French scientists have figured out the best way to pour champagne…Oui oui, a whole study (lab tests and all) was dedicated to the pouring of bubbly. I wonder how long they spent on this so-called study? *sigh*
From newsvine:
“The scientists at the University of Reims say pouring bubbly at a slant, as you would a beer, preserves more of the tiny gas bubbles that improve the drink’s flavor and aromas…They say the study matters not just to Champagne drinkers but to glassmakers. They note that the industry is researching a “new generation” of Champagne glasses specially designed to control the release of carbon dioxide, the gas that gives the drink its sparkle.”
I know you’ve been wondering what I’ve been up to, so I thought I’d pop in and tell you: I’ve been eating these potato chips!
Nevermind that the French don’t have pepperoni pizza here, at least with the same name. When I first came to France I simply didn’t think they had pepperoni pizza as a choice. What a fool I was. They call it “chorizo” here but since I’m from California, I imagined the Mexican chorizo, which is a spicy ground sausage but it’s more like the Spanish chorizo, which is actually pretty close to pepperoni. So. Will the French realize what this is? I guess the picture helps. But oh the mysteries of life continue en France. Oh well. Anyway, these chips are good but it’s only the first chip that tastes like pepperoni pizza. After that one, the rest tastes like bbq (aka paprika in France) potato chips. (NOT knocking those, of course.)
Discovering adorable inhabitants didn’t stop in the old town of Vitré. We ate lunch at L’Iroise, a bistro specializing in seafood, which is just at the entrance of the old town in Vitré. The restaurant is run by a sweet Breton couple (photo below) who focus on uncomplicated, flavorful and beautiful dishes. Between the three of us, here’s what we had. Everything was excellent, including the home-made pâte de fruit served with coffee!
L’iroise
1, place Saint-Yves
35500 Vitre France
Telephone: 02.23.55.29.10
The brasserie, La Rotonde, is one of our regular stops when we’re in Paris. It’s been around since 1910 and is known to have been frequented by famous painters like Pablo Picasso, Diego Rivera, Federico Cantú, Henri Matisse and Tsuguharu Fujita (most of them depicted La Rotonde in their paintings) and writers/artists from the “Lost Generation” (F. Scott Fitzgerald, Matisse, T.S. Eliot, Sartre, Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas and others). That has all faded into history but it’s still one of our favorite places. There’s nothing fancy, really, but it basically offers your consistently yummy traditional French brasserie fare at reasonable prices: all kinds of steaks (with frites, of course), seafood and more. Get a steak here with pepper sauce, though! It’s your best bet. The atmosphere is notable with its red-velvet and brass, famous paintings and energetic crowd. The service is friendly and excellent.
Lastly, save room for dessert! It’s hard to do here because the meals servings are big. Get their Mille Feuille! It’s sooo gooooood.
La Rotonde
105, Boulevard Montparnasse (at the corner of Boulevard du Montparnasse and Boulevard Raspail)
75006 Paris France
Telephone: +33 1 43 26 48 26
Email: infos@rotondemontparnasse.com
Metro: Vavin
The success of Restaurant Week in cities like New York, Dublin, Lisbonne, Madrid, London, Miami and Los Angeles has inspired cities in France to give a go to a week dedicated to affordable gastronomy. Hundreds of participating restaurants will offer a unique menu priced at 20,10€ for lunch and 35€ for dinner.
I was looking forward to checking out several restaurants in our region, including Bernard Loiseau in Saulieu, but it’s not on the list!
French TV channel, M6, recently preempted a documentary exposing McDonald’s unhygienic practices, but it’s available (for the moment) to watch online at Dailymotion (Click on the image to watch the video).
An employee at a French McDo’s took in a hidden camera and revealed the dirty procedures some of the chain’s restaurants practice. It’s in French so here are some main points emphasized in the documentary (besides the fact that the employee isn’t wearing gloves!) for non-French speakers:
* burgers that have been sitting out are sold 4 hours or longer AFTER the time they should’ve been thrown out
* burgers that should be thrown out, are instead, frozen, then thawed out and sold the next day
* employees do not wash their hands or wear gloves
* employees remove expiration stickers and replace them to avoid throwing out old food
The following massacred French recipe was committed by the folks at that omnipresent family cafeteria/restaurant in France, Flunch, not me this time around.
We strolled by a Flunch yesterday and saw this huge sign for a new offering: The American Galette. While you’d think it would resemble a French sandwich américain, with its nonsensical bratwurst, grilled veggies and fries inside a baguette – surprisingly, La (chouette/nice) galette américaine sort of makes sense (in a Frenchy way) sporting basically a burger and its fixings inside a galette (a savory crepe usually made with buckwheat flour). Is it any good? I dunno but I think it needs fries inside!
My sweetie HAPPENED to be in the Montmartre neighborhood of Paris’ Best Baguette of 2010 and grabbed a couple of warm baguettes to see how spectacular they are. A few shops down, he found an award winning charcuterie for their fromage de tête, Christian Durant Charcuterie, and picked us up some artisanal foie gras (I wouldn’t have minded some of that award winning fromage de tête but oh well!) Both baguette and foie gras were pretty fantastic. A slight bémol regarding the baguette. It could’ve been perhaps more airy inside but that’s how I personally like them. They were, in any case, deliciously thin and crispy on the outside and soft in the inside – and paired with the foie gras, a perfect and typical French indulgence for any time of the day!
Le Grenier à Pain
The Best Baguette in Paris 2010
38 rue des Abbesses
75018 Paris France
Charcuterie Christian Durant
30 Rue des Abbesses
75018 Paris France
Today marked the 17th “Grand Prix de la Baguette de Tradition Française de la Ville de Paris” which translates to the “Best Baguette in Paris” contest. By luck of the draw, I managed to be selected as one of the jury members and spent an incredible 4 hours sitting next to Ghislaine Arabian tasting close to 150 baguettes.
It may seem hard to believe, but a lot of mediocre bread can be found in France. Walk into your average corner bakery and if you don’t know what to look for, or to ask for, you risk walking away with a very average, and at times inedible, baguette.
Bread has a long and intricate history in France and was once the main sustenance for… read the rest of this post
Le Grenier à Pain
The Best Baguette in Paris 2010
38 rue des Abbesses (in Montmartre)
75018 Paris France
“March 20 is the Jour du Macaron in Paris. This annual celebration, dreamed up five years ago by the famed pâtissier Pierre Hermé, finds pastry shops giving their meringue-y little delights away for free.
Customers are encouraged to make a charitable donation on their way out the door. It’s a sweet idea in celebration of spring and in support of research to treat rare diseases.
The crowds will be large this Saturday at Pierre Hermé, with fans lining up to choose any three of his famous macarons. Tempting flavors for spring 2010 include white truffle with grilled hazelnut and foie gras with chocolate, along with traditional favorites like coffee, caramel, and three kinds of vanilla. But Hermé isn’t the only one sharing his cookies. Heavyweights Jean-Paul Hévin and Sadaharu Aoki are also taking part. Bon macaron!
Free macarons on March 20 at these participating pastry shops
Pierre Hermé: six locations, including 4 rue Cambon in the 1st arrondissement, 72 rue Bonaparte in the 6th arrondissement, 133 avenue des Champs Elys ées in the 8th arrondissement (inside the Publicis drugstore), 40 boulevard Haussmann in the 9th arrondissement (inside the Galeries Lafayette), 185 rue de Vaugirard in the 15th arrondissement, and 58 avenue Paul Doumer in the 16th arrondissement.
Sadaharu Aoki: three locations, including 56 boulevard de Port Royal in the 5th arrondissement, 35 rue de Vaugirard in the 6th arrondissement, and 40 boulevard Haussmann in the 9th arrondissement (inside the Galeries Lafayette).
Jean-Paul Hévin: four locations, including 3 rue Vavin in the 6th arrondissement, 231 rue Saint-Honoré in the 1st arrondissement, 23 bis avenue de la Motte Picquet in the 7th arrondissement, and 40 boulevard Haussmann in the 9th arrondissement (inside the Galeries Lafayette).
Laurent Duchêne: 2 rue Wurtz in the 13th arrondissement.
Arnaud Larher: two locations, including 53 rue Caulaincourt and 57 rue Damrémont, both in the 1″
After having left the south of France for Burgundy, finding cheddar cheese where we live was ambitious if not impossible. We’d resort to grabbing a huge block of it from Phillippe Olivier in the north of France. Of course, that meant that we’d have to drive a long seven hours to get there. (Nevermind that I could visit my in-laws at the same time!) Now, it’s a little easier, seeing that I’ve stumbled upon Seriously Strong Cheddar cheese (from Scotland) at a nearby supermarket, which is part of a huge chain.
For an industrially produced cheese wrapped in plastic, it’s actually pretty good. It’s crumbly, which supposedly means it’s a high quality cheese. (Info I’d gotten from a cheesemaker in Vermont). The one I bought said it was aged for 12 months, and while its brand name claims it’s strong, I didn’t find that it was particularly strong at all, but that’s okay it tasted good. I’m not fond of when the cheese is so sharp, it stings the palette in your mouth. In any case, this will be good for cheeseburgers, Mac n Cheese, Cheddar Cheese scones and just with bread or whatever, when you’re looking for variety away from the home grown French cheeses.
By the way, mature hard cheeses (Mimolette, Comté, Beaufort, Tome de Savoie, etc.) develop their sharpness in flavor because of the millions upon millions of dust mites inside them (not just on the rind). In fact, many of the master cheese makers trade these microscopic bugs, which has been a well-hidden trade secret for a long time…and for obvious reasons!
After years of complaining about the lack of pancakes in France, I’m at it again but this time to moan about pancakes attempting to infiltrate the palettes of French people all across the Hexagon. I have mixed feelings about this, obviously.
These were part of a freebie bag handed out from a road toll booth leaving Paris. It looks like the packaged brioche company, Pasquier, is testing out a revolutionary new product: pancakes.
To be fair, these pancakes were not horrible, but I wish they had been giving out free wine.
My family teases and laughs at me incessantly whenever I mention that I go out for pizza in France. I fail to see the humor in it especially when it has been really hard to find a decent pizza here. Do they expect me to eat French food ALL THE TIME? Anyway. We make pizza at home a lot but whenever an opportunity comes up to check out a pizza place, we’re there… uh, with the exception of that worm pizza place.
Although Pink Flamingo Pizza offers many unusual and playful kinds of pizzas, La Ghandi, for example, is topped with sag paneer and baba ganoush, tahini, lemon and garlic, and La Che has marinated Cuban pork and fried plantains – we were more in the mood for a basic pizza, one that might remind us of my original home country so we ordered La Dante with tomatoes, mozzarella and fresh basil, and La Marcello, which features roquette seasoned with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and shaved parmesan. With crispy, thin crust made with organic flour and toppings from local merchants, the pizzas were pure yum. Exactly what we needed and wanted.
During the warmer months, you can order your pizza and plan to eat it outside either on the banks of the Canal Saint Martin or at a park in the Marais, depending on which location you’re eating, and they will bring the pizza to you!
Pink Flamingo will be our “go to” pizza place whenever we’re in Paris. It’s a perfect place for American expats to grab a taste of home. It really tastes more American than European, if that makes sense. (Possibly because one of the owners is from Boston?) Thankfully, there are NO pizzas that feature olives WITH seeds or an oozing, raw egg smack dab in the middle. Yay!
Pink Flamingo (2 Paris Locations)
67 rue Bichat
75010 Paris France (10th arrondissement)
Telephone: 01 42 02 31 70
Métro Jacques Bonsergent
Open Tues, Wed., Thurs. Fri., Sat. Noon to 3pm & 7pm to 11:30pm.
Sunday continuous service: 1pm to 11pm
Monday: CLOSED
Pink Flamingo
105 Rue Vieille du Temple
75003 Paris, France
Telephone: 01 42 71 28 20
Métro Saint-Sébastian-Froissart
Open Mon-Fri 12pm-3pm, 7pm-11:30pm; Sat. & Sun Noon to 4pm; 7pm to 11:30pm
France’s reputation for culinary genius has traditionally set the standard to which all other countries aspire. It has always been synonymous with outstanding cooking, with its kitchens as important a part of Gallic culture as its art and language.
Not any more, according to a devastating investigation behind the kitchen doors of restaurants in Paris.
Rather than master chefs and fresh ingredients, restaurants in the world capital of haute cuisine are increasingly relying on microwave ovens and deep freezers to feed their customers, it found.
Industrially produced ready-meals, “flavour sprays” and untrained catering staff are all part of an unsavoury mix which is dragging down standards in French cooking, according to a documentary shown on France’s Canal+ station at the weekend.
It sought to prove that such deception is becoming increasingly common. Using hidden cameras and even searching dustbins, investigators found numerous restaurants trying to pass off third-rate food as the real thing.
The French had to do SOMETHING with all that surplus wine, I guess.
From AFP:
A French court on Wednesday handed out suspended jail terms and hefty fines to 12 wine industry figures for selling millions of bottles of fake Pinot Noir to US wine giant E&J Gallo.
The defendants, including executives from wine estates, cooperatives, a broker, wine merchant Ducasse and conglomerate Sieur d’Arques, were convicted of selling 18 million bottles (135,334 hectolitres) of falsely labelled wine.
The wine was sold under Gallo’s popular “Red Bicyclette” Pinot Noir label, though made from far less expensive grape varieties.
The court in Carcassonne in southwest France, which heard that the accused made seven million euros in profit from the scam, gave them suspended jail sentences of between one and six months and fines from 3,000 to 180,000 euros.
The judge said that “the scale of the fraud caused severe prejudice to the wines of Languedoc in the United States.”
The scandal broke in March 2008 when France’s fraud squad became suspicious during an audit at wine merchant Ducasse.
Ducasse had been buying Pinot Noir at 58 euros per hectolitre when the official market price was 97 euros, and generic local grape varieties were selling for 45 euros.
Meanwhile, the volume of wine from the renowned Pinot Noir grape being sold to Gallo far exceeded the possible supply from the region.
After a year-long judicial investigation, the defendants were accused of substituting wine made from less expensive local grape varieties for the Pinot Noir, which is popular on the American market.
The industry fears that the swindle, which began in 2006 and ended in 2008, could undermine the credibility of fellow French winegrowers.
“If Americans lose confidence in French wine production, particularly the Languedoc region, which is already going through a serious crisis, the consequences could be terrible,” prosecutor Francis Battut told AFP.
The last year or so in L.A. has proven that food trucks not only have evolved far past their “roach coach” days but also have inadvertently contributed to reducing people’s carbon footprints. These roaming restaurants that come to you, offer anything from gourmet Korean tacos, grass-fed beef hotdogs, cupcakes, Banh Mi, BBQ, sushi, crepes – you name it, you can probably find the meal on wheels you’ve been looking for. I like the idea of the Green Truck running on vegetable oil, using biodegradable containers and serving organic food. The only glitch is that the food is not local, which is understandable in L.A.
France has had food trucks for many years in the form of pizza trucks in the south and French fry trucks in the north, not to mention the awesome cheese trucks, butcher trucks, bakery trucks… oh! and roasted chicken trucks and more. Aside from the pizza and fries trucks, I haven’t seen much innovation in rolling fast food until recently, and this one is pretty cool.
Taking food trucks to a whole new level and incorporating today’s “green” needs, Christopher Mauduit and Fabrice Vanderschooten launched Hippo Facto last November near the city of Caen, which is located in north west France just about 10 miles inland from the English Channel. What’s not to love about it? Pulled by Percheron draft horses and dedicated to sustainable living and organic, local products, Hippo Facto couldn’t be more brilliant. Respecting the environment and serving fast organic and local fare that’s simple, healthful and creative, you can order fruit/vegetable juices, tartines, soups among other offerings. The containers are also compostable.
You’re right, I can’t imagine a food truck like this in a megalopolis such as Los Angeles. Picture the road rage of people behind the horse and buggy! Hippo Facto seems to work where they are. Of course, it takes them two hours to get to Place de la République in Caen. That’s all good considering there’s no fossil fuels involved, they don’t live in a speedy world and besides, some people commute longer than that in cars every single day. Now THAT’S crazy.
Hippo Facto
Every Wednesday & Friday
Place de la République – Caen France
On Weekends, they’re on the coast:
Bernières-sur-Mer, Lion-sur-Mer and Courseulles
Website: Hippo Facto
NOTHING about Châteauneuf-du-Pape is sleek or polished. It’s a rough-and-tumble wine, sometimes ungainly and fierce, but just as often warm, open, generous and full of pleasure.
It can be intense and complex — it’s not at all simple. Yet it sometimes can be as friendly as a big good-natured dog. Occasionally, it’s too friendly.
I was thinking about the overbearing side of Châteauneuf recently after the wine panel had completed a tasting of 20 bottles from the 2007 vintage. For the tasting, Florence Fabricant and I were joined by two guests, Vanessa Treviño Boyd, sommelier at Adour, and David Gordon, wine director at Tribeca Grill, which offers what is most likely the widest selection of Châteauneuf in New York.
We found some wines we liked very much, yet on the whole the 2007s left me unexcited. Stylistically, they presented Châteauneuf’s too-friendly side. Châteauneuf is always a big wine, but these wines were huge — full of lush, opulent fruit with powerful, jammy flavors.
We’re getting ready to take off to spend the holidays in the U.S. so we’ve been frantically buying gifts and stocking stuffers. We came across these kitschy boxes of liqueur-filled chocolates. Unlike those little sugar bottles filled with God knows what liqueurs (we got those too!), these use dark chocolate without the sugar crust, they explain what the liqueurs are and where they are from in France AND they are in cute little shapes. Here’s what’s inside: Armagnac du Sud-Ouest (in an armagnac cork), Marc de champagne (champagne cork), Kirsch d’Alsace (cherry), Mirabelle de Lorraine (mirabel plum), Calvados de Normandie (apple), Cognac de Charente (barrel), Pastis 51 (bottle).
It’s a fun gift and perfect stocking stuffer. You can probably find them all over the large French supermarkets like Carrefour, Auchan, etc..
By the way, these have the real deal inside, no watered-down anything.
It’s old news and you’ve probably already heard that the infamous chain of malbouffe shrouded in arches of gold has invaded the Louvre. I can’t say I’m thrilled about it but face it, all those millions of American tourists ogling the Mona Lisa have to eat somewhere.
We wondered why they didn’t put the Belgian chain equivalent, Quick, in place if they were to do a fast food joint, but I suppose those finicky palettes want the best. After all, billions upon billions have been served.
So, anyway. Not long ago, I was hanging out with one of my friends in Paris and we realized we’d been walking for a long, long time. Our feet were tired and we needed to rest. We hadn’t been paying much attention because we were chatting so much. We happened to be right at the Louvre, so my friend says, “Let’s get something to drink at Le Café Marly.” I’d never been so I was game.
Le Café Marly has a terrace in one of the most prime locations in Paris: in the Napoleon courtyard of the Richelieu wing of the Louvre. We were seated immediately on the terrace facing the Louvre pyramid and it’s very chill there and awesome for people watching. The waiters seemed stiff and aloof but I’m sure it was because they were being watched. I say this because later when I went upstairs to use the restrooms and from where I took the shaky video (below), the waiters suddenly got all flirty with us.
It’s not cheap here at Le Café Marly but I suppose you’re paying for the view. My friend ordered a glass of champagne and it cost 15 euros. I ordered a teeny, tiny coffee at 5 euros. I can’t attest for the food here but I’ve heard it’s okay but very expensive. So if you’re on a budget, either decide you’re going to have a little splurge day, or pass and head on over to McDo’s!
Le Café Marly
93 rue de Rivoli, Cour Napoléon du Louvre
Telephone: 01 49 26 06 60
Hours: 8 a.m. to 2 a.m. daily
Metro: Palais Royal
A marvelous painting of a gourmand at his table hangs in the Musée Carnavalet in Paris — a portly, pink-faced figure happily gorging on a regal casserole, with a bottle of wine at one elbow and a luscious-looking soufflé at the other. It is traditionally believed to be a portrait of Alexandre-Balthazar-Laurent Grimod de la Reynière, an aristocrat notorious in Napoleonic France for gratifying his palate with the same abandon as his contemporary the Marquis de Sade showed in indulging carnal desires. Whether or not the painting is actually Grimod’s likeness, it captures the eccentric, omnivorous spirit that made him not only a gustatory symbol in the Paris of his day, but the grand-père of all modern food writers as well.
Starting in 1803, Grimod, whose family fortune had largely been lost during the Revolution, financed his voracious appetite by writing a series of best-selling guidebooks to the culinary wonders of Paris — its famous delicatessens, pâtissiers and chocolatiers — including the first reviews of an alluring new institution called le restaurant. His Almanachs des Gourmands were something new, the Michelins and Zagats of his era, and their offbeat style reflects the author’s larger-than-life character. Grimod was born in 1758 with deformed hands, one a birdlike talon and the other a webbed pincer. But he was not one to be held back, so he had learned to write — and dine — with metal prostheses. A social butterfly, he became a successful theater critic in Paris before the Revolution, survived the Terror and amused himself later by hosting literary salons in the cafes. And, of course, eating.
It was on the trail of Grimod one day last summer that I passed through the vaulted arches of the Palais Royal, opposite the north wing of the Louvre, and into a vast, empty courtyard. In Grimod’s day, the Palais Royal was the heart and soul of Paris, a rowdy entertainment center filled with brothels and sideshows that, despite its louche ambience, also boasted some of his favorite … continue reading
I think I’ve lived too long in France because when I saw this ad booklet from a supermarket chain, everything looked fine, nothing out of the ordinary. No French person would find anything unusual about it except my sweetie. Click on the image to enlarge it
He screams, “foire au gras! foire au gras!” Me looking at the ad, “et alors?” (So?) He continues, “for your blog!” Me: “It’s just an ad.” Him: “Yeeessss, but it’s GLORIFYING fat. Does that not seem blogworthy?” Me: “Fat is good, though.” Him: “They’d never celebrate and dedicate the virtues of FAT for FIVE pages in an American food ad, EVARRRR. Let alone sell tubs of fat, which they’re doing here.” Me: “Oh yeah.”
If for any reason you go to the St. Jean restaurant in the cité médiévale of Carcassonne, it should be for the ambiance. On a warm summer night outside facing the ancient ramparts, Niko singing his fun Frenchified songs of bossa nova, other Latin tunes and maybe some Stevie Wonder songs with a pleasant French accent, it’s just the beginning of a overall awesome evening or afternoon.
The food is pretty good for such an unabashed place for tourists. Noteworthy: The cassoulet (regional specialty) is really delicious. However, a small gripe from me: the portions are just too huge. However, somemany gobs of people will clearly welcome the copious quantity of food.
After finishing the appetizers,
which are huge,
and the main dish…also gargantuan,
here’s the steak tartare someone in our party had;
isn’t it a lot? Yes! I wonder how anyone can polish off that amount of food in one sitting. Oh wait, we did.
Generous portions really do not form solid grounds for complaining; I do realize this unfair grievance. Some people would call that a perk. Afterall, the dishes were rather tasty and the whole experience: live music, dining comfortably alfresco, to-die-for backdrop, excellent company, friendly staff – made everything fabulous. Highly recommended.
Le St. Jean
Restaurant – Bar – Glacier
1, place Saint Jean
Cite de Carcassonne France
Telephone : 04 68 47 42 43
Order your Thanksgiving dinner and have it made for you, so you don’t have to try to fit a turkey in that tiny, French oven! If not that, perhaps you’re traveling or just don’t want to deal with it at home. How about going out for a real, Thanksgiving dinner à la américaine? The Bistrot Saint Martin is offering a feast for Turkey Day to eat in or take out, but reserve now as long as there are still openings. The in-restaurant dinner is 30€/person and includes:
Take out dinners include:
Bistrot Saint Martin
Telephone: 06 32 75 98 05/01 46 07 73 68
Email: lesaintmartin@yahoo.fr
Website: The Bistrot Saint Martin
Here’s a silly fun ad from the U.S. explaining why things are better when they’re French. Soooo….. I haven’t seen French maids like that in the seven years I’ve lived in France – NOT saying they don’t exist but anyway…
Breaking News!
The defendants, including executives from wine estates, cooperatives, a broker, wine merchant Ducasse and conglomerate Sieur d’Arques, were convicted of selling 18 million bottles (135,334 hectolitres) of falsely labelled wine.
