how to fan girl at restaurant l'arpege in paris

L'Arpege.

Chef Alain Passard is one of the most famous people in the culinary world. His restaurant, L'Arpege, consistently gets three Michelin stars and is a fixture on the World's 50 Best Restaurants List. He focuses on vegetarian cuisine although he does offer meat and fish as well.

I first heard of Chef Passard when a friend served me an "Arpege egg" one time at a dinner party. My friend's version was creamy scrambled egg topped with caviar served in an egg shell. Since then, I've been wanting to try the real thing.

When Mr. Sazy Rock and I recently visited Paris, he wanted to go back to Arpege to get himself up to date on the city's dining scene. I was more than happy to tag along. I was very excited to finally eat the famous Arpege egg.

The Scene

The diners were both food tourists and French people alike. We arrived fairly early and the place was mostly empty. But, by 9 pm, when most people ate, the place was full and buzzy. Men wore jackets and women dressed smart. I should note, however, that I saw a French speaking couple wear jeans.

The Service

What excited me was Chef Passard working the room and greeting every single diner. In fact, when he first started greeting diners, I thought he knew them personally. He was that friendly. Instead, those folks were just regular diners like me and Mr. SR. When he finally came by our table, he joked with us and noted how much Mr. SR seemed to enjoy eating their bread. After saying hi, he went back to the kitchen.

video: dining at paul bocuse's l'auberge du pont de collonges in lyon, france

If you've ever wondered what it is like to dine at Paul Bocuse's temple of gastronomy - L'Auberge du Pont de Collonges - in Lyon, France, I've shot a short video below. Enjoy!

hedone: hedonism for the mouth

Hedone.

One of the highlights of my last trip to London with Mr. Sazy Rock was a meal at Hedone. Our expectations were very high. Yet, Hedone still met them.

Let me explain. My brother in law dines at Hedone. A lot. As in he-dines-there-so-much-he-has-a-chair-with-a-plaque-with-his-name-on-it "a lot." He's been dining there since it opened and we think he's dined there over 200 times. When Mr. SR lived in London, he and my brother in law ate out a lot and talked about it. The bottom line is: we trust his palate.

So, on our recent trip, my brother in law treated us to a meal at his favorite restaurant. We went for lunch because we knew it was going to be a long lunch. As the restaurant's name suggests, we were in for a pleasurable meal, and we wanted it to last a very long time.

Hedone.

restaurant review: restaurant jan (one michelin star restaurant in nice, france)

(Nice, France).  In Nice, we were joining a group of friends for their birthday celebrations so it was a rare situation when I did not plan or organize any of the meals.  Fortunately the food planner was also an avid food and wine lover so he planned all of our group meals beautifully.  For our first large group dinner he chose Restaurant JAN - an incredibly well-reviewed restaurant with one Michelin star.

Here is a sample menu - they offer several choices of prix fixe.  I think we went to the chef's choice which had more than 6 courses.  While each course is deceptively small, all of us were pretty full as we neared the end of the meal.  So how was the food?

restaurant review: dinner by heston blumenthal

On my last trip to London, I had the pleasure of dining at Dinner for lunch. Did that make sense? 

Dinner.

Yes, the restaurant is called Dinner, and I dined for lunch (apparently, the dinner and lunch menu were the same). What most attracted me to this restaurant was that Heston Blumenthal spent some time going through the archives to research British food from centuries ago, and then made it his own. British food had a good reputation before World War II, which was when rationing and food scarcity earned British food a bad reputation. So, I found it interesting to see what British food was like back in the day.

To be honest, Mr. Sazy Rock and I tried dining here before on another visit but they canceled our reservation because of some norovirus outbreak. But, I figured, that after such a publicized issue, Dinner would be the cleanest restaurant ever.

The Scene

View of the kitchen.

Located in the posh Mandarin Oriental Hotel, the space was bright with a great view of Hyde Park on one side and the glass-walled kitchen on the other. By virtue of its location and reputation (the restaurant has three Michelin stars and is on the 50 Best Restaurants in the World list), it was inevitable that there were lots of food tourists. But, it also looked like there were locals of the rich variety in the dining room.

View of Hyde Park.

I found it odd, however, that for a fine dining joint, there were no tablecloths. 

The Food 

• The tasty bread made by the Fat Duck Group was very chewy and doughy, and the crust was crunchy. 
• I found it interesting that there was no amuse bouche. 
• The Roast Bone Marrow had snails and pickles. It was served lukewarm and a tad underseasoned but it was still good. 

Bone Marrow and Meat Fruit.

• The Meat Fruit was amazing. It was basically shaped like a mandarin but was really chicken liver parfait enclosed in a fruit jelly that was supposed to be the outer layer "fruit rind." It was a fantastic parfait with a hint of mandarin. 

Meat Fruit.

• The Iberico Pork Chop was cooked sous vide. It was so juicy and rich with a bit of sweetness (perhaps a teriyaki -ish sauce?). The spelt with ham hock was rich and textured with pork rind. 

Iberico pork chop.

Look at that perfectly cooked Iberico Pork Chop.

• The Hereford Ribeye was perfectly cooked (sous vide) medium rare. It showed signs of aging, which was good. It was topped with rich bone marrow. 

Hereford Ribeye.

• The Triple Cooked Fries were so good. Each square area was crunchy, and the inside of each fry was a bit fluffy. 

Triple Cooked Fries.

• The Tipsy Cake was very rich and sweet. It was basted with white wine and butter. The pineapple was spit roasted for four hours. 

Tipsy Cake.

• The Chocolate Ganache, and Orange Blossom and Caraway Biscuits for our Petit Fours was very nice. It just had a tiny taste of orange. They used dark chocolate so it was not so sweet.

Chocolate and Biscuit.

The Service 

The service was great. Upon our arrival, I was provided a purse holder. I believe that service is all about the little things.

Our server, Michael, was friendly and informative but was not familiar (which I find typical of "hip" restaurants). All the other staff were similarly amiable.

I should also note that the servers were definitely paying us attention when they gave us fresh toast for the meat fruit when we finished all the bread. 

The menu had information about the year the dish was likely served, and the napkin was tied together by a paper that had some other snippet of food trivia. It was fun.

The menu.

Trivia with the napkins.

The Price 

Our meal was not cheap. But, with wines and tip, compared to some fancy restaurants in the US, it was competitive at under $300.


The Verdict 

I definitely recommend eating at Dinner it at least once.


What do you think of British food?

restaurant review: boka in chicago

Boka.

This most recent trip to Chicago had not been the epicurean delight Mr. Sazy Rock and I expected it to be. In addition to a disappointing meal at Tru, other restaurants we tried left us wanting more. The only ones we enjoyed were Weiner's Circle in Lincoln Park and Athena in Greek town. Luckily, our last meal in the City did not suck. Indeed, we were pleasantly surprised about our experience at Boka.

The Scene 

The scene.

I would describe this Michelin starred restaurant as casual high end in that the level of cooking was high but the dishes were served on a table without cloth.

When we arrived for our 7 pm reservation, the place was full and buzzy. Diners were dressed from business casual to downright casual - a gentleman on the table next to ours was wearing shorts. To be fair, he was the exception and not the rule.

restaurant review: tru in chicago

Tru.

I really wanted to like Tru. It has been around for a long time and has received many accolades. Although I have visited Chicago many times, this visit was my first at Tru. It was not Mr. Sazy Rock's first visit. I think his last visit was about a decade ago and he found it decadent, memorable and very good. So, he wanted to revisit the restaurant to see how it has changed through the years. And, I came with plenty of expectations. Sadly, I left with most of them unfulfilled.

restaurant review: sakamoto

During a recent trip to Kyoto, there was a dish I ate (I still don't know which one) that didn't agree with me. It was very sad because that meant I was sidelined for one night and couldn't join Mr. Sazy Rock during his food and drinks research. (And, to be honest, I think he was sad too because he couldn't research as much because he couldn't order as much.)

But, I was in town for business. So, I was a good little trooper and went with Mr. SR to help him research the cocktail scene in Kyoto as soon as I felt a little bit better. Bartender extraordinaire Kenji Tsubokura of Bar Rocking Chair recommended that, if I was up for it, we should have a Kaiseki meal at a restaurant called Sakamoto. Kaiseki is essentially a Japanese high end small plates dining experience that has origins in tea ceremonies. Nowadays, it's very modern and based on entertainment and not ceremony. 

restaurant review: usukifugu yamadaya in tokyo, japan

Fugu.

When Mr. Sazy Rock and I recently went on a business trip to Japan, he wanted to try fugu, a fish that, supposedly, if certain parts were eaten or if prepared poorly, could cause death. So, because I highly value living, we chose to dine at Usukifugu Yamadaya, a three-star Michelin restaurant, on the theory that we increase the likelihood of us surviving a meal based on a potentially deadly fish by having dishes prepared by a fugu master.

restaurant review: state bird provisions

Mini fried quail with cheese.

(San Francisco, CA).  For over a year my Bay Area friends have been raving about State Bird Provisions, which was awarded one michelin star and won the James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant in 2013.  They all raved that the food was consistently amazing and the place was
definitely worth the hype.  While I don't necessarily buy into the michelin grading system - which has a very french and western european bias and has not yet fully embraced the amazing flavors and food cultures of the east - it did seem to further validate that this was a restaurant worth visiting.... if you were lucky enough to score a reservation or patient enough to wait in line for hours.

My husband and I had received a gift certificate for State Bird Provisions as a wedding gift.  When we managed to get a reservation on opentable, we booked our flights and hotel around the reservation. But less than a day after booking, opentable cancelled our reservation due to a systems error.  This was extremely disappointing since we had already made our travel plans so I reached out to the restaurant directly and they were absolutely lovely about trying to accommodate us.  While we couldn't keep our original reservation time, they confirmed us for an earlier dinner time.  Yay for State Bird!

restaurant review: st. john bar and restaurant

The dining room at St. John.

During a recent trip to London, I returned for another dining experience at St. John Bar and Restaurant in the Clerkenwell neighborhood. See, there are certain things I like to eat when I am in London and the Roasted Bone Marrow and Parsley Salad dish is one of them. (The other things I love eating in London are St. John Bakery's custard doughnut and Tayyab's tandoori lamb chops.)

The scene
The restaurant and bar is very industrial looking because it used to be an old smokehouse. The decor is very minimalist - everything is white. Although it has one Michelin Star, the place is not stuck up. In fact, there's a nice (but not loud) buzz in the dining room.

The food

The Roasted Bone Marrow and Parsley Salad.

I've eaten plenty of roasted bone marrow dishes but St. John's version, which apparently has been emulated by many chefs around the world, tops my list. See, the richness of the bone marrow is tempered by the tangy parsley salad, and brought to life with a tiny bit of sea salt. And when you spread the marrow on top of the crunchy toasted bread, it's like eating heaven. Seriously, if this is all you order at St. John, you're golden.

The Eccles Cake and Lancashire Cheese is another dish that deserves a mention. Eccles cake is not a cake but a pastry... a very buttery pastry so it is nice and flaky. The dried fruit inside the pastry go well with the slightly salty flavor of the Lancashire cheese. It's delicious, and also a very British dish.

restaurant review: azurmendi

I can't say I'm a food critic, because I'm not.  But, I like to eat... a lot.

On a recent trip to Bilbao, Spain, the hubster's friend suggested that we check out a restaurant called, Azurmendi, just 30 minutes outside the city in a town called Larrabetzu. It has three stars from the Michelin Guide. About a month or so after we dined there, the 2014 San Pellegrino's 50 Best Restaurants in the World list came out and identified it as the 26th best restaurant.  Now, I don't know whether that's true but this is what I know: Chef Eneko Atxa knows what he's doing.

The scene

The Azurmendi Greenhouse
where we tasted pumpkin seeds.

Azurmendi has two restaurant buildings: one perched on a hill and one below. They use the bottom restaurant for special events and casual dining, and the top restaurant for fine dining. The top restaurant is very modern with floor to ceiling windows so you can view verdant hills... and a freeway. Multi-lingual staff members immediately greeted us when we entered the restaurant. The waiting area (or garden) has a high ceiling with a lot of plants, a tree and a fountain.  We could see the kitchen from there.  We were told that if the restaurant was not busy, they regularly took diners on a tour of the greenhouse above the restaurant where they grew a lot of their produce.