simon says french food blog

BURGERS FOR BREAKFAST -- THE NEW YORK CITY BURGER ATTACK PART I

Manhattan,
By Joe Ray

“The Shake Shack?” asked a friend, “That place is a gimmick.”

I brought another friend when I went. We had burgers for breakfast.

That might be a bit of a stretch, but not by too much. We got there at around 11. On a nice day, the Shack has a line that stretches clear across Madison Square Park. I have no idea how long you’d have to wait, but I’ve got no desire to find out.

We ordered two cheeseburgers and two black and whites and, feeling generous, I told my pal I’d pick up the tab.

“Twenty three dollars,” said the woman at the register.

Ai-yeeee!

It’s still worth it as a special treat. Plus, it’s a good burger and I had struck out looking for really good burgers on a recent trip to the Pacific Northwest. It’s not perfect, but there’s a friend, a seat in the park and a happy mouthful.

Shake Shack - MAP
Madison Square Park (not to be confused with the faraway Madison Square Garden)
www.shakeshacknyc.com

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the author of the blog Eating The Motherland and contributes to The Boston Globe's travel blog, Globe-trotting.

SPUDS AND ROCKS - BRAVAS PART II

 

By Joe Ray

BARCELONA

Before revisiting this classic, I check directions and find an online guide to Barna that says I might be the only tourist in the place.

Fat chance. Two ladies in the back are flipping through a Time Out guide and above the bar, there’s a framed, two-page spread from the Wall Street Journal about Bar Tomas’ raison d’être: “Splendid Spuds: Spain’s Obsession with Patatas Bravas.”

No matter. For spuds this good, I’m willing to share.

Just remember the Two B’s: Bravas and Beer. Like seafood in Omaha, most of the rest of the offerings (save Coke and Fanta in glass bottles) can be ignored.

The spuds are downy on the inside, crisp on the outside and partially submerged under a blob of aioli from heaven and served by a guy whose voice sounds like a yard of rocks in a cement mixer.

Perfect.

Bar Tomás – MAP
C/ Major De Sarrià 49
08017 Barcelona
932 031 077

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the author of the blog Eating The Motherland and contributes to The Boston Globe's travel blog, Globe-trotting.

SEX FOOD 3: TAPAS OF THE STARS

By Joe Ray

BARCELONA – Go to Inopia on any given night and despite the bright lights and bustle typical of many tapas bars, there’s also something a bit bizarre: a bouncer.

It’s a little weird, but though I’m sure there’s a bit of favoritism, the bouncer is mostly there to keep the inside full without drowning the chefs and waitstaff.

Then night we’re there, Tapas 24 and Comerc 24 chef Carles Abellan, along with a chunk of the local 7 Canibales food writers are all waiting in line with the rest of us.

Inside, the lights glare and four of us sit on stools facing some sort of hen/bachelorette party, yet the Cava arrives and tickles our palates and a plate or two of food lands in front of us and is gobbled up – we take on our own momentum.

A cutting board of thin-sliced cooked ham appears and disappears, fried artichoke hearts cradle a quail’s egg and raw fish eggs.

This is before they bring out the big guns.

Lomo de atún a la parrilla con mojo should just be called ‘Kobe tuna.’ The mojo sauce is lost in the shuffle, but the fish, wonderfully fatty, marbled and full of flavor has been grilled, making it smoky, meaty, carnal and crisp.

At dessert, the waiter sprays an anise liquor over a bowl of cherries. There’s a sweet and almost vegetable flavor of the spray, followed by the explosion of the taut cherry skin. The fruit’s sweet and acidic flavors compete for your attention as they fill your mouth and dribble down your chin.

RRRRRowwwww!!! No mas! No mas!!!!

Count on 10-15 euros if you're feeling peckish and upwards of 40 if you're hungry and thirsty.

Inopia - MAP
www.barinopia.com
C/Tamarit 104
08015 Barcelona
+34 934 245 231

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the author of the blog Eating The Motherland and contributes to The Boston Globe's travel blog, Globe-trotting.

NEW AND DIVIN(E) IN BELLEVILLE

By Joe Ray

PARIS

Paris is good to my comings and goings – little things to welcome me back or make me miss her when I go.

Before heading out for the summer, I bumped into Fred Valade in the northern reaches of Belleville while looking for my last lunch in Paris and asked where to get a good steak tartare in the neighborhood. He gave me a ‘no-can-do’ shrug and instead pointed me toward the new divin restaurant – a shiny, new and unfettered by capital letters.

The concept isn’t new, but there’s nothing to be tired of: a product-centric menu that cleverly goes easy on the chef at service time and a host of good organic and natural production wines. The restaurant is run by a pair of brothers, but divin is a direct cousin of the likes of La Crèmerie and Le Verre Volé; the more the merrier for this kind of place.

I had a thick slab of chunky pâté, full of deep, meaty and wonderfully liver-y flavor, all protected by a snow-white layer of fat and served with big, plump capers and good bread.

I washed it down with a (well-recommended) Côtes du Rhône, smacked my lips and headed to the airport with a smile.

Count on 10 - 20€ for your meal.

divin – MAP
35 rue des Annelets
75019 Paris
+33 1 40 40 79 41 

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the author of the blog Eating The Motherland and contributes to The Boston Globe's travel blog, Globe-trotting.

Photo note: lacking my camera at divin, I've substituted a shot of organic and natural production wines at the Crus et Decouvertes wine shop in the 11th.

NEWS FLASH: CARME'S COMING TO BARNA

News flash – Catalan Carme Ruscalleda, Spain’s first female chef with three Michelin stars, will open her first restaurant in Barcelona at the city’s Mandarin Oriental hotel.

Ruscalleda has three stars for her Restaurant Sant Pau in the town of Sant Pol de Mar and two more for the Tokyo version of the restaurant.

Who’s cooking in Barcelona? Her son, Raül Balam, who’s been working beside his mother in Sant Pol de Mar for years.

Doors are scheduled to open at the end of the year.

Bon profit!

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the author of the blog Eating The Motherland and contributes to The Boston Globe's travel blog, Globe-trotting.

SICILIAN SEX FOOD

 

By Joe Ray

RAGUSA, Sicily

I thought Ciccio Sultano was the only Sicilian serving sex food – the kind of stuff that makes you want to forget you’re in a public place, vault the table and make a meal out of your date.

RRROWWW!!!

One of the things I like about Chef Caravanserraglio and his eponymous Ragusa restaurant is that he’s not afraid to do pizzas that tend to be in the 5-10 euro range on a menu that also includes a 58 euro tasting menu; both are great values, but it’s rare to see someone with the guts and skill to do it all right.

Naturally, Caravanserraglio is a product freak and his menu lists four types of olive oil, six salts and five kinds of pepper. Apparently, we both share a dislike for Peugeot pepper grinders (no coarse grind) but he’s ordering a special German grinder normally used by scientists to extract the most from his peppercorns.    Until then, he uses a mortar and pestle crushing pepper to order.

One of the first plates with a tasting menu is an index card-sized slice of fat from a Spanish pata negra cured ham atop a similar-sized thick slice of lightly-smoked beef carpaccio with Maldon salt and specially-imported Szechuan pepper so fresh that it actually fizzes in your mouth.

Everything happens at once: textures and flavors, smoky, salty and slippery, fizzy and raw.

Damn these public places. I want to vault the table.

Ristorante - Pizzeria Caravanserraglio MAP
via P.Nenni 78
Ragusa
http://www.caravanserraglioragusa.com/

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the author of the blog Eating The Motherland and contributes to The Boston Globe's travel blog, Globe-trotting.

ACED

By Joe Ray

Portland, OR

“What’s that cool hotel you were telling me about in Portland?” I asked a buddy.

He couldn’t remember. Or I was asking the wrong buddy.

I typed ‘portland oregon hip hotel’ into Google and there it was – the Ace Hotel.

My reasons for loving it? Along with the high, ceilings and a clean modern-meets-old-school-cool design, there’s a Stumptown Coffee connected to the lobby. There’s also a snack tray in every room with the beautifully-labeled Lurisia fizzy water and next to it, Dutch stroopwaffels – my favorite cookie to have with coffee. I love the idea that, instead of throwing some Lay’s and Kit Kat bars in there, somebody put the effort into sourcing some really good stuff.

Downside? The secret’s out. Canadian families in North Face Jackets are mixing with the dressed-in-black (and talking loudly about their lives as composers and art directors) crowd. Sitting at the big lobby table the morning I’m there is a bossy chump who looks like an extra from “The Matrix” and his doomed, sweet-as-gold girlfriend.

There’s also a grumpy kid who kicked a chair at me when I asked if anyone was sitting there.

“It’s a free country,” he added.

Until the coffee kicked in, I had fantasies of whapping them all with a rolled-up newspaper.

Ace Hotel Portland MAP
1022 SW Stark St
Portland, OR 97205
P: 503-228-2277
F: 503-228-2297
www.acehotel.com/portland

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the author of the blog Eating The Motherland and contributes to The Boston Globe's travel blog, Globe-trotting.

LUNCH BY THE NUMBERS

Paris,

By Joe Ray

Get there before it’s overrun with ministers.

Maybe because it’s brand new and hasn’t been discovered yet. Maybe it’s because it was a vacation week or just a slow day, but four of us had Le 122, smack in the heart of ministry central to ourselves.

Instead of that depressing, feel bad for the owners, ‘why are we whispering?’ feeling, it was perfect. The chef and his wife came over to talk once in a while and the waiter nosed in with an off the cuff crack that had huge crash and burn potential, but instead, he had read us perfectly.

Chef’s pedigree shows in his fish dishes like a toothy and full of flavor smoked sardine and anise-tomato marmelade appetizer and a cod pissaladière – a Provencal pizza cousin, this one doing a wonderful job of respecting the fish.

We share a Coteaux du Vendomois that Chef calls his wine of the month. It’s made by a friend of his and so good and well-priced, I hope everything on the wine list is made by his friends.

Dessert? Strawberries with a tea foam that sits in a glass bowl and looks like a floating flower.

A friend was supposed to leave early, instead, she asked for another spoon.

Le 122 : 122 rue de Grenelle 75007 Paris Map

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the author of the blog Eating The Motherland and contributes to The Boston Globe's travel blog, Globe-trotting.

The most expensive potato in the world

By Mara Grimm

 

After working for seven years as a food editor, hardly any restaurant bill surprises me anymore.

But when I heard somebody paid 500 euros for a kilogram of potatoes I was in complete shock. And in desperate need of a taste. The miniature potato La Bonnotte is number 5 on the list of ‘the most expensive foods in the world’, next to saffron, truffle and caviar. It is cultivated exclusively on the Isle of Noirmoutier, where seaweed is added to the soil in which it’s grown. The result is a potato with a complex flavor that includes hints of lemon, earth and, of course, the sea. To make La Bonnotte even more exotic, it’s available only from May 1st to May 10th, and the local farmers produce not more then 20,000 kilos annually.

This explains the ridiculous pricing (actually the €500 turned out to be a one-time amount; at a local delicacy shop you can expect to pay around €70 per kilo), and why La Bonnotte hardly ever leaves France. So is all this just smart marketing or is this really the most special potato in the world? Dutch chef Jos de Groot of Rotterdam’s newest high-end restaurant VIS was so intrigued by La Bonnotte that he drove all the way to Noirmoutier to get some and then invited me for a four course press lunch. Jos served La Bonnotte as chips with a seaweed mayonnaise as an amuse bouche. Then he roasted them and topped them with vongole, crème fraîche and caviar. He also turned La Bonnotte into a delicate mousseline that paired well with super fresh coquilles, asparagus and lemon mayonnaise.

But my personal favorite was a dish with a fondant of La Bonnotte combined with lobster, sea fennel and the Italian sausage stolghino di culatello: an elegant dish in which both land and sea were in perfect harmony. And that’s exactly what La Bonnotte is all about.

You can try La Bonnotte until May 15^th in French top restaurants and in The Netherlands at De Librije (*** Zwolle), Le Ciel Blue (**Amsterdam),'t Brouwerskolkje (**Overveen), De Bokkedoorns (** Overveen) and Savelberg (* Voorburg).

Mara Grimm is the editor of  Holland's biggest restaurant guide: Lekker. She also writes about new restaurants, shops and culinary trends in Delicious Magazine and has a monthly column on kids and food.

IF YOUR SALIVARY GLANDS HAVEN’T KICKED IN, BLOW YOUR NOSE

By Joe Ray

Call me a traitor, but here I go.

Though it might look like pink champagne, the apéro of the summer is a beer, and not one for the faint of heart.

Cantillon’s “Kriek 100% Lambic” is an eye-popper that will stand your taste buds happily on end.

It’s also a dive into the deep end of Belgian beer vocabulary. In short, lambics are natural fermentation beers that are aged for at least three years in oak barrels. A kriek, is a lambic (or a gueuze) made with sour cherries known as griottes.

While some companies have turned kriek into a sweet and sticky mess, those worth their salt are bracingly sour.
Cantillon’s kriek has just a hint of creamy suds on top and gets its cooked cherry color from the griottes. Poke your nose into the top of a glass and you’ll get a blast the grapefruit smell that is the hallmark of many good lambics, along with a hint of green apples. If your salivary glands haven’t kicked in by now, blow your nose.

Take a sip and you’ll get a kick of that fantastic sour and acidic grapefruit flavor.

If you can find any way to get your stomach and taste buds more ready for a meal, the comment box is one click away…

...

P.S. In Paris, I found my bottle at Pommier inside the Marché Beauvau - the covered market at Marché d’Aligre in the 11th arrondissement.

Cantillon has a handy place to start your quest with a partial list of wholesalers and places to buy your bottle here.

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the author of the blog Eating The Motherland and contributes to The Boston Globe's travel blog, Globe-trotting.

Pork Products

By Joe Ray

I’ve always had an aversion to taking antibiotics unless someone could really convince me they were worth it.

A few ex-girlfriends might say otherwise, but it’s a good thing I’m not a pig in the United States.

Nicholas Kristof wrote a recent zinger about big agriculture’s use of antibiotics in animal feed that can lead to an antibiotic-resistant staph infection called MRSA, which, as he notes, “kills more than 18,000 Americans annually, more than AIDS does.”

In an article full of jaw-droppers, he also cites a 2008 article in Medical Clinics of North America that said “more antibiotics were fed to animals in North Carolina alone than were administered to the nation’s entire human population.”

Go get ‘em Tar Heels!

On March 17, New York State congresswoman and microbiologist Louise Slaughter reintroduced legislation to curb the use of antibiotics in agriculture. First read the article, then give your congressperson a call.

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the author of the blog Eating The Motherland and contributes to The Boston Globe's travel blog, Globe-trotting

 

A food / health blog

By Joe Ray

Good news came with this morning’s coffee – while the policies that govern the food produced in the United States are still being spelled out by the Obama administration, the first family is leading by example when it comes to eating well. (Click here or here).

Michelle Obama has been stumping to get America to pay attention to what they’re eating by opening up the White House kitchen, applauding healthy, unprocessed cuisine and promoting locally-grown food.

Want a stomach-turning reason why? Watch the little graphic on the Centers for Disease Control’s ‘Overweight and Obesity’ trend page.

There’s a weird stir going on in the U.S. about whether or not first lady Michelle Obama’s well-toned arms should be on display, but I say more power to her. Gripe about the spare tires that way too many Americans have and applaud the example of someone who eats well and takes care of themselves.

Get involved in U.S. agricultural policy here: fooddemocracynow.org/

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the author of the blog Eating The Motherland and contributes to The Boston Globe's travel blog, Globe-trotting.

 

AM I MISSING SOMETHING?

Paris,

By Joe Ray

To me, this explains it all.

How is it that when the EU bans imports of hormone-treated beef from the US, the US triples the import tariff on French Roquefort …a cheese made with unpasteurized milk that comes from sheep that are fed a chemical-free diet?

Not to gloat, but it’s snack time and I’ve got some really good raw-milk Camembert in the fridge…

Link to story

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the author of the blog Eating The Motherland and contributes to The Boston Globe's travel blog, Globe-trotting.

 

SENDING THE WINE BACK

Paris,

By Joe Ray

One of the most intimidating things to do in a Parisian restaurant is to send back a bottle of wine.

It’s a shaky gamble; unless the thing just stinks like a bottle of wet newspaper, it could just be that you’re tasting a wine that’s just not that great. Your nose could be lying. Who knows?

We ordered a bottle of Anjou the other night at Aux Negociants – which proclaims itself a ‘bistrot a vins.’ “Wine” is their middle name… or something like that.

The chef, who often serves as a waiter, plunked the bottle down and walked away before we could taste it.

Sniff, sniff.

To my nose, it alternates between smelling like a fair-to-middlin’ wine and something worse.

Sip.

It tastes like fair-to-middlin’ wine and something worse.

‘The chef is going to have a field day with me if I’m wrong,’ I think, followed closely by, ‘I don’t feel like paying 20 euros for this crap.’

“Is this what this should taste like?” I ask Chef, trying to be polite while getting my point across.

He grabs the bottle, grunts and walks it back behind the bar where his wife (?) runs the show. She pours a bit in a glass, sniffs, and the only word I catch in her aside to the chef is “bouchonné” (“skunked”) as she dumps it. She dispatches chef with a new bottle and clean glasses that he wordlessly plunks on the table.

Sniff.

Next to the old one, it smells like a bouquet of flowers.

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the author of the blog Eating The Motherland and contributes to The Boston Globe's travel blog, Globe-trotting.

Barcelona: 1, Paris: 0

By Joe Ray

Same story better end.

Caffé Moro, take note; this is how to create repeat customers...

With my favorite Barcelona café closed for the day and looking for a new place to work, I found the new Sifó Xico in my old neighborhood of Poble Sec.

Instead of giving me lip and a lecture when I asked for a glass of water with my coffee, the bartender poured a glass, looked at it for a second, pitched it in the sink (Barcelona’s tap water can be nasty) and gave me a bottle of water. Free of charge.

I’ll be back.

Sifó Xico C/Roser Barcelona www.sifo.es  Map    Tel : +34.663.762.035

Food and travel writer and photographer Joe Ray is the author of the blog Eating The Motherland and contributes to The Boston Globe's travel blog, Globe-trotting

the tranquility of Laurence Salomon

Annecy,

By François Simon

This financial crisis – nothing could be worse for restaurants.  They’re always the first to suffer the effects.  As a result, to speak frankly, things change a bit for someone in my line of work.  That’s not to say we bury the hatchet and put away our claws, but there’s nothing worse than kicking someone when they’re down.  So a kind of goodwill gets established at times like these.  And it’s not unpleasant that things are bit sugar-coated.  The timing was perfect, in fact, this past Saturday night, as I was all alone at Annecy with a fantastic novel (Teru Miyamoto’s Les Gens de la Rue des Reves).  Which is to say I was the happiest man in the world.   Whirling about in my plate was a carousel of flavors (azuki beans, Hokkaido squash, roasted squash seeds, baby lettuce, quinoas, a bed of spinach, tofu puree with herbs…). Healthy and balanced food, wholesome and salutary.  Sometimes, it’s not the most appetizing, like the spaghetti with beats.  But that’s alright because the wise and virtuous clientele has at all times the feeling that they’re being indulged.   
Sometimes it doesn’t matter if a restaurant is excellent and produces perfect flavors, we just need to know that it’s headed in the right direction, even if sometimes it dawdles along the way, gets off the right path, makes a mistake or two.  What’s important for us is to hear it humming.
Nature & Saveur, Laurence Salomon, open for lunch Tuesday to Saturday, and Saturday night for dinner with a single-choice menu.  Place des Cordeleirs, 74000 Annecy. Tel : 04.50.45.82.29  Reasonably priced wine list.  Around 49 euros for the Saturday menu.  Web    Map

Photo F.Simon

What's the verdict on Cyril Lignac's new place?

PARIS

By François Simon

Stop the presses, Cyril Lignac has just acquired Chardenoux. The result is predictable - bistrot cuisine that's dazzling, charming, and suited to urban appetites. This isn't your typical unrefined bistrot fare – here the proportions are well-balanced and the final product is not bad at all. It's all very much in keeping with the approach we've come to expect from this likable and serious young man. Of course, we had to pick a fight or two, needle him a little bit. But, in all sincerity, I find him to be a class act, an affable guy.  He takes it all well, sticks up for himself, and loves his job.  Where can you find fault?  That said, it's just not my cup of tea. I was delighted to have had a light lunch there because that night I had another meal waiting for me....

Chardenoux : rue Jules Vallès, 75011 Paris. Tel : 01.43.71.49.52. Open seven days a week. Map

Photo F. Simon

La rentrée

By Joe Ray

Signs that summer is officially over in France are everywhere: Parisians, a curiously thin-blooded breed, are even justifiably wearing sweaters and jackets (though they pulled the scarves out a couple weeks ago, bien sûr), the leaves in the Palais Royal garden are a depressing mix of green and brown, and yesterday on the Champs-Elysées, it was cold enough that all of the tables on the terrace outside of Fouquet’s – a.k.a. people watching heaven - were ornamental.

La rentrée – the post-summer return to school, work and life - is in full swing. After a month of gathering dust, keyboards in France arenow clicking a gogo; the projects nobody was thinking about a month ago are underway. Suddenly, life moves fast again.

After a month on vacation, I fall into the same jarring trap. In the middle of it all, a group of good friends I haven’t seen formonths asks me to join them for lunch.

“No time!” screams a little voice in my head.

“No money!” says another.

“I’ll meet you there,” I say, ignoring them both.

Twenty minutes later, we are encased in a little bubble Chez Janou. Vincent’s wife is pregnant again, Seb is laughing and Calou, having just worked a week in Lourdes, is cracking jokes about the Pope. Four prix-fixe menus, a bottle of wine and everything is OK again.

Later, I swing by to pick up a fax that Rose, who runs the show at Chez Lucette in the 17th, is holding for me. She’s got a vendor in and I see her for all of 30 seconds, but she sends me off with a kiss on each cheek that cracks so loud my ears pop. Stars officially realigned, I leave and walk down the street with a smile glued to my face.

Chez Janou : 2, Rue Roger Verlhomme 75003 PARIS 03.  Tel: 01 42 72 28 41 Map

Chez Lucette, 43, rue de la Jonquière 75017 Paris Tel : 01 46 27 72 54 Map

Joe Ray is the author of the blog, Eating The Motherland and contributes to the Boston Globe's Travel blog, Globe-Trotting