6.0 Zinc Caius, 11, rue d'Armaille in the 17th, 01.44.09.05.10, closed Sundays, is an off-shoot of a place (Caius) that I have probably held an unfair and continuing prejudice about since it opened.
So when I realized I was stuck for a place the last full week of August to suggest to (or is it for?) two of my favorite food/web-blog-writer friends, I went for Zinc Caius. Et voila!
I was late (unheard of, short version to follow), rushing in, hardly even noting the setup, decor, (I know, no comma should be there) and clientele. Kinda nice (kinda is an affectation, loosen up!) Chalkboard has good looking stuff; not a lot of choices tho', wines look really interesting, prices - oh oh, pricey for a stool-sitting, small table setting with 16 French working folk staring each other down.
Backstory: I had cruised the mother-ship Caius when it opened in (was it really) 2005, as had my best food-finder neighbor/friend and we were so looking forward to their offerings. We reserved, arrived and none of the promised dishes was actually available (was is correct, none=no one of them, which takes the singular not the pleural=were, Sorry, little English major lesson). I felt deceived, shamed, upset. However, since I'm bigger than my hurt feelings I decided maybe it deserved another chance.
Further (pedantic) nonsense: My previously mentioned best food-finder neighbor/friend had asked me then how Caius was pronounced (in England) and of course I didn't know, my people having sensibly gone back to France before unsensibly journeying to the New England. "Keys" said he. It came back in a flash: like Worchester=Wooster, Saint John=Sinjin and Maurice=Morris, Caius=Keys, and is the college at Cambridge (England not the Commonwealth of.) But when one of my charming co-eaters asked the manager/waiter/maitre d'/sommelier, he said Kai-us, a Roman chap. Well, of course, the Roman jurist who lived from AD 130–180 and brought us rendition, torture and Presidental "signings," no, no, that's wrong, he actually articulated the opposite of the Gonzales/Yoo/Rumsfeld/Cheney/Bush rulings, according to that legal authority wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaius_(jurist) and spelled out principles of "treating of persons and the differences of the status they may occupy in the eye of the law; ..... the modes in which rights over them may be acquired,..." and other stuff. Why name a restaurant after either one of them?
Would you like, perhaps, to hear about the food?
OK. We sort of shared three firsts: the oft-praised (rightly so) lentil salad with lardo (aka lard) on top, a bearnaise boudin (no, this is not a horrible sausage with the bearnaise sauce one puts on fish but a blood sausage from the SouthWest) and the piquillos stuffed with chevre (which needed either spicier peppers or a jolt).
Then two of us had the slab of beef (entrecote) which while we had it cooked completely differently (burned versus raw - I'm only partly kidding) was terrific and a tartare of beef with polenta frites (warning to all the ships at sea - me, the great mashed potato ignoramus and polenta hater, loved both such versions here.)
Desserts were a Chantilly of semoule (I get the words but not the music), creme carmel with divine caramel on the bottom, and a rhubarb thing - all were quite, quite good.
We had 3 Illy coffees, one bottle and a glass of wine and our invitisesse picked up the bill which I couldn't see, but I'd estimate the cost as 80-100 Euros a couple.
Go? You bet (and gasp, maybe try the Mother-house again). Caius the jurist would want me to be fair.
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