So, we’ve been eating at a pretty wide variety of places in Paris. Some street-side stands, some random pastisseries, some nice restaurants, like L’Atelier. Last night, we went to Equinox, on Lindsi’s recommendation. The food here’s good – no question. But it’s not … mindboggling. And a lot of poeple said the food in Paris would be mindboggling, or extraordinary in some fashion that I haven’t seen yet.
And so that sparked a bit of conversation between Ei-Nyung and me last night, and I wonder if maybe we get food that defaults to “excellent” on such a regular basis that the gulf between daily food here, and daily food back home simply isn’t that large?
I mean, sure, a “standard” lunch here is miles apart from the crap Chinese food from the EA cafeteria. If I’m measuring by that yardstick, food here is leagues better than it is at home. But when I think of the sort of “standard” food I consume on a marginally regular basis, I think of things like Aperto, like Geta, the stuff we cook at home, or Angelfish. They’re not (apart from home meals and Geta) “everyday” dinners, but they’re not “only once in a long while” food either.
There’s also the question of ingredients. Yeah, it seems from the *way* that people shop, they tend to use better ingredients in their day to day cooking. The method of food procurement I think forces people to think about and appreciate the food more, since they’ve got to shop for quality on a regular basis. But again, to point out the lack of contrast, we’re constantly surrounded by ingredients of rather extraordinary quality. Some things, like the butter, doesn’t match up because of FDA regulations, but most of the produce and meats, I think the things we have access to through our local stores, and through Joe, are on-par or superior to a lot of the things we’ve seen out here.
I dunno. I’m not sure those are really the right reasons for the lack of blown-away-ness. L’Atelier was extraordinary, no question – but it was also the most expensive lunch I’ve ever had by probably a factor of three or four.
“L’Atelier was extraordinary, no question – but it was also the most expensive lunch I’ve ever had by probably a factor of three or four.”
I think this hits on a big issue: money. The food in Paris/France is phenomenal when you spend the money. Similarly, if you spend big money in San Francisco or New York, you’re going to get something phenomenal/mindblowing.
If you are only spending L’Atelier money, which is _nothing_ to sneeze at, you’re not going to get the best of what Paris has to offer (or so I’m told; see http://www.theworlds50best.com/bestlist.aspx for higher ranked Parisian restaurants; I don’t think that list is absolutely authoritative, but it’s handy).
However, what puts cities likes those in a different league from most other cities is that in those “other” cities, regardless of what you spend, your not going to get New York-Paris-San Francisco quality. It’s not going to happen.
So, this is one of several reasons that you’re not coming from the hinterlands with your food experiences, and the differences between Paris and San Francisco aren’t going to be as pronounced as between where my parents live (for example, ouside of Boston) and Paris.
Regarding “mindboggling”, I always say, even while I was in France in 2004, that L’Atelier was extraordinary preparation of stuff I knew. But the only “mindboggling” meal I had was out in the boonies of the Loire Valley (lots of driving down empty lanes through forests; a little creepy).
To get “mindboggling” in Paris, I think you need to spend “mindboggling” money.
Otherwise, you are going to just get, on average, much better stuff than you’re going to get in the U.S.
Indeed, one of the things I thought was so great about Paris was the fact that it was _really_easy_ to get a good meal. In New York, I can go day to day eating pretty good stuff, but it’s because I made my mistakes and filtered out the crappy restaurants. I would guess it’s similar in SF.
In Paris, nearly every bakery is going to have great stuff. Every cafe is going to be putting out great stuff.
Nothing I can’t find in New York, but I had to _find_ that stuff in New York. In Paris, I couldn’t miss it.
But if you trek out to the hinterlands of the U.S., you _won’t_ be able to find this stuff. You won’t be able to find a bakery/cafe as good.
I found the French, generally, just had a higher level of average. In all our driving around the Loire Valley, from end to end, we seemingly could do no wrong. Every little place was great. Can you imagine saying that about any suburban area of the U.S.?
And again, I can walk 5 minutes from my apartment and get just as good. But on the way, I’ll pass fastfood joints and other crappy restaurants.
To digress a bit, the way I explain Paris/foof in France generally, is to imagine a graph where the X axis is types of cuisine and the Y axis is quality. A place like New York is pretty flat, but elevated on average up the Y axis, with lots of peaks.
Paris/France is way low across the board until you hit French food and it shoots higher than any area in New York or elsewhere.