Inquiry about LA TOUR D'ARGENT in Paris

Someone wrote:
: Robert B. wrote:

: > All advice, even Michelin's, should be taken with a grain of salt.  Most : > famous Parisian restaurant's earned their fame.  Some have relaxed a bit, : > or are overworked due to their fame.  Some have let fame go to their : > heads, a bit, but most French restaurants deserve their stars.  In the : > case of Tour d'Argent, it has been agreed by many that their fame rests on : > histroy more than current cooking.

: Tour d'Argent lost its third star.  Michelin is right on top of things, and : chefs *can't* rest on their laurels.  And they are absolutely ruthless -- : there is no appeal to a higher authority, after all!

I think the Michelin is slow in demoting and promoting chefs, it is a conservative guide and I would not even call them ruthless.  They will not reaward the third stare soon, that is their general practice, but they will be fair in the long run.  On the other hand. most people will not be able to tell the difference between a *** and ** place, if one dines at the same place 10 times one will find evenings when one is not impressed, and others when one is estatic. Usually it is due to one's own physical makeup. Buxbaum is right, don't turn you nose up at a restaurant because it has lost a star. They are usually working to regain it, so one actually might be better off than when they were riding higher. The Tour d'Argent has one of the longest runs as a top restaurant that I know, it is listed with stars in the 1930s (collecting old Michelins is not easy, but the 1939 guide was reprinted by the US War Department for map use at the time of the invasion of France. I think it was stamped "secret".)

Once we reserved for a dinner and lunch the following day at the restaurant Troisgros in Roanne. This places has a hotel so one can come in the afternoon, eat dinner and then lunch the next day.

We badly prepared for the first meal since we were coming up from the autoroute from the south of France. On the way, we decided not to eat much so stopped at one of the restaurants on the autoroute, my wife had something light, my daughter and I both eate a beefsteak hache, which is just a hamburger without the bun.  By dinner time both my daughter and I were feeling queasy and she had to leave the table to return to the room to become violently ill.  I followed suit shortly thereafter. Needless to say it was nothing the brothers Trosgros fed us. We mentioned the incident to one of them the next day, joking about our error. By the way, your countryside chefs are approachable, the atmosphere is less stuff shirt as one finds in Paris.

Lesson? Don't eat the hamburgers on the autoroute. Nevertheless prepare for the occassion.  That was the worse case senario but seriously, one should be in a good physical and emotional mode when spending that kind of money. Next, never judge a place from a single meal. Sometimes you will only have the opportunity of eating once, and if you don't thing it was that good, it is just by accident.  Like beefsteack hache.