A Plate Full of New York Flavors

NEW YORK CITY -- One could never criticize New York for lack of style, and today, more than ever, the very healthy restaurant industry here is displaying a distinctive manner that exudes confidence, variety, and substance. Gone are the days of towering concoctions that seem to exist solely to edify the ego of the chef, and back again are menus that are smart, simple, and created with the wants of the diner in mind. And thank goodness portions are now much smaller, much healthier. Here, then are thoughts from a week-long eating tour in the city:

Bellavitae:

All my life I’ve wanted that perfect corner spot, the one with friendly faces that greet you at the door, just enough style to make you feel you are in the right place, and a simple menu that allows you a light snack or a major feast, depending upon your mood and hunger of the day. If a roaring fire is tossed into the equation, I’m a goner.

Rolando Beramendi’s two-week old Greenwich Village wine bar – Bellavitae – is just that sort of place, with a large wood-burning oven, an exposed brick wall, gigantic framed mirrors, gorgeous pine floors and a quiet ambience make this a place to visit again and again. Beramendi and his partner Jon Mudder create an enthusiastic greeting committee and serve as genial hosts. For more than 15 years Mr. Beramendi has been a top American purveyor of all things Italian, including the finest, oils, pastas, and rice. So of course all those extra-virgin olive oils, 20-year-old balsamic vinegar, organic penne, and golden egg garganelli appear on his short and sweet, single-page menu.

When you go, and you must, order the you-can’t-stop-eating-them fried meatballs –perfectly crusty (and not at all greasy) on the outside, nicely seasoned, firm and well-flavored on the inside, all deep-fried in olive oil. A favorite of the evening was his brilliant, grilled radicchio, rolled in the thinnest of pancetta, quickly pan-fried and drizzled with a touch of balsamic vinegar. Don’t miss the simple and sublime fettunta, slices of freshly toasted crusty country bread that are rubbed with garlic and anointed with the fragrant 2004 vintage new olive oil from the Capezzana estate outside of Florence. One can go on, and we did, sampling a salad of fresh greens tossed with a dressing of pomegranates and balsamic vinegar, as well as perfectly spicy portions of organic penne tossed in a tomato-rich sauce arrabbiata. Meat lovers will adore the sliced steak topped with a powerful green sauce, redolent with herbs.

The Bar Room at The Modern and The Modern:

Let’s all confess that the idea of dining in a museum restaurant is generally not one that stirs thoughts of culinary bliss. Let New York’s Danny Meyer change your mind about all that. As part of the re-do of the Museum of Modern Art, Meyer has shown he can do it again, with two main-floor dining rooms with their own entrance, the casual Bar Room at The Modern and the upscale The Modern.

Brand new and already full of buzz and energy, the two restaurants sport very modern, uncluttered fare that has a strong, singular personality. Alsatian-born chef Gabriel Kreuther knows his stuff and serves it up with flair. At the Bar, you’ll find a stunning tarte flambée, a very thin-crusted Alsatian “pizza,” topped with onions, cream and bacon. This is one of the finest versions I’ve ever tasted, the sort of can’t stop eating it fare perfect for a cold night in New York. I loved, too, the tuna carpaccio teamed up with crunchy curly cress and a citrus-ginger vinaigrette. The wild salmon with a gentle horseradish crust, served with cabbage steeped in Riesling wine was lovely, as was the earthy, braised pork cheeps, served with sauerkraut and a surprising ginger juice.

I found the room a bit cafeteria-like with uncomfortable chairs and tables a bit too close. And the wall of wines along one wall is lovely, but then why is one given only a measly choice of 14 wines and two champagnes?

There’s no doubt that my repertoire of fish recipes will include dishes from the other side of the room, the more elegant, upscale The Modern, overlooking the museum’s amazing sculpture garden. I devoured the duet of fresh, cloud-like langoustines wrapped in applewood-smoked bacon and served with a spicy organic yogurt anointed with an unusual and well-flavored cardamom oil. And there is no question that buttermilk-poached turbot served with a clove Mousseline will soon appear on my dining room table: It’s a “why didn’t I think of that” sort of dish, with buttermilk creating an even smoother, richer flavor for the already regal fish. If you are in the mood, you can also feast on roasted wild boar chops with a rutabaga “sauerkraut,” chorizo-crusted cod with a white cocoa bean purée, drizzled with a spicy oil made from the Moroccan-style harissa.

The decor in this small, welcoming room is subdued, with black marble floors, a grey ceiling, black chairs, shiny stainless cutlery, and clean white china, a modern statement for the modern life. I can’t wait until weather allows for dining in the garden, for that will be a treat all in itself.

Per Se:

There’s no question that chef Thomas Keller – of Napa Valley’s French Laundry fame – is one of America’s top and most respected chefs. I’ve followed him since the 1980’s when we was working at Rakel in New York City, and if his new Per Se is any signpost, he’s not ready to stop and rest on his laurels anytime soon. The gentle, outgoing Keller has created and made famous some of the modern table’s most delightful treasures, including his oysters and pearls (plump oysters set atop a bed of pear tapioca sabayon and topped with a generous dollop of glistening caviar -- think sea, sea, more sea); and of course his famed ice cream cone, buttery homemade cones stuffed generously with a salmon tartare touched with lemon oil, chives, shallots and crème fraiche.

We sampled these, and much, much more on a recent evening, including an amazing, foamy Jerusalem artichoke soup, studded with tiny pickled Jerusalem artichokes and cilantro leaf. The dish was all that today’s food should be: Light, creative, elegant, unfussy, and satisfying. Hand’s down, the star of the evening was his home-cured, home-smoked Washington State steelhead trout roe, topped with intensely flavored dried bonita an a touch of Persian lime salt. Again, purity and simplicity reigned, food that was smooth and mouth-filling, surprising, gratifying. Feed me langoustines any day of the week and it brings a smile to my face. Here, Keller poached the Scottish delicacy in sweet butter, so sparingly that they appeared to be almost raw, and served it atop a bed of wilted spinach teamed up with allspice-infused Anjou pears.

In his new and wildly popular (reservations are taken two months in advance) dining room overlooking Central Park, Keller seems to have it all together. The wait staff is abundant, well-groomed and well-trained, and outgoing in perfectly measured way.

But I found a bit of trouble in paradise. A chef of his stature should understand black truffles, one of the world’s greatest delicacies. Respectful use of truffles means knowing they are best flattered when sliced raw, into thin rounds, so one can best appreciate the texture, the aroma. On the evening we dined at Per Se, waiters arrived with the bane of my kitchen-gadget existence, the microplane, an idiotic tool designed for the woodworking shop as a rasp for fine finishing. I wish it had stayed in the workshop. Instead of thin, flavorful rounds of truffles, we were served truffle sawdust, mounds of precious black shavings, a method that totally destroys any pleasure of the magical wild mushroom. And, like many chefs today, Keller insists on serving many many dishes out of giant bowls (sorry, but they look like dog bowls to me), vessels that overwhelm the small portion sizes and, what’s more, are very awkward to eat out of. And, Mister Keller, the menus are just too long. Halfway through, even the best-trained appetites begin to fade.

Café Gray:

Just one floor below Per Se, you’ll find Café Gray, a large, bold, glittery dining spot run by Swiss-born Gray Kuntz. Though I can’t say I loved the décor or the fact that the open kitchen overlooked Central Park (what about us diners?), there was something about the food and wine list that caught my eye in the most positive way. I most loved his harvest ragout, a wholesome winter medley of seasonal vegetables, including salsify, chayote, and cardoons in a gentle turmeric-infused sauce. Equally lovely was the steamed turbotin, set in a watercress broth and served with a sunset-orange squash sauce. Also excellent (though the name throws one off) is the skate schnitzel, fresh ray fish cooked in hazelnut butter and showered with capers, walnuts, apples and jicama.

Le Bernardin:

But during a week’s worth of dining, a single dish stands out as the best: That was at what is perhaps the best fish restaurant in the world, Le Bernardin. Ever since 1972, when Maguy Le Coze and her late brother, Gilbert, opened their tiny fish restaurant on Paris’s Left Bank, the name Le Bernardin meant top quality, simplicity, dedication to the best. It is rare for a restaurant to maintain such stature, for a restaurateur to maintain such discipline over the years. Since moving their operation to New York in 1986, Le Bernardin has been, without question, a top table.

Today, I I love the thought of everything the amazing chef Eric Ripert puts in front of you, from the complex quartet of four different marinated fluke ceviche, to the flash-marinated scallops in lemon juice and extra-virgin olive oil, and on to the Peruvian-inspired crab, avocado and potatoes served with yellow pepper sauce. But forever, forever, I will remember his remarkable raw tuna specialty: Imagine the thinnest slice of toasted baguette topped with a touch of olive oil, a showering of chives, the thinnest touch of foie gras, then more and more and more paper-thin slices of thinly pounded yellowfin tuna. I felt as though I was floating on a cloud, on my way to heaven.

Bellavitae
24 Minetta Lane (between Bleecker and West 3rd)
NY NY 10012.
Telephone: 212 473 5121
web: www.bellavitae.com
Email: reservations@bellavitae.com or through OpenTable.com.

Open for dinner only, Tuesday through Sunday. All major credit cards. From $30 to $50 per person, not including service or wine.

The Bar Room at The Modern and The Modern
Museum of Modern Art
9 West 53rd Street
NY NY
Telephone: 212 333 1220

Open daily. The Bar Room at the Modern: From $17 to $31, not including service or wine. The Modern: Three-course prix fixe at $74, with cheese course $88, not including service or wine.

Per Se
10 Columbus Circle (60th Street at Broadway, fourth floor)
NY NY 10019
Telephone: 212 823 9335
Web: www.perseny.com or through OpenTable.com.

Open from lunch Friday through Sunday; Dinner nightly. All menus, including five-course menu, nine-course vegetarian menu, and nine-course tasting menu, at $175, not including service or wine.

Cafe Gray
10 Columbus Circle (60th Street at Broadway, fourth floor)
NY NY 10019
Telephone 212 823 6338
Email: info@cafegray.com

Daily prix fixe lunch at $45. A la carte, $50 to $50, not including service or wine.

Le Bernardin
155 West 51st Street
NY NY 10019
Telephone: 212 554 1515
Web: www.le-bernardin.com or through OpenTable.com

Closed Saturday lunch and all day Sunday. All major credit cards. Prix Fixe lunch at $47, dinner at $84, not including service or wine.

Otto Koch Food with Flair from the Austrian Alps

Lech am Arlberg, Austria – I last encountered the dedicated, enthusiastic German chef Otto Koch in 1994, when his cooking at the Michelin-starred Munich restaurant, le Gourmet, convinced me that modern German chefs have much to offer the world of gastronomy. His food was distinctly contemporary, totally appealing and surprising, all the while grounded in strong classical French roots. Unfortunately, shortly after our first encounters he closed Le Gourmet as well as the 80-year-old Bavarian institution – Restaurant Schwarzwälder – that he oversaw.

But the ever smiling, gentle Otto Koch is back in my life again, and I am richer for it. For the past two years he has been cooking at the Austrian ski resort of Lech am Arlberg, and it was no surprise to see his restaurant KochArt awarded a fresh, new Michelin star in the 2005 guide.

As a young man, the 56-year-old Bavarian-born chef trained at some of France’s top institutions, including Paris’s Taillevent. Today his food is mature and ever modern, and bears his trademark for simplicity, honesty, and always a touch of surprise.

In Munich, his two most famous dishes included a picture-perfect mushroom cake, layer after layer of the thinnest of crepes filled with a dense, earthy, mushroom filling. It was a Koch classic and we find it again on the tables of this Austrian outpost, a dish that seems to know no era, no seasons.

But perhaps his most famous creation was a bone marrow extravaganza: He scooped out the bone marrow, sliced the bones horizontally, then filled the “boats” full of a nutmeg-infused potato purée, all topped with crispy rounds of marrow seasoned with chives and freshly ground black pepper. The wintry dish was warming, surprising, full of fine textures and aromas. How times have changed! Mad cow fears have taken such specialties off our diets for the moment. So the creative Koch re-tooled the dish, transforming it into a lusty Jerusalem artichoke puree topped with slices of seared goose liver, all served in “boats” of bamboo. Two sauces --- one of chocolate, another of balsamic vinegar – played a sweet and sour dance on our palates.

Koch and the German Robinson resort group have done considerable market research into how their customers want to eat today, with most people suggesting that people go to restaurants for entertainment first, food second. So at KochArt the chef and staff do their best to keep you alert as well as amused. Attractive young women appear out of nowhere, in kitschy costumes that flatter their lean figures and may make you laugh aloud. Food is always the subject, whether it’s a series of whisks hanging from a skin-tight robe, or a bright red strapless gown with a wine glass fashioned at the cleavage. You may be handed “a present” in a little box, only to find it contains a tiny, miniature “Big Mac,” only here a bite-sized sausage on a bun. Laughter, indeed, breaks the ice, cools one down, sets the stage for very good time.

The dining room at KochArt, located in a resort hotel in the tiny village of Zürs, is cozy and comforting. While guests gather in front of a roaring fire, Koch himself describes what diners might expect, as well as his concept of making food fun.

The dining room is warming, with pine-paneled walls, crisp white linens, clean white china, and oversized, comfortable arm chairs upholstered in a cherry red fabric.

On the serious side, Koch’s food is just what we want to eat today. A perfect filet of the freshest of turbot arrives accompanied by fresh wild cèpe mushrooms, ideal for pairing with an outstanding Austrian white wine. We opted for the 2001 Gelber Muskateller from the house of Tement. Rich and ripe, this dry white from the Muscat grape has the scent of orange blossoms, with plenty of exotic fruit on the tongue.

Next, perfect rounds of fresh scallops showered with fresh black truffles was paired with a 2001 chardonnay white, here known as morillon, from Winkler-Hermaden. The pairing was ideal, for the wine had a Burgundy-like seriousness, soft in texture and harmonious, and elegant enough to stand up to the truffle/scallop combination.

But Koch’s finest moment came in the name of juicy, rare Bresse pigeon set on a bed of rare black rice. The rice, originally reserved for Chinese emperors, is now being grown in Italy, and is certain to become one of the trendier ingredients of the decade.

Known as venere black rice from the Piedmont region of Italy, it is difficult and costly to grow, and is offered by on a few producers. When cooked, the rice retains its ebony black color, and has the yeasty aroma of freshly baked bread, retaining a crunch and texture unlike other risotto rices. With the rich squab meat we savored sips of a beautifully blended Austria red – a 2001 Cuvée Excelsior Weingut Ing from Stefan Lang – a mix no less than five grapes, including syrah and cabernet sauvignon.

KochArt
Robinson Club Alpenrose
Lech am Arlberg
Zürs, 6763 Austria
Telephone (05583) 227 1742
Fax: (05583) 227 179

Open until April. Closed Sunday and Monday. About 48 € per person, including service but not wine.

New Delhi: Food for Tingling Palates

NEW DELHI --Sometimes food can arrive as a revolution and a revelation. IS there is better way to experience and fall in love with a food than to be blown away by the experience, new flavors, textures, concepts?

I must admit that the earth shook over a recent lunch at the popular New Delhi restaurant Bukhara, a cave-like, restaurant dedicated to the cuisine of mughals, a nomadic people who were big, with huge appetites, and in love with meat. So meat we ate, in many versions, in many variations. Seated on low tables, we were surrounded by rock walls, wooden pillars, and copper cooking vessels.

The restaurant has been there since 1977, and the food arrives from an open kitchen, where almost everything is cooked in clay tandoori ovens. Quite simply, the cuisine as offered here is some of the most intense, dramatic, and pleasing food I have sampled in a long time. It is also, in its own way, very subtle.

Forget the mish-mash menus we are used to with much Indian food. Here, each creation is there for its own sake, not to be doused with sauce or yogurt, pickles or breads. It is pure and it is simple.

We were encouraged to eat with our hands (“there is something in the fingers that give to the flavor,” suggested our Indian host), devouring with passion kababs of lamb and chicken, mutton and prawns, river sole as well as tender mutton chops. We wore bib-like aprons around our necks, because as the locals like to say, this is a very messy cuisine. Each delicacy had its own character, its own history, offering a specific pleasure. Out of the medley my favorite for sure was the chicken, served in two delicate kebabs, one stuffed with a fiery green chili, another milder version stuffed with a gooey, soothing bit of cheese. Lamb appeared in all different manners, from a tender tiny mutton chop that was marinated and black pepper and figs, then pan grilled and finished in a covered pot sealed with dough, with a slow charcoal fire applied from the top, and a slow live fire from the bottom, making for a dish that is juicy, full-flavored, aromatic, satisfying. I laughed just a bit at the long cylinder of Kakori Kabab, a delicate blend of very very finely minced mutton, cloves, and cinnamon, carefully skewered, char grilled and drizzled with saffron. This was the specialty created for toothless emperors, who could no longer choose to chew their tender delicacies! Looking back, I also fell in love with the gorgeous, bright green discs of Pan Kabab, dainty patties of spiced, finely minced mutton, wrapped with beatle leaves and pan grilled. The result was as refined as it was rustic, mouth filling, amazing, satisfying. River fish arrived minced, in little paupiettes, stuffed with cheese and onions, flavored with garam Masala and pan-grilled.

I was intrigued by the digestive drink – jal jeera – made of tamarind water, roasted black pepper, cumin seeds, fresh mint, black salt, and lemon juice. The “neat” version is delicious, as is the same enlivened with a touch of vodka.

When you go, be sure to stand at the kitchen window for a bit, to gaze upon the dozens of soft, spicy kababs as they are drawn from the ovens. Ask Chef G. Sultan Mohideen to create a special menu. And do sample the amazing cool drink of mint and black pepper, one that will surely pacify any fiery palates. You won’t regret it.

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Chor Bizarre, the perfect spot for dining after a whirlwind rickshaw ride through the market streets of Old Delhi, lives up to its name, Bizarre. But that’s just the décor: Imagine a 1927 Fiat Roadster that serves as a buffet “table.” All the china is intentionally worn and mismatched, none of the chairs are the same, and walls are loaded with photos of Elvis and Marilyn, and there is a gorgeous spiral staircase that goes to nowhere. This is because the word “chor” is thief, and this is an attempt to be a thieves bazaar. Thank goodness the kitsch stops there, for the food was welcoming and fiery, and varied and sure to please any lover of Indian food. I most adored, and could not get enough of their spinach specialty, palak patta chat, or spinach leaves coated with flour and topped with tamarind chutney and blended yogurt. The dish was totally balanced, a blend of bitter and sweet, some crunch some smoothness, creating a very satisfying blend.

Equally distinctive was the Punjabi tandoor chaat, seasoned vegetables – here a mix of cubed potatoes and green peppers with pineapple for a touch of sweetness – here marinated in spiced and yogurt, grilled in the tandoori oven and sprinkled with spicy chaat Masala. The mirchi kerma, lamb cooked in hot gravy with kashmiri chilies, cardamom and cloves, was evenly spiced if a bit on the heavy side. The mouth-tingling flat, lentil papadam were crisp, delicate, delicious.

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If you’re in the mood for some sure-footed, totally traditional Indian foot with no fancy footwork, just solid, clear-flavored fare, try the warm, cozy, Haveli. Here – amid classic Indian dancers and live piano music in the evening – you’ll find some of plumpest, most succulent shrimp, marinated in a traditional tandoori Masala, then grilled over the glowing embers of he tandoori oven. Another worthy starter is chef Irshad Ahmed Qureshi’s chicken tikka, moist tandoori-roasted chunks of chicken breast, soft, gently spiced, and satisfying (and much preferable to the generally dried-out whole chicken breast.)

The restaurant is decorated like an old royal home, filled with elegant chandeliers, Indian artwork, wood carvings and lamps. The cuisine is that of the royal Mughals, yet here one can request the chef update and lighten some of the fare, so such as a fine, light yellow dal, prepared with yellow lentils and extra virgin olive oil, as well as a colorful vegetable medley – khara Masala – that combines button mushrooms, baby corn and bright green broccoli in a tomato gravy. Save room for the deliciously moist biryiani, a fine-flavored rice dish loaded with giant chunks of top-quality lamb carefully seasoned with saffron and mace.

Bukhara
Maurya Sheraton & Towers
Diplomatic Enclave
New Delhi 110 021, India
Telephone 6112233
Fax: 6113333

Open daily. All major credit cards. About 20 euros per person, not including service or beverage.

Chor Bizarre
Hotel Broadway
4/15 A Asif Ali Road
Old Delhi, India
Telephone 11/327 3821

Open daily. All major credit cards. About 9 euros per person, not including service or beverage.

Haveli
The Taj Mahal Hotel
Number One, Mansing Road
New Delhi 110-011
Telephone: 91 11 5551 3587
Fax: 91 11 2302 6070
web: tajhotels.com

Open daily. All major credit cards. About 20 euros per person, not including service or beverage.

The Mao Jackets are Gone: A Taste of New Beijing

BEIJING – I last set foot in Beijing in 1982, when travelers could only journey in groups, you needed a guide, and the roads were clogged with Mao-jacketed residents riding rickety bicycles. Restaurants were still tainted with all the negative trappings of capitalism. I remember having some great dishes during a three-week tour of China, but no real great meals. No news here that radical political changes have brought radical restaurant changes.

What better name than Made in China for a year-old, up market, smart, vibrant Chinese restaurant in the center of the nation’s capital? It’s hard not to fall in love here, with the bustling atmosphere, trim and chic wait staff, the open kitchens arranged throughout the long, narrow dining room. Try to get a table right in front of the two flaming ovens, so you can watch the careful ballet of chefs adroitly ushering the long, narrow, Beijing ducks in and out of the apricot wood-fired ovens. The roasting takes a full hour and 15 minutes, and the sleek, elongated poultry arrive at your table only seconds later. Like a trained surgeon, the chef adeptly carves the duck in front of you: first the glistening skin is carved into thin slivers with a giant cleaver. He continues the same movements without skipping a beat, and soon you’ve a platter of delicate crispy skin and meat, then again a platter of just the moist duck meat. The feast has begun before you can take a second breath. Hoisin sauce, vinegar, salt, and scallions arrive, along with a beautiful bamboo steamer basket full of warm pancakes. Season, roll, enjoy. The ducks are just 35 days old, and fattened for the last 10 days. We loved the meal with a few glasses of California’s Geyser Peak Sauvignon blanc, a grape I find pairs deliciously well with all Chinese food. This wine was luscious: it was vibrant, crisp, and aromatic and the notes of citrus and melon played well with the smoky duck.

If you are in Beijing and have already had your fill of duck, there are many other treasures here, in the hip, well-visited treasure of a restaurant . Try the pickled cucumber with shredded ginger and strips of hot red pepper, a palate opener and an excellent way to start the meal. The twice-cooked crispy pork ribs are to be eaten with the fingers, chewy, crispy, moist and touched with just the right dose of garlic. Starters of an unusual and original puree of tofu and chives, as well as a soothing portion of white beans, garlic, parsley and oil, were most welcome. Another starter of smoked duck, cut into bite-sized portions and topped with smooth chunks of white cabbage were clean-flavored, just lightly, slightly smoked, and delicious. Chef Jack Aw Yong insisted we try his double chicken consommé with cabbage and tofu. He was right to push: I have rarely tasted tofu as velvety or elegant in my life. Equally exciting were the gigantic shrimp, grilled and glistening, shrouded in long strips of scallions. Great ingredients, simple food, careful cooking, that’s what it’s all about. My only disappointment of the meal were the Shanghai-style pot stickers, made for seasoning with black vinegar. I found them too bready, not crispy enough, and lacking in flavor.

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As a single dish, Beijing Duck is probably one of the world’s most efficient preparations. From the skin and meat consumed ceremoniously in the classic pancake and garnish preparation to a steaming broth prepared with the roasted carcass, everything gets used. One of Beijing’s classic restaurants for this famed dish is Da Dong, a large, traditional restaurant on the outskirts of the city. On our visit, the place was packed with locals of all ages, downing the moist and crunchy poultry preparation with plenty of warm tea to wash it down.

The duck here is delicious, and half a duck can be ordered – preferably in advance, when you reserve – and the assortment of garnishes make for an even more adventurous meal. The encyclopedic menu includes pictures as well as English translations, so even novices can have a good time here. The wait staff will even prepare the first portion of duck for you, deftly dipping pieces of duck and duck skin in the hoi sin sauce, layering the duck with garnishes such as matchsticks of radish, scallion, cucumber, as well as white sugar (for dipping pieces of irresistible roasted duck skin) and a rather forgettable garlic paste.

We loved even more than the duck the two side dishes, a round platter of braised tofu with brilliant green and crunchy broccoli. The tofu stood in little round towers, soft and wobbly as Jell-O, filled with a spicy hot sauce. The mouth-sized towers were electric, with that soothing mouth feel offset by the spice and squish of the spicy red sauce, oozing from each end. Chinese food is often all about texture and the play of texture and here it was a single texture with contrasting colors and strengths. Equally appealing was the platter of fresh, firm, brilliant green fava beans laced with the tiniest of dried shrimp. Here the play of texture was one of dramatic contrast, with the smooth green fava beans adding a tiny bit of crunch and smooth elegance on the palate, with the shrimp supplying a pungent saltiness and dense and crispy crunch. We loved it.

At the end of the meal, after an offering of fresh fruit – excellent watermelon slices and truly delicious strawberries – we were offered a single slice of Wrigley’s Spearmint Chewing Gum. “Because of the garlic,” giggled our waitress.

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The trend all over Asia is to recapture the past by restoring or rebuilding spots of sentimental value. Tian Di Yi Jia, an elegant, upscale restaurant overlooking the Forbidden City is like that. The restaurant is a rebuilt mansion, decorated with giant comfortable Chinese arm chairs, oversized round tables, and careful lighting. There is a feeling of space, calm and quiet, with a very sophisticated style of modern, imperial, Chinese food. We most loved the thin rectangles of golden goose liver, smooth, rich and infused with a multitude of spices, making for a palate awakening starter. Equally good were the thick discs of cabbage doused in a powerful mustard sauce, the fresh and crunchy miniature cucumbers, and the tiny, moist dumplings for dipping in a fiery sauce. With the meal, we sampled a dense, tightly knit Australian red, Cap Mentelle, from the Margaret River Valley.

Made in China
The Grand Hyatt Beijing
Beijing Oriental Plaza
1 East Chang An Avenue
Beijing 100738
Telephone (86) (10) 6510 9221
Fax (86) (10) 8518 0000
web: hyatt.com

Open daily. All major credit cards. From $40 to $50 per person, including service but not beverages.

Beijing Da Dong Roast Duck Restaurant
South Eastern Corner of Chang Hong Bridge
Third Ring Road
Beijing 100020
Telephone: 010 6582 2892

Open daily. All major credit cards. From $20 to $30 per person, including service but not beverages.

Tian Di Yi Jia
No 140 Nan Chi Zi Street
Eastern District
Beijing 100006, China
Telephone (8610) 85115556
Fax: (8610) 85115158-9
email: tiandicanyin@163.com.

Open daily. All major credit cards. From $50 to $50 person, including service but not beverages.

Quince Culinary High Notes in San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO --- When there’s a high culinary note in San Francisco, one can usually trace some of the pleasant sounds back to Alice Waters, to whom America owes their reverence for all things fresh, seasonal, and simple.

Perhaps Quince – the city’s restaurant of the moment -- would exist without her well-guided influence, but I’m not here to argue that point. What’s true is that it’s been a long time since I sat down anywhere to eat food that was so thoroughly sincere, honest, simple, satisfying and totally without attitude.

Chef Michael Tusk got his start in the kitchens of Waters’ Chez Panisse, and then later at Olivetto, the restaurant owned by former Chez Panisse chef Paul Bartolli. So Tusk’s food is filled with that same rustic, earthy, well-crafted fare, with strong Italian influences of home-cured meats, elegant and unforgettable pastas, great seasonal vegetables all over the map, and a worthy selection of fish, shellfish, poultry and meats.

I’ll start with the dish I can’t get out of my mind, hours later, and it’s Tusk’s homemade garganelli pasta, laced with miniature meatballs punctuated with fennel seeds and showered with Pecorino cheese. When the dish was set down in front of me, I instantly remarked “I’ll take three more portions.” Few chefs in the world have the self-confidence to present such total simplicity: The loosely tubular, penne-sized pasta was cloud-like and sensual, and the marble-sized polpettini pork meatballs were like gentle punctuation marks meant to showcase the pasta. The dish was exciting, elegant, and yet subtle in the way only great homemade pasta can be.

When set side by side with the garganelli, the homemade tagliolini with fresh back chanterelles paled, while on its own it was more than a worthy rendition of a classic pasta with seasonal mushrooms.

A first course of the pungent Florentine farro and black cabbage soup was equally brilliant, laced with bits of prosciutto to escort the rustic grain – the poor man’s wheat we call spelt – and perk up the bits of cabbage.

A first course salad of escarole hearts with Georgia white shrimp and confetti-like strips of radishes was delicious, but seemed awkward. The greens just didn’t connect to the unforgettable shrimp, all soft, soothing and pink, almost as good as a French langoustine, but not quite.

I loved his mixed grill – wonderfully rare, red, and smoky skirt steak paired with meaty grilled quail and served with a welcoming chicory salad.

Michael’s wife, Lindsay, is the perfect hostess, having honed her skills at the well-known Boulevard in San Francisco. This former 19th-century apothecary shop turned restaurant has an almost religious, meeting hall atmosphere, punctuated with some haunting black and white photos taken by Italian photographer Marco Giacometti. Service here is polished and alert, and friendly without being overbearing. I do hope they will do something about the restaurant’s exhaust system, for a sour odor permeates the small, tightly packed dining room.

The wine list offers some well-priced, well-chosen selections and I loved their Austrian Pinot Blanc --- sold by the glass – and the powerful Hendry Block 28 Zinfandel, a 2001 Napa Valley red that’s a blockbuster 15% alcohol. The trick here is that the wine was so finely balanced with brilliant red fruit and good acidity that I didn’t even note the alcohol content until after I had genuflected and enjoyed.

Quince,
1701 Octavia,
San Francisco, California
Telephone: 415 775 8500
Fax: 415 775 8501
Web: www.quincerestaurant.com.
Email: info@quincerestaurant.com.

Open daily, dinner only. $36 to $60 per person, not including service or wine

Le Rouge Vif A Classic Bistro in a Tiny Parisian Village

PARIS -- There are single blocks in Paris that are a village unto themselves. You could live there, be nourished, repaired, clothed, dry cleaned, enlightened, and even uplifted without ever walking more than a few steps. The single block of the Rue de Verneuil – between Rue du Bac and Rue de Poitiers – is a bit like that.

Within a few short steps you’ll find a butcher, a cheese shop, a convenience store, a tile shop, an electric store, several antique shops, a fireplace store, a boutique that specializes in trompe l’oeil porcelain, a Russian restaurant, a café, a Vietnamese restaurant, and a little 42-seat bistro called Le Rouge Vif.

Wander into this cozy, embraceable bistro any time of day or night and you’ll find owner Patrick Rousseau racing about like a speed demon, sporting a bright red tie, spectacles, and a level of energy that knows no bounds. A bit like a modern-day Fernandel, he is there to animate a dining room that needs little help of its own. With a model modern bistro décor – sporty wicker café chairs, tables of bright tiles and wood, exposed stone walls, wooden floors that seem to make just the right sound as Rousseau runs about, and a tiny oak bar at the entrance – Le Rouge Vif is clearly a home away from home for many on the street and surrounding blocks.

He’s been there since 1995, transforming an old stable into a viable restaurant. With his charming wife Nida aiding in service, and sometimes assisted by their 14-month-old daughter, Chara, Rousseau aims to create a simple, traditional French bistro, and does it with flair. The food is classic, with daily specials such as pork and lentils or boeuf bourguignon, with some modern fare as the famed tiny ravioli de Royans bathed in cream and herbs. On a recent evening, we feasted on perfectly marinated fresh anchovies and meaty whole roasted bar (sea bass), as well as a fine salad of thickly sliced, marinated salmon on a bed of potatoes.

Specials appear on the blackboard that’s carried from the street into this tiny establishment, and change about every two weeks. At lunch, the single 18-€ menu – everyone eats the same thing – allows for swift, efficient service. Wines change almost every day, and usually include about 7 or 8 specials -- priced from about 26 to 38 euros – from all over France, including Bordeaux, Côtes-du-Rhone, the southeast, as well as Burgundy. We enjoyed a Jean Luc Colombo pure syrah vin de pays Rhodaniens, an easy-drinking wine from clearly young vines, but satisfying and wholesome nonetheless.

Le Rouge Vif
48, rue de Verneuil
Paris 7
Telephone 01 42 86 81 87
Fax: 01 42 86 81 87

Closed Saturday and Sunday .Credit card: Visa. 18-€ lunch menu; Dinner a la carte, about 35 euros, including service but not wine.

Chiberta A New Life for a True Classic

PARIS – I have in my worn files a photo of Guy Savoy that I took in 1981, a year after he opened his first restaurant. Lean, black bearded, smiling as ever, he’s cooking with two young assistants in his then eponymous restaurant on Rue Duret in the 16th arrondissment. My notes say ” Savoy may have something here. He’s not just another fresh-faced kid making a splash.” In a subsequent interview he noted: I don’t pour over the kitchen, testing and re-testing. When dishes come, they come out right the first time. I think of things to make on my way back from the market in my truck.”

Then, I was wowed by his warm duck salad on a bed of wilted spinach and a touch of foie gras, and his always outstanding millefeuille, reflecting his formal training as a pastry chef. Savoy had no Michelin stars at the time, but certainly was on his way to one.

At the same time, one of the hottest tables in town was Chiberta, a streamlined Art Deco restaurant with lots of glamour and trendy nouvelle cuisine, as well as simple straightforward fare as a summer orange and strawberry soup with fresh mint.

Today, the Guy Savoy-Chiberta routes meet, as Savoy – with three Michelin stars at the restaurant that bears his name in the 17th -- adds restaurant Chiberta to his growing repertoire in Paris and soon, Las Vegas.

Many young French chefs complain that the days in which unknowns can open a small, family-owned restaurant and make a success of it – as did Savoy in 1980 -- are over. They also complain that unless you are or have worked with a Ducasse, a Robuchon, a Savoy or a Pourcel, your future is dim indeed. The truth of this is yet to be seen, but it’s clear that restaurant power is being condensed into a smaller and smaller group, with little room for the little guy to install, grow, and flourish.

If you go to Chiberta – totally redone and still glitzy in stark black, white, and red – you’ll no doubt meet Franck Savoy, Guy’s only son, and the spitting image of the little guy who began his climb back in 1980. Franck is in the dining room and will soon move to Las Vegas to direct the restaurant there.

But back at Chiberta, the place has regained the glamour and the popularity it had in years back, and since its opening in late August, its been playing to a packed house.

I am not sure that Savoy still drives his truck back from the market every day, but he’s dreaming up new ideas every day, as the new menu shows. There are, as always, his signature touches of green, brilliant use of unusual bowls and dishes, and an overall feeling of freshness. The staff is as accommodating as ever, and seems to actually love being in the restaurant.

We loved specials of the day that included a stunning wild mushroom soup, rich, creamy, elegant, just the sort of dish to escort you from the sunny summer days of tomato, eggplant and zucchini into autumnal wild mushrooms, leeks, and potatoes. Equally luscious was the platter of perfectly seared girolles mushrooms. I loved my rare-roasted pigeon, cut open down the back and seared “en crapaudine,” paired with an unusual but successful accompaniment of green beans tossed with a creamy mix of pigeon liver. We’re at the height of the French fig season, and warm figs with almond ice cream were better than an icing on a cake.

Wines here are reasonably priced with an excellent 28 € white Côtes-du-Rhone from Domaine de la Janasse, the 2003 a fine southern Rhone with plenty of verve, fruit and acidity.

But even more stunning was the Domaine d’Aupilhac “Les Cocalieres,” 2002, winemaker Sylvain Fadat’s remarkably open, fruity, and lush red from young grapes, honestly priced at 48 euros.

Chiberta
3, rue Arsène Houssaye
Paris 8
Telephone 01 53 53 42 00
Fax: 01 45 62 85 08
Email: Chiberta@guysavoy.com.

All major credit cards. Closed Saturday lunch and Sunday. A la carte, 55 to 70 euros, including service but not wine.

Le Severo and Casa Olympe - Bistros to build a dream on

PARIS: In 1987 William Bernet traded in his career as Parisian butcher for that of bistrotier, taking over as owner of, chef and server for, a tiny bistro on Rue des Plantes on Paris's right bank. He served well aged beef and had a selection of no more than five little regional wines.

He is in the same space today, but a decorative upgrade just three years ago and some help in the kitchen from Johnny Beguin has turned his Le Severo into a model bistro, with a selection of no less than 200 French wines and some of the finest, well-aged Limousin beef from France that one can find.

Vegetarians, read no farther, there's nothing for you here. Meat eaters, rejoice. Thick slabs of rare beef chosen and aged by Bernet himself are served fragrant and juicy, along with some of the finest French fries I've had, golden, crispy, with the true taste of potato.

A platter of assorted sausages consists of thoroughly top-notch charcuterie, including thin slices of andouilette, rosy rosettes, the finest pork rillettes I have ever tasted (I could not stop myself), and extra-thick slices of crusty country bread.

There is room here for no more than 24 diners, mostly at highly varnished wooden tables set on a colorful tile floor. Bernet uses good-sized glasses so you can really enjoy your wine, and crisp linen napkins so you don't feel you're roughing it.

An entire wall of this brick-red bistro is given over to a series of blackboards offering the day's wine selections and his specials. On one visit, I had an oldtime favorite Cuvee Meme, a Ceps Centenaires from the artisanal winemaker Michele Laurent in the Rhône Valley. The grapes come from 110-year-old grenache vines, are hand-harvested and aged a year in oak barrels. The wine tastes of grapes, not of the burning sun. On another visit, Bernet introduced me to a new Minervois (I never met a Minervois that did not inspire me), Jean-Baptise Senat's cuvee La Nine 2003, which was astonishingly full and rich, considering its young age.

A generous portion of expertly seared foie de veau was classically accompanied by a butter-rich potato purée, and a starter salade de chèvre was a quiet culinary masterpiece: a tangle of baby arugula and baby spinach leaves were dressed in a fine vinaigrette, while beside them rested a rich disc of ultra-fresh goat cheese showered with chopped chives and drizzled with olive oil.

Steak tartare arrived in simple glory, studded with rosy shallots and giant capers. I've rarely seen the dish so well presented: intuitively seasoned, chewy and fragrant, like eating a meat cocktail. And alongside, those gorgeous fries.

Throughout the meal, Bernet scurries about with an immense aura of calm, cooking in a kitchen in which he can barely turn around, opening bottles, clearing tables, taking orders, making it all seem so easy. So did Fred Astaire.

Like William Bernet, Dominique Versini has had a bit of a sea change over the years. When I first moved to Paris in 1980, her lively restaurant Olympe in the 15th arrondissement was all the rage, and she was known as Dominique Nahmias. The place was packed day and night with budding foodies and she was one of the most celebrated female cooks in France, offering up the most modern and audacious fare of the day.

Her moment in the sun ended, and she reappeared a few years ago, cooking the simple kinds of food she really wants to cook. As a native of Corsica, her favorite ingredients are naturally those of the Mediterranean: fresh smoky eggplant, tomatoes that sing of the sun, the creamy rich brousse, Corsica's version of sheep's milk ricotta cheese, joints of earthy roasted goat, plenty of pasta, wintry beef cheeks bathed in a chive vinaigrette..

Her Casa Olympe is also a dream sort of bistro, with sunny, brick-red walls, a pale-green frieze of olives and olive branches, and elbow-to-elbow tables set with pleasantly crisp white linen tablecloths and napkins. The two tiny rooms not far from the Place Saint Georges in the ninth arrondissement hold no more than 30 people.

The service here is efficient but faceless. On my last visit, the food was loaded with personality and verve, but the dining room felt more like a morgue. No sign of Olympe Versini making the rounds of the tables - her hair all shiny black and cut into a classic pageboy - no chatter from the waiters, no music, just an awkward silence.

That did not stop us from digging in to her generous platter of the freshest of golden girolles, chanterelle mushrooms, well-seared and seasoned, served in a well-worn black metal skillet. Sips of the ripe and ready red 2001 Vieille Julienne Vieille Vignes Cotes du Rhône went beautifully with the meal: It was a peppery, ruby-colored wine full of elegance and charm.

I adored Versini's version of thick, roasted slices of eggplant cooked to a soft confit, topped with a fine homemade tomato sauce, that soothing brousse cheese, a dab of pesto and a few leaves of basil.

Equally impressive was the ravioli of langoustine, encased in paper-thin leaves of Chinese pastry and bathed in a rich sauce that blended the smoky piment d'espelette from France's southwest, a touch of tomato, cream and cognac. The dish is rich and regal without being heavy, almost too elegant (but not quite) for a bistro.

Equally expert and satisfying was the duck ravioli, rich with cooking juices, perfumed with cream and chives, and dressed with a shower of freshly cooked spinach leaves.

Dessert brought back the most pleasant childhood memories: Smothered amidst chunks of meringue and whipped cream came an array of strawberries, raspberries and miniature wild strawberries airy, tangy, delicious.

Le Severo
8 Rue des Plantes
Paris 14
Telephone: 01-45-40-40-91.

Closed Saturday dinner and all day Sunday; à la carte, 35 € to 50 €, including service but not wine.

Casa Olympe
48 Rue Saint-Georges
Paris 9
Telephone: 01-42-85-26-01

Closed Saturday and Sunday; à la carte, 55 to 60 €, including service but not wine; menu,37 €, including service but not wine.

L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon Robuchon: Playing by His Own Rules

PARIS – It’s now exactly eight years since Joel Robuchon left the restaurant world in all his top-of-the-heap, Michelin three-star glory.

We all know the story: he didn’t leave for good, just long enough for us to forget that he’s the only one who ever offered us such culinary perfection. And long enough for us to learn to miss him.

He’s back all right, in a very new kind of glory. In the old world, he had to play by the rules to get to the top. In the new world, he’s in charge and makes the rules, thank you. And I, for one, am grateful.

Not many people get to reinvent themselves to their own tailor-made desires, but Robuchon has done it. First, with the all-new restaurant concept at L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon, where we sit on stools in a cozy red and black dining room, sample just a few perfect langoustines and a glass wine, or go all the way with a knock down drag out meal. There, he combines updated old favorites from the 1980’s – like the langoustines, deep fried whiting, and the unforgettable cauliflower cream doused laced with soothing oysters.

Robuchon also shows us how modern he can be, with a totally memorable dish such as his “fine rôtie de legumes” a gorgeous layered stack of freshly toasted sourdough bread, the best Spanish ham, gutsy sun-dried tomato, smoky eggplant, a white surprise of mozzarella, all melted to a fragrant delight, doused with a thin pesto sauce and flanked by a thick slice of caramelized cèpe mushrooms. Not your 1980’s sort of thing!

Now, since late spring, he’s offered us another Parisian choice, in the name of La Table de Joel Robuchon, where we sit at tables, and admire once again his sense of simplicity, perfection, expressions of pure gustatory pleasure.

The 16th arrondissment restaurant was once the table of Ghislaine Arabian, and her chef, Frédéric Simonin, is ably taking over as a new Robuchon acolyte. The food here is just sensational. So simple you want to think maybe you missed something. But it’s real, it’s precise, it’s direct in flavor and full of the sort of self-assurance you find only at a Robuchon table.

The dining room is like a shimmery, golden, sparkling, gilt-edge package, with touches of deep brown wood and traces of Robuchon’s signature deep, blood red. Yet like the food, it is far from daunting, and a fine combination of elegant and casual, the way at least I want to live today.

Spectacular early summer tastes include a textbook gazpacho – gorgeous red ladled into shiny aqua bowls – topped with the best of the freshest almonds and a drizzle of spring green basil oil. His eggplant caviar was as smoky as they come, pleasantly chunky and set in a bowl surrounded by a lean, acidic tomato sauce. Anointed by the crunchiest of deep-fried eggplant curls, it was a feast in a single dish.

But swoon is the only adjective I can find to describe his starter of fresh crab meat in avocado cream, a Cinderella-like creation that appears in a thick white porcelain egg: Avocado cream hides at the bottom of the egg, topped with highly seasoned ultra-fresh crab meat laced with a fine acidic touch of tomato.

I did say a few weeks ago, if given the choice between a restaurant where the chef-owner is at the stove and one where he is not, I’d go for the former. Any place under Robuchon’s direction, of course, is an exception.

La Table de Joel Robuchon
16, avenue Bugeaud
Paris 16
Tel: 01 56 28 16 16

Open daily. About 100 euros per person, including service but not wine.

L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon
5, rue de Montalembert
Paris 7
Tel: 01 42 22 56 56

A la carte, about 50 € per person, including service but not wine. Open daily from 11:30 am to 3:300 pm and 6:30 pm to midnight.

Christian Etienne: A Love Affair with the Tomato

Avignon --- Tomatoes are a problem. For ten months of the year we pine away for the juicy, acidic pleasures of garden- fresh fruit, bursting with sunshine, energy, and vitality and filling us with memories of tomatoes past. Then suddenly the moment comes, and our gardens and markets are laden with all manner of heirloom varieties, with names like Tigerella and Striped Germaine, Banana Legs, and Dix Doigts de Naples. We concoct salads and gratins, sorbets and thick-crusted pizzas, devour them right off the vine, and put up batches of ruby sauce for winter’s pleasures. They come green and yellow, red and orange, miniature and gigantic. And we never get enough.

If you love tomatoes as I do, do yourself a favor and reserve a table on the sun-kissed terrace of restaurant Christian Etienne, where his famed all-tomato menu is in the fittest of forms. Sitting there, with the Palais des Papes staring you in the face, the lively sounds of street musicians below, and sipping a fine white Châteauneuf-du-Pape wine, the tomato serves to tip the scales in the best of ways.

Christian Etienne is a native son with Provence in his veins, a man whose enthusiasm, energy, and love for native products are instantly transported from the kitchen to your plate. It’s true that so many chefs who profess to specialize in an ingredient – be it truffles, fish, vegetables or roasts – never manage to convince us or to convey their mastery of the subject. But the dark-haired, square-jawed Etienne does.

In no less than seven courses, in addition to a series of side tastes, he manages to give the tomato its due. Starting with a shot glass full of an icy gazpacho (served flirtatiously with a striped straw) and ending with a superb tomato sorbet, he put our favorite fruit through its paces, offering us immense pleasure along the way.

The finest dish of the day was his tender, amazing braised lamb, paired with the creamiest of eggplant and the tastiest of beefsteak tomatoes (Coeur de Boeuf), all stuffed inside the skin of the eggplant, with its haunting, almost smoky flavor and firm, chewy texture. The traditional Greek Moussaka comes to mind, but Etienne’s version is a culinary masterpiece. With each bite, he managed to capture the pure essence of eggplant, tomato, and lamb, ethereal tastes created by a culinary gymnast.

Not just tasty but beautiful was his duo of molded tomato tartares, one red, the other green, standing like little glistening columns flanking a superb green salad. The brandade of rouget was a fine play on the classic salt cod brandade, with the intensely flavored Mediterranean fish turned into a rich and chunky purée, enveloped between stacks of crisp, dried, paper-thin slices of vibrant red Roma tomatoes. As a garnish, a full-flavored garlic cream met its match, making for a dish that was a spectacular to look at as to savor.

Nor was there anything wrong with his giant, warm tomato, peeled and stuffed with tiny Provencal snails and a soothing mint butter. The textures here were smooth, smooth, smooth, a dish just oozing with flavor and character. At that moment, we asked ourselves, “Is there possibly a better way to eat a tomato?”

The only dish that I did not get was the tiny disc of goat’s milk cheese that was enrobed in a pale orange, glue-like paste made of tomato water.

Dessert was spectacular. A thick slice of zucchini had been infused with an orange essence, topped with that gorgeous sweet and salty tomato sorbet, all teamed up with a sweet baklava-like pastry.

Service here is efficient and friendly, and the wait staff expresses an authentic enthusiasm for Etienne’s food. The only sour note of the day came from the behavior and attitude of two different sommeliers. After ordering a favorite white Châteauneuf du Pape – the stunning 100% Roussanne Grand Veneur La Fontaine – I inquired as to the grape variety. The young female sommelier rattled off a list of potential suspects but insisted that it was illegal to make a Châteauneuf from a single grape, which is not true. A request for her to “look it up’ and get back to us met with no response. Later, another sommelier offered a glass of red with the lamb, played the silly “you guess what it is game,” and got the grape varieties wrong again. A minor error? Not when you are a few moments away from one of France’s most glorious vineyards. Study up, please.

Christian Etienne
10 rue des Mons
84000 Avignon
Telephone: 04 90 86 16 50
Fax: 04 90 86 67 09
Internet: christian-etienne.fr
email : contact@christian-etienne.fr

Closed Sunday and Monday, except in July. Menus at 30 (lunch only), 50, 60, 70, and 95 euro. A la carte, 65 to 95 euro, including service but not wine.

La Table d’Augusta, Le Grand Pre and Les Abeilles: Searching for Soul in Provence

SAINT PAUL TROIS CHATEAUX --- Let me go on the record. I believe chefs as businessmen and women should be allowed to earn as a good a living as possible. But – in almost all cases – if given a choice between visiting an offshoot of the chef’s top restaurant where he or she makes no pretense of being on the premises, or visiting a restaurant where I am 100% certain the chef is at the stove and will come to my table to say hello, I’ll choose the second any day.

So here are cases in point. Just a few weeks ago, Jacques and Laurent Pourcel – with a bundle of restaurants to their name, including their Michelin three-star Jardin des Sens in  Montpellier – opened La Table d’Augusta, a modern hotel-restaurant in northern Provence.

The place is lovely – with an elegant, spacious stone terrace decked out in comfortable grey wicker chairs, lavender tabletops laid with pale pink table runners, crisp white china, and a bubbling ornamental pool nearby. It’s the backdrop of a dream setting in Provence. (Only the dying row of hydrangeas seem totally out of place in this part of the world.)

The menu, too, is full of all the things we love about the Pourcel brothers food – very Mediterranean, with plenty of pesto and raviolis, goat cheese and gazpacho, zucchini blossoms and fresh seasonal melon.  Some of the dishes we sampled had personality and pep: I loved the zesty cold gazpacho, served with a trio of goat-cheese ravioli and a drizzle of olive oil, as well as the copious portions of Spanish ham served with a melon sorbet.

But the rest of the food, alas, disappointed. Here we are in a brand new restaurant, and the flavors just fell flat, seemed stale, as though the chefs were just sick of cooking the same thing over and over again. The lettuce was unwashed and full of grit, and much of the rest of food seemed just formulaic. My zucchini blossoms were stuffed with a flavorless soufflé-mixture, and the dish looked and tasted dated. Likewise, a fillet of veal, served with a fine artichoke purée and artichoke “chips:  lacked vivacity.

Desserts, too, seemed forced. The strawberries were tasteless, and the updated attempt at a “crumble” reminded me more of dog food pellets than anything I might have grown up with. Cherries – served as a soup teamed up with citrus and a red currant jelly – were totally denatured. Here we are, top of the season, in the middle of the region that grows the best cherries and strawberries. What’s wrong here?

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So for a look at chefs who are always behind the stove, one need search no further than the kitchens of  Raoul Reichrath of  Le Grand Pré  in Roaix and Johannes Sailer of Les Abeilles in  Sablet. I am a regular at both tables and love just about everything they do, since both are young, ambitious, experimental chefs in love with what they do.

It seems that Raoul almost never repeats a dish, for in recent months I’ve loved his sea bass set atop a bed of artichokes, offset by a creamy sauce of fresh peas, as well as his moist, tender rabbit served with lemon confit and seasoned with both rosemary and tarragon. His little starter of salt cod brandade flecked with lemon confit wakes up the palate and gets you ready for more to come. Along with his wife, Flora, a trained sommelier, Raoul’s little converted farmhouse by the side of the road is a fine place to spend a summer’s afternoon or evening. From Flora’s well-chosen cellar do try the white Vinsobres from Chaume-Arnoux, well priced at 20 euros, as well as the 2000 red Cotes du Rhône Villages, the Vieilles Vignes from Amphillanthes, at 34 euros.

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Johannes and his wife, Marlies, have relocated from their village restaurant, Oustalet, in the center of Gigondas to their very own restaurant in nearby Sablet. With a spacious terrace shaded by ancient plane trees, and a more sober interior dining room, they’ve created a fine spot for year-round dining. A few weeks ago Johannes wooed us with his all-tomato menu, a fantasy-like meal that include a mean gazpacho, an elegant terrine of grilled tomatoes and fresh goat cheese, and a quick-cooked shoulder of lamb with a fine tomato sauce. Even dessert – a tomato crème brulée – won hearts and minds and palates. The well-priced wines to sample here are their house specials, the 2002 white Sablet from Château du Trignon (22.5 euro) and the gusty 2001 Gigondas Reserve from the same house (23 euros). Note the restaurant is also open for snacks through the day and operates as a Chambres D’Hôtes, with two rooms, starting at 90 euros a night.

La Table d’Augusta
14, rue du Serre Blanc
26130 Saint Paul Trois Châteaux
Telephone 04 75 97 29 29
Fax: 04 75 97 29 28
email: info@villaaugusta-hotel.com
web: www.villaaugusta-hotel.com

Closed Sunday evening and Monday. Lunch menus, weekdays only, from 18 to 36 euros, including service and wine. Dinner menus at 41,51, and 80 euros, including service but not wine.

Le Grand Pre
route de Vaison
(D 975)
Telephone: 04 90 46 18 12
Fax: 04 90 46 17 84
email:legrandpre@waika9.com

Closed Tuesday, Wednesday lunch, and Saturday lunch. 46 euro menu. A la carte, 45 to 70 euros, including service but not wine.

Les Abeilles
4, route de Vaison
84110 Sablet
Telephone: 04 90 12 38 98
Fax: 04 90 12 12 70
email: js@abeilles-sablet.com
web: www.Abeilles-sablet.com

Closed Monday. Menus at 45, 55, and 65 euros. Children’s menu at 19 euros.  A la carte,   55 to 75 euros, including service but not wine.

La Table du Lancaster: Best of Modern French

PARIS – Walking into the newly remodeled dining room of the Lancaster Hotel on Paris’s right bank is like approaching a gorgeous woman, a natural beauty who knows just how to emphasize all of her finest qualities.

Consulting chef Michel Troisgros – son of the legendary three-star chef Pierre Troisgros of Roanne, and now master of the kitchen there – can cook for me anytime. Just when you think you can’t be blown away by one more meal, you are. And thank goodness.

If I was asked today to describe in detail Modern French Food I would have to do no more than open the menu at La Table du Lancaster and point my fingers all across the page. Tender, juicy, pigeon paired with almonds. A veritable “paysage” of vegetables served with a tangy, iced red tomato purée. A classic Sole meuniere revisited, teamed up with wild cèpe mushrooms and salty capers. Pig’s ears escorted by anchovies and a basil sauce. And then “burnt” rack of lamb paired with yogurt.

All this in a dining room you want to wrap your arms around and stay forever. Small, discreet, warm, luxurious. The tables are black onyx, with table runners of the palest of grays. Everywhere there are touches of bright orange, while elegant Chinese prints cover the walls. A bright gold or orange Gerber daisy floats in a clear glass bowl, and your day is instantly brightened. Service is swift and discreet.

Crayfish were aloft in a sea on fresh lemon verbena broth, soft as pillows, soothing as a cool breeze on a hot day. A dish that’s light, vibrant, fun, easy to understand, and yet thoroughly original.

The rosy pigeon was stuffed with almonds and deep fried, offering a welcome contrast of textures. Alongside, a “carpaccio” of paper-thin slices of zucchini were showered with almonds. The only disappointment of the meal came in the form of a bowl of aubergine laquée, small squares of lacquered eggplant set in a pool of a shimmery lime jelly. As my table mate noted, you almost have to beat up eggplant to make it taste good, and she was right. The flavors here were pale and undefined.

But I totally flipped over chef Troisgros’s cannelloni of warm goat cheese and artichokes. A trio of the most perfect rolls of paper-thin pasta encased a light and airy filling of tangy goat cheese. The thinnest slivers of raw, violet-tipped artichokes were scattered over all, a play of white on white with flavors that were, in contrast, bold, sharp and satisfying.

As I sampled the cannelloni I had two thoughts: Run to the front desk, reserve a room, take a nap, come back for dinner, and order the pasta again. Or, recreate the cannelloni at home, for dinner, the next evening. I opted for the second. My version was a bit more rustic, but I swooned nonetheless.

The wine choice – a Montlouis, a pure Chenin Blanc from the house of Domaine Chidaine – was a perfect match for Troisgros’s modern fare. Dry, yet tasting almost like a fresh bon bon, it handled everything from crayfish to pasta to pigeon with flair.

Dessert had a fine appeal, as well. Warm orange-blushed apricots arrived on a pure white plate, filled with a touch of apricot jelly and topped with sweet, gorgeous, candied leaves of fresh lemon verbena. The accompanying cake of souffled crepes, however, held little interest.

Thank you, Michel Troisgros, for introducing us to food that is a pleasure for the eyes as well as the palate, food with elegance and sophistication that makes sense. No airs, nothing faked, unaffected.

La Table du Lancaster
7, rue de Berri
75008 Paris
Telephone: 01 40 76 40 18
Fax: 01 40 96 40 40
email: restarant@hotel-lancaster.fr
Web: www.hotel-lancaster.fr

Open daily. All major credit cards. From 60 to 85 euros per person, including service but not wine.

La Cagouille: Rekindling a Friendship with an Old Favorite

PARIS – Old restaurants often become like old friends. We don’t see them for years, and then when we are reacquainted again, we ask ourselves why we waited so long between encounters.

The popular fish restaurant La Cagouille is a lot like that. I guess I know why I stopped going about six years back. Prices seemed steep, the décor got me down, and as fresh as the fish and shellfish were, the plainness of the presentation just did not entice me to return.

A few weeks ago, looking around for a spot for Sunday lunch, I decided to give La Cagouille – which means snail in the dialect of the Charente region of France – another taste. Am I glad I did. I have been back again and again, and even though many of the old problems – mainly the lackluster décor and the service without personality – continue, I found new life and energy in the food and the wine list.

Owner Gérard Allemandou was there that day, and offered us the creamiest, most buttery baby scallops – pétoncles – from the Oléron, miniature shellfish with brilliant mahogany-toned shells and a deep, haunting flavor. The treasures were simply steamed open and served as is.

Another standard starter-teaser here is a giant bowl of perfectly steamed, buttery baby clams, tossed in a bit of salty butter just to please the palate even more.

If a restaurant can serve a cooked dish better and cheaper than I can do at home, I’ll go for it. That’s the case with the whole grilled sea bas – bar – ticketed at 35 euros and served roasted to perfection.

If your palate is looking for something a bit more complicated, try the starter salad of green beans, fava beans, pine nut and basil, a dish I quickly added to my home repertoire, making sure the pine nuts are fresh and freshly toasted, which they were not at La Cagouille.

An equally good salad starter is their salad of lamb’s lettuce (mache), warm morue (salt cod), red peppers and bacon: This is salad as a meal, copious, well-seasoned, and as meaty as can be.

I could return once a week just to sample their ample main course preparation of skate – raie – served with an enriching sauce gribiche. Here the gribiche – rather than the usual glorified mayonnaise – appeared as a main player, with cubes of carrots, potatoes, turnips, lots of cucumbers, capers, chive and chopped hard-cooked eggs, and a healthy dose of vinegar.

On the same visit, we reeled with pleasure over the well-priced (30 euros) Macon-Villages, the 100% Chardonnay Comte Lafon Macon Milly-Lamartine 2000, a stony, mineral-rich delight that one could imagine sampling each day at lunch with a different fish offering.

The season is nearly over, but if you hurry you can still sample their excellent scallop preparation, giant sea scallops seared to perfection, the quick heat enhancing and intensifying the flavor of shellfish itself. Deglazed with a touch of balsamic vinegar and showered with a garden full of minced chives, it was a dish to bring delight to the eyes as well as the palate.

On a later visit, we were no less impressed with the food and wine, but I just wish the wait staff could go to smile school. When you have such great food to serve, how can you be so blasé about it?

At any rate, the wine of the week was Dauvissat’s Chablis 1er cru La Forest 2000, a 48- euro wine that offers a touch of smoke, of flinty, is highly concentrated and well structured. Drink it when you can!

La Cagouille
10/12 Place Brancusi
Paris 14
Telephone: 01 43 22 09 01
Fax: 01 45 38 57 29
Email: la-cagouille@wanadoo.fr
Internet : www.la-cagouille.fr

Open daily. Credit card: Visa. Menus at 23 and 38 euros, including service but not wine. A la carte, 40 to 60 euros, including service but not wine.

Prune and Sea Grill: Two Fun New York Restaurants

NEW YORK -- Scrumptious is not a word I use often. But it’s the first word that came to mind reliving a superb meal at the tiny New York eatery known as Prune, a tiny, bare bones bistro headed by chef Gabrielle Hamilton in the center of the trendy East Village.

Armed with a selection of hearty, robust, energetic fare, I opted for the bar menu, loaded with creations that aimed straight for my heart. I can still taste the marvelous trio of marinated ultra-fresh anchovy fillets, lots of chopped celery hearts and celery leaves, and a mound of top-quality Marcona almonds from Spain.

Rarely have I seen a menu with such a sense of humor – why not radishes, sweet butter and Kosher salt, or perhaps a platter of buttered brown bread, Spanish goat cheese and salted red onion? The menu seems to wander all over the place, but somehow keeps you well-grounded and curious nonetheless. I was a goner for the platter of fried oysters with a can’t stop eating-it homemade tartare sauce. The oysters were mammoth the coating thick and crunchy, and I could have gone on for more if I didn’t have other treats in store.

I was less enthusiastic about the grilled homemade lamb sausages (they were just a bit too tentatively seasoned), and felt the same about the unusual combination of braised veal tongue, grilled octopus and gremolata. When you go, do save room for the fried dark meat chicken, with that same extraordinary breading, served with a fantastic cold buttermilk dressing.

Next time, I’ll be sure to try the ruby shrimp boil with sausage, potatoes and corn, and am curious as to how the buttered wide egg noodles with small curd cottage cheese might be.

The brief wine list is intriguing and I loved the almost sweet German Riesling (quite different from it more acidic French counterpart), from the estate of Dr. Burklin-Wolf in Pfalz ($8 a glass; $31 a bottle), and savored every drop of the very meaty, harmonious Oregon pinot noir, the Cristom Mt Jefferson cuvé priced at $52 a bottle.

The restaurant is beyond no frills: Diners sit elbow to elbow on tiny café tables, seated at hard wooden church-style banquets. Service is friendly, helpful and lacks attitude, hurrah!

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On the face of it, the Sea Grill has all the making of an overrun tourist trap with bad food and lousy service. There it is, smack dab in the center of town, Rockefeller Center no less, with a ringside view of the amateur skaters on the Center’s fabled ice skating ring.

Oh, how wrong that all is. Instead we have a light airy, bustling, New York grill, a refreshing oasis in the center of Manhattan. The executive chef, Edward Brown, is hand’s down one of my favorites and one of the best fish chefs working today. I stopped in one sunny day for lunch and the place was alive. For starters, the grill has something for everyone. In a hurry? Take a seat at the bar, and feast on just a touch of sushi or sashimi with a glass Chilean Sauvignon blanc from the Manta vineyards. Or is it oysters that are on your mind: tiny Peconic Bay oysters from New York, briny Pepperell Cove specimens from Maine, and cold water St Anne’s from Nova Scotia where the choice the day I lunched.

We opted for a table with a million dollar view of the skating rink, where – among the happy group of skaters -- a pair of twin girls were flipping and flopping as their patient mother lead them through the paces. Sushi was on my mind, so we selected a pair of rolls from the compact menu. I’d go back tomorrow just to sample Brown’s clean, elegant, well-mannered creations. Crab and avocado are a combination made in heaven, and here, the duo did their job, offering texture, sweetness, smoothness and satisfaction. A glass of Dr Loon’s “Dr. L” (at $10 a glass) German Riesling from the Mosel district, was lush and tangy and made the quick lunch all that much more satisfying. Even better were the spicy tuna rolls – six bite-size rounds – filled with a spicy tuna tartare, encased in rice, then topped with sliver-thin slices of raw tuna and more avocado.

The wait staff was gracious, and as you watch them flow past with platter after platter of seductive fare – the world’s best crab cakes, grilled calamari with a garlic and pine nut crust, or seared Chatham cod with a butterbean ragout – all made us want to stay on, or at least race back for dinner.

Prune
54 East First Street
New York, NY 10003
Telephone: 212 677 6221

Bar selections $5 to $10. A la carte, $30 to $50, not including service or wine.

Sea Grill
19 West 49th (between 5th and 6th )
New York, New York
Telephone: 212 332 7610.

Open daily. Sushi rolls from $7 to $10; sushi platters at $27; oysters $2.50 each. A la carte, $45 to $55, not including service or wine.

The New and the Classic in Napa Valley, California

Napa, California --- The golden crop of mustard greens that symbolize the vineyards of the Napa Valley are beginning to fade, and winemakers are gearing up for another vintage. The restaurant scene here is strong, and continues to grow. The newest in the crop is Angele, open since December along the Napa River in the city of Napa.

With a clean, crisp, simple décor and a large outdoor terrace overlooking the river, Angele features a classic but updated French bistro menu, complete with mounds of crisp and golden French fries, French onion soup and macaroni gratins.

I adored the steamed Manilla clams bathed in a creamy saffron broth, teamed up with giant slices of toasted baguette; as well as the unusual and delicious salad of fresh seasonal asparagus paired with marinated anchovies and seasoned with a Nicoise olive vinaigrette. But the best bet of the evening was a moist filet of striped bass on a bed of creamy flageolet beans, the main player in a red pepper and flageolet stew. Our wine choice, alas, was a bit off the mark: the 2001 Seghesio Zinfandel was unbalanced, with too much acidity to make it a winner.

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TERRA

The grand-daddy of Napa Valley restaurants has to be Terra, the wildly popular and successful restaurant begun in 1988 by Hiro Sone and Lissa Doumani, both of whom worked with California superstar chef Wolfgang Puck.

Situated in downtown St Helena in a large stone building built in 1884 as a foundry for small farm tools, the 92-seat dining room has a fine, spacious feel, with service that is friendly and a well-informed, welcoming wait staff.

Hiro was trained at the top Tokyo cooking school and wisely combines his Japanese sensibility and sensitivity with touches of classic French and country Italian. In other hands the combination could be a hodge-podge disaster, but here we warm to his soy vinaigrettes, to sake-marinated fish, and shiso broth. Yes, the menu does read a bit like a United Nations food fest, and includes a currant verjus chutney and Cabernet Sauvignon wine sauce, tapenade and basmati rice in coconut sauce, pancetta vinaigrette and tortelloni, but all is woven together with care and forethought. Hiro has a distinct personality and attitude towards food, and it comes through loud and clear.

My favorite taste of the evening was his now classic broiled sake-marinated Alaskan black cod, served with plump shrimp dumplings in a bright broth flavored with the pungent Japanese herb, shiso. Light but not lightweight, the dish packs in a lot of flavor, and the sheer quality of the cod helps make it a real winner. Equally fine was the first course lobster tortelloni in an oyster mushroom and lobster broth, offset by the color of fresh spinach and the sharpness of fresh tarragon.

In the end, Hiro’s Japanese sensibility wins out and we leave the table with the memory of clean clear crisp flavors, that feel ultimately healthy and wholesome. Our wine choice – the Alban Vineyards Roussanne from the Edna Valley – was a real success, with its exotic flavors of cloves, honeysuckle and mangoes, a fine match for Hiro’s cuisine.

Angele
540 Main Street
Napa, California
Telephone: (707) 252 8115
Fax: (707) 252 8239
Web: www.angele.us
Email info@angele.us

Open daily. All major credit cards. From $25 to $35 per person, not including service or wine.

Terra
1345 Railroad Avenue, (between Adams and Hunt Streets)
St. Helena, CA, 94574-1191
Telephone: (707) 963-8931

Open for dinner only. All major credit cards. A la carte, $40 to $60 per person, not including service or wine

Les Allobroges: Return to an Old Time Favorite

PARIS – Some chefs work as architects, creating food that is well-constructed, beautiful, pleasing to the eye. All too often that food ends up being timid, falling short of flavour and long term pleasure.

Other chefs – and it’s Olivier Pateyron of Les Allobroges that I have in mind – go for the big bang, creating food that sort of grabs us by the collar, wraps itself around us and makes us very happy.

It’s been years since I made a return visit to Pateyron’s cozy restaurant hidden in the city’s 20th arrondissement. And as soon as I stepped inside once again -- the warm welcome, the cheery fabrics all about, the big smiling face of chef Pateyron and careful service of his wife, Annette -- made me realize I’d been away too long.

It’s hard to believe that he has been behind the stove of the tiny family spot for 20 years, offering a very personal, generous cuisine that is easy for anyone to understand. Still on the menu you’ll find his ultimately delicious braised lamb shanks, cooked long and slow, until the meat falls off the bone in perfect tenderness, paired with an avalanche of sweet garlic cooked in its jackets.

His current 31 euro menu is a bargain-hunter’s dream, including a brilliant rendition of a celery remoulade, flecked with sheep’s milk cheese, granny smith and a gelatine of Espelette pepper, and an usual combination of scallops on a bed of ratatouille. For some reason I would never have paired the southern vegetable mixture with the northern coquilles saint Jacques but each have enough flavour to create a bright, dense flavor combination.

I didn’t quite get the point of the terrine of blue d’Auvergne though the idea had great appeal. The grey color, the timid flavour just didn’t make it for me, though the accompanying toasted bread and dried figs made we want to figure out a way to make the dish work.

The compote of beef cheeks was excellent, served in a small molded round and paired with a sweet potato purée. I quickly devoured the perfectly prepared duck -- cooked with spices and the sweet Banyuls wine, and served with a fine dried fruit chutney.

Desserts offer plenty of room for exploration, including a truly wonderful fromage blanc mousse, set in a soothing mango sauce and teamed up with a honey-laced crispy pastry made from the Moroccan feuilles de brique.

The wine list is brief but offers some new surprises. I could not have been more pleased with the 2001 Saint Joseph from the Becharas family. This pure syrah from the Northern Rhone was full of fruit and vibrancy, with perfect acidity and a nice, long finish and was well priced at 31.20 euro.

And bravo, Olivier, for the well priced – 26 euros – vegetarian menu. The current selection includes an artichoke soup, a dried cepe risotto, and fromage blanc mousse, and a cocoa sorbet.

Les Allobroges
71, rue des Grands-Champs
Paris 20
Telephone: 01 43 73 40 00

Menus at 18, 26 and 31 euros.

Le Villaret: A Bright Light Bistro

PARIS – The other evening, as we walked into the crisp, clean, lively bistro Le Villaret, a friend’s eyes lit up and she said in amazement ‘’This is the bistro I’ve been searching for for years.”

Located on a dreary side street in the 11th arrondissement, not far from La Republique, Le Villaret is a bright light in a sea of grey. From the cheery white lace curtains that hang in the window to the elegant, high-back 1930’s bistro chairs and on to the attitude here – friendly, charming, unpretentious, no-nonsense – the place is a gem.

And I cannot say enough good things about the food or the wine list. Several recent meals here – where Joel Homel rules the dining room and Olivier Grasalin oversees the kitchen – made me want to become an instant regular.

The food here is the best of what might be called bistro modern. While the ever- changing selections always include such classics as sole meuniere, roast chicken, salmon tartare, and leg of lamb, all are treated with a contemporary reference.

A favorite dish of several recent visits is a powerfully satisfying medley of root vegetables – turnips and salsify, artichokes and Jerusalem artichokes – arriving in a giant white bowl, bathed in a deep, dense, poultry stock, showered with chives and draped with a paper thin slice of foie gras. Delicious! Paired with the restaurant’s spectacular dense, crusty country bread, it’s a dream dish.

Other winning starters include a duo of artichokes and asparagus cooked in that same dense, intense stock, and topped with a perfect poached egg; a trio of salmon preparations (a well-seasoned tartare; a pair of brochettes; a delicately cured filet); and an Asian-inspired dish of oyster raviolis, showered with fresh, fragrant coriander.

I couldn’t get enough of the roasted country chicken, set on a bed of curly green cabbage bathed in a creamy sauce made with the sherry-like Arbois wine from the Jura. The chicken was moist, firm and well-flavored, and coated with a paper-thin potato galette, making for pure crunchy pleasure.

Order lamb shoulder and it arrives in a newly polished copper pot, perfectly roasted and set on a bed of potatoes, turnips and broad beans. Leg of lamb is served on a bed of giant white beans (marred only by an excess of salt), and a hearty veal breast comes with chanterelles and smooth broad beans.

The wine list is worth a detour all on its own. We’ve loved the wholesome and refreshing chardonnay Chablis 1er Cru Domaine Francois and Jean Raveneau les Buttaux 2000 (41 euros); the opulent, silky, state-of-the-art, pinot noir Chambolle-Musigny vieilles vignes Geantet-Pansiot 2000 (51 euros); the stunning, intense pure-syrah 2001 Cornas from Eric and Joel Durand (37 euros); and a memorable silky pinot noir Gevrey-Chambertin, Les Favorites vieilles vignes 1999 from Domaine Alain Burguet (74 euros). Everything at Le Villaret is spotless and served with a natural sense of caring. Each wine is carafed with attention: Behind the bar you’ll see the staff lovingly washing each carafe and drying it with a huge clean white towel. The contents of each bottle are not simply emptied into the carafe, but attentively, lovingly poured with a flourish. And what I love, too, is that the empty bottle and the full carafe are set on your table, and you get to serve yourself. (No waiting for an inattentive waiter to dole out the wine, drop by drop.)

Order a cheese course and soon an entire cheese house – four full shelves of cheese -- arrives at your table. This old-fashioned rectangular box include all the greats, from a full shelf of goat cheese and on to Camembert, Brie and Comté.

Desserts get as much attention as the rest of the fare: Two great bets include a gorgeous individual pear clafoutis served in a simple white porcelain bowl, and a grapefruit quartet, including grapefruit sorbet, a grapefruit financier, candied grapefruit and roasted grapefruit.

Le Villaret
19, rue Ternaux
Paris 11
Telephone: 01 43 57 75 56 and 01 43 57 89 76

Closed Saturday lunch and all day Sunday. 25 euro lunch menu, 28 euro dinner menu. A la carte, about 30 euros, including service but not wine.

Hiramatsu: How the Mightly Fall

PARIS -- One wonders if Paris is not becoming too much like New York, where trendiness and “of the moment” mean more than gastronomic quality or true fidelity to a favorite restaurant.

I have many friends who have probably never visited a restaurant more than once. Or a restaurant that’s been open more than a millisecond. They play “the first to know first to go” game in restaurant land. But no matter how much they praise the place, they never go back. Who has time if one is obsessed with only the new?

Hiramatsu is a great example. When this miniscule, 18-seat spot opened along the banks of the Seine on the Ile-Saint-Louis in October 2001, you could not beg, borrow, or steal a seat in this elegant jewel-box of a restaurant for months on end. The fact that it was awarded a Michelin star the following March (when barely no one had heard of it) only helped to fan the flame of success. Its reputation was not helped, however, by the practice of not honoring those much-coveted reservations. I heard of numerous examples of clients making reservations, confirming the table that day, and being turned away at the door like total strangers.

So when I called for reservation a few weeks ago, I was delighted to capture a table for two for lunch just two days in advance. When my companion and I arrived, we found we’d be sharing the restaurant with just four other diners, an American couple on their honeymoon, and a Japanese couple on their honeymoon. How the mighty fall.

OK, on to the food. I’d say the chef gets it right about half the time, which is not good enough for the prices charged. I DID sample one of the more memorable dishes of many months: I can close my eyes and still taste the remarkable seared fresh langoustines on a bed of macaroni stuffed with cauliflower. I know, it does not sound that remarkable, but the giant macaroni filled with the most delicious white purée was a taste of pure, soothing joy. Alongside, zucchini blossoms were stuffed with a mixture of olives and minced zucchini, a lovely pairing.

Did I say zucchini blossoms? On a stormy, cold and rainy day in January? Whatever happened to seasonality?

I could also have run into the kitchen to hug the chef for his outstanding starter of the freshest of ecrevisses – crayfish – paired with the most perfect smoked pigeon breast, all set on a bed of truffle-laced vegetables and surrounded by a luscious avocado coulis. Beautiful as well as delicious, a first rate dish if there ever was one.

Then things begin to go downhill. If I closed my eyes as I ate the roasted veal I might have guessed tuna or swordfish that was way overcooked and well over the hill. How could a kitchen offer such disparity? And that for 45 euros? No way.

The wine list is huge and if you want to drink a 1986 Cheval Blanc (600 €) a 1990 Côte-Rôtie La Ladonne (837 euro) or a 1989 La Tache (1200 €) it’s yours with a healthy credit card. But there are some finds, such as the Minervois Château Cabezac 2000 that we adored and felt just a little smug about finding it on the list, at 26 €. Other good bets include the 1996 Savigny-les-Beaune Domaine Michel Gaunoux at 45 €, a 1996 Château Montus Madiran at 48 €, and a 1998 Mercurey from Domaine Michel Juillot at 40 €.

Hiramatsu
7, quai de Bourbon
Paris 4
Telephone: 01 56 81 08 80
Fax: 01 56 81 08 81
E-mail: paris@hiramatsu.co.jp

Closed Sunday, Monday, three weeks in August and Christmas week. Menus at 50 and 70 € (lunch), and 92 euro (dinner). A la carte, 130 to 150 €.

Mon Vieil Ami: New and Modern on Ile Saint Louis

PARIS – I confess that when I saw that the famed Alsatian chef Antoine Westermann was opening a bistro on Ile-Saint-Louis, I had visions of red-checkered tablecloths, mounds of choucroute, and those old Alsatian favorites of baeckeoffe and kougelhopf. Not that any of these are bad, it just wasn’t what I thought Paris needed today.

Well, the moment I stepped foot inside his bright, airy, starkly modern new spot, my eyes lit up. The place says right out loud, Fun, Modern, Youthful. You enter into a high-ceilinged black and white dining room, with a giant black onyx table d’hôtes at one side, cozy tables for two along another. Glasses glisten in clear crystal, plates contrast in pure white, and towering white lilies flow out of a skyscraper-sized glass vase in the center.

The second you are seated, a chilled glass of Alsatian pinot blanc is set at your elbow, and you are prepared to be won over.

The menu, at first glance confused me a bit, for such unexpected and nontraditional combinations as leeks and mackerel, dorade (porgy) teamed up with shellfish in a casserole, and carrots, raisins and dates with roasted codfish.

But once the plates began coming, my fears were alleviated, my palate did handstands. What Westermann has created is a new voice, a voice that seems to say, Trust me, I know what I’m doing, and I am not simply going to drag out the 10 greatest hits one more time. Even dishes that I might not normally order – such as a moist and delicious pâté en croûte – was consumed with pleasure, both the moist pâté and the deliciously crunchy crust that encased it. I ate it all, including the nice bit of aspic and the accompanying mixed salad tossed with a welcome walnut vinaigrette. In short, the food is bright, copious and surprising, without leaving the Alsatian boundaries.

On a giant table in the center sits a loaf bread that must be a meter long, and all night long the youthful, friendly waiters slice and refill baskets and guests devour each and every crusty slice.

I adored the warm tuberous vegetable salad --- including tiny potatoes in their skins, penne-sized turnips, and Jerusalem artichokes – all bathed in a wholesomely delicious broth, topped with slivers of the thinnest, best foie gras and a showering of fresh green lamb’s lettuce, or mache. But even for me – a veritable salt lover – the dish was overly salty.

Other good starters include the salmon rillettes – you might define it as cooked carpaccio – finely ground fresh and smoked salmon shaped into three little scoops, like a sorbet. The portions looked huge but somehow, everything was devoured. Even the suspicious leeks in vinaigrette paired with the fresh, delicious pan-fried mackerel, seemed to make sense after all.

The evening was cold and rainy and the huge poitrine de veau, or veal breast braised in the giant Alsatian casserole with a bright shower of sliced carrots made the evening quite a bit more welcoming. Also cooked in an ochre Alsatian casserole were the braised fillets of fresh dorade, set on a bed of fennel, another combination that worked that night.

The dessert list includes some nice offerings, such as a good chocolate tart (that resembles but does not come close to the version made famous by Joël Robuchon), and the confit of apples paired with vanilla and pistachio ice cream, a dished designed for sugar fiends.

We drank the house pinot blanc from the house of Kenzler and talked about how underrated Alsatian wines can be, especially the whites that come from a land of little sun, but great soil.

Prices are good, with a daily menu of 38 €, lunchtime daily specials at 15 €, and a la carte offerings of entrees at 10 €, fish and meat and 20 €, and desserts at 8 €.

Even though the restaurant is brand new, it already has a nice neighborhood feel. We left wishing we lived down the block from My Old Friend.

Mon Vieil Ami
69 rue Saint Louis en l’Ile
Paris 4
Telephone: 01 40 46 01 35
Fax: 01 40 46 01 36

All major credit cards. Closed Monday, and Tuesday at lunch. A la carte, 30 to 38 €, including service but not wine.

Le Soleil: A Fine Flea Market Find

PARIS -- What is it about the thrill of a potential flea market find that puts us in such a good mood? Add to that the thought of a fine Sunday lunch, a few sips of good wine, and the companionship of friends and the stage is set for a very fine day indeed.

Take a look around you at the excellent flea market restaurant Le Soleil and everyone is smiling, laughing, looking like the well-fed lot that they are. Owner Louis-Jacques Vannucci is the ultimate host or bistrotier, back-slapping and hovering in the best of ways, making sure that each and every client is happy to be there.

Vannucci is a true gourmand himself, and loves nothing better than describing the pedigree of his fresh-caught fish, of his entrecote from Salers, or the giant block of sweet, golden butter that’s passed from table to table.

There is no printed menu, just a blackboard that travels from table to table. Choices here vary according to Vannucci’s whims, so you may not see the same dishes here time and again. But follow his lead and you’re sure to leave the bright, multi-colored 50’s-style restaurant with a feeling of satisfaction.

The food has a nice flair, with a perky celery remoulade, enhanced by a touch of acidity supplied by fresh green apple; and a nicely done foie gras mi-cuit set on a round of brioche and flanked by a touch of sweet aspic. At a recent lunch the owner offered a surprising and successful starter, a rectangle of puff pastry topped with slices of Jerusalem artichoke and thin slivers of foie gras.

Fat portions of confit of duck arrive set on a bed of sautéed potatoes, and thick, perfectly cooked lamb chops arrive with a welcoming vegetable accompaniment, a mix of fresh green beans, browned onions, and sautéed mushrooms offset by a bit of tomato and garlic.

For dessert there is always their famous, giant, baba au rhum.

The wine list offers some good choices, including the powerful 1999 Château Puech-Haut, a spicy red Coteaux du Languedoc that’s got the right balance of tannin and fruit, and is filled with intense flavors of blackberries and cassis. It is reasonably priced at 33 €. The wait staff wisely carafes the good wines, a practice normally reserved for grander restaurants.

Le Soleil
109 Avenue Michelet
93400 Saint Ouen
Telephone: 01 40 10 08 08
Fax: 01 40 10 16 85
E-mail: lesoleil@wanadoo.fr

Open daily for lunch, and Thursday through Saturday for lunch and dinner. 35 to 65 €, including service but not wine.