Well the Carnavalet has gone and done it now; hung 350 photographs of Parisian prisons, of which 345 are the most unexpectedly and stupifyingly boring shots imaginable.
Go? For the five color photographs of plants in one abandoned place? No Wows here.
2.0 (me); 5.0 (her) Le Café Cache du 104, 104, rue d’Aubervilles in the 19th, 01.42.05.38.40, closed Mondays, is located in the new Arts-Multipurpose Space in the 19th that used to be the City Funeral building (anciennes Pompes funèbres municipales), see below:
When I entered, the huge center hall had 3 people doing Tai chi and 20 others waiting for the group effort. I found the restaurant (not to open til later this year under the rubric of the Palais de Tokyo folks), the pizza truck and then the cafe, truly hidden with a carte made up of those magnetic letters our grandkids love to spell words with:
The cafe itself is really cool, with neat wall panels of wood:
My ex-co-host at eG arrived and decided to try the "brunch" while I went traditional. She first had a scone with butter and orange marmelade
and then a poached egg with spinach, shredded cabbage and 3 types of smoked fish:
I on the other hand started with their famous (the chefess Delphine Zampetti, studied at the knee of Inaki Aizpitarte) avocado (hard), beet (Aizpitarte's usual nutty idea of fun) and ginger (of which there was no taste) thing.
My main was a Boeuf Guiness, now I've heard of Belgian beered beef, so I thought that'd what it'd be, but this had a sauce that was watery and while the veggies and potatoes were OK, the beef was the worst cut on the planet (no picture, Idon't want to encourage her).
With wine (16 E), tap water, 3 coffees and 1 juice, one coffee and juice having come with her "brunch" our bill was 54.10 E.
Return? Not here but to the real resto, if only to see what's shaking in the art spaces.
5.04 Au Reve, 89, rue Caulaincourt in the 18th, 01-46-06-20-87, a la carte : 20 euros, open 7/7, is a place recommended by a Chowhound and therefore worth investigating. I went with no, repeat NO expectations but it was available by my 80 bus up the Mont so I went (the other choice was pizza).
I arrived and was not impressed, customers and staff seemed more interested in nicotine than me and I thought of what it would have been like just months ago. But I entered. The usual, usual bar, usual ardoise, usual stuff, so what could have besotted Katell Pouliquen of l'Exp and the Chows?
OK, you cannot really see it, but it's foie gras buried in a cream and cheese sauce - Dr. D., I hope you're otherwise occupied - horrible for the circulatory system but wonderful for the heart (metaphorically speaking).
So what's this? Gotcha. It's slices of pork cheeks (outasight) with cheese and lettucy stuff and (unfortunately) hot house baby tomatoes (leave 'em out guys).
With wine, not bad toasted or regular bread, M. Delanoe's best and no coffee I was outathere for 29 E.
Go? Are you kidding? As I exited, I asked the one non-smoking same-sex Anglo couple how they had found this place? Ans. It looked nice. And it is/was.
Now, I went to this exhibition after a very filling lunch at Les Petits Plats and certainly hoped to feast my eyes on the works of Felice Giani, described as the favorite of Napoleon, not always a great recommendation, but whose works are in the Mellon aka Nat, Getty aka last leavings and the Fitzwilliam aka the real deal.
As I spied the sign saying degustation of products of my favorite region in Italy and the area that in the Italian Michelin has the most starred restos in their much-missed agglomerations - the Piedmont (vide Alessandria, Aqua Terme, Casale Monferrato, etc.) - I thought oh well, I'll look but not eat/drink; silly boy.
Well, the drawings are/were awesome and the paintings slightly less so, but then I was steered to the staircase to the upstairs where a dozen energetic real (Buon Giorno, Grazie, etc) Italian baristas, wine-pourers and servers were doling out Piedmont products - what a treat.
Go? Tomorrow's the last day, the café correcto is correct. Why Not?
5.8 Les Petits Plats, 39, rue des Plantes in the 14th, 01.45.42.50.52, closed Sundays, lunch formula 15 and evening 32, a la carte 25-35 € is a place that has surely scored big since it opened 5 weeks ago. I went today with the person whom I've know the longest in Paris and we had fun; it's a really fun place.
I came in after a scruffy "Motorcycle with Dog-Man" and found a most eclectic bunch at tables and the bar; all of whom seemed known to the three young, peppy, joking, attractive waitfolk. Since I was early and my "date" tends to get lost (after almost 60 years here) I ordered some water and wine, hoping in vain that one would turn into the other. They came with very respectful raddishes and salt and a josh from the waitguy.
Now look, doesn't that look like what we all think a French bistro should? Wonderful - and it used to be a pizzeria.
Their spin is that all plats also come as petits plats - duh - and that's what we ordered except they were out (so that's what the (N) means) of the tripes paquets stuffed with pig's feet - darn - so I had pigs feet on a baguette instead - spicy, tangy, wonderful - fat quotient of the day delivered. She stated with a half of Legumes Legumes Legumes - a casserole of winter veggies boiled in, could it be? - water. OK you have to start somewhere.
Is this a cool place or what? Clock where only the pendulum words, brass fixtures, definitely not a pizzeria. Seconds consisted of supions and scallops over risotto (which I usually detest here) with pepper, which was actually very good.
No room (again) for dessert, just coffee. With wine, no bottled water, decent bread and lively service our bill was 63 E.
Go? I think I and Colette and you gotta go.
Elliott Erwitt's photos are part of a Month of America celebration here which except for this exhibition, has passed 30,000 feet over my head. I liked many of his photos of the great (Nixon and Khrushchev, Ali and Frazier, Jackie and Bobby, etc) and not at all great (nudists) as well as evocative scenes of Manhattan and elsewhere.
The "second" show was of Philippe Bordas's work which is incredibly colorful and at times scary, but that of Sarah Moon is truly not much of a much.
In the basement where "experimental stuff" is supposed to be shown, the exhibition of Luc Choquer's "les Francais" is hardly cutting edge, but rather more in line with those by Dorothy Lange and August Sander.
2 Wows, 1 Hummm and 1 so what?
5.1 Le Tourbillon, 45, rue Claude Bernard in the 5th, 01.47.07.86.32, has a lunch formula at 16 of a main and dessert, menu-cartes at 24 or 27 € for 2 or 3 dishes respectively and is closed Saturday lunch and Sundays. It entered the city almost a year ago almost unnoticed but since then has been respectfully but not gushingly reviewed.
I went with a great food pal/colleague who lives not far away altho' it was my call not hers. We looked at the formula (lamb curry or sea trout and chocolate or a compote dessert) and headed for the carte.
She started with a most intriguing looking tartare of salmon and I had wonderful tempured gambas with a salad liberally laced with morsels of mango.
Now I have to back up a bit before describing our plats. For the past two days I've been trying to solve an electric-briccolage problem that occupied almost all my waking non-eating time and was also both frustrating and incredibly boring to describe, so I wont. But I'll remind you of an essay on Paul Bocuse I reposted last week where I quoted him saying that “A couple, driving up from Lyon, who have just had a violent argument, cannot possibly appreciate their subsequent meal, no matter how good.” And maybe this explains my blah reaction to our mains. I was frazzled.
Madame's rumsteak looks great doesn't it? It was, and the South-East Asian pepper sauce was a perfect dipping sauce.
My cote de veau looks equally well cooked and presented and was exactly as I ordered it she announced, but actually was more cooked, making it somewhat dry, although the fat and perigord sauce almost compensated; but it was not WOW! as veal usually is for me and the potatoes were less than average.
We had no desserts, but I had a coffee and with the 1/2 of wine and 1/2 of Chateldon as well as the supplement of 5E for the veal (5E?) our bill was 73 E.
Go back? Humm, while she may,being a neighbor, I will not go so many clicks from home.
I was surely born in France of a chef father and food critic mother.
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