For a variety of reasons, the French have been slow to come up with a good Gallic gastronomic retort to the creeping American concept of ‘fast casual-dining’ (Boy, do I hate that phrase, which resonates as a pretty unconvincing euphemism for fat-and-unhealthy). In fact, in many large American cities, it’s difficult to find anything but the chain gain, including Applebee’s, The Olive Garden, Chipotles’s, Hooters, The Cheesecake Factory, Red Lobster and their ilk. These formatted restaurants are rapidly going global, too, and inexplicably seem to be finding large numbers of receptive customers in Asia, as well as more traditional markets like Canada and the United Kingdom.

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Buttermilk fried chicken

Even though I like winter and would find it disorienting  to live somewhere without real seasons, the mid-way point of this leafless gray season in Europe does bring on a certain restlessness. It may be light deprivation–although this winter’s been relatively sunny and mild for Paris, or a surfeit of roasted root vegetables, or my hatred of wearing socks, or a combination of all three, but I could use a change of scene, and without buying an airplane ticket or hopping a train, I found one last week when I stopped by the new Verjus wine bar in the Palais Royal. On a wet night, this place was warm, cozy and friendly, and also packed with an outgoing international crowd who were sipping Laura Adrian’s excellent wines and snacking on the really delicious small-plates of Braden Perkins, the two comprising the couple who own and run this place.

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While Yves Camdeborde rightly gets major credit for brilliantly shaking up the definition of what a Parisian bistro should and could be when he opened the original La Reglalade in 1992, there were lots of other places that were pushing the envelope in Paris at the same time. On of them was L’Oeillade (The Wink) in the rue de Saint Simon in the 7th. I was living in the rue du Bac then, and went to L’Oeillade often when it first opened, because the chef so deftly applied the best innovations of la nouvelle cuisine (remember that old chestnut?) to traditional bistro cooking with always interesting and occasionally delicious results. Or to wit, he served  stock-based sauces rather than cream-enriched ones, made liberal use of fresh herbs, reduced the cooking times of meat, fish and vegetables, and didn’t hesitate to jolt a traditional French recipe with herbs, spices or ingredients from foreign kitchens. In particular, I remember a sublime saute of veal and al dente Spring vegetables brightened by a generous pinch ras el-hanout, the profoundly aromatic blend of spices used in the Moroccan kitchen.

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Before I extol Les Delices de Shandong in the 13th arrondissement, it’s obvious that I should offer a glimpse of my credentials as a critic of Chinese cooking, in this case, the superb regional kitchen of Shan Dong. Alas, as much as I feel qualified to write authoritatively on the American, British, French, Italian, Spanish and other Western kitchens, it’s best to admit that my knowledge of Chinese cooking is rather infantile, or to wit, it’s based very much on a personal primal reaction to what tastes good. Oh, to be sure, I grew up eating, and loving, ‘Chinese’ food of a sort, since Sunday night take-out meals from the excellent ‘West Lake’ in downtown Westport, Connecticut next to the public library, and the also good ‘Golden Door’ restaurant in a shopping center on U.S. 1, were a treat I craved as a suburban child with an insatiable hunger for new tastes and flavors, textures and ingredients.

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Though the ambient consumer culture in most Western countries presents aging as akin to a slowly developing case of the plague, I enjoy the annual privilege of notching another year on my belt. I’m much happier today than I was when I was twenty-one, and I’ve also lived long enough to see the outlines of an interesting and rewarding life emerging out of the ether of youth. In fact one of the more amusing things as time goes by is a deepening understanding that the to-twenty-something-year-old ears tiresome bromide that ‘all experience is somehow useful’ actually turns out to be true.

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Since I’m unapologetically obsessed by good food, it amost never happens that I leave the house without knowing where I’m going to eat. Most of the time, in fact, my destination has been carefully researched, and when possible, I love reading a menu online beforehand, partly to tease my appetite but also because this way I can construct my meal meditatively before being distracted by a waiter or a waitress or the good conversation of a friend. This advance planning isn’t only because I absolutely hate the idea of having a bad meal, but is also due to the fact that even in Paris the odds are so hopelessly stacked against spontaneity. These days, just winging it almost never works and reservations are almost always required.

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