Dinner at L'Arpege tonight. Already reconfirmed. Was starting to remind him that I was bringing Karli but he beat me to it - that's nice. Assured me we'd get a table on the main floor - but in a quiet corner for the doggy - that's really nice.
Trying not to eat anything today. Just drink tea - verveine with honey.
When I went to L'Ambroisie for dinner we insanely had lunch at Robuchon the same day - and a late lunch at that - and the day they had the pot au feu as a special at that. Just try not to eat marrow bone when staring down a pot au feu - which means bread - and it is bread from Poujauran - which means just a good reason to eat fleur de sel - which gets you going all over again. I could not even look at the cheese cart that night - tragic. Though I would have hunkered down and done the cheese had they had Vacherin Mont d'Or - tis the season. And I did have them wrap up all the mignardises to go - those chocolates, candies, and puny patisseries after you've had dessert.
I made the mistake of walking into Charles - the traiteur with the boudins between Le Violon and Cafe Constant. The rotisserie chickens alone should have warned me off - too many temptations here - go away - go back to your tea. And Karli as usual stands right under the whole legs of ham - just barely out of licking reach. Thank God I didn't bring any money out - otherwise that duck terrine studded with black figs would be mine - all mine.
So - reservations confirmed - special requests noted - fasting, camera charged, will try to look up some of the menu items online, and re-read that Saveur issue from way back in the day.
On the other hand. A Wednesday at ADPA would start before 08:30 - with a wolfed down breakfast of coffee and maybe baguette and butter and jam - or little croissants or pain au chocolat or pain aux raisins. Breakfast is free to employees at the Plaza. The vienoisseries come courtesy of our in-house boulangerie - but not the baguettes - don't know where we get those. If you're doing fish or meat prep you start every work day - weekdays only - at 08:30 - everyone else alternates with an afternoon start schedule every other week. Mise en place until 11:30 or so - then a cleaning - the first of three of the day - then a break at about 12:30 until about 16:00 or so. You can have lunch at the personnel restaurant - where the food's decent, classic French - but usually you don't - you just want to get outside. Employees - including stagiaires - get a meal allowance of about 50 Euros a month - most three-course meals run less than 3 Euros total - and that includes patisserie items which employees get at only 45 centimes - upstairs the same item at tea costs about 12 Euros. For meat or fish prep you start again at 16:00 - more mise en place until 18:30 - then the second cleaning - and dinner break until 19:00. If you don't want the coq au vin or couscous - there are at least two plats du jour which impressively hardly ever get repeated in a month - you can always order a steak frites - but that's usually reserved for as a Friday night dinner thing. More mise en place - but first an espresso break right after dinner - until 19:45 then setting up stations to start service at 20:00.
And then the fun starts - on both sides of the pass.
