Eating my way through France

According to an exhaustive worldwide survey, the No. 1 spot for dining in the world is France's La Maison Troisgros in Roanne, France, which respondents to the survey said was "worth a visit" just for dinner. Long ago, I was lucky enough to get a chance to dine at the best restaurant in the entire world.

Le Troisgros is in central France inside the Lyon consular district where I was Vice Consul back in the seventies. I was lucky enough to have a deposition in Roanne to attend where a US government official was required, and the eldest brother Michel was kind enough to schedule a room for me above the restaurant in the auberge attached for out-of-town diners.

It turned out that I needed the room, as the signature dish of the house [a fantastic Norwegian salmon in a rich sauce beyond verbal description] gave me a classic crise de foie which means your entire body shuts down even though chief chef Michel Troisgros was dousing me with marc de bourgogne to cut the sauce into digestible consistency as it attacked my liver.

I was almost carried up the stairs to the rustic-style attic hotel which is mentioned in a food blog I googled. I was groggy for almost three days and had the ultimate French experience, a genuine "crise" that was payback for one of the finest dining experiences I ever had. It was the only genuine crise de foie I ever underwent, although a couple of times at Paul Bocuse's I came away groggy for a couple of hours.