dfunghi

As Fall approaches I was wondering if the outlook for this years truffle season was better than last years. My friend in Torino says they have been getting rain lately so maybe it bodes well? Swiss Chef what are you hearing? TIA

Admission is either by the day or for the entire show. Per day or all five. Everything, including the taste workshops, are translated from their native language into italian. There is a lot of english spoken though. It is not possible to see the entire show. The longer you are there the more you will see obviously. You can buy tickets at the box office there.

I will be there from Thursday through Sunday night. Meeting folks is hard at the Salone as it is so very crowded and there is so much to do. If you like when it gets closer we can see if we plan to attend any of the same taste workshops or anything. I plan dinner on Friday at http://www.extratorino.it/ENG/scheda.php?ID=52&categoriaID=2 and Saturday at http://www.extratorino.it/ITA/scheda.php?I...9&categoriaID=4 Other than that it will be eating at the show.

As with the cheese shops I suppose I will be forced to purchase and sample many different items form all over the spectrum, including the supermarket brands. I have had Larnaudie products before and I agree they are quite good. A bit above mass produced like Rougie but still short of these types http://www.best-of-perigord.tm.fr/gastro/a...s-dordogne.html of which http://www.lembertfoiesgras.com/ is supposed to have a shop in Paris. I have also decided to research some of the producers in the SW and have product shipped to the owner of the flat I rented as they have offered to accept the shipment and hold it for me. So any tips from any of you on top tier producers you may have encountered in your travels to the SW of France? Perhaps one or two on the above linked list?

Robyn, Dave, The trip to Anthony will be from Torino (which is why the trek through the Suisse border) if I do go, not from Paris. By the time I arrive in Paris I will be sans auto and avec wife (who does not like racing around the countryside in search of, well, in search of anything). The Paris portion will be AFTER a two week trip to Italy with a business friend and we will be covering 1000's of K's. So a trip to the SW of France is not in the cards. I have ventured into that area before from a trip to Spain I had a few years ago and I did buy the most magnificent (preserved, canned, jarred) fois and rilette which travelled back to the USA with no problem. Like many on these boards I have been traveling for decades including many, many trips to Europe including France, but mostly to the South and Lyon. This is just my first foray into Paris. So the traveling part is not an issue for me. While I was in SW France I found small producers whose products are most definitely legal (as is most canned goods) to bring home yet are not even remotely sold in the USA, in fact many are probably not sold outside of the town in which they reside. I was hoping to find a shop or a market seller that treks up weekly from the SW to Paris and brings an assortment of these tiny producers wares or maybe even a producer themselves that comes to markets in Paris. The quality of the items for sale in the USA is not great and 98% of it is Rougie brand. I have zero desire to buy mass produced, carelessly made "duty free" shop type of products. I am sure someone here has a place they prefer for these types of items over other places. For instance PTI where do you shop for these items?

It sounds as though there is a need for more research with all these fine shops to choose from. I look forward to trying a few. Thanks to John for directing me to this thread and thanks to the previous posters. I am looking into an overnight trip to visit Anthony and the surrounding area. A place I have not been. I had heard that because the Suisse were not part of EU one had to "clear" the border and it could take some time. It sounds as though that is not the case. I will arrive armed with a hearty sense of adventure, a clean palate and an appetite.

Besides Divay is there a shop or two that Parisians swear by for their Rilette and other Duck and Goose products? I have seen Bon Marche talked about. Is there by any chance a shop that specializes in the products of SW France? In addition I am hoping to find some amazing pate` both to eat and to travel home with. Is there a particular shop or are there so many wonderful shops they are too numerous to name? I am going to be sleeping in the 6th but will be all over the city, including a trip to the 18th for bread http://www.viamichelin.co.uk/viamichelin/g...-paris-2008.htm David

That is not too far from where I will be in Italy (Torino). Only a 5 hour drive. I have done worse for far less greatness. Maybe I need to schedule an overnight to France. That brings up a couple of other questions. How hard is traversing the Suisse border (with non EU passport) since I need to cross in and out and back in and back out 4 times to go from Torino to Basel. Is it same for all non Suisse passports or do EU get fast track? Monday is my only free day (so far) and I could head up on Sunday and spend all Monday doing things (like eating and buying cheese) so do we know if Anthony is open on a Monday morning? Without time to include Burgundy or anything else too major are there interesting and unique diversions in between Aosta and Basel? I have never been past the Aosta area (Cogne). TIA DAvid

Forgive my ignorance of Anthony Cheeses, where besides an expensive restaurant might one find these? Does Anthony (or whomever is the person behind the name) have a shop? TIA David

I hope this helps. It's kind of funny I was looking for a good sour pickle recipe on the web elsewhere as well as reading the forum here for preparation for my Paris trip. The pickle recipe gives a source for the salt you want. http://www.davidlebovitz.com/archives/2008...schwartz_1.html It is your own site but maybe you forgot?

How accurate is the information here from 4 years ago? Has much changed ? Having grown up in NYC and remember when 9th ave. behind the PA was all spice shops and 14th street had at least 4 or 5 great cuban / puerto rican, dirt cheap, restaurants (more snack shops really with stand up service like a pizza place and the best roast pork and rice and beans) and Morris Park was all Italian........ I digress. I am no stranger to ethnic and even sketchy areas in search of great food. I would love to see how the Mid East and African food is in Paris versus USA. I imagine the restrictions on USDA imports would make PAris far more authentic.

Well as the Fall approaches I have made my plans for a (long overdue) Paris visit. I suppose my hesitation all these years has been two fold. One is I can never find enough time to visit Paris they way I would like and two, my fear of never wanting to leave Paris. So armed wit last years notes I have rented a Flat in the 6th for 5 nights in early November after the completion of a three week business trip to Italy. No 6 hour layovers. My wife will be joining me. I have been perusing the threads here and am trying to hone in on a couple of bistros and may very well forgo the Michelin starred restaurants due to expense, lack of proper attire and reservations. I am still on the hunt for great country style cooking and there seems to be a movement in the bistro world towards new, advanced cooking of old standby dishes. That sounds exciting to me. If one wanted to have that one outstanding meal in a 1 or 2 star or a no star like Sendere (sp?) is it too late to book now for early November? Do I need a jacket and tie? Is 350 Euros realistic? I will post my choices here soon and open them up to discussion- criticism- advice. I still plan to go to markets (nearly every day) and still want to score some great duck and goose products to bring home. I prefer some of the smaller producers from the Dordogne if anyone is aware of anyone in particular or a shop that may carry some. Lastly let me add that although I speak some Italian I really have no French skills. How much of a problem will this present in smaller, off the beaten path, type of places? I have travelled in France a few times with no real problems, I can read a French menu for the most part and always begin each conversation with bon juor pardonnez me, je ne parle pas français vous parle anglais? In fact I can say "I do not speak (fill in the blank)" in many languages. I find it goes a long way if you start with the assumption that you are the one in a foreign country and not speaking the language is your problem not theirs. Polite, apologetic and understanding go a long way.

Try http://www.samoacookhouse.net/ for some good (not great) food swathed in a great experience. Breakfast is our favorite but have eaten other meals there as well. The food is step up from a greasy spoon and has a nice home-style cooking feel to it. Nothing elaborate or exciting but well worth a visit. Second to that you may also find more choices in Arcata http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurants-g29...California.html just down the hwy from Eureka.

Get on the 10 FWY and head east. For great tacos you can go to Denise's on Olympic blvd. Take the 10 to the 5 south and get off Ditman, then left on Oly for a block or two. Denise's is on the corner on the right and has a big sign. Or take the 10 to the 110 north and go to Highland park. Drive down York blvd. and try whatever looks good. I like tacos Michoacan (not connected to the horrible chain of a similar name) on York. For Asian take the 10 east to Atlantic then go north to Valley Blvd. and make a left. Turn left into the 99 ranch market shopping center and go up stairs and try any number of places. If you want to try something out of the ordinary try some authentic sezchuan at 301 east Garfield. The name changes frequently but it is always the same restaurant. Right on the corner with a caddy corner entrance. Very, very spicy. The choices abound out there. If you wish to eat more locally to where you are staying expect to spend more and get less. Asian is a non issue in that part of LA IMHO so try some mexican or burgers. Culver City is only 5 minutes straight down La Cienega blvd. (w/o traffic) and you can find Fathers Office, Beacon, Xotic to name but three. A little more upscale and you have Fords, Fraiche as well as others. Honey Kettle fried chicken is there as well. A bit pricey but oh so good.

John, If I make it to Paris in '08 it will be for real, not a 6 hour layover. I will devote a week at least to seeing Paris. Although seeing Paris is one small part of going whereas tasting paris is a major part.

Alas all the best laid plans of mice and men. Between American Airlines service failures and the French rail strike I was unable to fulfill my plans. I spent my time in the Admirals Club at CDG terminal 2A. I ended up only having 3 hours or so and would need to clear security a second time upon return. So I opted for safety. I was told by airline employees that the trains were getting back to normal but to expect an hour in each direction to St. Michele. The AF bus was an option but also said to be one hour in each direction due to extra traffic from the rail strike. I had to err on the side of caution. I really appreciated all the great input and ideas and of course have saved them in a file for future visits to Paris ( 2008?). Sorry to have let any of you down that were rooting for me and my micro trip. Sadly I consumed all the last of my wonderful French Goose and Duck products in Oct. in anticipation of a resupply. Now I am left w/o. With many thanks, David

Well just when I thought I had it all figured out. Divay may make my decision more difficult. I would be a little afraid of getting too caught up in the surroundings and the crowds on a Saturday in that part of Paris though. Time is very short. I will not have time to browse a book or music shop or linger in a plaza with a cafe. It will be a very hectic, concerted effort meant to acquire important items for my trip home. Your suggestion is great however and I will do further research. My wife already is expecting Herme's and I am looking forward to visiting De Rossa as Iberico Bellota is not available in USA and good ones are hard to find even in Spain. I imagine they will have some of the top tier producers. I have budgeted about 100Euro for Jamon. I am hoping for three 250 gram packages. Perhaps even Joselito (sp?).

Here is my plan with special thanks to pti and P.B. Take RER from CDG to Cluny (St Michele) station. Walk to Maubert and stroll the market for a bit. Grab a cafe and a snack wherever looks good. If time allows then head NW on St Germain (RSG) to Rue de Seine (RDS) for shopping and eating. Depending on time continue on to RSG to Rue de Four to Rue de Bonaparte for Hermes then back to RDS for De Rossa and other shops. Or if time is short forsake Hermes.Then a stroll out to the Seine for a quick photo and take it in and then grab a taxi back to RER Cluny for the RER back to CGD. All eating will be done "on the fly" to save time. If anyone has any addresses for a particular shop in that area please let me know. I am still hoping to find a great source for Fois (canned to travel sorry to say) and other duck and goose products. I hope to find a person at Maubert but am open to all suggestions within the area I laid out above. I will have between 2 and 3 hours to accomplish my shopping spree if all goes smoothly at CDG and RER. Since I arrive CDG early (8:30) on a Saturday I hope it will be quiet and easy to clear passport and customs. I will only have my backpack with me. I must leave myself 90 minutes to check back in at CDG for my 14:40 flight. So I hope to get to RSG by 10 and leave 1230 the latest. From the best I can figure it will take about 30 - 40 minutes from the time I get on the CDG shuttle train to RSG via express train. Is this reasonable? Any and all opinions are welcome. I believe I have a decent plan with three failsafe options to return to CDG in case time is short. TIA, David

Thank you for the offer SC. I have spent time in many parts of Piedmont and I agree that the Langhe is very built up. However the back roads in the vineyards still have a wonderful feel to them. The wine atmosphere is lovely as even the lowliest enoteca will have a very knowledgeable staff and interesting things to drink. We have friends we visit in Treiso so we end up that way. We really like the Montechiaro di asti area. We really love the Val Cassoto area but not sure if that is Val d'aosta or? I will be around mid November this year and of course will be looking for Truffles so I will drop you a line close to when I will be around. David

They were a husband and wife team. They split several years ago. Still a fabulous place to eat. Great wine list, service, food. Beautiful room. What else could someone want? I had not been to Alba in several years and went back last year. I was so surprised to see the changes. The Truffle fair is now a truffle museum / fair and charge to enter. There were so many upscale clothing shops, bad pizza places and new wine shops. I was happy to see the old guard still in place as I saw my favorite couple of little wine shops, bakeries and my fav little purveyor of meats and cheeses sort of at the far end (the bus station end) of the main drag. I also was shocked to see so many well healed tourists there in late Oct. It used to be so quiet with so few tourists. Now it is a second high season. I am glad for the local economy but sad for it not being how it was. I will stick to Treiso and La Morra and the surrounding little towns. There is a larger town thats name eludes me for the moment that has a great butcher shop (next to a large supermarket) that makes fantastic chingale salumi. Dry, hard, well cured. When I have a few extra days in the area I will ask you for a couple of local recs on little. family run places.

Sorry Sampa if I mislead with my restaurant locations. I just meant they were "in the area". By that I meant within 20 minutes or less. I have not tried the place you mention but will this year. The bar in La Morra is San Georgio or San Gregario I cannot remember for sure. Still one of the purest and simplest truffle experiences I have had. Simple farm fresh eggs covered (and I mean covered) in local (and I mean local) fresh W.T. We still like Tournevento but will say that it was better 10 years ago before the "split". We stay in Treiso so it was close as is Antine. Thank you for your input.

Here in Los Angeles we have an Italian tourist board. When I met the women running it she said she had a friend that could arrange (her words not mine) a "real" truffle hunt. I will look for her contact info and post it this week. FWIW I have bought truffles direct from truffle hunters in Italy and they were always kind of old, gruff and very country. Rustic Italian with heavy dialect and not very entertaining. I for one would not want to get up at 4 AM and meet them in ice cold, wet weather and follow them around the woods for a few hours at a minimum. There may be more romantic and enjoyable "public" hunts and certainly S.C. knows these people and this area extremely well. Buying white truffles is a risky business and should be entered into with caution. There are sellers found outside Alba on the main roads that sell from cars and they have been a good source but not always. Asking a lot of people if they know of any hunters that want to sell will / may lead you to a better deal. Montechiaro has a great festival and lots of top shelf truffles however they are usually priced at the top of the market. The sellers in Alba, including a couple of shops like Ponzi on the main drag have gone way down hill as Alba moved way upscale. In the early 90's it was a very different scene. Beware of pre priced truffles they were most likely weighed and priced many hours or even days before you bought them and they weigh much less by the time you buy it. They lose about 10% of moisture a day. Let your nose guide you. Take it out of any type of paper or linen towel and smell it alone. The closer to your nose you need to get the weaker the truffle. In good years you can smell a truffle from many feet away. You walk into Antine and the whole dining room smells of truffles from a basket in the corner. Ask about the color of the interior. It should be chocolate milk colored with pale white veins. Should be extremely firm. Like a rock hard apple or harder. Antine is a great source for a reasonable truffle meal as is Tournevento. Both in the Alba area. Reasonable meaning around $200 for two with reasonable wine selection. Or you can just have the truffles on some eggs served at a great bar in La Morra. I forget the name of the bar but the proprietor is Dario and someone on here will know the place. He just scrambles up a couple of eggs and shaves a bunch of truffle on it for about $20 and it is divine. I will be there in late November and as I am sad to hear of the rain hurting the Grapes it is good for the truffle. It is always one or the other. "96 was a bad truffle year but the Borolos are going to be great. Nature gives one bounty and takes away another.

Internet and therefore email are not as wide spread in Rome as here in USA. In addition many restaurants do not maintain their website and it is a third party so you must wait for them to relay your message and so on. I agree a phone call is pretty easy even if a bit stressful. If you are not getting youself understod simply say "non capisco" and hang up. Even my horrible Italian can get me understood enough to reserve a table. Always start off with hello I do not speak Italian do you speak english. Say this in ITALIAN. Io non parlo italiano, parla inglese? Then Prenatzione per favore. due genti per Novembre venti otto alla nove. See how easy. My grammar is all wrong and my accent sucks but they understand what I want. If you own a MAC there is a great translator program on the "dashboard" If not there are many on the web that work. Lastly try asking a friend that speaks Italian. maybe at a restaurant you frequent or????? Or ask the hotel staff where they are staying to do it for them, or take up the generous offer of Kelly

Gastro maybe you are not looking for a steakhouse at all. If you want to have a wonderful intimate dinner at a long standing NYC restaurant that serves a very tasty (although a bit chewy) steak as well as a full menu of other wonderful items including the best french fries in NYC (IMHO of course). This place is a hangout for Galician (NW Spain) ex-pats. With food close to that of NW Spain. I have had maybe 100 steaks there or more since my first in 1982. The Pork Chops are amazing as well. The starters like cold Pulpo laced with paprika and olive oil. All the Steaks and chops are served with rice or potato and the FF as I have already said are amazing. We even went through a phase of putting butter on them because they are so crisp and rich and the flavor of the yellow potato is so, well potatoey. The Steaks are un-trimed Strip with all the tail and surrounding fat and outer layers of fatty meat left on. Well charred and best eaten blood rare. Not pre sliced. They have a very intense "beefy" taste and are a bit chewy but not tough. They remind me of the Steaks I have eaten in Europe. Their prices are still so unbelievably low it is a shock (in a good way) when the bill comes. We have had large dinners there like B-Day parties that went on from 8PM until 2AM and the bill was still only about $40- $50 a person. They have a web site now. I used to live on 16th street back 25 years ago and I would eat lunch there everyday almost as they have this veal sandwich that was amazing and cheap/ Like $4 in the old days, plus a $2 large cold beer. BTW you can talk to your +1 all you want at the same time there is a lively bar with a nice hum bit not a din. This is one of my all time favorite steaks and all time favorite places in general.

Sorry Ter I have no info on that other than that pickers say they go to the first hard frost. We are already seeing a diminishing quality however, so my guess would be that if any at all not great ones would be around. Again though I am not an expert and every year is different based on weather. I would try posting on the Pac NW board for more local answers.