Why are they better?

Because they care about food and they know what to cook and what time of year to cook it! I haven't seen one Taco Bell in a week and I am happy. Bring on real food!

Crepes for Cait, as promised...

I Heart Nutella. These were CRRRRRRRRRRRREPE!

Le Rech, Paris France

Le Rech: A Classic French Bistro
When I visit Paris it is a humbling experience. I have studied the cuisine of this city and country my entire adult life in order to hone my craft and better my skills. When one is in Paris, arguably the greatest food city in the entire world, for one weekend, you must make wise choices in regards to where you dine. When you have only three days in Paris, it is a double-edged sword to make your first meal in the city at a restaurant owned and ran by Michelin three star Chef and restaurateur, Alain Ducasse. It is a wonderful experience but at the same time you know that nothing else you eat while on your trip will compare. With twenty-one restaurants and counting, Chef Ducasse is a force to be reckoned with in the world of fine dining.
Tommy, Elizabeth, and I got off the train from Brussels, dropped our bags, stopped in at Printemps, for some light shopping, and headed for a lunch that I have no equal for in my memory. Le Rech is a classic French bistro opened in the style of 1920’s Paris. The Art Deco atmosphere is complimented by the delicate approach to the cuisine that Chef Ducasse and his staff employ. The offerings here are almost all seafood, save a few beef and veal offerings. We opted for the three course pre-fixe lunch and were not disappointed.
The menu was as follows:
Soupe glacee de concombre au rouget
Ou
Fillet de haddock marine au citron, salade d’herbes

Julienne de linge pochee, asperges blanches et sabayon citron
Ou
Joues de lotted snackees aux mousserons et cresson de fontaine

Soupe et sorbet de fraises gariguettes
Ou
Pain perdu Pastis d’Amelie, glace caramel au buerre sale

For the first course we all ordered the marinated haddock in citrus with the herb salad. While cold cucumber soup would have fit the 80 degree the delicate flavor of the marinade and the citrus cream accompanying the salad sounded too good to pass up. This fish was sublime. The citrus was just enough, not so much that it over powered, as is often the case in something like ceviche. The flavor of the haddock still shined in this dish. What I found most interesting about the first course was the plating. The fish was served in a bowl that was no doubt specifically designed for this dish as nothing else but the battonet of haddock would fit in the dish. The accompaniments were served on another plate, which allowed you to mix and match until you found that perfect bite. Balance between the fish, the greens, and the citrus cream was easy. The perfect piece of toasted bread was there to provide some crunch and texture that was much needed.
For the main course we were more diverse. I ordered the monkfish with mushrooms in a butter sauce while Tommy and Elizabeth ordered the poached mullett with a citrus sabayon and white asparagus. Both of the entrees were exceptional and given the hot day very delicate while still being filling. There is nothing worse on a hot day to sit down to a meal that stuffs you and leaves you lethargic. My dish was all about the seasoning. With only three ingredients on the plate it showed how the kitchen staff could transform such simple food into something extraordinary. When you start with the best ingredients available and apply classic technique with absolute precision it is hard for it not to turn out wonderfully. The other entrée was also superbly done. The fish poached till just done, left it flaky but not dry and the sabayon, which is a sauce usually, reserved for dessert was the star here. An emulsion sauce similar to hollandaise, this sauce had the perfect amount of citrus to butter to egg. The sauce was in complete balance with the fish and asparagus. It is of note that neither of the entrees was served with a starch of any kind, which I attribute, again, to the warm weather.
The last out of the kitchen was our dessert course. Elizabeth ordered the strawberry soup with fresh strawberries and strawberry sorbet. This was like the best fresh strawberry you’ve ever had but amplified by ten. Tommy and I both ordered the French toast with caramel ice cream. This was amazing; there are no other words for it. The toast was encased in a glaze, which had a slight crunch to it but made the texture otherworldly, while the inside was soft and rich. The ice cream was perhaps the greatest ice cream I’ve ever tasted. It was rich velvety in texture and had the most intense caramel flavor you can imagine.
This lunch was one for the record books, the setting, the company, the service, and of course the food made it a highlight of the trip for me so far and one of my favorite meals of all time. Here’s the Alain Ducasse, cheers Le Rech!

Culinaria 2010!

Culinaria is a yearly event that gathers together Michelin starred Chefs from all over Europe. By happenstance we were in Brussels the very same weekend that this festival was happening. Tommy and I ventured onto the Brussels’ subway for the first time and made the trek to the expo center to eat lunch. After getting turned around and walking way further than needed we found the Culinaria, bought tickets, got confused, spoke broken French, and were herded inside. Forty-five Euros bought us a ticket in and a four-course lunch, each course prepared by a different Master Chef plying his trade. In addition to lunch there were vendors from all over the continent selling food and food related products as well as chefs giving demos and classes (sadly, all the instruction was in French or Dutch).

Tommy and I were blown away with our lunch experience! The menu was as follows:

Langoustine, dans de la brume, fenouil, orange, algues, ail des ours

Shrimp bruleed with fennel and oranges

Lard de ferme confit, soufflé et laque aux epices

Farm-raised pork belly, confit and soufflé, lacquered in spices

Joue de veau braisee, celery-rave, estragon, Parmesan

Braised veal cheek with celery root, tarragon, and Parmesan cheese

Ceci n’est pas une orange

Orange dessert served several ways (my liberal American translation)

Each course was expertly and painstakingly tended to and the flavors melded and worked together like a fantastic piece of art. The presentation of the shrimp involved dry ice so it was the most impressive visually. The entrée of veal was like the best pot roast you ever had but from another planet! The two standouts for me were the second and fourth courses. The pork belly was so tender they only handed out spoons. It was served with a pork fat soufflé, fried pork skin, and bacon. This was an otherworldly experience for me. For someone who lives and breathes pork it was a new experience for me. Unbelievable! The dessert was a study on orange, which after the two previous courses being so heavy was needed. Everything on the plate, except the graham cracker was orange flavored. Frozen orange mousse, orange sorbet, orange jelly, candied orange zest, and did I mention the plate was painted with 14K gold leaf before plating.

Tommy and I have set the bar really high for only our second day in Europe. We have 9 more days of eating ahead of us. Here’s hoping it goes up from here, tomorrow…PARIS!

www.culinariasquare.be

What a difference a day makes

I ate a "cheesesteak" in the Philadelphia airport. The next actual meal I ordered, unless you count the airplane slop, was roasted bone marrow and garlic croutons, and an endive salad with blue cheese, golden raisins, and toasted pine nuts. Needless to say the "cheesesteak" was head and shoulders above the classical French offerings I had for lunch in a street side cafe in Brussels...oh, no it wasn't!

Bistro G-EA, Brussels as hell, French as fuck!

The best thing about Europe is the pace. Jet-lagged and wanting to low-key it Tommy, Elizabeth, and I went to a little French bistro around the corner from our hotel/apartment. We were there for over three hours watching people, eating, and talking and it was the perfect way to start our vacation. There was no, "I gotta grab a quick bite so I can get me to the Wal-Mart." We enjoyed three courses along with coffee and after dinner drinks for T & E (which were on the house, of course) and every bite was sublime. I managed foie gras in two courses as well as a Greek salad that was enough to make me full, but the way things were paced we had time to digest and enjoy every course that was offered. As we shared around the table we decided that this type of meal is certainly not possible in Dayton, probably in the U.S. all together. There is simply no emphasis put on actually enjoying the meal, the time spent, the service, and the company in America. I would rather spend three hours with my best friends than sit in front of a T.V. watching spirit-crushing, mind-numbing trash any night. Here's to the European way of life and our first epic meal in Europe, courtesy of Bistro G-EA

Lunch at Rue Dumaine

Rue Dumaine is my current favorite restaurant in the city of Dayton and they are open Fridays only for lunch. This last Friday I had the pleasure of eating there with my Mom and Grandma. Lunch is ordinarily a quick in and out affair as people usually have to get back to work but being as that I am a man of leisure on spring break and my mother has Fridays off we were able to linger and enjoy lunch in a more European way. Rue Dumaine is the perfect place to relax and enjoy a long three-course lunch with friends or family.

I started with the fresh spring pea soup and I have to say this was the highlight of the meal for me. This bright green soup was a perfect thing to have on the first day of spring! The soup was light, refreshing, clean, and crisp. The peas soup was finished with a little crème fraiche for a touch of richness. It was a perfect compliment to the gorgeous weather we are currently having in Ohio.

For an entrée I ordered the duck ragout with asparagus and wild mushrooms served over creamy polenta. I was really happy with the flavors again, a nice springtime lunch offering. My complaint was not with the depth of flavors or how they complimented each other it was with the texture of the meal. Everything in the dish was soft. Duck braised till falling off the bone and shredded, sautéed mushrooms, and asparagus (slightly overcooked) all soft. Then these items were all served over creamy polenta, again soft. What Chef Anne needed here was a textural contrast. This is a fundamental of plate presentation. I assume that the asparagus was there to add some crunch to the meal but as it was overcooked it could not do that. I would suggest some toasted pine nuts to accompany the Italian polenta. My Mom and Grandma both ordered the haricot vert salad with blue cheese and sherry vinaigrette. This salad was good and surprisingly filling. I think it was perhaps a little heavy on blue cheese, but overall a great salad


Lastly we ordered dessert, a luxury for this time of day. The lunch menu at Rue Dumaine is a brief affair, written once weekly and is essentially a short list of five or six specials showcasing Chef Kearney and her Sous Chef Brian Griffey’s talents. Because the lunch menu is so short they only had one dessert, a pear galette, which made our choice easy. This is not a dessert I would normally order but I was pleasantly surprised. A simply warm pear turnover topped with fresh, lightly, whipped, cream that was not too sweet or too rich for lunchtime. The pastry was light and crisp not doughy and rich like premade puff pastry has a tendency to be. The pears were just sweet enough to end the meal and the cream added some richness to balance the tartness of the fruit.

All right service, as always, is the sticking pint with me. I feel that lunch service at Rue Dumaine is better than the nighttime service. The feel here is more relaxed and not as stuffy. Also I felt that they servers aren’t as rushed because the volume is not as high for lunch so they have the time to dote on their tables a little bit more than usual. The Chef even had a moment to come to our table and say hello. This is a nice touch and I must admit I have a soft spot for Chef Anne and I love it when people in the restaurant make a fuss over my table.

A nice leisurely lunch with two of my favorite people in the world, in one of my favorite restaurants in the world! Eight out of ten.

Rue Dumaine Insane!

This past Saturday I had the privilege of dining at Rue Dumaine in Centerville. Chef Anne Kearney does a wonderful job in the kitchen. Her pedigree includes a best new chef in the country from Food & Wine magazine circa 1998. I am partial to the restaurant because they always make a fuss over me when I go there as one of my students works there. There were five in our party and after waiting around fifteen minutes for our reserved table we were seated.
Skinny Rick, the student, sent our table an amuse bouche of chicken pate on toast with cornichons, country mustard, and a berry compote. I was weary of the berry compote with liver but it really worked and I have to say that the pate is hands down the best use of chicken liver I have ever ran across. The texture is not grainy or coarse like liver can be if over cooked. There is a light, airy, whipped texture to the pate and the taste has a smoked bacon quality to it but with the richness of butter. Amazing. The first course post amuse bouche was a scallop sausage, again courtesy of Skinny Rick. This dish is essentially scallop mousse packed into a hog casing and pan-fried. It was paired with a simple salad and was, as with all of Rue Dumaine’s charcuterie, very tasty. The nice thing about this sausage was that it was not too dense as shellfish sometimes has a tendency to do when over processed. Next up was rillette of duck crepes finished in a red wine and shallot gastrique. These were succulent. The duck that is scrap from the confit entrée on the menu is taken and whipped with citrus, mustard, and crème fraiche and wrapped up into tender little pancakes and finished with a tart and sweet red wine sauce as a means of balancing the richness of the duck. When entrees were served I ordered the braised lamb short ribs, which were served with a reduction of the braising liquid, battonet of carrots and sweet potato gnocchi. The lamb was great it was tender and full of flavor but the gnocchi were less than impressive. They were dense, under seasoned, and lacking sweet potato flavor. Dessert was ordered, we chose the sorbet trio apple/tarragon, raspberry, and mango. The stand out here is the apple tarragon. It subtly cleanses the palate while providing a touch of much needed sweetness after such a rich meal. We also received the chocolate hazelnut torte as well as a traditional crème brulee. The cake was passable but nothing to right home about. The crème brulee was under cooked and runny. The crust on top was nicely browned but a little thin for my taste. The real problem was the under cooked custard. Crème brulee needs be dense rich and fully set in order to be great this was more like a vanilla pudding. In addition to these two desserts we ordered the cheese course which I always excellent at Rue Dumaine. Chef Kearney selects handcrafted cheeses from around the country and always has a great variety. This time the cheese course featured Mt. Tam a creamy, buttery, brie like cheese with a hint of earthiness, Pepato an Italian style farmer’s cheese with peppercorns, Pond Hopper yeasty goat’s milk cheese, and Point Reyes Blue a Jersey cow’s milk blue cheese that is creamy and pungent.
Lastly, let’s talk service. Our server was a little “flexed” as I would say. He seemed to be put off by the lack of wine ordered at our table. Then it was all down hill from there. He seemed to be a little timid, confused, and lacked confidence in himself and the menu. But let’s remember that he is a server so he is a lower form of life, like one of those fish from the bottom of the ocean where the eyes move independent of the head. I would have preferred better service but both Skinny Rick and Chef Anne made an appearance at our table to make sure we enjoyed the food so that made up for the uneven service form our waiter. All in all I would recommend Rue Dumaine to anyone looking for an authentic French Bistro experience with Contemporary American flare. It’s pretty damned good for Dayton Ohio! 7.5 out of 10