The Great Parisian Plate Debate

I feel like a freaking yuppie when I try to explain how much I like food. Ridiculous words such as epicurean, hedonist and gastronome all swirl around in my mind. But that doesn’t even come close to cutting it. You see, to me eating is a glorious sport; a quest I’ve spent my whole life training for and I couldn’t be happier that there’s no finish line in sight.

I’ve been living and working in Paris since June 2007. During this time I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time, money and energy eating and drinking. I consider this to be a good thing. Sacred, even.

When I first got here, with all the best intentions, I started a food journal, detailing all the restaurants where I ate. That lasted all of about two weeks. I spent the next half year or so regretting it, but clearly not badly enough to actually do anything about it.

So for me, The Challenge was a perfect place to start back up again. But that was just the beginning. To spare you a thesis on my motivation, I have decided to distill my characteristically verbose prose into the following easily digestible points for your reading pleasure.

• I may or may not have a secret desire to dust off that old English bachelors degree
• In my daily life, I do not have nearly enough excuses to belligerently and flagrantly hoist the “pompous bastard” flag, which as you will learn, I find quite amusing
• We’re hoping to provide an entertaining, no-holds barred look at the Parisian culinary experience
• I need a better way to commemorate all the €uros I’m eating than a fishbowl overflowing with business cards
• The Paris Michelin restaurant guide may catalogue the very best in haut cuisine, but I can’t really afford anything with stars
• In addition to being my good friend, Christian is also a corn-fed Midwesterner, and I have taken it upon myself to ensure that after an entire year in Paris he doesn’t leave without a proper culinary education
• While I haven’t yet inflicted tête de veau on him, he is extremely open minded and has so far been willing to at least try everything put in front of him
• Food is all about opinion and personal preference. Even though he is wrong when he disagrees with me, I would like to support Christian’s right to make an ass of himself