John Talbott's Paris

Les Tontons 2 in the 15th: I cry "uncle" but actually it could have been worse.

3.0 Les Tontons 2, 73, rue Brancion in the 15th, 01.45.33.87.22, open 7/7 has menus at 12.90, 15.50 and 19.50 E and didn't not get great reviews when it opened a year ago, indeed it got rather tepid ones.  Why did I go?   Hummmmm, well aside from the fact that it was Sunday and I was hungry, it sort of sounded kicky, a tartare place across the street from the used book market in the Georges Brassens Park. 

Like other restos focusing on a single truc: souffles, crepes, tomatoes, pommes, etc., I thought a bunch of tartares might be fun.  But by the time I'd schlepped out there, I was chilled to the bone and in no mood for refrigerated fish, steak or cheese, so I was pleased to see they had other than tartares.

I asked what the du jour's were and went with two.  First, I had a two-fish mousse/loaf with a most tasty chive sauce and a salad with fresh lettuce but tired dressing.  Although my colleague at BP reported that the bread was from Max Poilane up the block, the stuff I was served was nothing like anything coming from the Poilanes.

As soon as I was done, my plate was removed and my silverware dumped on the table - oh, that kind of place!  Where the clientele is all local but goes from elegant parents in from the burbs eating with the beautiful newlyweds to folk who look like SDF (whoops, scruffy is "the" look, isn't it?) and people who put salt on their beef before tasting and mustard and catsup are liberally dispensed from squeeze bottles.  That kind of place.  OK.  I can deal with it.

Then I had the entrecote, asked for it blue, which it was, with a not-at-all-bad cheesy sauce and pathetic fries.  I was amazed at how full I was and declined the dessert but had an OK coffee serre.

With wine, no bottled water in sight, my bill was 24.90 Euros.  Beat that!

Go?  Your back-packing relatives will bless you for such a bargain and since the Tontons in their name  refer to the movie not Papa Docs thugs, you're safe.

Saturday Cinema: A serious man; Come on Coen's you can't be serious.

I just saw the Coen brothers new movie – A Simple Man (whoops, I mean Serious) – in a French movie house.  I found it too, too Woody Allenesque, in that I laughed, I knew most of the German and Yiddish spoken (I was watching the vo, but a French version), understood most of the Jewish angst and religious rites, certainly knew the Manhattanite code words, but exited from the theater wondering why I hadn’t walked out earlier.  

 

Simply put - it had only moments of humor, but hours of tsouris and years of pain. It was simple but in the sense of childlike, dim-witted, lacking intelligence or common sense.

Le Bouchon et l'Assiette in the 17th: Young folk, good provences, fine food.

5.8 Le Bouchon et l'Assiette, 127, rue Cardinet in the 17th (the old Les Cigales space), closed Sunday and Mondays, has a 3-course "menu" at 33 E on weekdays but three courses anytime are only 36 E anyway.  It's a place Clement Vidalon and Cecile Delabre took over in December; they have excellent track-records: Drouant, Le Bristol, Michel Serran, Dutournier.

The ardoise is quite interesting and my eating pal and I took some time deciding between various Basque dishes. 

 

My friend chose a bisque of red shrimp with shrimp and an egg (left) and I had the veloute of chestnuts with a Basque-type chorizo; both good, altho' if I were the chefs I'd heat the former up more and reduce the latter more.

She then had an excellent piece of cod with a Basque sauce; we both considered it top-quality and perfectly cooked and dressed; and I had a filet of duck which was beautifully cooked (blue) with a celery puree.

Finally she had two generous slices of St Nectaire (one more aged than the other) which she generously shared with me, which I gratefully received.

Our bill was 78 E with wine (all wine is by the 50 cl or 12 cl glass) and one coffee.

Go?  I certainly cannot see why not (especially since despite Le Fooding said they had no credit card machine and they sure did.)

Chez La Vieille - Adrienne in the 1st; Simple, very simple, but ahhhhhhhhhhhh.

 
7.0 Chez La Vieille – Adrienne, 1, rue Bailleul in the 1st, 01.42.60.15.78, closed Saturday lunch and Sundays, lunch menu 29 (not visible), a la carte 50-60 €, heralds the return of Michel Del Burgo to the real world.  It's already been reported on numerous times and the sentiment of the blogosphere is quite positive.

That's good because my last meal of his at l'Orangerie was shockingly bad, made worse by my eating pal and I ordering the veal a la plancha for two, which meant we both got screwed when it turned out badly.  So when my eating buddy today suggested we do the shoulder of lamb for two I really hesitated.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Look familiar?  It should, it's in the old Adrienne space across the street from the Spring boutique and across the other street from the new Spring where I was delighted to see they had poured the concrete for the stairs to the 1st cellar.  As Meg said in her blog one must have the door code to gain entrance unless like me, you scramble in through the kitchen window (just kidding).

It's tiny and my first thought was, how can a big guy like MDB pay two others in the kitchen and two in the salle with the money from 18 covers?  A trip to the toilettes revealed the answer - the 2nd floor has twenty more seats and is brighter than the wood-beamed downstairs. 

 

We looked over the carte and chose different starters: he the ox-tail salad above and me the ravioli of cooked mushroom with a slice of raw mushroom on top and lots of most tasty fluff (below):

 
Then, as I said, we shared the shoulder of lamb rose which was simply roasted with roasted garlic cloves and roasted diced potatoes and a sprig of rosemary on the side; what could be simpler, more easy, more elegant, more delicious?  We were happy boys.

With 2 coffees, a bottle of red and passable not great bread, we were outa there for 111 Euros.

Go?  You bet, Colette should love it. 

Simple good honest food; so where do I get it? An archival* essay.

Simple good honest food, isn’t this what we’re always looking for, no more, no less.  Oh sure, we all like to do the occasional Gagnaire, Ducasse, Robuchon, etc., number, but day in and day out, we’re looking for simple good honest food.

I was reminded of this while eating at M Comme Martine, a pretty ordinary gastro-bistro in the 17^th that opened at the beginning of the year and has been moderately well-reviewed and I kept meaning to go to, but never seemed to have the time.  But today, a Saturday, I did, and I don’t regret it one bit (Je ne regrette rien! I suppose.)

It’s unprepossessing, nice décor, well-renovated, menu like that of a thousand other places, warm welcoming front room staff and three chefs/plongeurs in the back.  As I said, the menu has nothing startling, it’s all pretty commonplace:

Starters of stuff like a tartare, terrine, salad, etc.

Mains, in terms of fish, like tuna and bar and meat like duck, beef and leg of lamb.

And desserts such as crème caramel, vacherin and clafoutis.

Ho hum, right?  Well, yes and no.  Because this is an example of a place where a banal menu can be over-ridden by a warm welcome, fine staff, good product, excellent execution and proper  presentation.  Was I amazed, dazzled, surprised – No!  Was I happy, satisfied and tummy-pleased – Yes!

Now, you say, consistency can be had at Quick or the Flo brasseries, but do you always really want that food on cook’s night out?  Consistency – it’s an issue of some import on the other web-site I contribute to, the eGullet Society’s France Forum, where inconsistency leads folks to go to a place where someone had one great meal, only to fall flat.  And are they teed off.

Slight diversion; as an adolescent I played tennis, but as with much I do, I was consistently inconsistent - occasionally great, mostly OK and often distressingly bad.  But I had imposed on me for doubles play one year, a woman (girl we said in those days,) who was as reliable as clockwork and while I thought she was plodding in tennis (she was pretty hot at parties, though,) she saved my bacon more than once when I attempted some dazzling but stupid move.  So I’m a great fan of reliability, consistency and standard fare.

In any case, it’s places like M Comme Martine where I had a simple tartare of tuna, rolatine of veal and tiramisu, that I truly appreciate good, honest food.  Of course there are other places in town, like Ze Kitchen Galerie, Spring and Le Repaire de Cartouche, where the chow is not only good but reliably good and where one goes back time and time again because one can count on it.

We should cherish these places and this standard.

So my recommendations this week are:

 

M Comme Martine

33, rue Cardinet, 17th (Metro:Wagram)

T:01.43.80.63.60

Closed Sundays and Monday dinner

Menu (lunch and dinner) 30 €.

 

Ze Kitchen Galerie

4, rue des Grands Augustins, 6th (Metro: Saint Michel)

T: 01 44 32 00 32

Closed Sundays.

A la carte 30 €.

 

Spring (now Table 28 a rotisserie)

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

T: 01.45.96.05.72

Open Tuesday-Friday for dinner with one seating at 8:30-9 PM 
Lunch Thursday and Friday at around 1 PM, seating is very limited (8-10)
Cooking classes and private parties on Saturday afternoons and evenings.

Menu du jour 36 €

 

Le Repaire de Cartouche

8 blvd des Filles du Calvaire, 11^th  (Metro : Filles du Calvaire)

T : 01.47.00.25.86

Closed Sundays and Mondays

Lunch menus 13 & 24 €, a la carte 35-45 €.

 

*Originally published in May 2007.

La Tete Dans Les Olives in the 10th: a little bit of Sicily in old Ste. Marthe.

4.0 La Tete Dans Les Olives, 2, rue Sainte-Marthe in the 10th, 06.73.75.74.81, is closed Sundays and Mondays (and sure looks closed in the above photo) and has but one table for 5 persons (it's really an epicerie between lunch and dinner) with a fixed menu of 30 € and a "suggested" Sicilian white box wine for 10 € a bottle.  It was a "business" lunch, my having been invited by a bunch of boring psychoanalysts to discuss the ranking of Lacan in the scientific firmament, so there was more attention paid to the conversation than the food.

 

As Emmanuel Rubin clearly stated a couple of weeks ago, it "cries out simplicity."  It's sort of like one big antipasti festival, with first-rate Sicilian ingredients from the sea and land.

 

On the table awaiting us was plain bread, olives, capers, two kinds (black and green) of tapenade and bread with a salty herb spreads (below).

Then we had three dishes (below) : a carrot wrapped around a mint filling, red pumpkin and stuffed mushrooms:

Then a bresaola of tuna of Capitano Cangemi, dried tuna and anchovies of Nino (apparently both some big deal in Trapani); which as at Montparnasse 25 with the cheese(s), we were advised to eat in order of spice-ity.

Then an extra, bottarga (dried tuna eggs) again courtesy of the Capitano:

Now we get the pasta Norma (in an homage to Bellini's famous opera, he from Catania) with eggplant, salty ricotta and tomato sauce:

 
And top it off with some almond cake and espresso.

The bill = 39 Euros a person.

Go?  If you live nearby and are really passionate about Lacan, sure.  I should mention that the guys who run it, cook it (Marco) and sell it are superb ambassadors for Sicilian products.

La Table d'Anvers in the 9th: a nice place if you live nearby; and archival* review.

4.5 La Table d’Anvers, 2, place d’Anvers in the 9th, 01.48.78.35.21, which says on its card that it’s open everyday, was recently taken over by Didier Perreault and Nicolas Gay after going through some unexciting times; I recall loving it 15 years ago, but every so often when I passed and inspected the menu since then, I wasn’t blown away. Anyway, Philippe Toinard of A Nous Paris, was.

I arrived before my dining partner and liked what I saw except for the wine prices which were bunched between 40 and 55 € with no budget options.

It’s 23.90 € for 2 courses and 29.50 € for 3.

My co-diner started with eggs in red wine sauce that we both liked and I had sautéed leeks with shavings of Parmesan-type cheese that were very tasty.

Then she had salmon with a sauce that I liked but she only ate ½ of. My tagine of chicken with prunes and almonds, however, was spicy and a winner for both of us. We weren’t in the mood for dessert but the coffee was super; the bread ditto.

The bill = 88.60 €.

Should you go? As I said,…….

*Originally published in January 2007.

Mouth Wide Open, John Thorne, North Point Press Press, NY, 2007: Words on Weds

Mouth Wide Open, John Thorne, North Point Press Press, NY, 2007

 

This is a book given to me by Meg the Magnificent, which she apologetically handed to me saying something like “I thought you’d like (unspoken, parts of) it.”  Well she was spot-on; it is a great read but one has to skip what Thorne himself confesses he doesn’t follow – OPR – other people’s recipes.

 

I really learned a lot and at my point of senescence knowing that I must order minestrone in March in Italy and how to make a 12 minute pasta made the book incredibly valuable.  He’s not much on French food but hey………..

L'Agrume in the 5th: A winner that Colette and all Spring, Frenchie and Afaria-lovers will adore.

6.5 L'Agrume, 15, rue des Fosses Saint-Marcel in the 5th, 01.43.31.86.48, closed Sunday and Monday night, with a daily special costing 11, lunch formula at 16 and a la carte 35 € has been open since Noel but you couldn't prove that by me, Figaro or any of the other big boys.

So I'll tell you how my life works here when Colette is tending the home fire(s) and I'm gadding about Paris footlose and fancyfree.  I get up in the morning, do my runny-limpies and buy the Figaro and whilst awaiting for someone to fix my breakfast (i.e., me) I figure out where I'm going to dejeune.  Look at Figaroscope - one 3 heart Nippon place (I don't do ethnic here until after 90-120 straight days of French cooking,) 3 one hearters that sound semi-pathetic and one busted heart (the Cafe de la Paix, which I've never really thought was worth the $, despite other people paying).  Screwed.

It's Wednesday, sure I have 20 places on my "list" as yet untried, but hope springs.....  So I look at yesterday's A Nous Paris; no help, Del Burgo's most recent which the girlfriend of my friend the hot chef down the street says he found OK the first time and lacking the second.  Second reviewed is already on my list.   Hummmm.

Go to Le Fooding: l'Agrume, sounds familiar, nope, nobody's been there except Yves.  Sounds interesting though.  Mixed stuff, good history of places he's been (eg the Plaza Athénée here, Bernadin in NY). Dare I?  What have I got to lose?

So I set off on this coldest day since 19oughtysomething.  Look at it from across the street - you'll see a guy entering - that's Figaroscope's photog - they have clued in.

Enter to a very warm greeting from Madame, M. Talbott this, M. Talbott that, nice!  (Backstory: a dear, perhaps my dearest friend, is tired of me raving about the "charming couples" who run small places and how "wonderful" the food is - but it's true.)

I take the lunch formula - starting with a trio of starters -  shrimps with seaweed and ginger (delicious), sliced chicken with celery remoulade (boring apart, but wait, put them together and they're - sorry Paga - wonderful) and a veloute of leeks (my goodness, get a grip Franck (Marchesi-Grandi), but no, with some infused olive oil it was heavenly). 

Then I had the echine de porc, which another dear friend, the RFC said on spying the same on the menu at Afaria - "you never see these on menus anymore," with a toasty skin and potatoes mixed with mushrooms and spinach leaves - ah ha.

Huge eh?  Couldn't finish them if I wanted dessert.  So enter Mr. Ziplock; exit ribs qua loin.  I then finished with the 5E "soup" of grapefruit and basil because much as I wanted to test the tarte tatin for Colette, it would have pushed me over the cliff.  A satisfied man was I.

The bill, the 16 E for 2 courses, plus 5 E for dessert, plus 2 glasses of their best, gets you out for under 30 Euros.  (Coffee is 1.60)  Pretty good for a place that'll be impossible to get into once the 2 critics who were there, dont the Michelin man, plus Caroline Mingot who had been, plus the Figaroscope bunch.

Go?  You won't get in, but try (They were at the brink of turning people away; way out here, for lunch, on the coldest day of the decade).  They only have 4 raised table stools, 3 at the counter and 14 at tables. 

Chez Grenouille in the 9th: another great place that flew under the radar screen.

6.4 Chez Grenouille, 52, rue Blanche in the 9th, 01.42.81.34.07, closed Saturday lunch and Sundays, lunch menus at 15 and 25 and a 40 E carte (but they're very flexible about mixing and matching and not into gouging you), has been open 5.5 months and is run by two absolutely charming folks; he cooking in a 2x4 space and she managing the salle and explaining each dish or wine in exquisite, delightful and informative detail.

I said it flew under the radar because I saw nothing from the big boys after it opened this summer (they were probably all in Provence) and only when I was flipping through Pudlo saw he's named it his Coup de Coeur in the 9th; then Astrid T'Serclaes in the JDD commented most positively so I proposed it to my friend, the best Brit-born but French-living food blogger/writer I know.

It's in the midst of theater-land and is deceptively small (16 covers) but has a huge basement seating are, good I'd guess for a private party of 20 or so, but how could he cook for so many?

Anyway, we liked some things on the "menu" and some on the carte, so we mixed and matched.  My friend started with what were called scrambled eggs with morrels but were so finely diced they looked like a mousse and were very woody and good.  I, on the other hand, it being freezing cold outside, ordered something I never do - onion soup gratinee  - wow!  The soup was no dishwater thin, salty mess but an immensely reduced stock with a fine piece of dark toast and perfectly melted cheese.  So now one waits for the other shoe to fall or clunk, depending.

Take a look at that; dark brown almost burnt pastry surrounding dark dark beef and triple dark sauce; very good, served with nice roasted potatoes. And I had sweetbreads in a creamy sauce with morrels, all perfectly complementary in taste.

Finally, Madame asked if we wished a dessert and reeled them off (the only problem with this place is that everything is on one ardoise or other) and my pal said, we'll have the baba for two, which she had explained was made according to an 150 year old recipe.  I turned to him and said "how did you know I wanted it," and he said, I just looked at your face.  It was dense and full of rum but came with a shot glass of what tasted like orange brandy, said he, but turns out everyone thinks that about this rum.

We had two coffees and while fixing them she saw me eyeing the Calvados she was pouring for another couple - and she comp'd me to my coffee (which wasn't serre but I said was fine) and the Calva which too came straight from the Normand producer.  How about that?

Our bill was 98.50 Euros.

Go?  Now if this place holds up, it's going to be flooded with the types of visitors who overbooked Regalade and Cerisaie.  Its conceit, ancient recipes with modern ingredients, comes straight from the Jadis playbook and is a great idea in pretty much of a culinary dessert.