Le Verre Vole in the 10: What a difference nine months make.

(My boss at PBM makes fun of me for taking photos with vehicles blocking or in front of places so I made sure I had at least three here.) 

5.5 Le Verre Vole, 67, rue de Lancry in the 10th, 01.48.03.17.34, open 7/7 (that's correct), (Metro: aw foggedaboudid, Jacques Bonsergent maybe, but walk, you need it), serves new stuff every day from a huge chalkboard that'll run you from 20-40 E with beverages, a la carte.

Let me return to my subtitle: "What a difference nine months make."  Last January, my colleague at Paris By Mouth, Barbra Austin described it in her blog as a "no-frills wine shop with a glorified toaster oven"  where "[t]he pâtés, terrines, saucisses and caillettes are outsourced, brought in, dressed up minimally and served simply and inexpensively.  All of the main courses come with the same (very tasty) potato purée and green salad flecked with grains of whole grain mustard."

Then September 15th she noted that renovations had created a real kitchen run by two women "Delphine Zampetti and Kailey Hoyle, formerly at le Café Caché at Le 104, [who] have been brought in to make the most of the new space.  Before, very little of the food served at VV was actually prepared on the premises.  For the moment the menu is very similar to what it was before (bulots with aioli, octupus carpaccio, lots of charcuterie, that incontournable boudin noir from Verot), but I’m told it will evolve."  She and a friend had "crisp crevettes grises, a paté de grouse and, of course, the boudin noir."

And indeed it has evolved, although they haven't yet figured out how to erase the tempting items from yesterday's offerings from the chalkboard (in my case, an echine of pork, which the RFC, aka MC, introduced me to at Afaria, and I wanted desperately Sigh) and the offerings were totally different from her experience.

 

My male friend for his 1st had the heirloom tomatoes with anchovies (inspired) and those are cool shirts these cats from the West Coast wear, huh?; Madame had the pate en croute with foie gras and pigeon (again a great choice); and I pulled up #3 with a very healthy cod ceviche, OK, not mind-blowing.

Then she and I had the only thing that called to us, the Barbary duck (with peaches) that was properly undercooked and quite good, albeit needing salt and of course, being an old guy who remembers 2nd grade history lessons better than what I had for breakfast, kept think that it was probably held hostage by the Barbary pirates to fatten it up, but corrected my twisted thinking when reminded that the duck was Central American in origin and the corsairs, North African. In any case M. had the Toulousian sausage with its innards cut up by knife not mushed by a sausage machine and he raved on about it and the mashies for hours it seemed.

 

We couldn't handle a dessert after this.

 

The bill with one bottle of wine, tap water, slightly tired bread and three coffees, was 102.50 E.

 

A problem: yes, as opposed to other wine bars/bistrots/etc., for example, Les Papilles, they have a minimum for their wine store bottles and don't like you cruising the shelves for bargains - no Sir, they will steer you toward what they want you to have.

 

Go?  Certainly yes; on a fine sunny, warm Sunday afternoon, no place better.