Lunch was at a restaurant close to the hotel and its really good I must say - Bistrot Rougemont





Fantastic escargot - staff told me only serve escargot for dinner but I insisted so he obliged





Beef was also very good





But why the French don't make good French fries? Fries looked rather sad no?

Had very late dinner at 9pm last night. Took a long walked





Narrow lane towards the restaurant


The restaurant on the right


Frenchie the restaurant


A very nice red, I remembered I had this a few times before when I visited Rhone


Tarte tomatoes and mozzarella


Main course - black pig pan fried






Super tender pork


Nice walk back to the hotel

Taking the Paris Metro

yong wrote: ↑Wed Aug 24, 2022 12:32 pm Fries looked rather sad no?

It's fried sticks of potatoes, hence crunchy and yellow. What did you expect ?
Served by albinos mariachis on pink rollerskates holding bengal lights while the cashier plays her best boogie-woogies at the piano ?

These are indeed real french fries: made by french in one time and with (olive)-oil.
The real stuff you only find in Belgium, made by belgians (or chinese, yes i am not joking), prepared in 2 times, and no with oil, but in fat. Thats the only way to have the real-ones. Very often the error starts buying the wrong potatoes, belgians are low on sugar (becuase not so much sun), and thats why you can make them really crispy. I tried to make real belgian fries from spanish potatoes, its just impossible, because to much sun and to much sugar inside, they will burn. I used to bring truckloads of belgian potatoes from belgium to spain for the belgian restaurants, and asked them why they didnt buy spanish cheaper-ones, thats how they explained me. In early season i used to load spanish potatoes to belgium, but all to the crisp factories from Croky/Lays, low quality and cheap, especially made for the UK-marked !! Sorry dock, i am not joking !!

Bongmab69 wrote: ↑Wed Aug 24, 2022 11:56 pm These are indeed real french fries: made by french in one time and with (olive)-oil.
The real stuff you only find in Belgium, made by belgians (or chinese, yes i am not joking), prepared in 2 times, and no with oil, but in fat.

Fries in olive oil ? Never seen that here. Maybe Spain ?
And fries in beef's fat is how we make them in the north, now available a bit everywhere, especially since the burger fashion booming.

Look, nobody wants another bloody war, but just take note that my finger is on the nuking device before even think that Belgium knows better about fries.

Beer, fair enough.

Ghostwriter wrote: ↑Thu Aug 25, 2022 1:52 am

Bongmab69 wrote: ↑Wed Aug 24, 2022 11:56 pm These are indeed real french fries: made by french in one time and with (olive)-oil.
The real stuff you only find in Belgium, made by belgians (or chinese, yes i am not joking), prepared in 2 times, and no with oil, but in fat.

Fries in olive oil ? Never seen that here. Maybe Spain ?
And fries in beef's fat is how we make them in the north, now available a bit everywhere, especially since the burger fashion booming.

Look, nobody wants another bloody war, but just take note that my finger is on the nuking device before even think that Belgium knows better about fries.

Beer, fair enough.

HAHA, ofcourse, what you call teh north (of france), is stil for us (belgians), the south of europe, but i know in your north its not as bad as in the south of france, hahaha. In Spain its very ccommun to prepare them in olive oil, the problem is the temperature, beef-fat is at about 175°c to make the fries crispy (the second fry), and most oils cant support that temperature, thats why they get fat and ot crispy. There was a belgian resataurant on 5th street between 110 and 118 (its now a girlie-bar), called LA PATATE, Didier was his name, he knew how to prepare them perfectly? But he went back to Belgium couple of years ago, has now a asian shop with his Thai wive in the south of belgium !! SJOOKAMMOOII

Right, i've been to La Patate back then, and i was good fries indeed.
Never tried with duck fat, should be delicious. I wonder how delicious it could be with some lamb fat, my favorite meat ?
Thanks for the fat / oil temperature bit, interesting. One more clue that i should buy a cooking thermometer, i need that for other recipes too.

Yong, i guess you'll have to go to Belgium to sort out things between reputation and reality, beer and fries, and god knows what else. Take it as a case's study, for mankind's knowledge and arbitrage benefit.
Please report soon !