Squeat? Not sure I see your point. I have made up my mind. I like half-and-half in my coffee. (When I drink it hot -- I like my iced coffee black.) It's a joke that only I get, apparently. half and half... milk and cream... make up your mind? <nevermind>

Remains a mystery to me why people buy half and half. You should just make up your mind, don't you think, Squeat? The only milk I buy and drink is Strauss non-homoginized organic whole milk. It tastes good. I like it, and I like the politics. I have no idea how much it costs.

You can hop on the cable car from Union Square and hop off at Hyde and Pacific to have dinner at 1550 Hyde. Here's my review of the place. I've been going back almost every week since, it is definitely my favorite neighbourhood place at the moment.

The gist of the argument, for me, is this, I am not arguing that influences are not shared or traded amongst great chefs and culinary traditions around the world. That would be silly. I was just interested in seeing more specific instances of particular influence in this case, since it was cited as being "evident". Subsequent posts made this a bit clearer, but I must say that pointing simply to the use of superlative produce and the connection to the garden alone still didn't quite do it for me. There are traditions of using great quality ingredients in a great many culinary traditions. Yes, Mon Viel Ami may fit in NY, SF, or many other big cities around the world, but that would make it "international" rather than "American", no? Pim PS: You know, this will teach me not to get into a discussion on a beautiful Sunday. I'm off now to enjoy the California sunshine, and perhaps a few Frog Hollow farm peaches I got yesterday from the farmer's market. signing off..

St.John?

I am not saying that Mon Viel Ami IS an Alsatian restaurant. I said they gave nods to that direction. No Pineapple is not a traditional Alsatian fruit. Bu that same item is also on the menu at Le Buerehiesel. That's another nod toward that general direction. Again, I am not saying that Mon Viel Ami is an Alsatian restaurant per se. Only that, if we are going to talk about influences at all, the ones I saw were from the general direction of Le Buerehiesel and the Alsace, rather than from America.

That was suppose to show that I wasn't serious about the comment. Sorry it gave you the wrong impression. That was not my intention.

No, Marlena and John, I do not doubt the way that ideas and influences are shared across the world. We are living in the proverbial Global Village after all. But when Marlena claimed, I was rather curious to see specifically what she referred to. As I said before, from what I could see (and pointed out) the major influences are from the Alsace. a few impressions on this point: - perhaps he was being polite, you know, while talking to an American journalist and all. - is it possible that he was referring to the inspiration for working together came from when they worked together in Washington DC? Hmm…It is quite clear that Mon Viel Ami is a joint project between Antoine Westermann and Antony Clémot. The menu has both their names on it (this I am sure of now, just checked the menu from two months ago). No, not always. It wasn’t a value judgment when I said that I saw no American influence there. I didn’t mean to say whether it was good or bad, I just didn’t see it.

You missed another big one "le weekend".

I’m another one who’s been to Mon Viel Ami and have seen no “American” influence in anything there. Can someone enlighten me of the “evident American influence”? If it was indeed there, I somehow missed the giant pink elephant in the room. When I was at Le Buerehiesel, the people there made it clear that the new place in Paris, Mon Viel Ami, was chef Westermann and his ex-sous chef Antony Clémot’s joint project. In fact, if I remember correctly, the menu even spelled out that it was réalisée par Antoine Westermann et Antony Clémot. There was no mention of the American “co-chef”. My impression was that he was simply chef Clémot’s sous chef. The culinary nods and influences clearly seen there were from chef Westermann’s origin in the Alsace and from his flagship Le Buerehiesel. The pineapple dessert that Marlena liked so much is also on the menu at Le Buerehiesel. The complimentary aperitif served at the restaurant when I was there was a Pinot Blanc from Alsace--not to mention the wine list and the cheese selection. American? I think not.

Le Buerehiesel is great. But don't go to Julien, a * in town. I had a blah lunch there a few months back, except the lunch menu was for 70 euro--for that much it had no business being blah. Antoine Westermann has a shop downtown that sells premade stuff and other food items as well. You can get picnic fares from there and do a nice picnic somewhere. La Fromagerie de Tonnelier in Strasbourg is great for cheese, with a nice selection of local cheeses. I heard of a place called La Ferme de Suzette just outside of town, tried to go but they were all booked up. Perhaps you should give them a try. Seems really nice. The French Saveurs did a story of them last year, that's how I heard about them.

If you want to try Tom Yum Goong, I've got a recipe here.

This is the type of food you get at Aqua currently (Chef Laurent Manrique). I call it Seafood for People Who Hate Seafood.

Yes, you must be talking about Amorino. Besides the branches already mentioned, there is also one on the pretty rue Saint Louis en l'Ile, the same street as Mon Viel Ami.

It bogs my mind why anyone would waste an eating opportunity in Paris on a meal at a place like Léon. I was there once a few years ago, due to a momentary lapse in judgement. It was barely decent. Just barely. I bet you can get just as good if not better Moules Frites at your local frechifized restaurant. In San Francisco, Chez Papa and Chez Nous always have a dependable one.

Now I remember those tomatoes. They were very pretty, peeled, and doused (far too liberally) in a vinaigrette. The acidity in the vinaigrette was so overpowering it was all i could taste--nothing about the taste of early summer cherry tomatoes, only the acidic vinaigrette. They could have been using January Safeway tomatoes....

oops. my mistake. I didn't like that lamb though, it didn't taste like a very good lamb, in my opnion at least. I like Bellwether farm cheeses, but not particularly the meat, at least not that piece I had at CNH.

Yes, well, that's a start at least. Thank you. I had a meal there two nights ago, actually. I was so curious I just had to try. I must say I am a big fan, or trying to be a big fan, of female chefs cooking at that level--you know, sisterhood and all that. (I've given the wildly inconsistent Helène Darroze so many chances I finally gave up though.) Anyhow, I really should have listened to you. While my meal wasn't as bad, there was nothing particularly wrong with anything, just not particularly exciting or great. And for almost 200$ per head (we brought one bottle and bought one at the restaurant), I wanted wow. There was a few things that was good. The Pepper Crusted Sonoma Duck Breast served with Duck Leg Confit and Potato Hash was quite nice, though the duck slices were a tad on the cold side by the time they arrived in front of me. The quality of ingredients was good, but again not great. Compared to other meals at that level that I've had lately, the ingredient quality was really not all that great. For example, the Bellwether farm lamb was nothing compared to Elysian farm lamb that the French Laundry and Trio use. The scallop was ok, but not particularly succulent. Well, one could argue that this is not a particularly good season for scallops, so it wasn't the fault of the restaurant really. But then again, it begs the question why they would put something that's not at the height of the season on the menu in the first place. The service was inconsistent, our particular waitress was nice and friendly, but the rest of the front of the house was needlessly stuffy, and even mildly snobbish. I arrived with a coat on, no one offered to take it away, even after about 5 minutes at the bar. I ended up having to specifically asked someone to put this crumpled pile of coat on the back on my bar stool away. When it was time to leave, I had to remind someone to bring it back to me. During the service, a waitress who brought the last of the amuse said to us, "This will be the last of our Canapés today." Canapes?? When I asked for a menu of what we had, we were told that they couldn't give us one, but if we gave them our email address, they would send us a copy, though they warned it could take up to a week!! That was plenty odd. This was so weird that Melkor, who I've never known to use his eGullet association to his advantage, decided for once that he would leave his egullet corporate email account, just to see what happened. It seemed to help, as our menu was emailed to us in this morning. Oh well. Too bad. I really wanted to like it. Perhaps, I'll give them another try sometimes soon, just to see if last night was something of an off night.