If Fernand Siré has his way, menus in French restaurants will soon have to disclose if a particular dish is made in-house and whether it was prepared with fresh, frozen or canned products.

Sadly, in a country known for its gastronomic heritage, more and more restaurants in France are relying on prepackaged, industrially made products rather than making food from scratch. Some estimates say that up to two-thirds of France’s 120,000 restaurants rely on industrial products.

Two exposés on French television this past year painted a shocking image of the French restaurant industry by filming unscrupulous restaurateurs filling their shopping carts at Métro (the restaurant industry hypermarket) with ready-made traditional French dishes and desserts that only need to be reheated and served to customers.  [click to continue…]

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Le Galopin: Creative, Market-based Cooking in the 10th

by phyllisflick on December 10, 2011

I was excited to hear that Romain Tischenko, Top Chef winner and Ze Kitchen alumuni, had recently taken over Le Galopin, a neighborhood bistro just a short walk from my apartment on the colorful rue Sainte Marthe.

The Rue Sainte Marthe, if you don’t know it, is worth seeking out.  It’s an interesting street lined with colorful doorways, artist’s ateliers, cheap ethnic restaurants, a few charitable associations and apartments— some of which are pretty run down–but it all makes for an appealing mix.  At the top is the Place Sainte Marthe, a quiet cobblestone square, which is where the pretty blue Galopin sits.

My first visit for lunch, exceeded expectations. Seared calamari, thin slices of brightly colored green meat radish, and crisp fennel made for an amazing dish.  But the main course was even better.  What was simply listed on the menu as Barbue, Parmentier, Câpres (brill, potatoes, capers) turned out to be a wonderfully executed dish with unexpected contrasts of textures and flavors.  Desserts included a heavenly walnut financier with pear and hazelnut and the Agrumes, Piquillos and Meringue-an original apple cake topped with meringue and piquillo peppers.

Lunch was so good that I returned two weeks later for the more elaborate 42 € 7-course set menu at dinner. [click to continue…]

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Like most American Expats in Paris, there are times when I crave things you can only get back home. BBQ, buffalo wings, a corn beef special, and a great burger all come to mind.

You can get burgers in Paris of course and will find them on just about every menu, but they’re usually average at best and rarely great. So, when I heard about a burger truck that was being launched by a Californian who studied at the French cooking school Ferrandi, I couldn’t wait to try it. Maybe, finally, we’d have great burgers in Paris.

So tonight in the rain, I took my step son to try what I hoped would be a real American burger, at a food truck no less which tweets their location by Twitter (and Facebook) everyday. [click to continue…]

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Le Fooding’s Cambuse Effervescente

October 26, 2011

The 2012 edition of Le Fooding Guide appears in newsstands on November 17th, and will list 900 of their favorite addresses, 450 of which are in Paris.  It will also include the 11 winners of this year’s Prix Fooding for best chef, best bistro, best kept secret, amongst others, which will be announced on Monday [...]

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La Ruche Qui Dit Oui, Bringing Farmers and Consumers Together in Paris

October 16, 2011

  I spent last Saturday at the Comptoir General unloading boxes of the last of summer’s tomatoes and the first of fall’s harvest: bundles of swiss chard, carrots, yellow onions, wrinkled savoy and bright purple cabbages, potatoes, herbs, apples, and pears.  We carried jars of ratatouille, home-made tomato sauce and brown paper sacks filled with [...]

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Voy Alimento, Vegan Cuisine in Paris

October 10, 2011

My eating habits might strike you as strange. On most days of the week I try to eat vegetarian but then will cross town to buy something like this.  Luckily, I see nothing hypocritical about a person who advocates a healthy diet but still likes to eat a good burger now and then. After reading books [...]

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Septime

July 17, 2011

One of the trends in cooking this year has been an emphasis on well-sourced products—often local, sometimes wild—and cooking techniques that bring out the best of an ingredient’s natural flavour; at his recently opened Septime, Bertrand Grébaut reminds us that in expert hands, French cooking can transform the best ingredients into something even better. After [...]

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The Best Baguette in Paris 2011

May 3, 2011

Today marked the 18th “Grand Prix de la Baguette de Tradition Française de la Ville de Paris”, the annual competition to select the best baguette in Paris.  Every year a panel of judges—mostly bakers and a few food celebrities—gather on the Ile Saint Louis to deliberate over who makes the best baguette in Paris, not [...]

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Vivant, Pierre Jancou’s new restaurant in the 10th

April 29, 2011

It was no surprise that Pierre Jancou’s latest restaurant would be beautiful—his last two spots, Racines in the Passage des Panoramas and La Crémerie on the rue Quatre Vents in the 6th —are both stunning. Even so, I was still struck upon entering by Jancou’s knack for uncovering hidden gems.  This one, located on the [...]

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Eating Local in Paris

March 16, 2011

People ask if my eating habits have changed since moving to France, assuming that Americans live off processed junk and shop in giant supermarkets.  Thankfully my upbringing was nothing like that and not all that different from how I eat in France. My mother worked full time, but managed to make a home-cooked dinner for [...]

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