A Donkey on the Edge

Dans la série c'est fou ce qu'on mange mal à Paris je vous suggère d'eviter à tout prix la brasserie "Paris Orléans", Porte d'Orléan à Paris.

Le Paris-Orléans (Brasserie)
2 Rue De Patay
75013 Paris

I was working with a colleague this morning and she pointed at the table next door. "Look at what those guys did with the bread, it's a great metaphor for personalisation" and well, she's right of course.

I kept thinking about the photograph today and actually, you can interpret the image in terms of value co-creation (ok, a bit of a stretch but cut me some slack, it's just a bread basket).

For starters, the table is the value co-creation network. The network interacts with its environment (the sun on the térasse, the neibouring tables and chairs) and the customer interacts with it to create value.

The two guys have adjusted the table itself, the chairs and when the food comes (from another participant in the value-creation network, the chef) they decide on the way they will eat it. By customising the table to support the two glasses of beer and the breadbasket they have added value to their lunch beyond the 13.5 euro price-tag (and of course, that's without counting the value in their meeting in the first place which is probably the most value-intensive part of the network).

Good to see Serge the Concierge doing his bit to promote the Alex James talk on Thursday.

Remember, get those cheese names to Billy before midnight tomorrow to grab your tickets:-)

last night.

Haven't got time to go into it but the place is Les Chineurs, 55 rue de Bretagne 75003 Paris

Trifle for lunch (well, for pudding) :-)

At last! A proper French meal. Meet the "Café des Sports" in scenic Issy-Les-Moulineaux:

1. in your face 'patronne'--check.
2. long, ancient and very battered 'zinc'--check.
3. loud clattering sound (tile floor and cheap cutlery in use)--check.
4. paper tablecloths--check.
5. ample supplies of bread and mustard--check.
6. tongue and tripe on the table--check.
7. everyone smoking--check.
8. shot in my bird--check.
9. several bottles of Gamay at lunch--check.

Very nice indeed, and to boot we had a nice geeky conversation about the relative merits of different widget engines:-)

Oh bugger, the fabulous Mom and Pop southwestern restaurant (renowned for snails, duck dishes and cassoulet) which by all acounts was always bustling and well worth the détour changed hands two years ago. Serve me right for not checking the dates on the website:-(

One look at the table setting should have warned me that the owners have only kept the name Les Gourmands out of irony...

OK. I for some reason that escapes me haven't managed to eat a decent meal in Paris recently (and that must take some doing) so I've got a plan. I've asked around and apparently this place is great.

So Les Gourmands let's try your cassoulet:-)

(and as usual, if it's on my plate, it's on Flickr)

When I first moved to New York when I was nineteen (eighteen?) and was homesick I would sit in a restaurant and close my eyes and try to conjure up the clattering sound of a Paris restaurant in full flight. There's a particular kind of rumble, punctuated by the shouts of the waiters trying to get a coffee started or get the people waiting for a table to make some room for the food to through from the kitchen.

Last night I finished a long day in Issy-les-Moulineaux and shuffled over to what has become my regular couscous and found I couldn't get in for people:-) The food is great, so well worth the twenty-minute wait. If you fancy it, Chez Omar is:

Adresse: 47, rue de Bretagne / 75003 Paris
Métro: Arts et Métiers
Tél: 01 42 72 36 26

p.s.
I did a quick search online to get the address of the place and there are a surprisingly large number of negative reviews. The balance of opinion seems to be that the couscous is ok, the wine is terrible and the service intermittent at best. I guess I've been living in London so long my food-criticism skills have lost their edge. Still, if you're in the 3eme I would say have a go...

p.p.s.
Clémentine, je fais ces petites videos pour toi et là, je t'expliquais où j'étais sauf qu'avec tout ce boucan on m'entend pas. Je te disais bonne nuit et à demain--je reviens ce soir:-)

Doing a little research for a client and came across 101 Cookbooks and love the writing:-)

Ever shred a cherry on a box grater? I haven't, but now I'm thinking about it.

Cally has taken the time to reply. Thank you Cally:-)

Dug asks whether or not polyunsaturated fats are good for you. He quotes a site he has been working on, and in particular, the page about fats from the same site.

Well...

About polyunsaturates. I wonder if the bad stuff is actually about hydrogenation, which is the process used to increase shelf-life on polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs)--it creates trans fatty acids which are bad. Also, when some polyunsaturated fats are heated to a high heat, the chemical structure changes and they act like saturated fats, which is also bad. But, n-3 fatty acids are PUFAs (in fatty fish such as mackerel, sardines, tuna, cod, etc.) and in some circles, they are thought to be the new wonder nutrient, and wide ranging. Involving blood pressure, cardiac function, cardiac electrophysiology, anti-platelet and anti-inflammatory--all of which are good. I'm convinced I must say.

It might be the trans fat issue that some have been worried about.

Legislation has recently come about in the U.S.--trans fats now must be recorded on all some food labels. However, yes, there is a loophole. Evidentally restaurants don't need to display same which means FAST FOOD restaurants such as you know who, can pretend the new law doesn't exist!

Having said all that, caution still needs to be heeded with the consumption with n-3s, because although n-3s are good, they are still fats and if too much of them are consumed there's the whole obesity argument to contend with.

So that's that really.

So I've been doing the information architecture for a site about Flora (a margarine product from Unilever) and the thing has finally gone live. On the whole, it's pretty usable, makes a good effort towards being accessible (bit of work needed on colour contrast), and is actually very unusual in its web-saviness. You don't get a lot of brand sites doing semantic markup and organising things in such a way as to be both helpful and informative...

Anyways, in the process of working on the site, I started to find out about the different kinds of fats (so what the hell are polyunsaturates anyway?) and am now thoroughly confused. According to the Flora site's more about fats page (and their competitors I should add--in fact this appears to be the generally held opinion), polyunsaturates are good for you and can do no evil. The bit that confuses me (need to get an expert to respond to this one) is that a number of websites disagree.

This one states

Unsaturated oils, especially polyunsaturates, weaken the immune system's function in ways that are similar to the damage caused by radiation, hormone imbalance, cancer, aging, or viral infections.

So my guess is that this is either scare tactics or folk aren't comparing like with like. Either way, it'd be good to hear from a propper expert.

So Nicki, at long last, has started to blog about her experiences with food. She's a professional food writer so was apprehensive at first, but it looks like she's settling in nicely:-)

She just returned from a cheese tasting thing in Cumbria, but her experiences include chomping on gusano de moriche (tree grubs) in Venezuela and crunching up scorpions in Beijing.

So exactly how often these days can you see a chap roasting an entire pig on a spit and what's a burdock root anyway? Broadway market is looking pretty darn amazing right now. These guys come back every saturday--there's smoked fish and meats, roast pork, bespoke jewellery and fine organic cheeses--I'll be making the trip next week:-)