Rather than just list my top ones this quarter; I’ll give details on recent revisits:
Boy oh boy, was I ready for Colette to try some of my August and September finds.
We started at our new local "old haunt," the Table of Eugene which is simply marvellous for a place within a few blocks of home; the 17 euro ardoise special as well as the 25 E "menu" dishes were all terrific and once again our tariff with wine and coffee was very reasonable (71 E). At a friend’s (Laidback) lead, we ate there again 10 days later and found the food still held up, the service superb and things such as the grilled calamari with a spicy sauce, the veal, barely cooked with spicy sausage (Sabrosada) and spinach leafs as well as bass and rougets to be very, very good; our bill, October 3rd for 4 was 151 €.
We had dinner with nine of Paris's finest food writers of blogs, books and bouquets - at the Jeu de Quilles, sampling their charcuterie, merlan rillettes and cuttlefish with a tad of oil; starting with a soup of foie gras and truffle oil; then mackerel with zucchini, fennel and tomato chunks; moving on to Desnoyer's incredible veal with incredible potatoes; three quite fine cheese(s); terminating with a trio of desserts (a berry "soup," creme brullee and a "sandwich"). With white as an apero, a Chiroubles as the red, coffee and very friendly but professional service, the bill was 70 E each.
The next day, we were still "coming down" and walked in (per necessity) to the Cantine de Troquet and while watching a Basque travelogue and the chef's preview of this week's TV show (with him commenting), ate his best toasty/burned crevettes a la plancha, merlu with a Basque sauce, (again for me) the wonderful poitrine de porc with frites and the apricot tarte with a great crust; with coffee and a liter of vin de Pays (14 E) = 61.50 E - take that Bush-Paulson-Cox-Bernanke et al.
Well, I finally came acropper. Our meal at Le Boudoir had significant holes in it. The food: a fine millefeuille of pleurottes with an ineffable Asian sweet-sour spice mix, moules with curry and excellent frites and ½ pigeon with 3 figs poached in wine with some spice and chocolate tart was all good, as was the bread. But there were hitches: we were directed toward a table by the window only to be told it was reserved, then freed for us; the moules were ordered marinieres but came au curry which was OK since I was torn as to which to order; the bread crumbs were never scraped from the table before dessert; and they were out of the two desserts Colette wanted (in this day of printable menus); plus the 6 coffee selection menu is a bit pretentious, there are no curtains on the windows to pull when the sun the really strong and the spotlight is positioned over one’s head in the loo, preventing one from seeing the bowl – the latter three quibbles didn’t count the first time I was here but somehow did this time. Our bill with wine and two coffees = 76 €.
All this mind you - with a brilliant blue sky on a wonderful day - clear sailing behind and ahead -
Golden oldies:
We also sampled a few golden oldies, as we always do when Colette comes over to visit.
First was a lunch at Garance on the Canal St Martin where three of us ate on a nice Sunday. I ordered a tempura of calamari on a dusting of piment d’espelette with a homemade tartare sauce for dipping and the three of us declared that while certainly white (a deadly color according to the great food god Atar) it was very good. Then one of the ladies had scallops (sans corals) on top of mixed fall vegetables and the other bass with a side of greens and I the veal liver prepared exactly as I’d asked – blue. The two others shared a moelleux of chocolate with ice cream that were gold standard. With three coffees and a bottle of fine Morgon the bill was 87 Euros.
Then the magic at William Ledeuil’s Ze Kitchen Galerie in the 6th. I don’t know how he does it but he is constantly moving, changing, inventing, trying, impressing. One never knows exactly what you’ll get but it’s always good. Along the way we had/shared a gazpacho of green zebra tomato and mussels with marinated cod, raviolis of rabbit with ginger and spicy yellow peppers, girolles in a 10 times better than “Campbell’s-mushroom-soup” base with baby artichokes and lemon grass and a “croquette” of snails with parsley (offered), Challan duck on beet sauce with veggies and a piece of foie gras covered with a “toadstool”, lacquered pork with veggies (it should be mentioned that the vegetables are Thiebault/Passard quality, al dente, perfect and not trumpeted), mostarda and a crème anglaise-like corn, soy and miso sauce, confiture and Torrone ice cream. The bill with all this, 1 bottle of fine Madiran, 2 coffees = 103.10 €; how does he do it?
Then another of our favorites – Le Clocher Periere – where the brothers-in-law, Eric Jolibois and Philippe LeBoeuf, always manage to please and surprise us. I started off with a Bell-jar oeuf en cocotte with foie gras entier, simple, eh? – heaven and moved on to a divine colvert with a puree and polenta in tubes as it were, simple, eh? – ah, and finished with a peche de vignes with a verveine ice on a delicious biscuit with drizzled caramel, simple, eh? – uhn, uhn. Meanwhile my almost diamond anniversary companion/partner/life space occupant had microtomed fall veggies (tomatoes, navets and goat cheese), ombre chavalier and chocolate moelleux with icecream that she said she’d come back for that night. The bill, with one bottle of just fine Bordeaux and two Illy (extra points) coffees = 80 €.
Au Petit Marguery is a place we four in my batiment used to frequent twenty some years ago, and then it fell off the radar screen for reasons unclear to me, and resurfaced in January 2008 when the Cousin brothers retired and new management did pretty well at keeping it rolling. Colette hankered after their floating island, alas no longer on the menu, but we went without knowing that, nor that they had so much game available so early in fall – grouse, lievre, biche, colvert and something else. I started with the really gamy grouse mousse, three portions of which were like peanut butter for adults, on nice briochy toast - addicting. Colette had the biche and I, the lieve a la royale Sénateur Couteaux a la Poiterine – both with sauces so dark our friend Atar would have been envious but Colette’s was appropriately spicier than mine. She had a portion of jerusalem artichoke and parsnips and I had nice noodles to soak up the sauce. Then Colette finished it off with a soufflé of Grand Marnier, an old fave, as well. The nummies with the coffee were fine by me but not Colette and the bread roll was not up to the big ones they served in days gone by. The bill, including a bottle of Haut-Medoc and no bottled water was 114 €, the game having an appropriate 10 € supplement per portion.
Spring as everybody knows by now, will be moving into larger space next year, but until then we can sample the genius of Daniel Rose at the old stand in the 9th. Since he never serves the same meal twice, it’s cruel and futile to say what one had, but cruel and futile I am. We started off with eggplant two ways: as caviar and as a sliced base for a piece of rouget with zesty herbs atop plus a tiny portion of wonderfully flavored, peeled (by Marie-Aude) shrimp. Then a canette: quickly seared and then poached (sous vide) in its own juice accompanied by its foie gras and a grape and pomegranate seed topping with an almond puree and piece of different eggplant aside. Finally beignets of chocolate and poached pears with thinly sliced chestnuts that were quickly sautéed in oil and a bit of butter – just like ‘chips’. With a bottle of fine wine (of which we took two bottles home), an extra white with the dessert and two coffees = 105 €.
We were stuck Saturday at noon at the Terminus Nord, despite my statement that from now on I’d go to l’Ardoise Gourmande in the future if leaving from the Gare du Nord, because the latter is closed Saturdays. In any case it wasn’t as bad as I feared. Colette had a Provencal vegetable” compotine” with goat cheese and pesto followed by a floatinf island, both of which she thought were pretty good; I the #4 fines de Claire’s and beef tartare and liked them too. With a ½ bottle of wine, no water and two coffees, our bill was 75.30 €.
New and already posted:
6.0 Guilo Guilo, 8 rue Garreau, in the 18th, 01 42 54 23 92 opened a few months ago to admirable reviews. Because of my rigid rule about only eating French food in France, broken only when I'm leaving for a period of exotic cuisine, in this case Romanian such, I didn't get around to eating here until today despite the recommendations of the big boys as well of at least two members and one co-host at the Society. Colette and I tried reserving by delegation, telephone and finally had to walk over to this place in the midst of Amélie Poulainland to secure a table, only available at 7 PM, "in the back room," apologetically said the star chef. (As if it were Siberia - Folks, ask for the backroom if you wish to talk to your loved one, ask for the front bar if you wish to watch Eiichi Edakuni at work.) There are 8 courses in the degustation menu, which from Clotilde's blog's pix, are clearly different each night/week/or whatever. Our amuse bouches consisted of figs in a sauce and jambon cru with a mango puree. 2nd was a panoply of veggies and fruits: a Japanese (cherry) tomato, eggplant, taro and sashimi strips and 3rd -shrimp sushi with marinated vegetables. 4th - a soup with a folded over egg block with andouille in a sauce; 5th salmon pieces with a zippy sauce and cucumber. 6th for us were corn fritters/tempura with two sauces - one soy, the other dots of foie gras in another sauce. 7th was a spread of red tuna which one dipped in egg yolk and then a light soy sauce with pickled cabbage and rice with seaweed strips and sesame seeds. And we thought finally, was a pumpkin puree/ jelly with morsels of coffee jelly and an almond jelly block. I was humming "This is the end, Beautiful friend, This is the end, My only friend, the end" but the Doors did not appear. Instead, the chef proposed a topper - ennobled with his name (and presumably reputation) of dessert saki, fruit juice(s) and sparkling water - a nice end, but it was not part of them menu so an extra 17E was added to our bill!
The bill with 4 draft Asahi beers was 127E.
Go again? Despite the "show," I think in the 18th I'd choose Enishi
