At a risk of having dear Sam chide me again for only blogging about celebrity bloggers, I've got to tell you about what I just found on Saute Wednesday. Our Bruce has outdone himself this time, with the most hilarious piece on a fantasy Iron Chef battle between Heston Blumenthal of The Fat Duck in the UK, and Thomas Keller of The French Laundry. You simply have to go check it out.
I fell off the chair laughing, I did, for the second time today, except the first time wasn't because of a laugh, but a rather clumsy attempt at reaching something far too high for short-little-me, and nearly broke my neck in the attempt. I am such a klutz --off now to pack some more.
Moving purgatory, that's what I am in at the moment and I really have no time to blog much, so, here is how I blog without really blogging. ;-)
I'm keeping up on some of my favorite blogs, and boy are there lots of things to keep up on. These guys and girls are having more fun than ever. Let's see what some of them are up to, shall we?
Mon ami David -no, not that David, the other David, the one in Paris- has been super productive, writing a very educational guide on how to pick fruit and also Brie. He also hasn't forgotten that he's super funny and wrote a hilarious piece imploring Adam -yes, that Adam- to come visit.
Clotilde is rhapsodizing, as only she could, over her recent trip to New York, where, strangely enough, she had an encounter with a specter of me! Oh but that story I can't tell, sorry.
My girl Louisa in Paris tagged me for this new meme that's been making a round in the food blogosphere. I've tagged her on enough things, so I had no choice but comply. Here we go.
What is your first memory of baking/cooking on your own?
When I was little we spent every summer in a small beach town of Hua Hin, about a few hours south of Bangkok. I have many great memories from that place, from eating nothing but boiled crabs and shrimps for weeks on end, to going out into the moon-lit beach to catch tiny crabs called Pu Lom, or wind crab. These crabs were barely an inch long, a shade of drab gray, and ran as fast as the wind, hence the name.
We had a ritual every night in Hua Hin. After a long day spent in the sun and the sea and a satisfying dinner mainly based on local seafood, a pack of us kids, some were cousins and other friends, some even both, would venture out into the night, with buckets and flashlights, to catch wind crabs. Back then, there were legions on these crabs on the beach, running as though flying, leaving the lightest footprints on the soft white sand. The crabs were attracted to the flashlight, and we would have a contest to see who would be the fastest that night, and could catch the most crabs. I won all the time, not that I am bragging or anything. ha ha.
Two days back home, back to my very own Rancilio Silvia and Blue Bottle beans, I am wondering to myself why are French coffees so bad?
No, I'm not arguing that it's not at all possible to get a good cup of coffee in Paris. That's certainly not true. Verlet, Cafe Amazone, and Comptoir Richard sell the best coffees one could find anywhere. But what is absolutely true is how bad coffees at any random cafes in Paris are. Seriously bad. Burnt asphalt on the nose, black tar on the palate.
It's all in the beans, as my friend Ptipois said somewhere, the French market is saturated with Robusta beans, grown in their own former African colonies. Robusta coffees are high in caffeine content, and brew into dark, oily, acidic liquid that gives me a toothache just thinking about it. In countries that are known for better coffees, like Italy and Spain, the predominant type of bean is Arabica, which is much more aromatic and less acidic than Robusta.
Arrived just a little over two days ago, and got into the swing of things quite immediately. Seriously. And you wonder why I haven't got time to blog? Here's why...
Arrived Friday early afternoon.
Went directly to tea with Scott at the Wolseley, lovely, as usual.
Met Brian for a beer at Soho Square.
Then off to dinner at Tayyabs. The queue there was really getting near epic proportion. Luckily, no queue for us.
Saturday
Tube trouble meant quite a late arrival to Borough market.
Breakfast with John and his friend Craig at Monmoth, the little cafe around the corner from Neals Yard, with yummy coffee and delicious bread and amazing butter and jams.
Our little group picked up more friends and got bigger and bigger while romping around Borough -like a rolling Katamari, really- adding Max, Juls, Akiko (and her Chris), and, finally, David, to the gang.
Various people had to run home to deposit their Borough acquisitions, so Max and Juls and I ended up chez Pierre Gagnaire, the Salon at Sketch, for tea. Tea was lovely, pastries even more so, the service, on the other hand, was horrendous.
Dinner with part of the larger gang rejoining us, at Fino.
Went there merely because we couldn't get into Moro with such a short notice and a big group, so Fino was chosen as a second choice, but was completely surprised by the quality of the ingredients and the meal in general.
Finished the night at another club in that hood.
No, this is not goodbye. Certainly not au revoir, but more like à bientôt, or see you soon. Today is my last day in Paris, tomorrow I take the eurostar up to London, and after a few days I will be back home to San Francisco. Home, yes, home, I've caught myself saying that a lot lately. I guess that's what spending a few months as a vagabond does for you.
I've spent the last two days really just savoring Paris. The weather is gorgeous and mild. Yesterday, I walked all around the Marais and the lovely Ile Saint-Louis, stopping for a bite of cake at my new favorite find, a little teashop whose very playful name I forgot(!), I'll check the business card and tell you later. Also another stop for a lingering cup of coffee at the cafe Lutèce, which has the best view of all the places on Ile Saint-Louis. Then I sat down for a little rest right by the Seine, just below the bridge Pont de Sully where La Tour d'Argent is, enjoying the panoramic view of the river, the cute Ile Saint-Louis, the Notre Dame and Ile de la Cité, and a secret service guy hanging out on the bridge vigilantly watching over someone important who must have been eating a duck at La Tour d'Argent.
Last night ended with yet another lovely dinner, this time at Le Pré Verre, and with Anakin Skywalker no less! (Well it was someone who looked remarkably like him anyhow.) Dinner details to come, but suffice to say now that I highly recommend the place, for the food, the wine, and the very entertaining chef and staff. Oh, and how could I forget to tell you about the pre-dinner ice cream at Berthillon, from the original shop, of course. Everybody knows that Berthillon ice cream is sold all over the city, but I really don't think that it's a true Berthillon experience unless you get it from the original shop on the cute rue Saint-Louis en l'Ile. In fact, it's not even a true Berthillon experience unless you've tasted their fabulous Caramel flavor.
Well, this is it between Paris and me, at least until the Fall, where I hope to spend another month of two here. A Bientôt!
Click on the photo above for a Flickr-ing slide show.
Certainly. The weekend began marvelously with the dinner that was simply the best meal of this trip. The best, simply. In this trip that has taken me so many wonderful places, old favorites and new acquaintances, from the beautiful classicist cooking at L'Ambroisie, to the heart-left, terroir driven cuisine at Michel Bras and Olivier Roellinger, to the modern classic at Le Meurice, to the Postmodern "tout remettre en question" at El Bulli and The Fat Duck, and many others along the way, during which time I had so many fantastic things to eat, dishes that brought tears to my eyes, but I finally found the meal that I could truly call the best.
Where was this, you asked? A dinner chez Pierre Gagnaire last Friday. I've been there before, many times, but for some reason or another I haven't written about the place yet, but this time I certainly will write up in detail. I don't have time to do it today, but I will very soon. I just couldn't wait! In the mean time, Ptipois, my dining companion that night, wrote a blip about it on her blog already, only for French readers though, sorry. If you want an English version you'd just have to wait for me.
Another super fun thing was a conversation with Yannick Alléno, who, despite his extremely busy schedule, found time to have a little interview with me. The entire interview will be on Chez Pim very soon, and I promise you it will be extremely interesting and thought provoking to read. Yannick is so passionate with his work and his approach to cuisine, and that passion shines in everything he does. How extraordinary! You'll just have to wait a bit. I'll blog about it very soon. Really.
Paris sky is all somber and gray today, luckily I have a memory of the lovely, sunny yesterday to sustain me. Besides the truly wonderful lunch at L'Ambroisie, of which I will write more soon, I had a super fun dinner with Clotilde, Louisa, and a new friend Andrea.
The night began a week ago, really, when Louisa and I went romping around Saint Germain after yet another lunch with our Clotilde at L'Astrance. After a stop to finish off our lovely yet inadequate dessert course at the lunch with a couple of Miss Gla Gla ice-cream sandwiches chez Pierre Hermé -chocolate for L and, of course, Ispahan for me- we decided to go check out Yves Camdeborde's (of La Régalade fame) new operation by the carrefour de l'Odéon. We got to see a couple of rooms, all of which enchanting and remarkably noiseless -entirely surprising considering the location. We also managed to reserve a dinner table for the following thursday, which was yesterday.
So I went, appropriately and fashionably late, to meet les girls. My metro decided to take its time arriving, letting three trains going other direction passing me by before the one I wanted made its tardy appearance. Luckily I was in a cute little flowery and summer-y number or I might have died of heat before I got to dinner. Also lucky for the three german boys standing nearby, they might have died of boredom perhaps(?)
A slide show (click on the photo) from yet another delicious lunch at Le Meurice last week, at the height of the heat wave. This remains, to my mind, the kitchen to watch. More on the meal later.
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