Email from Tokyo by Purple photographer Chikashi Suzuki
Olivier,Thank you for your email. It’s almost fine in Tokyo, but the traffic is chaos because of the loss of electric power and food is running out in most markets.
About 4 Nuclear plants are still in crisis… Traces of radioactivity was observed at Shinjuku, Tokyo yesterday…
And the disaster areas (The Northeast of Japan) are really suffering…maybe about 20,000 people died.. many towns were missing by the tsunami.
Camille Bidault Waddington told me that the Purple Diary is recently getting boring with too many pictures of snow, ski and food. So I decided to post a sexy picture everyday this week! Hotel du Louvre, Paris. Photo Olivier Zahm
French food critic François Simon (hiding himself to not be recognized when he tests a restaurant) between Camille Bidault Waddington and Natacha Ramsay at the Hotel du Louvre, Paris. Photo Olivier Zahm
The chef is Yannick Alleno. The cuisine was just splendid. A brillant expression and a rare precision. The two courses literally stunned me : first the raw shrimps with sea urchin tongues, with its turnip broth and shrimp ravioli with shiso leaves, and then the dos de lièvre (Hare) with colonata bacon and its cao ravioles stuffed with a pea puree. But the desserts were perhaps not as good. The service was orchestrated with tact by Wilfried Morandini. Marvellous marble decor and perfect lighting. One of the four grand chandeliers actually belongs to me. I won it during a bet with the former director, we had a blind test about the identity of a wine. I never claimed it, as the chandelier is better there.
Restaurant of the Meurice Hotel, 228 rue de Rivoli, Paris. Tel 01.44.58.10.55
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