John Talbott's Paris

Kiku in the 9th: worst Japanese meal of the last two centuries? Ah, maybe.

 

00.2 Kiku, 56 rue Richer in the 9th, 01.44.83.02.30, closed Sundays, got Emmanuel Rubin's #2 slot in his ratings of fall openings, so on my traditional last night out before I leave Paris, at a resto I can eat at nearby, after a filling but awful meal at lunch, I went.

I went down the Street of Sorrows (wrong ref, but hey) of Asian places, why are they all here?, all full before 8 PM, I found myself at Rubin's treasure.

Japanese customers, OK, I must be right.  Japanese waitresses - cool - they are cool.  No one speaks much French - fine.  No record of my rez despite my recollection (impressive enuf that they turned at least 4 others out into the street).

Order the only possibility - Menu degustation at 35 E and some booze.

First, oh yah, very supremely excellent chopsticks looking like carved wood (could'ave been.) 

Then, a very strangely spiced salmon sashimi (disclosure: I have spent about 10 weeks total on three trips (some paid for by you, my loyal reader/citizens) in provincial and Tokyo restos, including many ryokans as well as places in the Western world, so don't accuse me of total Pinkertonesque sensibilites) and I was taken aback by the finesse, the ineffible, the indescribable, taste.  Between genius and awful.

Then an entre-course of chicken liver pate - strong, assertive, most decidedly not my stuff.

My main was called a shrimp tempura - not by me.  It was, hummmm, sort of full of finesse, the ineffible, the indescribable.

Then some sort of fish (which was not tuna, which is verboten here) which was, sort of full of finesse, the ineffible, the indescribable, with so-so rice (which my friends from the East only ate some of which, 2/3rd's way thru) and good, very good soup (which my friends from the East only slurped at the end).

The bill without bottled water, overpriced sake or coffee, crept up to 45 E.

Go?  Pay attention here, Calvin, not on your life, unless Rubin treats you and tells you why he likes each item.  On second thought, not even then.

Tits and Ass: French aolwine, aka Halloween, style.

In Chorus Line, one of the fab songs celebrates female parts and tonite I got a whiff (oops, sorry) of what the French think of alowine, aka Halloween and I'm here to tell you, it's mind blowing.  Even tho' Le Figaro says under 10% of internaute respondants intend to do anything, it's grossly underestimating the displays of tats, witches' hats and dyed hair, oh, you say, that's normal in the 9th?  But the worst display is, well, this is a family/Christian/burka-esque site, so I won't attempt to describe my sightings on the Metro but let me just say that it's rather pathetic.

Eating in Paris restaurants with Children: a Sunday summary.

Over the years, I’ve kept some records of where we’ve eaten at certain dicey times (Sundays, August, between Christmas and New Years, etc) and circumstances and using these plus newer articles I’ve put together this series of Sunday Summaries.

 

This one covers places to eat with children.

 

Some biases:

 

First, I think you can eat practically anywhere in Paris with kids these days.  Sure my kids and grand-kids are as rambunctious, squirrely and energyful as any others and I suppose if one is screaming because he/she is teething, that’s a problem.  But depending on age - toys, books, stickers and coloring books work wonders and having a tradition of “restaurant voices” when in restaurants, helps.  My experience is with children from 3 to 45 and grand-children 3 months-10 years old, so there’s few ages we’ve missed.

 

Second, the reputation the French have for being rude, rigid and brusque is overdone - as I often point out, in 50 years, I’ve been treated badly in France three times, and all three were by “foreigners” not native French.  Indeed, with children, I’ve found that cooing, clucking and fussing are as common here as in Japan. 

 

Third, even if one goes to a place one thinks of has having “adult food,” it’s amazing how there’s often a plate of salami that appears without bidding, an offer of plain chicken or steak haché or chocolate mousse that are nowhere on the menu, or a proffering of ice cream.  In one place, granted I had talked to the chef who I had known for a while earlier, he offered us two different meals: one of charcuterie, pasta and gooey desserts, the other regular adult fare.

 

Lastly, it probably helps that Colette and I have our “big meal” at lunch and light stuff at home at night; I suspect a lot of kiddy experiences could get wearing at 11 PM.

 

But let’s come back to where to eat.

 

I’ll start with our most recent hosting experience, with our two little 10 year old twitter-bird grand-daughters, who like peas in a pod, walked shoulder to shoulder all over town chattering away and ate like troopers once the jet-lag wore off.  With them we ate at the:

Breizh Café

Bofinger

La Flotille by the Grand Canal in Versailles

Noura

Lao Lane Xang 2

Le Soufflé
Leon de Bruxelles.

 

Even the New York Times has weighed in on the issue, Jennifer Conlin suggesting:

Le Café du Marche

Café Marly  

Le Relais de l’Entrecote.

 

When our grand-kids were jump-roping crazed we used to eat at the late-great Rostang-supervised Bistro Cote Mer on the Blvd St Germain which we loved in and of itself but where jump-roping space was maximum as it is at Tokyo Eat, Afaria + Brasserie Lorraine.  La Cigale Recamier is also ideal for its combination of savory and sweet soufflés, romping space, and outside seating which on a warm summer night, is heavenly.

 

On/in the blogosphere, everyone seems to mention Altitude 95, Chez Flottes, Mon Vieil Ami, Fish, Au Pied de Cochon, which each have their merits.

 

Given my current mood, I think if recommending places today, I’d pick:

 

Le Soufflé

36, rue du Mont Thabor, 1^st (Metro: Concorde)

T: 01.42.60.27.19

Closed Sundays

Menus: 23, 29.5 + 33, a la carte 30-60 €

 

Breizh Café

109, rue Vieille du Temple, 2^nd (Metro: Filles du Calvaire)

T: 01 42 72 13 77

Closed Tuesdays

A la carte 15-30€

 

Afaria (the common tapas table)

15, rue Desnouettes, 15th, (Metro: Convention)

T: 01.48.56.15.36

Closed Sunday and Monday lunch

Lunch menu 22-26, a la carte 35-45 €

Random thots: Joe Nocera, velibs, TVA reduction, carbos and Figaro's math.

Since Joe Nocera has set the standard today with a piece of snippets, I figure I'll follow.  But Joe, what'der-we-gonna do without you?

The cherished program of the French and M. Delanoye is revealed to have problems: 80% of velibs are stolen, broken or wind up in strange places.

The TVA reduction to 5.5% applied to restos has been heralded as a success but listen to this: "Dans le secteur, le «black» ne reste pas intégralement dans la poche du patron."  So we the customers may not benefit after all.

Why do I crave carbos after trans-Atlantic flights and it's always croissants in the AM in Paris and pasta at night in the US?

Le Figaro flunks math, after two 1st places, next one is #3.  Anyway Stanford's slogan is 'The Harvard of the West" so, so much for this ranking:

"The Dutch Golden Age, from Rembrandt to Vermeer" at the Pinacotheque: another collab w. the Rijksmuseum

As we all know, the Rijksmuseum is undergoing a major uplift/facelift/asbestoslift and has been forever (like Dulles airport it seems to be eternal).  But that's to our benefit, because we can see treasures like these at the Pinacotheque (for which there is no line outside but heavy crowds inside).

In any case, it's dazzling and not only the Rembrandts and Vermeer but van Ruysdael, Ter Borch, etc.

Another 3 Wows!  Open til February 7th.
 

Les Grandes Bouches in the 17th: When two of my best critic/friends say go, I jump!

5.01* Les Grandes Bouches, 78, rue de Levis in the 17th, 01.43.80.40.36, menus at 23 (2 dishes) and 28 (3) and 40 E a la carte, closed Sunday, thus open Saturday and Monday lunch (a rare find in Paris) was written up at the rentree by Rubin and Berger and subsequently by two critic/friends whose judgment is infallible (but the Pope is too, eh?)  So I went with very high expectations.

Since my date stood me up and replacements for an aging/memory-challenged/non-alowine-observing gent are hard to come by, I went alone, sobbing down the rue de Levis (you can tell that the nutso-right is right, the Levis=jewelry=gold/etc., and the Baraka restos in Paris demonstrate that like John Kerry, Obama is really not an American.)  Enough.

So I go in, a tad early, and am told absolutely no problem; there's a photographer from version femina, my Sunday source, taking pix madly (from the 200 she took, they'll use one at most, oh well, it's better than being on the SMIC).  I'm offered my choice of places (the place at max had 7 covers (at night, at least tonight, though, it's fully booked).

I sit at another banquette with cushions, if it's not the Fourchette du Printemps' also awkward cushions, it's Passage 53's in-sit-able-in chairs; enuf of the frou-frou, guys.

The chalkboard and printed menu are ample, indeed, a bit over-the-top; "duck that tigers cry over" (my trans.) to a classic Cotes de Boeuf; a saucissotheque one (Aubrac and cheddar), etc.

One of my pals hates it when I talk of the charming young couples that now run places, but these two were, well, charming and welcoming and nice and posed for the pix-snapper a la Barack and Michelle - adoringly.

First, she brought over a red pepper puree with chorizo-infused bread; a great idea but it need some pizazz that more piment d'espelette or hot sauce would have given the dish.

Then I had the a la carte sauteed scallops (4) served in a lettuce veloute with a strip of bacon, which dish also needed some pepping up, but wait, at the end, I figured out how to apportion the soup, scallops and bacon so it did work) - OK.

Next, two giant squid babies staring me in the face with rice that was speckled with wild rice (the menu implied all wild, but no matter), it was OK but like Francois Simon at Lipp, I did not finish either, wanting to go onto dessert to decide whether this place was in the winner's circle or on the loser's bench.

I chose the creme with prunes and Armagnac (ineffable) - once again OK.  I'm now thinking, what did my friends and the big boys base their judgments on?  It escapes me.  This is finesse-full cooking but "where's the beef?"

With a coffee, 50 cl of a wine made on one of the four major routes to Compostella, no bottled water, my bill arrived at 47.30 Euros.

Go?  Hummmm. Do you believe me or all my friends and critics?  Maybe if I lived near here, but then with Karl & Erick around the corner, nah.  But like Antoine Herrah (Chamarre Montmartre) and Bruno Douchet (Le Regalade), whom everyone but me swoons over, I don't think he's figured out what to cook when he grows up: classic, modern or Asian-influenced.

*NB: 5 is an average place so my rating of 5.01 puts it above average.

The Brukenthal Collection of Van Eyck, Jordaens, Bruegel, Memling & Teniers at the Jacquemart-Andre.

Samuel von Brukenthal established this collection of Flemish masters in Sibiu, Romania, in Transylvania, which Colette and I had been some miles from a while back and never knew about.  So we tried to go last month and the line was horrendous.  Today, it was a bit better but I'm glad I put up with the crowds inside and out nonetheless.

I shouldn't rate things, but I did think the Bruegels were spectacular, the Memlings wonderful and the Van Eycks still fine.  But the whole show is eye candy, despite as I say the crowds.

Go?  3 Wows!  If you can before January 11th, do, but go, at off times, say at 4:30 PM (it closes at 6).

La Fourchette du Printemps in the 17th: I had a bad feeling about this place, but........

6.2 La Fourchette du Printemps is not the resto in the Printemps Department Store but at 30, rue du Printemps in the 17th, 01.42.27.26.97, closed Saturday lunch and Sundays with two dishes at 20 or 22 and three for 26, as well as 3 plus 2 glasses of wine for 30 Euros.

I thought I'd seen almost every street and part of Paris but have never been here; it's very residential and right at the Blvd Pereire.  I got there early (via a totally empty, speedy bus) because my dining partner always beats me, but this time he was late having waited an hour for the Metro which was stymied by a fire.

I looked over the menu (4/3/3 choices, none of which appealed to me and almost thought of asking if some of the more interesting stuff on the dinner menu was available).

When my friend showed up, though, I forgot that idea and we ordered: for firsts a superb creamy soup of cauliflower (DuBarry) and a terrific terrine of foie gras, veal and wrap of leeks.  Boy, was I wrong when I surmised that "I had a bad feeling about this place."  Oh, before that was an amuse-bouche of parsnip soup which I never would have identified in a lifetime if not told.

For mains I had a most tasty piece of cod with fall veggies (un-named but tiny and perfectly cooked) and a light creamy sauce and he had slices of chicken breast on risotto; both boring sounding but more than fine.

Desserts were a crunchy tarte Tatin and meringue with orange slices, again so much better than they sounded.

With coffee, lotsa wine and good bread our bill was 87.50 E.

Go?  Certainly if I lived up here but the schlep from most parts of the city will make it tough (however, our host said they're booked solid).

Buzz: What is it, after all? An archival* essay.

My Bonjour Paris colleague, Margaret Kemp, refers to her column and herself as Buzz.  Indeed, one encounters many columns in the print media labeled Buzz.  If you search that fine scientific resource Wikipedia you find two definitions for the term: the first, most common is slang for hype, the second, a marketing term – i.e., word of mouth promotion.  Well, I want to talk about the word in terms of its use in Paris for restaurants. 

Buzz here is created about or around a new restaurant in several ways.  First, it is usually the result of PR efforts, the prime example of which was Helene Darroze’s arrival and greeting in town.  Most respected critics hated her food and the website and blog reports were highly ambivalent, to be charitable.

 

The second meaning of buzz relates to Wikipedia’s first meaning – hype.  Places are quickly hyped beyond their true worth.  An example of this is the Cantine de Quentin where everyone gave it the benefit of the doubt because it was started by two nice, earnest, well-meaning ex-Guy Savoy guys who invaded Boboland with what they themselves termed an “epicerie fine, caviste, restaurant” as well as touting a “chef a domicile, diners prives, cocktails, petits dejeuners, cadeaux d’entreprise” that is, a deli, wine store and restaurant as well as establishment providing a chef to go to your home, private dinners, cocktails, breakfasts and business gifts (I swear it’s all on their card). 

 

The third meaning that I’ve just divined or made up, is related to the process of fluffing up sauces to make dishes look bigger and fancier than they are; in this case to cause folk to think something new is going on.

However, let’s go back to its origin; after all, what is a buzz?  It’s a noise, usually an annoying (machine) or menacing (biting bugs type) noise, right? 

 

As opposed to the US where buzz can develop for a book – e.g., The DaVinci Code or a film – e.g., “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” despite rotten reviews, French buzz is generated by PR firms who “boost” a resto or chef beyond his or her stature.  And here we come back to Darroze whose talent was blown out of proportion by a clever marketing scheme that had her do everything from cooking for photographers to posing in pastel colored negligees.

 

You know buzz, like you know pornography or art, by what you see; it comes at the end of the meal when you leave and say to yourself or others- “what was all the fuss about?” or just “what was that?” 

 

Let me pick Darroze and Quentin’s opposite – Spring*, whose modest chef did not seek out a single reviewer or publication – but miraculously, they found their way there – How?  I have it on good authority; by the horses mouth.  By neighbors dropping in, by flanneurs walking by, by people who ate there saying to their contacts in the media – this guy’s got “it.”  Now just exactly what “it” is, is the subject for another essay.  But again, you know “it” when you eat “it.”

 

I’m a prime example.  I (no real food critic) heard about this American guy cooking nearby.  So I took a real food writer and another person who’s written about food and restaurants for web-based pubs.  And they took people; as did I, inching up the food critic ladder.  Now, make no mistake, I’m not claiming any credit for Daniel Rose’s success, indeed, I’m claiming the opposite, that like Kevin Costner in ”Field of Dreams” you should simply – Build it, and they will come.

 

You don’t need to buy nor create buzz; just do it.

 

Unfortunately, there are several serious and real dangers to buzz.  You may begin to believe it.  That’s good when the buzz is positive, but as Bernard Loiseau and Marc Meneau learned, it’s painful if not deadly when the buzz turns downward.  And eventually the Emperor will be shown to have no clothes; Helene Darroze and Cantine’s time will come.  And that’s sad; if people knew their worth and stuck to their level of competence, all would be well. 

 

My favorite among the above is:

Spring*

28, rue de la Tour d’Auvergne, 9^th, (Metro: St Georges or Pigalle)

T: 01.45.96.05.72

Open for dinner everyday but Saturday and Sunday (now and about to open for lunch Thursday and Friday)

Menu du jour 36 €

 

*Originally published in February 2007

 

**NB, Spring is in hibernation awaiting renovation downtown, but the 28 rue de la Tour d’Auvergne location is doing a brisk business in rotisseried chicken, etc.

Food Guides 2010 - 1- The Gault-Millau

Food Guides 2010 -1- The Gault-Millau

Yesterday the Gault-Millau went on sale and on its cover promises 2000 tables less than 30 € (and there are probably are that many but there’s no index or symbol for them).

Chef of the Year is/was William Ledeuil of Ze Kitchen Galerie and Kitchen Galerie Bis.

There were also six greats of tomorrow named; in Paris it was Adeline Grattard of Yam'Tcha ; also 22 young talents (under 32 years): none in Paris.

Of the 5 chef toques (no more numbers remember) in Paris were/are: Yannick Alleno (Le Meurice), Pascal Barbot (l'Astrance), Alain Ducasse & his chef Christophe Moret (Plaza Athénée), Pierre Gagnaire, Alain Passard (l'Arpège) and Guy Savoy.