John Talbott's Paris

Art around the Matignon/Elysee Palaces

This afternoon we visited the pre-auction show at Sotheby's of Impressionist and Modern art work that will go on the block July 2-3.  It includes almost every artist from Arp to Zadkine and among the "P's" alone there was at least one Picasso, Pisarro and Picabia.

Colette really wanted to buy a Rodin sculpture or Man Ray print but we'll have to miss the bidding.  I was unimpressed with the quality of most everything else sadly.  The exhibition ends July 2nd.

Down the street a bit was a show of nude female upper bodies by Bettina Rheims at the Galerie Noirmont.  There is a lot of nipple and breast featured but because all the models are lying down and it's France, the three-dimensionality one sees in the US was missing.  The show ends June 30th.

Afaria - a fourth visit*

Afaria, coordinates by now in the guidebooks was due for a revisit and 7 of us went on a lovely Saturday* and sat at the front "family" table.

We shared 7 tapas; I thought the best this time were the duck hearts, followed by the cod balls, gaspacho and brochette of pork but did not have the artichoke and didn't particularly like the gambas, not spicy enough and found the boudin uninteresting without a healthy bit of espelette pepper with each bite.

The mains: four of us had the echine of pork which I thought continued to be quite nice as well as their vegetables - but I was not impressed by the dorade and didn't try the main portion of gaspacho with tasty herbs.

With one dessert (pineapple and raspberry sorbet), 5 coffees and 2 wines (no bottled water) our bill for the 7 was 216.50 Euros.

One really sad note was the huuuuge delay between the firsts and mains; insupportable really.

Go?  Not for a while.  I think with the terrace crowd the kitchen cannot handle so many people.

*Last meal was June 28th, fully paid for and while I was recognized by an eGullet member, I was not by the staff.

Everyday Drinking, Kingsley Amis – Not your usual drunk’s tale

Wow!  Everyday Drinking: The Distilled – Sir Kingsley Amis, 302 pages. $19.99. Bloomsbury
- is one a weird book.

 

For confirmed alcoholics - it has good news: drink more cheap stuff and don't sweat the frou-frou; the disturbing info: he died of consequences of the habit.

 

One exemplary example: his recipe for martinis is 6.66666666% vermouth and 93.75% gin exactly. 

 

He tosses off terribly funny sentences - for instance, on how to treat one’s guests (sods) but the plupart of the tome is incredibly boring.

 

As an example: his parsing of a hangover reaches philosophic heights.

 

My advice: If it’s loaned to you (as it was to me) read it Evelyn Wood style, it’s got a few bons mots but……………

Hokusai at the Guimet - A pretty damn good show.

As you know, Hokusai (born Tokitarō, 1760-1849) was to Japanese graphic art as Matsuo Basho (1644–1694) was to the Japanese haiku; and both's works are as "modern" today as they were then.  Everyone knows Hokusai's signature works of Mt Fuji (36 of them) and the "Great Wave" (off Kanagawa), and most know his erotic prints where the phalluses are what your spam  filter's offers only wish for; but he did much more.

 

And the Guimet does justice to all his art: be they wonderfully alive animals, glorious flowers, nifty demons and phantoms, landscapes and seascapes, fans and screens.  A definite summer Go!

153 Grenelle - A revisit* that revealed a weakness.

 May 28th I wrote:

"Another fine spring opening.

5.55 153 Grenelle, 153 rue de Grenelle in the 7th, 01.45.51.54.12, closed Sundays, is an incredibly classy place; classy food, classy setting, classy carafe d’eau, classy wait-folk and sommelier and classy prices (59 € for the 3-3-2 choice menu.) I went on a sunny day with an eGullet member who isn’t quite sure yet if she likes French food yet (over her native Asian fare) but I think it made an impression. We both had the 35 € menu, which has 2-2-2 choices and we split the possibilities. She started with purple artichoke hearts in a nice sauce topped-off with a slice of pancetta that set off the blandness of the hearts perfectly. I had an unusual (because it was tart – terrifically so) asparagus soup with teeny tiny wild asparagus stalks. Then she had the fish that replaced the turbot, but nothing lost in the substitution, it was quite good, with a cabbage side. I chose the baby (milk-fed) lamb chops which were also delicious, with excellent mashed potatoes. We finished with the goat cheese dressed with olive oil and the melon with melon ice, both also good. There was a slight problem with the bill (overcharged by 11 €) but remedied and wound up with coffees but no bottled water at 100 € for two; no bad for excellent food.

Go? You haven’t got distance as an excuse."

Well, we three went again today* and upon looking at the "menu" all gasped: not great choices, but no a la carte, so we were stuck.

 

Oh well.  Ordered.

 

Two of us had the carpaccio of bass (loup) with a dribble of oil and generous microtomed slices of cantaloupe and Colette the heirloom tomatoes with a boiled egg; all quite good.

 

Then the men had the lamb chops with again a generous portion of string beans while Madame had the whiting (merlan) with a timbale of ratatouille; all again quite good.

 

We waved the goat cheese option for the Ganguette strawberries with a digestif sauce; once again, quite good.

 

Our bill, after 3-35 E menus, 2 bottles of wine and 3 coffees was 170 E.

 

Go?  Sure, but the weakness I referred to is/are the limited choices on the "menu;" so go only if you're one or two.

 

*Last meal June 27th, fully paid for.

 

 

Riley and Doig at the Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris

There are two contemporary artists' retrospectives showing at the Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris this summer.

The better known is probably Bridget Riley, now some 77 years old, who has been through periods of painting from Seurat through Vasarely to Morris Louis.  One can then see pointalist/impressionist works, black and white dizzying canvases, such as is reproduced in the poster above, and colored striped and almost Matisse-cut-outy ones.  It runs til Sept 14th.

The poster for the other show of Peter Doig, a 49-year-old Scotsman who was brought up in Canada but lives in Trinidad, is kinda weird - showing a wild-looking man in a long red canoe.  His work goes from the representative to the washed out look of John Heliker, who displays at the Kraushaar Gallery in NY. The show runs until Sept 7th.

Both shows are interesting, especially for aspiring artists looking for interesting stylistic references.

L'Huitrier in the 17th for a revisit* - not been in ages.

Well, my goodness, we haven't been to 5.9 l'Huitrier (16, rue Sausier-Leroy, 17th, 01.40.54.83.44, closed Sundays and Mondays) in a dog's age.  But we needed a place to go for lunch where we could eat light and still have room for ribs and such for dinner.

It looks pretty much the same today* as it did umpteen years ago when we were regulars; great display of oysters and other shellfish outside - I know, I know - June hardly has a "r" in it, but.....

We ordered a dozen #3 speciales and they were plump and good, along with an order of fried anchovies.

Then we three had three mains: my suppions had a taste of antique frying oil I found strange but my wife and friend did not; they split an OK daurade with olive oil and gambas a la plancha, both of which I deemed alright but not heavenly.

With two bottles of Muscadet, three coffees, one prune and no bottled water the bill was 181.00 Euros.

*Our last meal was June 26th, fully paid for.

Photos in the Luxembourg - Terrific and free.

Today it was the photography shows at the Luxembourg that beckoned.

 

#1 is a display of 40 or so photos "of emotion" from 30 years of Figaro hung on the Grille of the Gardens that were quite stunning; everything from literally stunned first-responders to 9/11 to the awful conditions of the gold miners in Brazil.

The of course a walk through the gardens past the sculpture they scatter about to -

 

 

#2 at the Orangerie of the Luxembourg where they are celebrating France 's chairing of the European Union with a show called "Images d'Europe: 150 ans de photographie en Europe " that has dozens of photos grouped both thematically and by country but not chronologically. 

There's everything from the Parthenon and ancient London residences to IKEA's move into China and a windmill farms (circa 2006) in Denmark with Marlene Dietrich and Sigmund Freud thrown in for good measure.  A dandy show, and free too.

Ze Kitchen Galerie - Just as good as ever on a revisit*

Four of us went* for our umpteenth visit to Ze and were just as happy as always; the place was even livelier than usual with M. Ledeuil's two kids and a stagiere from Philadelphia helping serve and Madame in the salle eating.

I don't know how he does it; always coming up with several fresh, interesting and inventive new dishes.

For starters we had the marinated pulpo and eggplant with Sicilian mozzarella (barrata) and for mains two orders each of the pigeon and rabbit.

In between he sent out portions of chicken and shrip raviolis that had great spicy herbs inside, sitting in a bed of spicy bouillon.

We finished up with one portion of mango "cappuccino."

The bill was 192.40 Euros

*Our last meal was June 25th, 2008; paid for except for the raviolis and coffee.

Itineraires; an even better revisit*

June 3^rd, I said:

It’s even better than Temps au Temps. Why? I dunno.
6.2 Itineraires, 5, rue de Pontoise in the 5th, 01.46.33.60.11, closed Sundays and Mondays, has been written up by all the big boys and I’d been delaying going until I could with the RFC. Today was the day. I had really liked Sylvain Sendra’s cooking at Temps au Temps and equally admired Sarah’s sang froid in the front room. But could they go successfully from 20 covers on the Rue Paul Bert to 2.5 times that in the 5th. The short answer is yes. One enters and it’s quite different; new, big, airy, welcoming – Sarah and two other wait-folk; blackboards all over with the 3 course 34 € (29 for 2) menu containing 4/5/4 plus daily specials in all three categories. The RFC ordered the hure Lyonnais which he liked and I thought was standard, but my green asparagus with a foie gras vinaigrette and dried tuna belly (like smoked duck breast slices) was outasight. He then had a magret de canard with sliced beets that again I thought were gold standard but my confited beef cheek(s) with pureed potatoes were/was incredible; the sauce intense and different from the norm. Then he had a round of picodon cheese that was straight from the frig but good; while I had a deconstructed lemon tart with sorbet that was as good as it gets. The bill after a lot of wine, one glass of which was “offered,” no bottled water and one coffee was 105 €.
Go? You bet; this is this spring’s l’Epigramme, Afaria, Spring, etc., eg the bright shining star of the season.

The three harshest critics I know came back with me today and loved it.  Even the bread.

 

For firsts we had the tomato gazpacho, sardine rillettes with a [sic] cornichon sorbet and a rabbit nem roll with mousseron mushrooms and cilantro; all inventive, slightly but not too busy or deconstructed and delicious.

 

Then we had the joue de boeuf with mashies, that were mashed and whipped with something akin to egg whites posited Madame the expert cook; a huge souris of lamb with a coco-bean puree; rabbit with celery puree with vanilla; cod with clams and Japanese citrus (combawa) all also super.

 

Finally I had a chocolate wonder with peanuts in the air; others the strawberries and rhubarb and what was called citron tart revisted – which surely was – this was truly deconstructed but very well deconstructed.

 

Our bill for 4, with 4 coffees, 2 bottles of wine and no bottled water was 168 €.

 

*Our revisit was June 24^th, fully paid and we reserved again for next week.