Day two in Lyon, very delayed posting

I know this blog is a couple of days late, and I apologize for the delay, but we've been very busy since we arrived. It's a short trip, but we're really doing a lot, so nearly every minute of the day is taken up with activities. I had one quiet moment about 10 hours ago, and now I'm finally relaxing in my hotel room with a glass of wine and a millefuille, prepared to do some hard-core blogging.

Our hotel in Lyon was called the "College", because the building used to be a high school. (The nomenclature works a little differently here.) The interior was really quaint, and decked out in a primary school theme, with desks, chalkboards, and books everywhere. It was a nice place, but the rooms themselves were STARK white, and I mean, the floors, walls, furniture, sheets... you get the picture. It was a bit... institutional, but charming, in a weird kind of way.

Anyway, we took our breakfast in the hotel while we were in Lyon, which was quite good. We sat on benches by old desks and were served an excellent petit dejuner of brioche, croissants, cured meats, cheese, yogurt and jams. The coffee was brought to us in thermoses, which I found adorable.

We took the metro and city buses to get to the Bocuse Institute, a pretty interesting experience, considering how many in our group had never used public transportation before. Sometimes it's a little difficult for people to understand that Europeans have a much smaller personal space "bubble" than Americans do, so some of the girls wouldn't shove into the bus, and were really uncomfortable riding shoulder to shoulder. So we got off at a much earlier stop and walked a few miles to get to the school. I was fine with this, but those who hated the bus ride soon changed their minds and decided that the crowding on the bus would be okay for just a couple of days.

The school is staggeringly beautiful, part of it is an old castle retrofitted to become a culinary school. The grounds are expansive and well maintained, and the interior of the buildings is posh, yet stately. I have pictures of the exterior, but I will have to show those to you at a later time.

The school is funded by the state and many sponsors, which makes it more affordable for the students. Their sponsors are the "who's who" of French gastronomy; Dom Perignon, Georges Duebouf, Perrier, Hennessey, Valhrona... the hall pictured above has displays of all their fancy wares. I wanted to take all of them home!

We took a brief tour and then met our chef instructor, who happened to be a very funny and irreverent guy whose name I can't remember, I'll be sure to find out tomorrow. He was also an amazing chef- I learned so much from him in only three days I can't possibly do him justice.

We cooked an entree (appetizer/2nd course in France) and a plat principeaux (main course) and the school prepared dessert for us.

I was thrilled to see sweetbreads on the menu, as they may just be my favorite bovine organ. They're the veal's thymus gland, located in the vicinity of the lower neck area. When properly prepared, they have an unctuous creamy texture, and the outside can be crisped up to create a crunchy, caramelly crust.

I was very happy to be able to practice cleaning them, as they're not something one sees every day in the states outside of Michelin-Starred menus. They're fairly expensive, and hard to find. To properly prepare them, you must carefully remove the translucent outer membrane and the extraneous fat from the organ, and then poach them briefly. Some people also prefer to soak them overnight in milk, (it's not necessary, but it does improve the texture) but we didn't do that. They were still awesome.

Our first course was a deep-fried soft boiled egg on a dungeness crab and wild mushroom ragout. A ragout (or ragu) in Italian is essentially a thick, chunky sauce, but the concept is so much more than that. Ours was made with veal stock, thyme, onions, sauteed mushrooms, and pulled crab meat. We topped it with some delicately dressed greens, and yes, I have all of these recipes for future use.

When you cut open the egg, the yolk oozed out to play with the woodsy mushrooms. The crust and the greens added a crisp texture to the dish. It was really good.

The sweetbreads were pan-fried, and then served as a part of our veal dish. We glazed the carrots and young onions in extra virgin olive oil, butter, and a hint of stock with garlic and thyme. The veal was trussed, then seared and finished in the oven. The sauce is a veal jus (juice), made by carefully extracting all the great flavorful liquid from the meat, then reducing and emulsifying it with added butter. The spinach was sauteed in buerre noisette (brown butter) and topped with a thickened creme fraiche. Yes, this dish was also amazing.

For dessert, the school's pastry chef made us a rich chocolate cake topped with a light milk chocolate mousse, then served with caramel sauce. Yum. There was also abundant wine, and coffee.

Later that night, some of us decided to assemble a buffet in our room from delicious looking things we found around the city. This required a mad dash to the stores, as by the time we got back to the city proper, we had about 10 minutes left. Somehow, we made it to the antique bookstore in town, where I found a 1935 first edition of Larousse Gastronomique in the basement. It's a truly remarkable find, quite the collector's item, and I got it at a great price. It's going to be a star of my cookbook collection, they didn't translate this tome to English until the late 1960's so it's pretty remarkable, and in astonishingly good condition. Everyone was jealous of my book, and wanted to take pictures of it. I was just thrilled to get it.

Above is a giant meringue we got, topped with pralines, various flavors of macarons, a crisp tuille, and some strangely delicious, gelatinous cake whose name I have forgotten.

Tiny, thimble-sized hard cheeses, tasted a lot like Pecorino from Italy, but with a distinctly Lyonnaise aura.

And a gooey, spreadable, super stinky cheese. It was really good, and was worth the pervasive "old foot" aroma it permeated our small room with.

We also had wine, salumi, several stuffed crepes with chestnut cream, strawberries, and ham and cheese, and baguettes, a haul which was made even more impressive when you consider that all of these things were gathered by a bunch of food-obsessed American girls in a ten-minute window from different stores. But when in Lyon... eat, a lot.

I'll try to write again tomorrow about day three, but I cannot promise anything. Many of these may have be post-France entries, strictly because of our packed schedules.

So for tonight, I shall bid you au revoir, as I finish this glass of wine and try to get the puff pastry crumbs out of my bed before I pass out.

Ciao!

Sorry!

I'm trying to write, but I'm always either out of time, or without internet connection. I'm in Paris now, and I have connection, but the bandwidth is so low I can't upload any pictures.

France has been overwhelmingly cool thus far, and I want to make sure I dignify my incredible experiences with good blogs, but it just seems like that isn't going to happen tonight. I will most definitely try again tomorrow to blog about Lyon, I apologize for the delay! But I will make them good ones when I can get them done.

I'm also still completely exhausted, as we're still going full speed ahead into our activities, cramming as much as possible into this short trip. This is definitely a place I want to return to!

If you're not following me on Twitter yet, maybe you should, as I've been able to update that quite quickly. My username on twitter.com is AthenaThickstun, look me up.

Until then, ciao!

Lyon, day one.

Yesterday was our first full day in Lyon, and it was pretty non-stop from the time we arrived until the time we finally crashed into our beds. We arrived in the morning, after several flight transfers and a bus ride, dropped off our bags, and ran to lunch.

We ate at a little bistro a block or two away from our hotel. They served very traditional Lyonnaise cuisine.

The salad Lyonnaise is fresh mixed greens with lardons, (a kind of un-smoked bacon cut into little batons) croutons, and a poached egg. I love poached eggs, with a runny yolk and barely set white. Breaking the egg open dresses the greens in happy, fatty yolk, marrying the flavors together.

Our plat principeaux was chicken fricassee with gratinee potatoes, very warm and filling. The potatoes were quite satisfying.

The dessert may have been the best part of the meal here. There was a pear sorbet, a flourless chocolate cake, and a pistachio parfait (kind of like a semifreddo) and some poached fruit. The pear sorbet was intensely fruity, and very balanced without too much acidity, I would have been happy with just a scoop of that!

Lyon is beautiful, stately. It's been so rushed that I really haven't gotten a feel for it yet, though. The history centers around silk and food, and involves Roman and Celtic influences. The cathedral above has an older structure to the right, a cloister, and part of the cloister walls were built with marble from a Roman temple. Being back in Europe really puts history into perspective; seeing more Italian elements is making me feel a bit nostalgic for my time there. The parallels are really interesting, and the contrasts even more so.

I'm still trying to write through a haze of jet lag and exhaustion, so this is a bit excruciating at the moment, but if I don't keep up (with a one-day delay for reflection) then I fear I'll fall to far behind.

We had dinner at another typical Bouchon, this one named after the city's traboules, a unique feature of Lyon. They're a little hard to describe, walkways from the main streets that are closed off by normal-looking doors, that lead to apartments that were built in the courtyard of the larger buildings when the city's population started to expand. When we took our walking tour we got to slip through some of the lesser known traboules, which were very cool. During the French resistance during the Nazi invasion, the traboules were used for covert meeting places because there were many exits, and they were very unassuming from street level.

But I digress. We started with a communal cup of pork cracklings (fried pig skin) which seems a merry way to start any meal. This is a good sign.

One of my room mates had this great dish of poached eggs in a red wine sauce with caramelized onions, lardons, and toasted bread. This may be my new "comfort food" when I get back home, it was a really nice dish.

I had awesome, fresh goat cheese (chevre) on crusty bread with fresh greens. The cheese had a beautiful nutty flavor to it, and a more complex compilation of flavors than most domestic goat cheeses. I really enjoyed this as well, sometimes you need nothing more than a great cheese on crusty bread...

The above dish was a regional specialty, and caused a bit of a stir at the dinner table. I had read about this before I came, and knew full well what I was getting into, but our chef described it as a "pork sausage" to the rest of the table, which is only a partial truth...

Andoilette is made of pork, yes, but this includes the chitterlings, or intestines. There's a special process of washing and drying the chitterlings, and it's a much loved treat for locals, but the bane of unsuspecting tourists. There was a bit of... miscommunication as to the nature of the dish, and pretty much everyone other than myself and the chef was a bit surprised by what they got.

The flavor can best be described as... barn with a hint of pork. It's most assuredly an acquired taste, and it did have some merits. I tend to enjoy farm-y flavors, and I've had prior experience with organ meats so I knew what to expect. I ordered it out of a sense of adventure and the innate need to try the local dish. I'm glad I did, and I really, really liked the strong mustard that came with it, it was a nice, spicy counterpoint to the intense earthiness of the sausage. There's many things I enjoy more, but I am happy that I tried it (and enjoyed it far better than its unsuspecting victims).

My room mate had this absurdly moist and tender white fish with crayfish sauce. The fish was so fresh, and the sauce had a really great balance of acidity and herbiness.

My other roomie had a braised leg of lamb with red wine and mint, also very good.

Good ol' fashioned creme brulee. Always a hit.

Tart au poivre, with pears and figs, creme anglais. Also yummy, but creme brulee always makes me smile.

Again, I am very sleepy so I will have to leave you here. Bon nuit, Au revoir. Tomorrow, I shall write about today's class the the Bocuse Institute!

J'arrive en Lyon

After spending an inordinate amount of time on airplanes and struggling with my cell phone, I am safely in Lyon. Unfortunately, I'm also sleep deprived, jet lagged, and dehydrated.

That said, cool stuff has already happened, my mind is just a bit too foggy to be able to write eloquently at the moment, so I will post a nice blog tomorrow.

I'll just leave you with a picture of my airplane meal, as a sort of schadenfreude contrast to the usual caliber of my meals. I ate the cheese, and the water, but I finally learned to think ahead for these types of things and brought fruit and some trail mix with me, so the rest of the tray was left undisturbed in its natural state of plasticity. The "rice pudding" cup was the creepiest part of it all...

As I said, I'll write something much more entertaining tomorrow.

Au revoir, mon connaisances!

Bouchon

We are very fortunate in Las Vegas to have one of Thomas Keller's restaurants, his bistro Bouchon. They serve classic French cuisine, impeccably prepared. This was the second time I've dined there, and it was just as satisfying as the first.

They bring beautiful epi loaves to the table, perfectly crunchy on the outside with a tender crumb. Warm pistachios are another nice touch.

I started out with butternut squash soup, with a dollop of gingerbread bread pudding in the center. Savory, warm, rich.

Since I'll be in Lyon next week, we decided to celebrate with a bottle of Beaujolais, a light, fruit forward red with floral notes and berry flavors.

My Mom had the Daube de Boef, braised short ribs with carrots, potato confit, roasted bone marrow and sauce bordelaise. I loved the presentation of this dish, and the short ribs were super tender.

I had steak frites, a flatiron steak, topped with caramelized shallots maitre d'hotel butter, and served with golden, crisp frites. Very, very satisfying, I knew that I wanted this even before I walked in the door, they're pretty famous for their fries.

Exquisite creme caramel, a soft custard with light caramel sauce. The custard is cooked in the mold with the caramel in the bottom, then inverted at service. Very classic, a dish that can very easily be off because of the simplicity, but the beauty of Bouchon is the execution, always on point.

Mom had the lemon tart, another classic, perfectly executed dessert.

After dinner, our waiter offered us a tour of the kitchen guided by the pastry chef, (we mentioned that I was a culinary student) and we happily obliged. The kitchen was beautifully laid out, streamlined for speed and intricacy. They had the characteristic four stars over the stove, to remind the cooks of the level of perfection demanded of them.

They also offered me a stage in the kitchen when I get back from France, which I am very, very thrilled about. I'm going to be quite the busy girl when I get back, with classes, two stages (I talked to another chef while we were dining, but I'll let you guess the restaurant) and practice for a competition. Plus, I have to make a video for the Basque Stage competition... I want to win that so badly, but it's such a long shot. A girl can dream, right?

My mom was only here for a few days, but they were great. I miss my parents a lot out here, which really makes me appreciate them more than they could know. I am a very lucky person to be able to experience all of the great things I get to do.

Ciao!

Border Grill and Mix

One of my favorite places to go for entertainment around Vegas is Mandalay Bay, the place is huge and has tons of stuff to do that doesn't involve gambling. I've been to their "Shark Reef" aquarium several times and I love it every time.

They also have an impressive collection of restaurants, some of my favorite eateries in the city. I frequent Burger Bar (Hubert Keller) and Border Grill (Susan Feniger and Mary Ann Milligan) a lot because they have good food for less price than many of the other strip restaurants. I've also had excellent meals at Aureole (Charlie Palmer) RM Seafood (Rick Moonen) and Fleur de Lys (Hubert Keller) but those were special occasion-type places.

On Sunday, my mother, brother, boyfriend and I went to Border Grill for lunch. They have boldly flavored, Latin and globally inspired cuisine, and they have a really great locals discount. I've eaten there for dinner quite a few times, but this was my first lunch experience.

We sat outside, under some brightly colored umbrellas by the Mandalay Bay pool. They bring out freshly made corn chips and three kinds of salsa to munch on, a green tomatillo, smokey chipotle, and spicy tomato.

I had "Chicken Chilaquiles", a nacho-like dish with shredded chicken, tomatillo salsa, manchego, panela, and cojita cheeses, and cilantro-lime dressing. This dish was awesome, very bold flavors and satisfying crunch. I would definitely order this for lunch again.

My boyfriend had this HUGE chicken burrito, it must have been really good, because somehow he ate the whole thing! (I had to have my brother help me with mine, he happily obliged.)

My mother had this tostada topped with a refreshing and brightly flavored turkey salad, with corn, tomatoes, cojita cheese, black beans, and romaine. Really refreshing and satisfying.

Of course, they have excellent margaritas, made with ultra-premium tequilas and fresh juices, I had this incredible guava margarita. I wish I was drinking it right now...

Mom had the "Cadillac" margarita, a real classic, but jazzed up with herradura silver tequila, freshly squeezed lime juice, and Grand Marnier.

For dinner, mom and I had reservations at Mix, a one Michelin Star restaurant I staged in last year. Mix is Alain Ducasse's highest grossing restaurant, which is saying a lot. The place is impressive, it sits at the very top of THE Hotel at Mandalay Bay (their emphasis, not mine) on the 64th floor. You take a special, glass sided elevator to get to it. They have a really beautiful open kitchen as well, apparently it was built in France, reassembled here, and then dropped onto the top floor with specialized helicopters. If you like extreme, this is the place to go.

After dinner service, Mix turns into a nightclub, complete with a dance floor and DJs. It's almost too hip!

They serve their bread with regular butter and... peanut butter. It is a little odd a first, basically home made chunky peanut butter fortified with regular butter, but it's addictive.

We started with a warm summer vegetable tart, it had artichokes, carrots, spinach, heirloom tomatoes, and romaine lettuce on a crisp, buttery cracker-like base. Each of the vegetables shone through nicely, and everything tasted remarkably fresh.

We also had this cool spicy crab salad. It had avocado, green papaya, mango, carrot and a little bit of ratatouille underneath. I liked the fresh, acidic flavor of the mango and the kick of cilantro. This was also the point where I started to figure out how to use my new camera, notice how much brighter this picture is.

They were out of their lobster curry on coconut basmati rice, which was really disappointing, as I remembered the dish from staging there and really wanted to order it. (It was damn good.) But, this dish took away any lingering sense of regret once I bit into it. It was a rack of lamb off the bone, on farro (a grain with a nice chewy texture), apricot confit, piquillo peppers, and green onions. Of course, it also had a very rich veal jus for good measure. I loved the tender texture of the Colorado lamb, and the fat had a rich, nutty, grass-fed flavor.

We split a side of one of my favorite vegetables, thick, green asparagus.

Mom, a steak nut, had this perfectly cooked filet mignon. We thought that it had a little roasted tomato for garnish, but when she took a bite she exclaimed "Oh, that's a SPICY tomato!" so I tried it, and identified it as a piquillo pepper. Piquillos are little Spanish peppers, they have a deep, rich flavor, and just a bit of kick. It was really nice, a cute surprise to wake up the palate.

I had the "Mix candy bar" for dessert, a fun dessert with layers of chocolate ganache, hazelnut, and coconut, served with a really unique tasting coconut lime sorbet. I've had coconut sorbet before, but this one had a bit of an herbaceous quality to it, like it was made with fresh, young coconut. It was really bright, but acted as a nice foil to the super dense chocolate bar. A lot of coconut preparations can be redolent of sunscreen to me if they're made with cheaper ingredients, but this was something new and exciting. I liked the unusual combination.

Mom ordered berry sorbet, and was shocked when four big quenelles came out. She was worried that she couldn't eat it all, but managed to make it disappear. It had a really nice juicy punch to it.

As a fun after dinner treat, they brought around a madeline pan and had us pick up two warm, vanilla-honey madelines from it, a yummy, novel treat. They served them with a bowl of Nutella, nuff' said.

The restaurant has a really elaborate glass fixture in the dining room, a giant circle of individually blown clear glass bubbles, almost like you're dining inside a Champagne flute. The interior is dramatic, very white, crisp and modern, but somehow not cold feeling at all. I think they made it that way so it wouldn't detract from the view...

Always great to hang out with my mother, and she loves taking me to magnificent restaurants. I'm a very, very lucky girl.

The view. Impressive, huh? Mandalay Bay is at the very south end of the strip, so you get the whole panoramic effect while dining in Mix, it's probably the best view in town. Add some great food, and you can't go wrong.

Until next time, Ciao!

L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon- Las Vegas

Living in this fair city offers many advantages. On a whim, I can do pretty much anything imaginable, as long as I had the cash to pay for it.

Wanna drive a backhoe around the desert and throw dirt at things? We got that. Shoot fully automatic machine guns? Yup. Take a ride on other moon? (That's what it looks like from a distance at night) We've got that too, along with many more unsavory, hedonistic pleasures to quell your every chaotic and whimsical desire.

But Las Vegas is also a great American restaurant city, bulging at the seams with famous chefs and incredible ingredients. If you have the money, we can make it happen.

Las Vegas is second only to Paris itself for famous French chefs, we have Robuchon, Ducasse, Gagnaire, Savoy... and their contemporaries Thomas Keller, Hubert Keller, Batali, Flay, Feniger, Moonen, Vongerichten... I could go on. It's the epitome of "go big or go home" cuisine.

As such, it is imperative that I whet my palate at as many of these bastions of culinary supremacy as humanly possible, and slowly but surely, I've been doing just that. For tonight's lesson: L'Atelier de Robuchon.

L'Atelier is an amazing concept with locations in Paris, Hong Kong, and Japan as well as Las Vegas (and I think NY). It's an open kitchen, with sushi-bar style seating, so you watch the chefs prepare your food right in front of you.

Beautiful kitchen. I've dined at La Mansion (the er, more elaborate, 3 Michelin star Joel Robuchon restaurant next door to this one) before, a meal that replays vividly in my mind on occasion... L'Atelier is his more wallet-friendly eatery, but it still boasts a Michelin Star, which is nothing to shake a stick at.

An assortment of beautiful artisan breads to start with.

Sleek, contemporary place settings.

Our amuse-bouche. finely diced granny smith apple topped with silky smooth avocado puree, tiny grapefruit segments, grapefruit gelee, Hawaiian red salt, cilantro, and a beautifully herbaceous extra virgin olive oil. All the flavors played together so nicely, fresh, bright, balanced. Brilliant little dish, exploding with flavor, it accomplished its goal of making me very excited for what was to come.

Mom had Maine Lobster in a spicy broth, with baby corn and nepatella (the herb on top). The dish was dusted with Piment d'Espilette, a very special and complexly flavored French dried pepper. This had an intense, hypnotic aroma, pervasive and mouthwatering.

I had this amazing dish to start, Alaskan king crab salad, sandwiched between thin slices of braised turnip, with a minuscule brunoise of tart radish, and micro chives. This also was dusted with Piment d'Espilette, and had an espilette-infused oil brushed in a perfect stripe on the left side of the plate. I wish I could eat this daily, it was a revelatory balance of savory, sweet, spicy, and acidic elements. I loved watching them plate this, carefully arranging the tiny brunoise radish on top with tweezers.

My brother had this three-course special, halibut and tomato pasta with basil, salmon tartar with citrus mayonnaise, and a caramelized apple crisp.

My next course blew my mind as well. I'm a die hard fan of sweetbreads, I've had them prepared many ways, and these were done exceptionally well. Skewered onto fresh laurel (bay) leaves and charred on the teppanyaki grill, with brown butter (yuuummm!!) and a stuffed romaine leaf topped with bacon foam. Carmelly sweet on the outside, with a silky, unctuous creamy center. The bay pervaded but didn't overpower, and I liked how its aroma was a focal point of the dish, instead of a backdrop to other flavors as per its usual place.

Jamon Iberico from Spain, made of free-range, heritage Iberian black pigs that are fed an acorn diet. They had the whole leg on a stand on the garde manger station, and we watched as a chef deftly carved off thin slices with a long, thin blade. I haven't seen anyone carve ham like this since I was in Italy (it is really necessary in order to preserve the flavor and texture of these fantastic products) most places here slice the proscuitto or ham across the grain, which destroys the texture.

The Jamon Iberico was served with toasted bruscetta, topped with flavorful diced heirloom tomatoes and fresh basil.

I also had this foie-gras stuffed quail, served with truffled pommes de terre puree (mashed potatoes, but passed though a fine drum tamis to make them perfectly smooth). The herb salad in the background had chervil, tarragon, and dill, and was a perfect light and fresh foil to the caramelized richness and delicate nuance of the quail. The truffles were fresh and crisp, and were apparent, but didn't detract from the potato flavor, or the intense little pieces of quail. Very delicious.

Mom had "Le Citron", blueberry compote, lemon parfait with a light elderberry foam.

Alex and I had "La framboise", a white chocolate sphere filled with yuzu ice cream. This was beyond delicious, it had the most intense, fresh raspberry flavor I've experienced in a while. When I was growing up, we used to pick wild raspberries around the woods in Ohio, and this tasted just like those fresh little fruits mere seconds from the plant. Plus, it was a really, really entertaining dessert. After I ordered mine, Alex had to order a second one so that we could get this video...

Every course of this meal was perfect, every bite impressive. This kind of attention to detail, and obvious passion are evident in every morsel, and well worth the cost. L'Atelier is definitely an experience you should have in Las Vegas.

Je vais manger a L'Aterlier de Robuchon en Paris la semaine prochain. Demain, j'ecrit a Mix e Border Grill.

My French isn't perfect, (I'm still practicing, and I don't have the correct accent fonts on this computer) but there's some foreshadowing for you, to entice you to continue reading my blogs...

Ciao. (au revior)